Rouge

Rouge - Chapter Forty

So consumed with rage and a yearning for revenge on Joshua, Hunter had lost control of herself. She burned redder than the molten stone that gave her abilities, and it was too strong for her to find herself again. The fire was like a demon that possessed her, and even when Jack called her name, even when Joshua screamed as the fire passed through his barriers and burnt his skin, Hunter continued to laugh.

"Are you burning yet Joshua?" she snarled. The soft sound of rain on the roof began to patter in the background. "I could keep going, honestly, this fire never ends. You know the saying the things you do-" she shot him down again with another boiling ball of lava that landed on his leg and hissed dangerously, "-come back to bite you?"

"Hunter ..." Joshua heaved, slipping and sliding on his own ice. "You can't ... let it ... control you."

"Don't talk to me about control, you psychotic hypocrite! I'm not the one on a murderous bender strapping people to ice chairs and kidnapping innocent teenagers, am I?"

Joshua lifted a hand to shield his face from the glare of the fire burning in Hunter's hands, her hair curling wildly around the flames, her eyes now gold and bright as the sun. But Hunter wouldn't allow it. She grabbed his wrist and squeezed.

Joshua screamed as she channeled all her heat into his wrist, watching it sizzle, grinning. It was as if all the ecstasy in the world couldn't compare to it.

"I know, I know, I'm a terrible person," he pleaded, his voice breaking. Something in his eyes had changed: He was less of the psychotic killer and more of the old Joshua. "But you're better than me. Let go of the anger, or it will consume you! Please Hunter!"

She laughed loudly, the cackle echoing in the warehouse. "You think you can fool me with this act? As soon as I turn away, you're just gonna stab me in the back. Of all the things I've learned these past few months, I know one thing for sure; your loyalty is no longer to me, or to my mother. You lost yourself to your power. Now you'll never escape it."

"Just give me another chance to prove to you that-"

"No," she hissed. Her heart ached as she remembered her mother's letter. "Sometimes we don't get second chances, Joshua."

Something like fear mixed with surprise flashed in the pale blue of Joshua's eyes. It was the very same look he'd given her the night after the benefit when Hunter had blown up the stove. He knew something, something that scared him. Before she could decipher it, Joshua raised his other hand and pointed it at the roof of the warehouse. A torrent of ice disappeared into the darkness and crashed into metal.

They both fell silent as the ice that had clung to the roof began to crack, and within moments there was a deafening crash and the corrugated iron ceiling caved in.

Hunter had just enough time to dive behind the chair she'd been confined in and cower behind the ice tanks that had been sending cold liquid into her bloodstream as heavy debris from the ceiling fell to the ground and scattered. As if shaken out of a nightmare that wasn't even hers, Hunter stood on her feet and looked up at the hole in the roof. Through the great gap, rain poured down on them. She had been so consumed that she hadn't heard it pound on the tin roof of the warehouse.

Hunter was sent back to the night of her first date with Eli. She had been so anxious that the fire would escape that she had run out into the rain. There, they shared their first kiss.

Tears ran from her eyes and became lost in the rain as Hunter stared up at the ceiling and smiled.

Be a fighter Hunter, came her mother's voice somewhere inside her head, and no matter the pain this curse causes you, know that you are stronger. Your soul controls it. Use it.