Chapter 3: TRIAL BY FIRE
The warehouse district looked like the skeleton of something that used to matter.
Rusted chain-link fences surrounded lots full of weeds and broken concrete. Graffiti covered every vertical surface—gang tags mostly, territorial markings in colors that had faded to ghosts. A few buildings still stood, their windows punched out and their doors hanging crooked on broken hinges.
I parked the Camaro behind a dumpster that hadn't been emptied in years and picked my way through the debris until I found something useful: a concrete loading dock behind what used to be a machine shop. High walls on three sides. No windows looking down. Just me and the pigeons and whatever was living inside my hands.
The concrete was warm from the sun. I sat down on the edge of the dock, legs dangling, and held up my palm.
"Alright," I said to no one. "Let's see what you've got."
Nothing happened.
I stared at my hand. Concentrated. Tried to remember the feeling from this morning—the panic, the heat building in my chest, the sudden eruption of flame that had scorched my bedsheets. My palm stayed stubbornly flesh-colored, completely ordinary, mocking me with its normalcy.
"Come on."
Still nothing.
I closed my eyes. Reached for that feeling again. The terror of waking up wrong. The disorientation of seeing a stranger in the mirror. The specific flavor of fear that came with realizing everything you knew was gone, replaced by something impossible.
Heat stirred in my chest. Low, like embers buried under ash.
I pushed at it mentally. Tried to guide it outward, down my arm, into my hand. For a moment, nothing—then a flicker. Warmth spreading through my palm. And finally, flame.
Small. Orange. Maybe three inches tall, dancing like a birthday candle caught in a draft. It lived on my skin without burning, casting flickering shadows on the concrete around me.
I held my breath. Afraid to move. Afraid the slightest distraction would snuff it out.
Thirty seconds. Forty. The flame wavered when my concentration slipped but didn't die. At fifty-two seconds, a pigeon landed on the wall behind me and I flinched. The fire went out instantly, leaving nothing but the memory of warmth.
"Okay." I examined my palm. No burns. No redness. Not even residual heat—just normal skin, slightly sweaty from tension. "That's something."
I tried again. Easier this time, now that I knew what to look for. The fire came from somewhere deep, below the sternum, connected to whatever passed for a soul in this borrowed body. Emotion seemed to help—fear, anger, any strong feeling that got the blood pumping. But once it started, I could maintain it with pure focus.
This time I pushed harder. The flame grew—six inches, eight, a proper torch instead of a candle. Actual heat radiated outward now, warming my face, making the air shimmer. But my hand stayed cool. The fire danced on my skin like it was supposed to be there.
I swept my arm in an arc, trying to throw the flame. Nothing happened. The fire stretched but didn't detach, clinging to my hand like it was rooted there. When I stopped moving, it snapped back to its original position.
"Contact only," I muttered. "Can't project it. Not yet, anyway."
The memories from the show surfaced: Billy hadn't been a pyrokinetic in canon. He'd been a normal teenager, angry and damaged, who got possessed by the Mind Flayer and died fighting it. Whatever had given me these powers, it wasn't part of the original story.
Something new. Something mine.
I tried variations. Flame in the left hand—easier than expected, the fire jumping over like it was happy to spread. Both hands at once—harder, requiring split concentration, but possible. I held twin flames for almost a minute before exhaustion started creeping in.
Then I got ambitious.
I reached deep. Pulled at whatever reservoir powered this ability. Pushed everything I had into my right palm.
The flame roared up. Bright orange transitioning to yellow at the edges, nearly a foot tall, heat rolling off it in waves that made my eyes water. For three seconds, I felt powerful. Invincible. Like I could burn the whole world down if I wanted to.
Then my vision went white.
The concrete rushed up to meet me. I caught myself on hands and knees, fire extinguished, head pounding like the worst hangover of my life. My stomach cramped so hard I dry-heaved, bile burning my throat.
Hunger. Not normal hunger—the kind where your cells are screaming for fuel, where your body starts eating itself because there's nothing else left. My hands shook. My legs felt like wet paper. Sweat soaked through Billy's shirt despite the morning chill.
"Jesus Christ." I sat back on my heels, breathing hard, trying not to pass out. "That's the price. Calories."
It made a sick kind of sense. Fire needed fuel to burn. If I was generating it from nothing—from my own body's energy reserves—then the fuel had to come from somewhere. And I'd just emptied the tank in about ten seconds of showing off.
I needed food. Immediately.
Getting to the Camaro took three times longer than it should have. My legs wobbled. The world kept tilting at odd angles. I had to stop twice to lean against walls and convince myself I wasn't going to collapse.
The nearest food was a burger joint three blocks away—I'd passed it on the way. Mel's Burgers, according to the flickering neon sign. Classic fifties diner aesthetic, probably unchanged since Eisenhower.
I stumbled through the door. The interior was all chrome and red vinyl, half-empty at this hour, smelling like grease and coffee. A jukebox in the corner played something by Elvis.
The cashier—pimply kid about my apparent age, probably working summer before senior year—looked up from his comic book. His eyes widened slightly at whatever he saw in my face.
"You okay, man?"
"Four burgers." My voice came out rough. "Large fries. Milkshake. Coke."
"Four burgers?"
"Did I stutter?"
He rang it up without further comment. Eleven dollars and change. I handed over the cash from Billy's wallet, watching my funds drop to almost nothing.
The wait was agony. Every second stretched into hours while my stomach tried to digest itself. When the food finally came—paper bag heavy with grease, milkshake sweating in its cup—I barely made it to a booth before tearing in.
The first burger vanished in maybe six bites. I didn't taste it, didn't care, just shoved it down as fast as my body would accept. The second went almost as fast. By the third, the desperate edge was fading, replaced by something closer to normal hunger.
I forced myself to slow down for the fourth. Actually chewed. Tasted beef and cheese and special sauce, felt the texture of the bun, experienced eating as something other than emergency refueling.
The fries were good. Salty, crispy, exactly what I needed. The milkshake was chocolate, thick enough to stand a spoon in. The Coke washed everything down in a fizzy rush of sugar and caffeine.
When I finished, I sat back in the booth and just breathed. The shaking had stopped. My vision was clear. The hollow ache in my gut had faded to a manageable background hum.
The cashier was staring at me from behind the counter, comic book forgotten.
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing, man." He looked away quickly. "Just... you really put that away."
"Growing boy."
I left before he could ask more questions. Back to the warehouse district, back to the loading dock, back to figuring out what I could do without killing myself in the process.
This time I was smarter about it. Small flames, sustainable output. Palm ignition, hold for one minute, release. Rest for thirty seconds. Repeat. I tracked the energy expenditure mentally, noting how the hunger built with each use, learning the ratio between effort and cost.
By noon, I had a basic understanding:
One: Fire generation was tied to emotional state and concentration. Fear and anger made it easier to ignite; calm focus made it easier to control. The ideal was probably somewhere in between—enough emotion to fuel the flames, enough control to direct them.
Two: Flames could only exist on my body. Contact only, no projection. I could coat my hands, my forearms, probably more if I pushed it—but I couldn't throw fire or create it at a distance. Not yet.
Three: Heat immunity was real and apparently complete. I'd held my hand in flames for extended periods without any damage. The fire that would burn anyone else alive just... lived on my skin, harmless as sunlight.
Four: The caloric cost was severe. Big flames burned through energy fast. Sustained use built up a debt that had to be paid immediately. If I pushed too hard without fuel reserves, I'd collapse. Maybe worse.
The power had a logic to it. Rules and limitations that made sense if you thought about them. It wasn't magic—it was biology pushed past normal limits. My body was generating heat through some process I didn't understand, and like any engine, it needed fuel to run.
I sat on the loading dock as the afternoon shadows lengthened, legs dangling over the edge, watching my hands. They looked normal. Felt normal, mostly—maybe a little warmer than they should be, a baseline elevation that hadn't faded since this morning.
But when I focused, when I reached for that reservoir of heat below my sternum, fire answered. Orange flame dancing on my palm, obedient to my will, waiting to be used.
A weapon. A tool. A second chance.
The Camaro's radio had played Van Halen on the drive here. "Panama," with its keyboard hooks and ridiculous energy. I'd drummed the steering wheel without thinking, same as I would have in my old life. Same as the original Billy probably had, though for different reasons.
Music was a bridge. A connection between who I'd been and who I was becoming. The specifics might have changed—different body, different world, different rules—but some things stayed constant.
I liked eighties metal. I liked driving fast. I liked having power over my own existence.
And right now, for the first time in longer than I could remember, I had all three.
My stomach growled. The hunger was back, not desperate but present. A reminder that every spark cost something, that power wasn't free, that this body needed fuel to function.
Tomorrow I'd push further. Find the boundaries. Figure out how to project flame instead of just generating it. But that would require more food, which required money, which required going to work at Hector Martinez's garage like a normal teenager with a normal life.
I stood up, brushing concrete dust off Billy's jeans. The sun had passed its peak, heading toward afternoon. Neil would expect me home eventually. Susan would have dinner ready. Max would be watching for signs of the monster she thought she knew.
They were all going to have to adjust their expectations.
I walked back to the Camaro, slid behind the wheel, let the engine growl to life. The drive home was longer than necessary—I took back roads, avoiding traffic, enjoying the simple pleasure of speed and control.
The house came into view eventually. Same cracked driveway. Same yellowed lawn. Same prison dressed up as a home.
I parked. Killed the engine. Sat in the cooling leather and flexed my fingers.
No flame appeared. But the heat was there, waiting. A pilot light that never went out. A promise of things to come.
I had fire. I had knowledge of the future. I had a body built for violence and a mind that remembered dying.
Whatever had dragged me out of that wreck and dropped me here, I was starting to think it wasn't punishment. It was a second chance.
And I was going to make it count.
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