Rouge

by Isabella Modra

  Gently lowering Kate to the concrete against the curb, Hunter saw two figures running towards her.

  “Over here!” She waved her right arm that wasn’t aching, and soon two men wearing a uniform just like Kate’s sprinted up to them.

  “Is she alive?” asked the larger man. He puffed as though the smoke had consumed him. “She looks dead to me.”

  Hunter bent down and pressed two fingers to her neck, satisfied her vitals were still active. “She’ll be fine. But we need to get her-”

  “Holy shit, look at your arm!” The other guy, scrawny with large round glasses, pointed shakily at Hunter’s left shoulder. When Hunter looked down, she saw a shard of glass the size of a phone sticking into her skin, blood spilling out from it, and paled. It must’ve happened in the explosion, she thought. The two employees were both staring at her in complete horror and Hunter reached up to her arm, gripped the glass and sucked in a breath. Oh God... she counted to three before wrenching the shard from her arm. Pain sliced through her and she cried out, covered the wound with her hand and told herself to breathe properly. She could feel the hot blood oozing through her fingers.

  “H-how did you get out of there?” the fat one stammered.

  “We saw you... you ran in there like ten minutes ago!” said the nerd unbelievingly.

  “Are you like some superhero or something?”

  Hunter stared, trying to disguise her fear with frustration at their obvious stupidity. “Could you stop asking ridiculous questions and help this girl?”

  “Yeah, right-”

  “Sorry.”

  “Thank you,” she sighed, sweat pouring down her face and neck.

  “But seriously, how’d you do that?” asked the large one as he and the other employee took Kate’s arms and lifted her to her feet.

  “Don’t you know anything about fire safety?” she babbled. “Find the air pockets, stay low, cover yourself from the heat.”

  “Well, you failed at the cover part.” The nerdy guy raised his eyebrows at her body.

  “Just carry her, would you?”

  With Hunter’s weak assistance, they carried Kate to the front of the building where they were bombarded by firemen and paramedics. Hunter watched them take Kate in their arms and carry her to a stretcher. Satisfied that she was safe now, she turned and looked around for Eli with her hand still holding the deep cut on her upper arm.

  It was then that she realized the entire crowd of onlookers were staring at her. They whispered, pointed, even smiled and waved at her. The moment was so surreal, Hunter felt as though she were a ghost, or watching the scene of a movie. Her heart thudded, but there was nothing she could do.

  Where is Eli?

  A paramedic’s hand rested on her back and turned her around.

  “Miss? You need to come with us.” He began guiding her towards another ambulance.

  “I’m fine, it’s just a scratch...”

  “Take your hand away,” he ordered, and she obeyed. Quickly, he snatched some gauze from his medical bag and clamped it against the wound. “You’ll need stitches, and you have a lump on your forehead as well.” He waved a bright flashlight across both her eyes. “Do you feel dizzy?”

  “Um...” She couldn’t think straight, and did feel dizzy, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. “No, I need to find my friend. He’s-”

  “Miss, we need to get you to the hospital.” The paramedic urged her to duck into the back of an ambulance.

  “No please, I’m fine. I’m fine!” she shouted. “Where’s Kate...”

  Everything was mayhem. Police lights flashed red and blue. The crowd was shouting, pointing at her, calling a name that wasn’t her own. They were clapping. The paramedic was asking her questions that went in one ear and out the other, covering her mouth with an oxygen mask, sticking needles in her arm. Pain shot through her, but it wasn’t from the needle, it was from her head. This is wrong, she thought to herself, allowing him to lie her on her side while the ambulance doors were closing in on her. This is wrong, this is wrong, I shouldn’t be here, I should hide, no one can know. Where is Eli? Is Kate okay? What will Joshua say? What would my mother say? Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!

  Then a hand covered hers and, through drooping eyelids, she looked up into the stoic face of Eli who sat beside her. A thousand mixed feelings flashed across his eyes, but they passed just as quickly as they came. She wanted to say she was sorry, that she could explain, but her eyes wouldn’t stay open. They fell shut, and in the loud, black noise of the world she heard him speak before there was silence.

  “I’m here...” he whispered. “I’m here.”

  thirty-one

  The familiar strange, plastic smell of the hospital filled Hunter as she awoke. She became aware of the sounds of patting footsteps outside the room, the distant beeping of a heart rate monitor and hospital beds being wheeled through the corridor. Hunter wriggled her fingers and found feeling in them. She saw flashes of the fire in the restaurant, of dragging Kate out of the building, of pulling the huge shard of glass from her shoulder and of Eli’s unbelieving expression before darkness closed in on her and the ambulance and the world went away.

  Hunter opened her eyes and found herself in a room much like Miss Smart’s. She lay in a bed on the left side, a window open on her right, another empty bed opposite her. Beside her, asleep in the chair, was not Eli. It was Joshua.

  His pale blue shirt was crinkled, rolled up at the sleeves. A throw rug much like the one tucked under her arms lay across his legs. He was deeply asleep, breathing heavily. Peaceful.

  But no matter how normal he may have appeared, Joshua was a completely different man now. After everything they’d been through, Joshua hadn’t let her down. He had promised to protect her, to train her, to be by her side. And he had kept that promise. She understood why he needed to keep her powers a secret. Yet after watching the film her mother had left, her heart pounded in fear every time she looked at him. Her mother had spoken of ‘strange things’ and ‘odd behavior’. She had never seen him act this way before. Had she been oblivious to it her entire life, or was it only just becoming clear?

  Clear was not the right word, however, because the video raised even more questions than she had originally begun with.

  Hunter sat up in her bed and instantly regretted it. Her head throbbed and the deep cut in her arm shot pain through her upper body. The bed creaked loudly at her movement and Joshua snapped awake.

  “Hunter-” He dove for her hand, his blue eyes wide in panic, but she pulled away from him against her pillow, ignoring the pain it caused her. “Hunter, are you alright?”

  She didn’t know how to talk to him. He was the same person - physically - that she’d lived with all her life. Same raven-black hair, same unusually pale eyes and skin, same sophisticated and lanky posture. But he didn’t feel like a friend to her anymore. He felt like a stranger.

  “Where’s Eli?” she asked, her voice hoarse. She wanted him to be beside her, holding her hand, but would it still be the same? He knew about her powers now. She’d seen it in his loving green eyes before she ran into the building, and when he’d told her he would stay with her in the ambulance before she fell into unconsciousness. She was afraid to face him, but at the same time she needed his company. “I have to see Eli.”

  “He went home,” said Joshua. “He was with you all night, but when I arrived he said he needed to leave. Hunter-” Joshua’s eyes sparked menacingly. “-What the hell were you thinking?”

  Hunter ripped at the IV cord connected to her hand. “I was thinking that I had to save them. Now I’m thinking I want to get away from you.”

  “Hunter stop,” he clamped a hand down on hers. His skin was ice cold. “You’ve had a serious concussion. You need to rest.”

  “What I need and what I want have always been completely different Joshua. But for once I’m not going to listen to you and what you think is best for me. I’m listening to my own head from now on.”

  Jos
hua looked callously down at her. “Hunter, if you’d have listened to me in the first place, then you wouldn’t be injured. You wouldn’t have a lot of other problems to deal with either...”

  Hunter sucked in a breath. “What does that mean?”

  Joshua wordlessly reached for the remote on the television and turned it on. “The news have been playing this on a loop all day,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Five people were killed tonight in a deadly fire that devoured a local restaurant downtown,” said a woman in a smart suit directly to the camera as she sat comfortably in the news room. “The fire began inside the restaurant where sources say a stove exploded and no one was able to tame the blaze. The damage is worth over half a million dollars. But not all hope was lost. Several witnesses claimed to have seen a young girl with red hair run into the building as it was on fire.”

  I so should have made a costume before I started parading around New York saving people. She bit down hard on her lip. So much blood pumped through her body that the lump on her forehead throbbed. Joshua was completely stiff beside her, but this couldn’t be the first time he’d seen the report.

  “She then emerged from the rear carrying a waitress across her shoulder,” the reporter continued. “In the midst of a tragic evening, a heroic story has brought hope to New York. And the question many are asking is who is this red-headed heroine, and how did she do it? One thing’s for sure: with an identity like that it won’t be hard to spot this scarlet heroine, and we hope to see more of her saving lives in our city.” Her faux smile faded and she became somber as she announced the next headline.

  Joshua switched the television off and silence fell, sucking at her soul. For the first time in a long time, Hunter couldn’t find the flames inside her to warm the chill that spread inside her body.

  Joshua wouldn’t meet her gaze. “The nurse said your identity has been kept completely private. News crews followed the ambulance to this hospital. They know you’re here, but they’re not allowed in. Everyone’s been talking about the red-haired girl. Hunter-” He leaned in closer, his face a mask of seriousness. “We need to leave New York. The Agents, they’ll know you’re here. You’re a sitting duck.”

  “No,” she snapped, surprising herself. “I’m not hiding Joshua.”

  “You don’t understand. People know who you are now. The Agents will come looking for you.”

  “Let them,” she snapped stubbornly, even if fear was setting up camp inside her soul. “I don’t care.” The only thing I care about is seeing Eli.

  She threw the rugs off her body and looked down at her battered and bruised skin under the thin hospital robe. Well that’s attractive, her snarky conscience droned.

  Joshua took hold of her uninjured shoulder and met her eyes. There was real terror in his expression, clouded by anger.

  “I won’t let you throw your life away Hunter. I promised to protect you, and I won’t break that promise.”

  “Protect me from what Joshua? From the public? Well guess what, they know! Everyone knows now!” She tried pushing him away, but he wouldn’t budge. “I might as well walk into that news room and declare it was me. Maybe I’ll even set myself alight to prove it. Point is, the secret is out.”

  Joshua’s face paled more so, as if hearing it from her made the fact cemented in stone. “I’m not worried about the public Hunter. I’m talking about the men who hunt people like you.”

  “What do you mean? You said there is no one else like me out there.”

  “I lied,” he snapped.

  “Oh, shocker!”

  Joshua ignored her. “I can still keep you hidden. We can change your hair color and we can move away from New York. Maybe we can stay in Cuba at-”

  “I’m not running away Joshua!” she screamed at him. A nurse came running into the room and the both of them looked away from each other.

  “Hunter,” said the woman, her dark ponytail whipping back and forth as she cast furtive glances at Joshua. She urged Hunter with strong hands back into the bed. “Please you need to rest.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look it. You suffered a nasty hit to the head, and your stitches have come undone.”

  Hunter glanced down at her shoulder and realized she was right. Fresh blood was leaking through her bandages.

  “I want to go home.”

  “I’ll take you back when you’re better,” said Joshua.

  “No,” she snapped, her eyes a burning orange. The fire glowed inside her. Joshua flinched in surprise, but the nurse saw nothing. She was already removing Hunter’s bandages and mopping up the blood. “Home to Eli’s.”

  Joshua stared at the floor for a long time. The nurse’s lips pursed tight, her eyes glued down. Then Joshua spoke, and his usually controlled voice wavered.

  “I’m not giving you a choice this time Hunter,” he said softly. “You’re coming home with me so I can watch you. So you’ll stop acting like a ridiculously rebellious teenager with special powers, flouncing about the streets like some heroic vigilante.”

  Hunter felt her blood boil and thought of a billion things she would love to do to the man beside her. Like burn off his tongue so he couldn’t lie to her anymore and spit out garbage like his Protection Program speech.

  “I haven’t been there for you Hunter like I promised. Not on a personal level. But I swear that you’ll get better, and that all of this will go away. You can forget Eli and being the hero.” He made a simple nod to the nurse, who turned to her IV and stuck something in it. Hunter was too fixed with rage to notice, but immediately began to feel drowsy.

  He’s drugging me.

  “No!” She tried to rip the needle from her arm but the nurse kept her back. Despite her height, she was weirdly strong.

  “I’m doing what’s best for you Hunter. I’m taking you away from it all.” He turned to the nurse. “Do what’s necessary to keep her here.”

  “Joshua, please...”

  “I will protect you, Hunter,” he said, the words echoing all around her. “I will protect you... I will protect you...”

  Hunter’s eyes drooped shut.

  She dreamed of Eli. He lay on a simple white bed, his skin pale and blue, his lips frozen, his whole body stiff. Hunter wanted to run to him, the fire roaring inside of her. She could save him, but something stopped her.

  Then Joshua’s face loomed before her view and a scream fell out of her mouth. He was laughing, softly but manically. His pale blue eyes mirrored those she dreamed of as a child, the same eyes that frightened her into waking up in a sweat. Those eyes froze the fire inside of her, and her heart slowed.

  “I will kill him,” Joshua said, and the words echoed just as his other promise had, only this time it sent chills rippling through her. “I will kill him... I will kill him...”

  No... not Eli... NO!

  “Hunter, wake up!”

  Someone was hissing right by her ear and gentle hands nudged her. She awoke in the same hospital bed, scratchy sheets pulled tight under her arms the way she imagined her mother would tuck her in as a child. This time, she felt far groggier. Her eyes hardly opened, tense under her eyebrows and very dry.

  “Hunter, it’s me,” said the same voice.

  It was dark in the room when she finally managed to see. Her head lulled to the side and there stood a stocky, dark-haired shadow. His hand nudged her again.

  “Jack?” she croaked. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m here to bust you out,” Jack muttered, stepping into the light so his brown eyes gleamed. He shoved away the IV chord that was dripping on his shoes. “The nurse is talking with some guy about putting you into some sort of coma.”

  “What?” she hissed. “Where’s Joshua?”

  “Who?”

  “Joshua, my… never mind.” Her head throbbed hard as she made to sit up, but the rattling of chains and something clamped around her wrists held her down. Hunter frowned through the hazy darkness and saw a flash of silver.
/>
  Oh hell no. He actually handcuffed me to the bed!

  Fire burst inside her, and she let it. The effects of the drug that still swarmed inside her put up a good fight, but pure rage took over. Hunter’s whole body protested in pain, as if the medication meant to keep her unconscious in that horrific nightmare. How did the hospital allow this kind of treatment?

  “Is that even legal?” she hissed, jiggling her wrists. “And did you say they were going to put me in a coma?”

  Jack was ducking around the dark room, flipping up her rug and opening the cupboards under the sink. “Definitely not. But we can talk about it outside. Right now I need to find those keys…”

  Hunter lay back and let the fire fill her. She could feel it snaking through her veins, red hot and burning for revenge. When she looked down at her arms, they were glowing orange as they always did when she used her powers. It looked like lava seeping down a charcoal volcano through the cracks. Warmth spread through her and she forced it into her hands. The cuffs began to melt. The fringes of the bed caught fire, but she put that out as quickly as it took for the handcuffs to melt right off her wrists.

  Hunter sat up, shook away the pain throbbing in her head and swung her legs onto the cool padded floors. Jack turned and did a double take, his eyes drifting to the melted metal cuffs and the dying glow of orange light under her skin.

  “Wow,” he muttered. “How did you do that?”

  Hunter ignored him. “Can I have your jacket?”

  Jack hurriedly shrugged out of his loose black hoodie. Hunter shoved it on and tucked all of her hair under the hood. Joshua said the news crews were everywhere. God only knows how they were going to get out without anyone seeing.