Playing with Fire (7 page)

Fiona paused and looked at the posters for a moment before casting a coy glance over her shoulder. “I meant the part about you turning me down in the heat of the moment.”

Ian ran a hand through his hair. He was having a hard time maintaining eye contact. Her stare was so direct, so intense. She licked her lips, giving them a little quirk he swore was designed just to torment him.

“It’s something of a personal policy of mine never to take advantage of a woman,” he managed. Scruples. They would get him through this interrogation alive.

“Is that what that was? You were taking advantage of me? Because from where I was kneeling, I was the one trying to do all the good stuff.”

“Look, Fiona. I’m not going to lie. I like you. A lot.”

“But?”

He splayed his hands, knocking a few papers off his desk in the process. “But you’re not just some random girl with an itch that needed scratching. You’re—”

“Fingerbang Fiona?”

He was out of his seat and at her side in less than a second, gripping her hand tightly. “Don’t say that.”

“Fiona Fucks-a-Lot?” She wrenched herself from his grasp, her gaze suddenly clouded. “I could keep going if you want. I’ve heard them all. Jesus, what kind of idiot am I? This is high school all over again. I’m never going to be good enough for you, am I? I’ll always be that slutty girl you refuse to look in the eye afterwards. And you’ll always be the asshole who doesn’t care enough to do anything about it.”

“Fiona, stop,” he said, choosing his words carefully. This was a conversation they probably should have had before they got naked. Things were spinning out of control again—but this time, he could stop it.

She gathered up the scattered papers, her movements jerky, her gaze landing everywhere but on him. “Spare us both the explanations, please. I promise never to bother you again.”

“That’s not it.” He reached for her, but she dropped the pile and darted toward the door to the basement. Ian raked a hand through his hair. “Would you stop for one second and let me try to fix this?”

Her face clouded and her arms crossed over her stomach. “That’s right,” she said, her voice flat. “You did promise to help me. I’d be very much obliged, Scientist Jones, if you would follow through on your word to go to the authorities on my behalf. Unless, of course, it interferes with your incredibly busy schedule.”

He could have roared with frustration, but the challenge in her bearing rankled much more than he cared to admit. He’d go to the authorities, all right. He would stay true to his word. He would fix this—and then maybe she’d see that he wasn’t some jerk who was going to leave her in the lurch.

Those days were over.

“Stay here,” he commanded. “I just need a few hours to meet with my contact, and I can clear your name. But you have to promise not to leave or to mess with anything in the lab. Can you do that?”

Her eyes snapped. “Sure thing. I’ll be a good girl and keep my dirty hands out of your precious workspace.”

She didn’t move to let him through the doorway, so he had to brush past her, the full lengths of their bodies pressed flush. Ian thought about dipping his head, kissing her goodbye with the kind of force that would ensure she knew he meant business, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop once he got started. Instead, he brushed his lips lightly on her forehead and, his whole body throbbing, stomped up the stairs before she could respond.

First he would make her safe.

Then he would make her his.

Chapter Nine

Don’t touch my stuff.

What a jerk. That was pretty much what that conversation in the basement had amounted to. That, and Ian brushing her off after yet another moment of painful intimacy while Fiona once again begged at his feet for a few scraps of dignity.

And the most he could say to her was not to touch his stuff.

Fiona sat in Ian’s living room—or rather, his parents’ living room—trying very hard not to imagine herself sprawled on the beige carpet, writhing under the popcorn ceiling and Ian’s expert skill.

Sex was not an alternative to compassion. Sex was not going to make men love her.

Who was she kidding? A lifetime of affirmation would never be enough. She’d never be more than Fingerbang Fiona, never learn that even the guys who acted gentlemanly and noble were still after one thing. And sitting in this time-warped shrine to Ian’s adolescence wasn’t helping any. Ian needed to return with good news—and fast. She wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take.

A car pulled up outside, and Fiona stood. Thank goodness. Maybe they could get this over with as quickly and painlessly as possible.

But when the door glided open and a foot appeared at the base of the door, Fiona was immediately on her guard.

That foot didn’t belong to anyone she knew. It was an extension of some sort of astronaut intruder covered from head to toe in a metallic suit. She stared, trying to make out the rest of the outfit. It looked like the guy had a welder’s helmet and a jet pack on.

Oh, shit. Fiona knew what that was.

A fireproof suit.

A huge blast of heat threw her off the couch—and for the first time, it wasn’t coming from her. That honor belonged to the creature in the suit, who pointed a flaming hose at the far wall.

An old armoire caught fire almost immediately, and the flames licked at the wall, the light crackle soon giving way to a full-blown roar. That was all it took. After a few seconds, the flamethrower turned off as abruptly as it had turned on.

Fiona wasn’t impervious to that kind of heat, and the smoke and whatever fueled the flamethrower swirled in noxious waves around her. Her head spun, her thoughts slowing down until she felt like she was slogging through some murky underwater cavern.

Sliding back door through the kitchen. She had to get to it, get to safety. She had to find air.

As she stumbled over the linoleum floor toward the back door, her t-shirt pressed against her nose and mouth, she caught sight of another figure. This one wasn’t hidden under layers of protective gear, but he blocked her exit, standing just outside the glass, watching with an eerily calm smile. She fell to her knees.

Patrick.

On all fours, she turned around, but the henchman in full fireproof gear was posted at the front door, the flamethrower pointed right at her. She was trapped.

Except she wasn’t. She wasn’t some useless victim without recourse. This, at least, she could fight.

Using the last of her strength, Fiona pulled herself to her feet and did what she should have done a long time ago. She aimed at Patrick’s head.

And shot her fireball.

Smoke-induced nausea crept over her, but she was determined to stand there until her body gave way. Unfortunately, getting through glass took time, and that was one thing she didn’t have. The sound of footsteps came from behind. Turning was painful and slow, and she no longer seemed to have command over her limbs. The only thing she registered before hitting the ground was the cool metal of two small prongs hitting her neck and the peculiar sensation of her heart coming to a stop as the Taser shot liquid fire into her spine.

Chapter Ten

Ian sat across the desk from Agent Harding, doing his best to keep talking, keep explaining, keep the momentum.

Paulina Harding was the agent the Converted Office sent out every time they wanted to remind him of his place in the hierarchy of People Who Matter. She was crafted like a wax sculpture, perfectly bland and smooth on the exterior, completely devoid of humanity on the interior. Ian was pretty sure her job description was to listen, nod, take notes, and make all the right soothing sounds.

And then completely dismiss everything the second he left.

She shuffled a stack of papers against her desk and shot him that bland smile. “We’ll look into it, Mr. Jones. We can’t thank you enough for the tip.”

There was an invisible barrier of professionalism and authority around her, but he didn’t care. He reached across the table and grabbed her wrist.

“Would you slow down and listen to me for once? You and I both know you wouldn’t be positioned in this middle-of-nowhere town unless you were keeping an eye on something. I’m telling you—that something? It’s General Eagle.”

She looked down at her wrist and back up again, her meaning clear. Ian squeezed harder.

“You were the one who alerted us to the Fireball’s activities in the first place, Mr. Jones,” she said coolly, using both hands to disentangle herself. “How many of your crackpot theories do you expect us to throw our resources at?”

Her reproach stung all the more for being true. All his assertions that the Fireball was one person had been too preemptive, too unsubstantiated. As a scientist, he should have known better.

“But I can prove all this. I’m telling you—we’ve finally found a way to track the residue.”

That got her attention. She sat up, her cheeks less angular, her eyes less icy. “Perhaps you should have started the conversation with that.”

Ian leaned forward, fireworks going off in his stomach, excitement and relief combining as one. “You mean you believe me?”

She actually smiled—something that reached her eyes and softened her whole bearing. “I mean, Mr. Jones, that we’re willing to take a look. We’ll send a team to your lab, and you can show us firsthand what it is you think you know.”

Ian’s mind whirled. He needed to notify Neil, who would never forgive him if he missed this. He needed to get Fiona out of the house before—
oh, shit
.

He needed to get Fiona out of the house.

“I’m going to need a little time to prepare the lab.” He didn’t care how stupid it made him sound. Fiona’s safety and anonymity came first. “Can you guys swing by in a few hours?”

Her eyebrow shot up. “We’re not expecting a keg and live music, Mr. Jones. I’m having a team sent over.”

Ian’s phone rang and he yanked it out of his pocket. Maybe it was Fiona, and he could give her some kind of covert message to hide until they sorted everything with the CO agents. The last thing they needed was for her to be taken into custody—poked and prodded and tested until she was just another rat in a cage. He couldn’t let anything else bad happen to her.

The number that flashed across his phone was Neil’s. Turning away a little so Agent Harding couldn’t eavesdrop, Ian said, “Good news, Neil. We’ve finally got the Converted Office on our side. They’re headed to the lab right now, can you make sure everything
is in its appropriate place
? We don’t want anyone staying there to get in the way. Do you catch me?”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Neil responded. His voice sounded tinny, strained. “You want me to stuff the fire-breathing bitch in hiding. But it’s too late—she’s gone Fireball crazy. Where the fuck are you? It’s all going down.”

“What did you say?” The reception in the concrete CO station wasn’t great, but the urgency in Neil’s voice was hard to miss. “What’s going down?”

“The
lab
, dipshit. The lab is going down.”

Ian almost dropped the phone. Normally, the sound of Neil’s hysterical voice on the phone indicated some sort of prank was on its way—a headless chicken in his truck’s cab or peanut butter in his running shoes. But Neil didn’t joke about work. Not like this.

“Calm down,” Ian said, keeping his voice low. He rose and moved closer to the room’s sole window. “What do you mean? What’s going on?”

When Neil didn’t answer right away, Ian felt a brief surge of relief. Maybe it was a joke. But when sirens started going off in the background, all hope fled.

“Neil? Talk to me.”

“It’s the lab.” His voice was barely distinguishable, but Ian could just make out what his friend was saying. “Get here as fast as you can. It’s gone. Ian—can you hear me? She burned it to the ground.”

“Wait—what?”

Agent Harding looked up from her desk, an inquisitive quirk to her brow, but Ian held out one hand to stop her.

“The firefighters are saying it was intentional.” Neil lowered his voice, which sounded suspiciously thick. “They’re saying it was caused by a single heat source, unnaturally hot and fired fast. In and out and gone. They want to know if we can determine who or what might have caused that.”

Ian’s stomach clenched. No. She wouldn’t have.

“Can we, Ian? Can we determine who might have done that?”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Even though the room spun like it might tip on its side at any moment, Ian tucked his phone away and turned toward Agent Harding. He needed to get home. He needed to find Fiona.

“Change of plans,” he said.

“I’m afraid that’s not how this works, Mr. Jones. Your lab is about to become official government property.”

He laughed bitterly. “You guys can have it, Agent Harding. In fact, I’ll take you there myself.”

…

The place where Ian’s lab once stood—where his childhood home once stood—was nothing but a charred mess. A pair of firemen—ones he didn’t recognize from his consulting work with the unit—doused a few lingering flames. Agent Harding and her various men in black also stood nearby, conferring quietly among themselves. For the first time, Ian didn’t care what they were saying or what they intended to do to his work. It didn’t matter.

It was strange, seeing his whole life crumbling before him, smelling the acrid, heavy scent of this kind of destruction. Fire. It was so final, so dangerous.

“She’s not here.” Ian’s voice was dull and empty even to his own ears.

Neil stood next to him, taking the same calm survey. He’d been surprisingly silent since Ian and the fleet of sleek, unmarked sedans had pulled into the street.

“With any luck, that bitch went down with the house,” Neil muttered.

“Is that really where you want to go right now?” Ian asked. He didn’t move, but the unspoken threat hung between them, filling the space that once contained nothing but easy camaraderie.

“Relax, Ian.” Neil shook his head. “They did a sweep when they first got here. There was no one inside. More’s the motherfucking pity, if you ask me.”

“What the hell is your problem, Neil?” Ian squared off to face his friend, his hands fisted. “What is so wrong with you that you would wish death on another human being?”

“You mean, aside from the fact that she’s the one who destroyed every last bit of our work?” Neil dropped his swagger. Surprisingly, it made him look taller, so much more like the twenty-seven-year-old man he was than the thirteen-year-old he acted. “That girl has always had some weird kind of mind fuck over you, Ian. Look around. Your house is burned down. You left a woman capable of shooting fire out of her hands—a woman we had the potential to lock away forever—alone in our lab for hours. I think the better question is, what the hell is
your
problem?”

Ian screwed up his face, his sense of honor battling with the cold, hard facts. There was no way to deny it: Fiona had every reason to consider him her enemy. Not just for the past, but because of his ability to prove her guilt. What better way was there to access his lab than to get his guard down and strike?

And his guard had definitely been down, starting the moment she took off her shorts.

Neil clapped his hand on Ian’s back. “You and I both know Fiona’s the Fireball, Ian. And now that the lab’s down, we can’t even test the ashes to prove it.”

“It’s just not possible,” Ian said, more to himself than anything else. “I can’t believe she’s capable of this.”

The facts were there—all of them pointing at Fiona as the culprit and painting him as the lovesick fool. But he couldn’t stop replaying the way she’d looked at him, both as kids and now. No matter how angry she seemed to get, how hurt or how far away, there was something else there, too. It was a kind of expectation, as though she knew he was capable of so much more. Of being her hero. Of being her
friend
—even when no one else would.

“What if it was General Eagle?” Ian asked. “I know it sounds crazy, but there is a chance he was responsible for all the other crimes. Why couldn’t he have done this and taken Fiona with him?”

“General Eagle?” Neil scoffed. “You know Occam’s Razor as well as I do. What’s more likely? That Fiona, knowing you could prove she’d been responsible for all those crimes, burnt down your lab? Or that a very public figure spent months framing her, killing an innocent bystander in the meantime, when he could have just as easily lodged a complaint with the Converted Office about her true abilities?”

Ian knew it didn’t make sense. He knew it defied every scientific law. All of his training led him to believe that the simplest answer was the true one. He was being used. Fiona was taking her revenge on him. Fiona was nothing more than a walking mind fuck who threw Ian’s entire life off balance.

Screw it.

Sometimes, logic and the scientific method didn’t have all the answers. Sometimes, a man had to believe in the unbelievable and fight for the girl.

“I’m sorry, Neil, but I think there’s more to this. We have to find her. We have to find a way to prove her innocence.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

“I’m going to go talk to General Eagle—and it wouldn’t hurt you to check up on him while I’m gone.”

“How?” Neil scoffed. “Should I head out there and ask his adoring public what they think?”

Ian shook his head. “No. Ask Agent Harding to check the CO databases. Look for a man called Patrick Veller, that’s his real name. Fiona says they took the conversion serum together. He and his abilities should be listed and tagged. There’s more to his story than any of us know.”

“Okay. I’m on it.” Neil sighed. “But I think you’re headed for a major disappointment.”

Ian dug out his keys, trying not to think of all the possessions and work incinerated in the pile of rubble in front of him, a few scorched wooden beams the only things still standing.

“Just do this for me, okay? We’ll figure the rest out later.”

It was a relief to get in his truck and drive, away from the fire, away from Neil, away from everything but his own thoughts.

That was an all too common mistake. As Ian often did when working out a problem in his mind, he stopped seeing what was right in front of him. And by the time he realized he was being followed, it was too late to do anything about it. He took a sharp turn onto a side dirt road off the highway in hopes that the dark sedan behind him wouldn’t be able to make it.

His truck was too heavy to take the turn easily, and it skidded out before he was able to put much distance between them. The squeal of tires and the crunch of metal created a cacophony that was almost like music, ending in a tympanic bang.

Crunched metal sliced his head, and his vision burst alternating flashes of red and black. The last thing he thought before rolling the vehicle over into the ditch was that he’d forgotten to tell Neil that the conversion serum had worked on him, after all. He had a kick-ass new superpower.

Immunity to Fiona.

Neil would have loved that.