Playing with Fire (3 page)

Chapter Four

Fiona came home from work, her crappy, low-pay call center job, to find a full funeral procession on the ground floor of her apartment building. The ancient floral wallpaper provided a perfect backdrop for the Henderson twins, a pair of precocious six-year-olds who lived upstairs with their struggling-for-custody dad. They walked by with a shoebox in their hands, decked out from head to toe in a mismatch of dark colors—none of which were technically black, but they gave a funereal impression all the same.

“Oh, dear,” Fiona murmured. She caught Mr. Henderson’s eye as he held up a pair of iPod speakers, setting the tone with a somber Beethoven tune. He shrugged.

“Has there been a death in the family?” she asked.

One of the twins, who wore a tutu around her head as a veil, sniffled. “It’s our goldfish, Dora. He’s dead.”

Fiona bent to the girls’ level. “I’m so sorry to hear that. I’m sure he was a very lovely pet.”

“We’re taking him out back. Daddy says he’ll be fersti-lizard now.”

She swallowed a laugh. “And so he will. He’ll be in my prayers.”

As she went to the stairs, leaving the little family to their grief, Mr. Henderson checked her and whispered, “Mrs. Gibbons up on the third floor says all the fish in her tank died, too. We think there might be something in the water, so don’t drink it until the super clears us all.”

Another issue with their plumbing. Fantastic. “Thanks,” she said.

Fiona watched the girls move along the peeling linoleum floor and recalled her own short-lived childhood pets. There had to have been at least five hamsters in her mother’s backyard. Of course, they’d all died from neglect, rather than something in the water—

She stopped.

It wasn’t the water. And she knew exactly what—or, rather,
who
—was the real cause.

Fiona took the stairs to her fourth-floor apartment two at a time. With each step closer to her door, her anger mounted, and her body temperature picked up along with it.

Too hot. Too fast.

She had no choice but to get rid of some of her excess energy. Slipping off her shoes and placing her hands palm-to-palm, she allowed energy to build until a visible sphere of fire formed. It was a compact circle of flames about the size of a tennis ball surrounded by swirling, gelatinous heat waves.

She had to shoot it. But where? Casting a quick look around, she decided there was no choice but to take down her own door. She could always cover up the damage later.

Fiona lifted her hand and released the fireball, and a staticky
pop
filled the air as the flame separated from her skin. The ball and its heat-ray tail, which Fiona thought looked a bit like a comet, hit her wooden front door with a huge crackle, then trickled down to a steadier hum.

Hot and controlled—just the way she liked it. It had taken a long time to accomplish that.

After a few seconds, she’d bored a hole through the planks. She angled her head to see if she was hitting another wall or going straight through to her kitchen.

“One hates to appear anticlimactic,” a smooth voice said from behind. “But I’m not even inside.”

Fiona jumped, instantly clamping her hands shut. Stopping the fire before she’d used up her emotion was a lot like stopping an orgasm that had already reached its peak, but she channeled all of her energy into not blowing the apartment building to pieces. The cold sweat of exertion broke out all along the surface of her body as she concentrated, and pin pricks of pain shot up her arms. But it worked.

As soon as the fire stopped, she turned slowly to face her foe. The slightest shock would probably set her off again—and she could at least give the man a chance to speak before she went all Archimedes death-ray on his face.

It was a face she knew well: Patrick Veller, Asshole Extraordinaire. These days, he also went by General Eagle—as stupid a name as ever existed.

She brought her hands down and found Patrick standing a good distance down the hallway, well outside her circle of radiant heat.
He remembers
.

“I hope that wasn’t all for me,” he said mildly.

“Next time it will be,” Fiona warned, biting off each word. “Probably while you’re sleeping.”

Patrick’s laughter, deep and resonant, filled the air. Fiona caught the gleam of every last one of his perfectly even teeth. God, she hated this man—hated what he had done to her.

Hated herself for letting him.

It wasn’t fair. Other people made mistakes and moved on with their lives, maybe a little poorer, maybe with one or two fewer friends, maybe with eyebrows tattooed on their face. Not Fiona. Her mistakes were a life sentence, and the man laughing at her from his five-foot-seven height—in lifts—was like solitary confinement.

“You could at least wait to see what I have to say to you.”

“Why bother?” She felt suddenly exhausted, her body wiped of everything but a desire to crawl between her nice, cool sheets. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing with all that General Eagle bullshit, but I’m not interested in participating. Buh-bye. Thanks a million for the chat.”

His smile grew, as savage and inhuman as the rest of him. “If I recall correctly, you were always sending mixed signals. No meant yes. Yes meant no. But you never once stopped sucking.”

I will not let him get to me. I will not let him win.

Who was she kidding? He already had. Patrick knew her weaknesses better than anyone. Hell, guys like him
were
her weakness.

She’d been nineteen when they’d started dating, and she’d solidified her long-term status as the Girl with the Lowest Self-Esteem on the Planet by going out with a man old enough to be her father.

Patrick had commandeered her life with his power and mystery and attitude. He’d always had money but never a job, was great at schmoozing and fucking, but kindness was anathema to him. After so many years, she was almost ready to forgive herself for falling for such a man.

She could not, however, forgive herself for agreeing to the conversion serum.

“I thought maybe a new pair of breasts would be nice,” Patrick had said at the time. Post-coital haze had rendered his offer somehow gallant instead of creepy. Especially to her nineteen-year-old self.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he’d persisted.

She would have. She
should
have. It wasn’t that she was that unhappy with her chest size, but lugging a few extra pounds of saline on her chest would have been a hell of a lot easier than the power to kill people in a blaze of lust and fury.

“Or there’s this new treatment you might want to try instead,” Patrick had continued, giving the breasts in question a strong slap. “Power conversion. I know a guy who can get us in. Have you heard of it?”

Oh, she’d heard of it. Everyone had heard of it.

At the time, it had been the only thing anyone talked about. It was a serum made from a mysterious asteroid that had narrowly missed taking out the Strip in Las Vegas. The whole world had been promised big advantages from the unknown metals it contained. A cure for cancer. A new energy source. Proof of alien technology.

But it turned out to be none of those things. When tested on human subjects, they discovered the serum made tiny alterations to normal human capabilities, a sort of radiation Russian roulette. The government, unsure what else to do with the serum, did the inevitable: they decided to make a profit selling the stuff.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” asked Patrick. He was living, mouth-breathing proof of what a stupid idea that had been.

“Sure. My home is yours,” Fiona said. He’d come in either way. He’d never been great at taking hints. “We’ll shoot the shit and talk about the good old days. And maybe when we’re done, you can go give those poor little girls upstairs some money for a new pet goldfish.”

A hit. His face clouded, a momentary drop of his smooth veneer, so quick she would have missed it if she blinked. But she knew. Nothing got to Patrick like a reminder about his failings as a man.

For those first few months before the program had been hastily closed, people had clamored to participate in power conversion. It was expensive and risky, and unless you knew someone, the waiting list was a mile long. Everyone wanted to try, to see if the serum was all hype…or if maybe, just maybe, it was possible to magnify your natural abilities to create a better, more powerful version of yourself.

The short answer? Fat chance.

Patrick and his underwhelming ability to kill fish was proof of that. He couldn’t even do it on purpose. Any unfortunate ichthyoid within a hundred-foot radius went belly up.

“As you wish, Fiona. I’ll sneak in and leave a dollar under their pillows while they sleep. The Fish Fairy,” Patrick said. “Will that make you feel better?”

With the easy gait of a man on the town, Patrick went to the door of the apartment and stuck his hand through the hole she’d made. He switched the deadbolt, swung the door open, and gave her a small bow.

“You could have called me like a normal human being,” Fiona muttered, slinking into her apartment. She tried not to notice that she’d shot fire straight through to her blinds, which had melted to the window. She could cover the hole in the door with plaster. Warped windows weren’t so easily disguised.

“What can I say? I always liked a more subtle approach.”

Right. Subtle like a desperate teenager in a bikini hanging off his arm. Subtle like buying her power conversion serum to keep her from leaving his middle-aged ass.

“And I’d like to be left alone,” she said. “So where does that leave us?”

“Don’t be rude, Fiona,” he admonished, showing his teeth again. They were cocky, glittering teeth. She wanted to kick them in. “I just want to talk.”

Since he was already hulking in her entryway, looking over her one-bedroom apartment with thinly veiled disgust, there didn’t seem to be any way around it.

“I’m not sure what the use is, Patrick,” Fiona aid, motioning for him to come in. “You lost all your charm when you called me, and I quote, ‘a mutant bitch who’s no good to me now.’ Or am I remembering that wrong?”

He hitched his pants and sat on her sagging couch, one long arm extended over the back of the fraying brown upholstery, offering a glimpse of an eagle tattoo leading up from his wrist. It had a fish caught in its talons. Gross.

“Is that why you’re being so stubborn? Fine. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you adrift like that.”

“Adrift?” That was an awfully eloquent way of saying he’d left her, penniless, friendless, and jobless in a Florida beach house he’d only paid for through the end of the week. “Do you have any idea what I went through those first few months?”

“I received the bill for the house a few days later, Fiona. So yes. I have an idea.”

She grinned. That, at least, had been one advantage of those early days. When she hadn’t been able to control her sudden gift and wayward emotions, the beach house had quickly gone the way of the barbeque.

“You deserved it.”

Patrick nodded. “I did. Which is why I want to make it up to you now. I’m a changed man. Maybe you’ve heard?”

“I saw your little show yesterday, if that’s what you mean.”

He puffed up proudly. “You did? What did you think?”

Oh, she had quite a list of opinions, most of which centered around a strong belief he was up to no good. “That depends…what do you want from me?”

“There was an interesting article in the newspaper this morning. Did you happen to read it?”

She breathed deep to keep her temperature from spiking beyond control. She’d read it, all right. A fire at a local elementary school had done almost a million dollars in damage, and a dozen kids had been hospitalized for smoke inhalation. The cause was still unknown, but indicated a high concentration of heat targeted at the most combustible areas. She knew what Patrick was thinking.

“I didn’t do that,” she said through her teeth. “I might be a freak, but I’m not a monster.”

That thin distinction was the only thing that let Fiona sleep at night.

But Patrick wasn’t fazed. In fact, the words seemed to energize him. As he sat up, blood rushed to his face and gave him a distinctly ruddy glow. “Are you sure about that? I checked the Converted databases, and you’re unlisted. I don’t see how that’s possible…unless you were the one who burned down that facility eight years ago. You remember? That one in Florida? The one where that poor, innocent man lost his arm and almost died?”

Fiona flushed, and sparks crackled on the surfaces of her palms. “You can’t prove anything. You’re bluffing.”

She focused on her breathing. His name had been Daryl Morrow. She could still picture the way he’d stared, with more horror than pain, as his jacket went up in flames. It had been an accident. She remembered it well—that feeling of being so out of control, the situation so overwhelming she could hardly keep standing.

She’d intended to comply with their registration process. She really had. But when she’d barely even hinted at her ability, the men with the guns had shown up. And she’d panicked.

She’d never asked for this. Sure, she made mistakes—most of them involving men. Patrick. Before him, Jack. Before him, practically the whole football team. Before him…Ian.

Ian.

Still capable of turning her insides to mush, still looking so far down on her she might as well be circling the lowest levels of hell. Why couldn’t she be attracted to the nice guy for once? The one who saw beyond her flaws and reputation and treated her like an actual human being?

Patrick steepled his fingers and sat back, watching her, definitely not the nice guy in this scenario. “I think I’m impressed,” he murmured. “No fire. No fury. You have restraint—that’s new. Just how well
are
you able to control your powers these days?”

Her eye twitched. “Enough.”

“No, Fiona. I want the truth.” He lifted his arm and brushed his fingers through his hair, but Fiona didn’t miss the message in the huge, gnarled burn scar along his forearm—evidence of post-conversion serum lovemaking attempt number one. Number two stretched along the length of his inner thigh, grazing his balls.