Playing with Fire by Tamara Morgan Read Free Book Online Page B

relaxed a little, even managed a small smile.
    “So will you please come back and tell us who was trying to kill you and why?”
    “First, I think I should show you.”
    Ian’s brow knit. “Show me what?”
    Fiona took a deep breath and did her best to ignore Neil’s greasy nose pressed against the big front window in the living room.
    “I want to show you what I am.”
    …
    She’d asked him to take her somewhere secluded.
    Ian would have liked to have her demonstrate her powers in his lab, where he could make the necessary recordings and perform a few tests, but she’d refused to go back in the house.
    “I’m sorry, but I don’t trust myself not to murder your best friend—or accidentally burn down your house.”
    Fair enough. He was close to murdering Neil himself. For a minute there, Ian had thought maybe they’d made a breakthrough, he and Fiona. He could never make up for his reticence in the past, but he could show her that he’d changed.
    Unfortunately, things weren’t that simple—and he couldn’t just apologize and start things over. Fiona was dangerous. She might even be a killer.
    They got into his truck, and he drove a little bit south of his neighborhood, where empty fields stretched in every direction and dry brush bracketed a sky mottled by clouds. The location seemed their best bet for seclusion, and it provided the optimal environment for duplicating the conditions of the original incident.
    He got out of the cab and moved quickly to open her door. “Will this area do?”
    She stepped from the truck, and her breath hitched. “This looks an awful lot like a place to kidnap young women and sew their skins into a suit.” She paused, looking around. “What exactly were you doing outside my apartment with binoculars, anyway?”
    He ignored her question and pointed at a small rise in the land, which sloped up to a huge stone slab covered from top to bottom in graffiti. Most of it penises. “Shoot that.”
    He couldn’t let himself be diverted. Couldn’t let himself be sucked into her easy charm. He needed answers first, no matter how much he wanted to fix what he’d broken. “Can you do it from this far?”
    “Don’t insult me,” she replied. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
    No. Not at all.
    He wanted nothing more than to kneel before her and beg for forgiveness—forgiveness for his weaknesses, for exposing her to Neil’s ridicule, for not cherishing her when he’d had the chance, however remote that might have once been. If he watched Fiona become little more than an inhuman weapon capable of huge levels of destruction, she’d be rendered down to a science project. A test subject. An independent variable that must be controlled.
    He could do this. The scientist in him needed the proof, much more than the man in him needed her approval.
    “I’m ready,” he said.
    “Fine. But you can’t freak out. You have to promise me you won’t freak out.”
    “No freaking out. I’ve been waiting forever for this.”
    When the research was first being done on the asteroid, Ian had been in school, a first-year chemistry major who spent way too much time in study hall for a kid his age. But it had paid off—at least at first. One of the professors at his college had been asked to participate in the preliminary studies, and he’d brought Ian and a few other promising students along to grind samples and clean beakers.
    Ian couldn’t remember exactly why he’d been the one to try the stolen sample, injecting the tiny bit of opaque fluid into his veins. But he and the others had sat around, breathless, waiting to see what would happen. They’d heard the rumors, and everyone had a guess. Maybe he’d get super-intellect. Or telepathy. He’d secretly hoped for out-and-out brute strength, Hulk-style.
    What he’d gotten was expulsion from school, a two-year sentence at a low-security federal prison, and a black stain on his career so big no reputable company would ever hire