15. Ward

As soon as the lights of the SUV were no longer visible, I turned back to Crimson. "Well, you've got me. Now what?"

He smiled, widely, and I could see the man I'd fallen in love with in his expression. He'd seemed so open, so full of life, but now that I'd met Dev and seen what a love of life truly looked like, I recognized that Jeffrey had been a fake all along. How had I been so damned gullible?

"Come inside." Crimson gestured me forward, like I was a guest he was welcoming into his home and not his prisoner.

I didn't move until a gun poked me in the back. Scowling at the dude behind me over my shoulder, I capitulated to his prodding and followed Crimson inside the cabin. When the door closed behind me and one of the minions—I assumed the others remained outside on guard duty, poor them—my breath froze in my chest. For an instant, panic gripped the edges of my vision. I was stuck in a room with Jeffrey Crimson, something I'd promised myself would never happen again.

It took me a few seconds to hear Crimson's voice over the rushing of blood in my ears. Another poke in the back confirmed I'd been directed to sit on one of the worn, rustic wood-and-cushions sofas set in front of the large stone fireplace. I couldn't identify the type of fabric the cushions were covered in, but they were misshapen from years of use, and the varnish on the sofa's wooden arms had been rubbed off in places.

I swallowed back the panic and reverted to my natural armor—snark. "This isn't your usual type of place."

Crimson waved a hand from his seat on the sofa across from me. "Beggars and all that."

I crossed my arms. "So why am I here, Jeffrey? You didn't go through all of this simply so we could have a heart-to-heart chat."

He laughed. "No, of course not. Don't be foolish. You were a fine companion for a time, Ward, but you have to realize there was no ‘heart' involved, as you put it."

"Yeah," I said through gritted teeth. "That was kind of clear when you tortured me."

"Regrettably necessary." His tone said it was anything but regrettable. Asshole. "Honestly, I thought the procedure might kill you, so I'm shocked you're sitting here at all."

"That would have been far more convenient for you, I'm sure."

He tilted his head sideways. "As it turns out, no. You see, I've come to the conclusion that while I siphoned enough of your power for me to functionally use it, there are some components I'm missing."

I froze. He couldn't be saying…

"I have a new version of my machine ready for you." Crimson leaned forward, his eyes glittering. "This time, I'll get everything."

I should've been expecting it, but the blow to my head from Crimson's minion took me completely by surprise.

I woke up in a nightmare.

I'd had this dream a million times since he'd stolen my powers from me—being strapped down, electrodes buzzing on my forehead and temples, my eyes held open with a contraption straight out of hell. The only difference between now and then was that I was sitting in a chair rather than lying on a gurney-like table.

Panic rushed through me and threatened to take all the air in my lungs, but I forced it aside. If I gave in to it, I'd never get out of here. Not that there was a great chance of that anyway.

Crimson stood next to the kitchen table, bent down over a device connected to a laptop and fiddling with components I couldn't name. It had buttons and switches that seemed to be directly from a Cold War-era bunker, and it looked far more rudimentary than the machine he'd originally used on me, but I supposed he'd had to scramble to put together a new one after he'd escaped. Beside him stood one of his black-garbed minions, one I didn't recognize. Not that I'd committed them all to memory, but I was fairly certain this one hadn't been the same who'd accompanied us inside earlier. His face was odd, as though his features weren't quite real. I couldn't make out the color of his eyes, for example, nor could I definitively determine the shape of his nose and chin.

It was enough to make me ill.

Crimson glanced at me and smiled, straightening. "Good, you're awake. Excellent timing. I'm nearly ready to begin."

I jostled both of my arms to test the straps that held them to the wooden chair. Both the wood and the straps were too strong for me. Same with the straps around my legs. I couldn't turn my head or even move it, since it was held in place as well.

Okay. Think, Ward.

"You don't have to do this." Even as I spoke, I knew my words were wasted on him, but he paused in his actions to regard me.

"Have to?" He tilted his head back and forth. "Yes and no. To have full mastery of these powers, yes, I have to. But one could argue that the partial mastery I have now is sufficient. That one would not be me, however."

No, it wouldn't. Now that he'd realized this job was only partly complete, he wasn't one to leave it unfinished. I might not have known about his villain tendencies while we were together, but his thoroughness in everything he did was always obvious.

"There's nothing left of the powers in me. The last time I tried to use them, I gave myself a stroke."

"A prognosis given to you by a doctor who is not nearly as studied as I am in this field." Crimson shook his head. "You may not be able to access what's left of your abilities, but they're there."

"How can you be so sure?"

He looked at me like I was stupid. "Because I can't do everything you could when you were at your prime. Think of it this way: your powers were a range, from small and precise—such as lighting a candle—to large and intense—harnessing your power over molecules to fly. When I acquired your powers, I got the middle of the range."

"The bolts."

"Exactly. The precision of lighting a small flame is something I don't have, nor can I fly. Therefore, I can only conclude that I missed some elements with the previous version of my machine. It also explains why you can't access your powers now—they're disconnected with the bulk of your abilities missing."

It sounded more like hocus pocus than science to me. I hadn't been able to do the precise lighting or the flying at first either—those had been things I'd learned through practice. But the important thing was that he was talking and not yet activating his device.

"Why not steal from Hallie, then?" I hated to ask, but it wasn't like he didn't already know she had the same powers as I did. He'd known enough to find her, for god's sake.

"And risk overloading myself? I think not." He chuckled. "Although there was a small chance that acquiring her powers would have increased my abilities exponentially, there was a much greater chance that it would overwhelm my brain and result in irrevocable damage."

"Too bad you didn't try."

He laughed. "Fighting until the end, as always."

"Do you expect anything different from me?"

He stopped what he was doing, and held my gaze, something like affection in his eyes. "I did enjoy our time together, Ward."

"Fuck you."

He continued as though I hadn't spoken. "You were—are—a good man. If I had been a different sort, I may have given up my ambitions to simply relish your company."

"Fuck you. Sideways. With a cactus."

Chuckling and shaking his head, he turned back to his machine. "I'm nearly ready. I won't ask if you are. Harding, if you will." He gestured for the minion to move behind me, then repositioned the laptop so it sat on the top of the device, its open screen facing me. He hit a button, and images of fire filled the screen. "First, we need to prime your brain to remember creating fire. Watch the screen, Ward."

I didn't want to, but…fire. I hadn't always loved it. I wasn't a pyromaniac from a young age or anything. But once I'd discovered my powers, it had been a constant friend. It protected me, warmed me, lit my way, held me in its embrace as I flew through the sky. I missed it. As much as logically, I knew I shouldn't watch the screen, I couldn't help but revel in the images. Fire wasn't sentient, even though, sometimes, it had felt like it to me. I wondered if there was something in it that missed me too?

Crimson watched a small readout on his machine, nodding. "Excellent," he murmured. "Keep your eyes on the screen."

With every impotent flicker on the laptop, I remembered how it felt to wield my abilities. How my fingers grew warm, but never hot, and tingled right before a tiny flame erupted in the palm of my hand. How my hair had literally stood on end just before my body was enveloped in flame, and I leaped into the sky. My eyes burned with tears I couldn't shed.

"Well, this is progressing much faster than I anticipated." Crimson sounded joyous in this revelation.

If I'd been able to, I would have turned my head, closed my eyes. But I couldn't. And all I could see was the friend I'd made and lost so many years ago. The friend I'd wanted to be reunited with more than anything.

"Yes, good." Crimson tugged a strange helmet onto his head that reminded me of the Epcot Center, with wires connecting it to the machine, and sat across from me. "All right, Ward. This is going to hurt, rather significantly, I'm afraid. But you remember that."

He smiled and pressed a button.