Page 40 of Red Rooster

Tired as she was, something in her tightened. Not fear, exactly – she had enough juice to raze someone to ashes, if she needed to – but a disquieted sort of feeling.

She swore she could feel the heat of Rooster’s scowl behind her. Damn. Always so protective. Like the world’s biggest brother…who thought she was totally helpless. The self-sacrificing idiot.

Then the blond boy turned toward her and choked on his next bite of omelet. “Oh shit. Um. Hey. You’re that girl. From last night.”

Red turned to him with a wide, pretend smile in place. Smiles always set people off their guard, helped them forget details. It was Rooster’s fierce scowls that the Institute people always remembered. That and her red hair…

“You’re her, right?” the boy asked. “With the fire?” He lifted one greasy hand and spread the fingers in a little exploding gesture.

“Yes, that’s me,” she said. “Did you like the show?”

“Dude,” he exclaimed, grinning wide. “That was badass. How’d you do that?”

“Magic,” she said, with an answering smile of her own that she hoped was coy. She’d never actually seen a coy smile, or been shown how to execute one, but in the paperbacks she picked up in grocery stores – “What thehellis going on in this book?” Rooster had demanded once, scandalized, when she got out of the shower and found him sprawled back on one of the hotel beds, paging through her current romance novel. “This is,” he’d spluttered, face going red along the high ridges of his cheekbones, “this is – you’re not old enough to read this.” But of course he hadn’t forbidden it, only gave her pained, sidelong glances when she read in the truck. – women were always smiling coyly at men. If the books were to be believed, it was a means of getting your way – or, in her case, pulling off a deception.

He laughed, half-delighted, half-frustrated by her evasion. “No, but seriously. How do youdothat? Is it, like, Roman candles or something–”

“Here you go, hon.” The waitress topped off her coffee.

Red gave the a woman a quick smile. “Thank you.” And slid off her stool.

Started to, and the boy darted a hand out like he meant to touch her.

She wasn’t a jumpy person, all things considered, but no one touched her. No one but Rooster. And before that –

“…shows promising development…”

“…experiment had little to no effect…”

“…weaponize its abilities…”

She shied away from the enthusiastic blond boy, a hard leap off her stool, and collided with the man on her other side. Her hand bumped his shoulder, and hot coffee slopped all down his arm, and onto his bare hand.

Red froze a moment, horrified. The man hissed through his teeth, but otherwise remained admirably still. Unlike her, he wasn’t panicking, even though he had to be in pain. She could already see the bright pink of a terrible burn coming up on his skin.

The waitress gasped. “Oh, let me – here, hold on–”

The blond boy knocked his own stool over as he scrambled to his feet, saying, “Whoa, whoa.”

Red didn’t think. Her awareness shrank down to the sight of an injury – an injury that she’d caused – and she reacted. She laid her hand on the stranger’s forearm and funneled a burst of energy into him.

“Ah–” He made a short, sharp, aborted sound, and then went still, the way Rooster did, when–

Oh no, Rooster!

It was his arm, she knew, that went around her waist from behind. He grunted as he was hit with a bit of castoff energy, but didn’t let go, dragging her back from the man, breaking the contact. The second her hand left his arm, the power surge drained out of her, like a bathtub with the drain pulled. She sagged back against Rooster’s chest, panting, and for a moment, the entire diner was dead silent, save the slow spinning of George Strait on the radio.

It was just the chaos, she told herself: the fallen stool, the leaping boy, the gasping waitress, the man’s cry of pain. Rooster, looking big and threatening, lifting her up off her feet. There was no way anyone could know what she’d just done, that she’d used her powers – that she even had any.

Then one of the little soccer players went goggle-eyed and said, “That’s the fire girl.”

“Fuck,” Rooster growled, “come on.” He bulled his way to the door, shoulder first, carrying her, and everyone scrambled to get out of his way.

Red tossed a look behind her as they fled, and saw the stranger she’d healed staring down at his hand in open-mouthed shock. His skin steamed, a little, still hot from the coffee, but there was no burn.

Oh no, she thought.

A carnival act could be explained away, but not a miracle.