Angel Fire, Valmore Daniels [rosie project txt] 📗

that his home is burned down and there’s no one to take care of him?”

The first one lowered her voice a notch, but I could still hear every word. “It’s that Darcy Anderson, I tell you.”

“Who?”

“Their niece. That girl what burned her parents up ten years back, you remember? They sent her up to that women’s prison in Phoenix, but some brilliant paper pusher let her out. I don’t know why they didn’t give her the needle then. Firebugs. Sick in the head. Can’t cure them, you know.”

“Shameful,” her lunch companion agreed.

Ears burning, holding back tears, I stormed out of the diner.

* * *

Sinking closer and closer into despair, I found myself heading back towards Beth’s house. I couldn’t think of any place else to go.

As I neared, I saw an ambulance out front, and immediately broke into a run.

When I got inside, two paramedics had Uncle Edward on a stretcher and were navigating him down the stairs.

Beth, eyes strained and tight from worry, threw her arms around me.

I asked, “What is it? Is he—?”

“No,” she said. “He’s alive, but he’s had a heart attack. The paramedics said there was too much stress.”

As they moved past me, I saw Uncle Edward. His face was drawn, his eyes closed. His breathing was raspy and strained beneath an oxygen mask.

“Is he going to be all right?” I asked.

The paramedic said, “He’s stabilized for now. But we need to get him to the hospital.”

Beth pulled me back to allow the paramedics through.

“Darcy,” she said. “No one can say if he’s going to be all right or not. Listen, let me grab my car keys and John Jr. and we’ll ride to the hospital together. Let the doctors have a look at him.”

But that wasn’t where I wanted to go at that moment. “I’ll meet you there later.”

“Darcy?” she asked, her voice going up.

“I’m not going to let them get away with it.” I marched out of the house and across the lawn towards down town.

“Darcy, don’t!” Beth called, but her words may as well have fallen on deaf ears.

* * *

More enterprising than I would have ever given him credit for, Frank had managed to scrape up enough money over the years to purchase a garage from Sam Ulenko when the old mechanic finally retired. He had renamed it Frank’s Fix-It.

Frank was hunched over an engine, the hood open and a flood light shining on the machinery within. In one hand he held a ratchet and was tightening something in the engine.

He must have heard my footsteps, but didn’t look up from what he was working on when he said, “Should’ve come by earlier. We’re booked solid today. Try again tomorrow.”

I continued walking toward him.

With an annoyed look, Frank popped his head out from under the hood. The side of his face was still pink and raw.

“I told ya to take a hike—” he started to say, and then he saw me. I faced him, my fists clenched at my sides. I gritted my teeth so hard my jaw hurt.

“You really are a crazy bitch,” he said, his voice even. “Coming here alone.” He hefted the wrench in his burnt hand and smiled. He winced and shifted the tool to his other hand.

“What’re you doing here?” he challenged. “Maybe you want to dance?”

He took a step toward me, and though my initial reaction was to flinch, I didn’t break eye contact.

“Troy told me everything,” I said. “I want you to turn yourself in and tell Sheriff Burke everything that happened. I’m sure he’ll take your cooperation into consideration.”

Frank gaped at me for a full ten seconds, and then burst into raucous laughter. “You’ve got to have a screw loose. What makes you think I’ll roll over and squeal like that pig, Troy?”

I tried to keep my voice as calm as possible, to show no fear. “I’ve already made a statement to Sheriff Burke,” I told him, and then added the lie: “And as soon as his deputies get back on duty, they’re going to come over here and arrest you. So you better get ready to make a confession.”

A cloud of uncertainty fell over Frank, and then he grew angry. “You little tattle tale. Can’t keep your damned mouth shut?” He raised the wrench. “Well, I’m just going to have to shut it for you.”

The power flared in me. It felt like a second skin coating my body, filling every pore. The rush of heat was like a furnace from within and I felt a surge of intense elation as I opened myself up to it.

And it was a thing, an entity. I could sense it; the more I interacted with it the more I could define it. It was a separate part of me, or the hidden half of me. It was a beast whose hunger was primal and horrible. I was its prison and its jailor.

It wanted me to let it free, but I reined it in. I was its master, and I could do with it as I pleased. I was in control, not it.

I raised my hands and fire sprang from my fingers. I let the flames dance there, and giggled as I felt the power of this thing flow through me.

Frank paused in mid-attack, his eyes wide with fear. I could feel the presence in me growing, bidding me to unleash its full fury on him.

At the lake, it had taken control, but this time I forced my will on it, and focused the elemental energy on the wrench. The metal of the tool glowed red and turned to liquid, covering Frank’s hand.

He screamed and tried to throw the wrench from him, but the molten metal stuck to his skin. I smelled burning flesh as it fused to his hand.

I said, “Tell the truth, Frank, and I’ll make it stop.”

My entire body was vibrating with the effort to control the immense power that flooded through me. I bit my lip as I concentrated, and the metallic burst of blood on my tongue helped center me. I pulled the force back inside me. The fire dancing in my hands dwindled and finally disappeared.

Frank’s eyes were crazed. I don’t know if it was the pain of his liquefied hand, the shock of seeing me shoot flames out of my fingers, or the knowledge that a woman had effectively emasculated him, but I think he was beyond rational thought.

He roared, “I’m going to kill you,” and charged at me.

Without consciously thinking about it, I sidestepped and, without thought, hit him with an instant wave of fire. It knocked him back into the car. His coveralls, smeared with grease and oil, lit up like a bonfire.

“No!” I screamed, when I realized what I had done.

Panicked, Frank ran for a large water basin at the back wall of the garage, but he tripped over one of the electric cords for his compressor and fell headlong into a barrel of waste oil. It soaked him. His entire body immediately turned into a screaming, writhing ball of flame.

To my horror, he somehow got to his feet and staggered toward me. I gasped and backed away. This was not what I had planned when I came here.

“No! No! No!” I yelled to myself, to the power inside me. “I am in control! Stop!”

I tried to gather my wits, to regain control, and use the power to reverse the fire, but I couldn’t think.

Frank only made it a few steps before he collapsed in the center of the garage. Behind him, the waste oil barrels were still burning, and the flames spread to a greasy tarp covering an engine block. A can of primer nearby caught on fire, and soon the entire back of the shop became an inferno.

I backed out of the garage, knowing there was nothing I could do.

Now that I had caged the power once more, I grasped what I had done. I hadn’t wanted this to happen, but once I let the power out, I had reveled in it. Though I had more control than ever before, the rage and fury of it had become a part of me. I had used that combination of its anger and mine on Frank, and now he was dead because of me. No matter what my intentions, people got hurt, people got killed. Everywhere I went, destruction followed.

 

Chapter Thirty

I walked down Main Street in a daze. What I’d just done felt like a dream, or a nightmare. I thought I was in control of the power, and though I had been able to summon it and dismiss it at will, I had succumbed to its nature. Fire was a destructive force, and when I had channeled that energy, I couldn’t help but cause destruction.

Was that my purpose in life? I had the ability to destroy anything I chose, or to avenge myself on those who harmed me and mine. Was it time to finally surrender myself to what I was?

When I spotted The Trough, and Barry’s Camaro parked outside, I knew I had to finish this, even if it was the end of me. I had to accept who and what I was. There was no use fighting it.

* * *

Unaware of the horror I had unleashed on Frank, Barry sat at the bar, nursing a beer and picking at a bowl of peanuts while Jack Creel wiped a glass with a dish towel.

Jack spotted me and went still. The smile on his face vanished.

Barry, noticing Jack’s reaction, tensed and very slowly turned his head toward me. He blinked, as if I were the last person in the world he expected to see, but then broke out in a harsh laugh. “You gotta be kidding me.”

With one hand, he picked up what was left of his beer and drank it down with a long pull, then slammed the glass on the bar.

There must have been a few other patrons there, because I sensed a number of forms rushing past me to get outside.

“I don’t want no trouble in here,” Jack said in warning.

“No trouble,” Barry said. “No trouble at all. It’s just some people never learn, do they?” He hadn’t noticed the tendrils of smoke curling up from my fingers.

I took one step toward him.

“Oh, this should be good,” he chuckled as if sharing a joke with Jack. To me, he said, “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Darcy, but you better turn that narrow little ass around before I spank it for you.”

I raised my hands, fingers splayed.

He laughed. “Going to claw my eyes out? Is that the big plan?”

When the tips of my hands sparked fire, his eyes went wide.

“What the hell?” he cried and backed away.

“Exactly,” was the only thing I said as I willed every ounce of power I could summon to come forth. I threw my hands forward, and a spear of fire shot straight out at Barry.

He dove for the floor as the flames impacted against the shelves of liquor behind the bar. Jack Creel yelped and ran for his life.

Barry’s survival instinct must have kicked in, because he sprung to his feet more quickly than I thought he was capable of, and raced out the back, following the bartender. The liquor on the wall burst into a mass of fire and glass behind him.

I followed Barry out. My arms, from the tips of my fingers to my elbows, were engulfed in flame.

Outside, I saw Barry turn the corner around the building and race for his Camaro. I