TORCH (24 page)

“Good job,” Hux says. “Now you just have to get faster. Your goal is to hit his fire almost before it’s left his hand, so that
he’s
the one knocked off balance.”

We work on that, and while Hux continues to beat me, I make good progress.

Finally, he calls it quits. “I’m burned out,” he says, smiling at his joke. “Let’s regroup later in the week.”

As I walk back to my things, the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Turning quickly, I see yellow fire shooting toward me. My fingers barely twitch before the fireball explodes.

“How’d you do that?” Hux says, admiringly.

“I don’t know,” I say. It felt like a mental force field went up. “The question is why are you firing on me from behind when the lesson’s over?”

“Because whoever we’re dealing with isn’t going to play fair. Anyway, where do you think you’re going? The pail and scrub brush are in my office.”

I
finally risk calling Kai. Days of swimming, and fire practice, both with and without Hux have me convinced that my powers are fairly solid. Meeting Kai in person is out of the question but I really want to hear the sound of his voice.

“I miss you,” is the first thing he says.

I thought we’d been apart long enough that my knees wouldn’t go weak, but they do. I lie down on the bed and stare at the ceiling. “Me too.”

“Can’t we get together? Just for a few minutes?”

“Not yet,” I say. “Not while that nutcase is on the prowl.”

“But you need my help. You can’t deal with him alone.”

“I have to,” I say. “It’s a Torch.” I tell Kai what I saw in my dream and how I confirmed it. “You can’t get near this guy, Kai. Although, after Ms. Giddon, he seems to be targeting Torches now. First Frank McKenna and then Hux.”

“But you’re not going to be a match for him, yet, either. Can’t you at least tell your dad what you’ve seen? Or Hux?”

“If anyone else could see what he’s doing, they’d have caught him by now. I’m the only one. So I’m just going to keep watching him until he gives himself away. You can’t tell your dad, Kai. Promise?”

“I won’t, as long as you promise to call in reinforcements when you’ve got the guy cornered.”

“I promise.”

“Good. Because you’re no use to me burned to a crisp, you know?”

“Bet you’d hook up with Bianca right away. I hear she tastes like strawberries.”

“Oh man, I am never going to live that down, am I?”

“Well, what do I taste like?”

“The sun. On a bright summer day.” I can hear the smile in his voice.

“Nice recovery,” I say. “And you taste like a mountain stream.”

We both laugh, and that’s when I feel it. The heat is draining out of me, as if the mere act of loving him saps my life force.

“Listen, I’ve got to go,” I say.

“Talk soon?

“I hope so.”

“Take care of my girlfriend.”

“I will. She sends her love.”

Black Hat is standing on the deck of the school pool, with a squirt bottle in his raised hand. He starts to leave a message on the tiled wall in tall, cursive script. I can’t see the words, because the fluid in the bottle is clear. He finishes with a flourish, and steps backwards, nearly to the edge of the pool. Tossing the bottle aside, he pulls off a glove and directs a tiny fireball, like a pink comet, at the wall. The words he wrote emerge quickly in flames:

“Tell anyone else and I will kill everyone you love, Pheonix. One by one. Nate was the first. You’ll be last.”

Then he holds his hands wide, middle fingers extended.

I lie in bed, shaking and crying, for over an hour. If he thinks I’m running down to the pool to have a face-to-face, he’s crazy. There’s no point in calling anyone else, either, because a horrible message is proof of nothing.

Someone has told him about my dreams, and only two people know:  Kai and Regan. Either my best friend or my boyfriend has betrayed me. Regan’s never broken a promise to me before, and it seems more likely that Kai would share the information to protect his father and other Floods. But then, how would word trickle back to a Torch? But if Regan told her dad, he’d have spread the word to the Torch community, and perhaps Black Hat is still a standing member.

Either way, I am screwed. One wrong move and he comes after my family.

 “You look like hell,” Dad says, when I join him in the kitchen. It’s five a.m., and he’s just coming in from work.

I hold out my mug for a coffee and it shakes so much that he takes it from me to fill it. “What’s wrong, Phee?”

“Nothing. Nothing I can’t handle.” But the tears start rolling down my face, and Dad leads me to the kitchen table and pushes me into a seat.

“You’re not supposed to be handling anything alone. That’s what I’m here for.”

I glare at him through streaming eyes. “Well, you haven’t been. You’ve been sneaking around and not telling me anything. You missed the guy at Hux’s by two minutes.”

He blue eyes widen. “How do you know that?”

“The same way I know he’s targeting Graham, then you, and then me.”

I am sobbing so hard that Dad just pats my arm for a few minutes until I stop hiccoughing. “Calm down and talk to me. Obviously I haven’t been a good dad lately, but today we start over.”

“You can’t freak out at me,” I say.

“I might freak out, but I’ll still love you,” he says. The slight crinkle around his eyes makes me brave enough to start in.

I tell him everything, from the first dreams, where I thought he was the arsonist, through falling for Kai, and training with Hux, and finally, to the terrifying message. Dad refills our coffee twice, and while his expression darkens several times, and there are some frustrated snorts, he keeps his views to himself until I’m done.

“I had no idea,” he says. “No idea. I’ve never heard of a Torch who gets dreams like yours. But then, I’ve never known a Torch to kill indiscriminately before.”

“Dad,” I whisper, “He killed Nate.” It’s the one thing I’d left out of the story, because I was afraid he’d lose focus. And right now, I need him to keep it together, to help me, to help the rest of the family. “He wrote it in the message.”

He gets to his feet and paces. “But why? Nate wasn’t a Torch.”

“He must have done it to get to you,” I say.

Perching across from me again, he says, “Phee, I need to know what you saw in this dream is real. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but a lot rides on it. I’m going to drop you and Graham at Uncle Rick’s and go down to the pool with Hux.”

“Let me come,” I say.

“You’re grounded,” he says.

“Grounded! How can you ground me now?”

“Are you kidding? I can list about fifty infractions. But the main reason is that I need to know you’re safe. Stay alert. Hear me? Let us handle the rest.”

“It’s not fair,” I say.

“Look, I’ve lost one kid to this guy, and I have no intention of losing another.”

He slips a coat on and grabs his phone. “I’ll call you from the pool.”

“He probably covered the message,” I say.

“There will be signs,” Dad says. “Now, wake your brother and get your things.” As I walk out of the kitchen he calls after me, “I’m sorry, Phoenix.”

“Me, too,” I say.

A
fter confirming I was right about the message on the pool wall, a small group of Torches meets in our kitchen: Hux, Uncle Rick, and Dad. I am not invited. In fact, they urge me to have a nap, which is ridiculous. I know they want me to dream something useful, but it doesn’t work that way. When Black Hat makes his next move, I’ll dream about it. I’m reasonably sure of that.

Still, I go to my bedroom and rest. Dad called in sick to school, for both Graham and me, and it’s the first time I’ve felt this safe in awhile. There are three Torches in my kitchen. I can afford to power down.

After trying unsuccessfully to eavesdrop, Graham joins me, sitting on the edge of my bed. “What’s going on?” he asks.

“I think Dad and the guys have a line on the arsonist,” I say. “They’re brainstorming.”

“And we get to stay home from school. Does that mean we’re a target?”

I consider lying to him, but decide a partial truth is better. “I think the arsonist has a hate on for Dad,” I say. “And so we’d be a good way to get to him.”

Swallowing hard, Graham asks, “Did he kill Nate?”

I squeeze his arm. “I think so.”

“Are you scared?”

“A bit,” I admit. “But look how many people are looking out for us. We’re going to be fine.”

Graham gives me a curious look. “When all this is over, will you tell me the whole story?”

“Sure,” I say. “The whole story.”

“Because I know you don’t smoke,” he says. “And I’ve seen Dad drunk and rolling fireballs, too.”

I stare at him, stunned. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?” I ask.

He sighs, and flakes out beside me. “I didn’t want to know. Until I had to.”

“Yeah,” I say, tugging on his curls. “I hear ya.”