Elizabeth tried to steady her breathing.

"Calm down" came Scott's voice in her head. "Everything's gonna be alright, Liza, you just need to calm down. Shove the fire down, stomp it out."

So she tried to. She really tried to, but the fire fought back. She wrenched her hand from the window out of instinct, but it didn't help. She had known it wouldn't. There was now a steady stream of red light flowing from her hand. It burned. Both her skin, and the window. Suddenly the glass shattered. Eliza screamed.

The fire grew brighter, and seemed to envelope not only her hand, as it had done for as long as she could remember, but her entire body. All she could see was red.

She continued to scream.

Somewhere, in the back of her mind she registered the hoard of footfalls, and panicked shrieks of the other girls, as they witnessed the fire overcoming her body. But all she could really think about was the pain. It hurt so horribly.

Like every single nerve ending in her body was being assaulted by knives, then deep fried. It was as if the fire was intent on stripping away every inch of her being, until she was no longer Elizabeth Summers, but a hollow shell of charred skin.


When she woke, the red was gone. It had been replaced by the blinding white of a hospital room. She could hear the beep beep beeping of a heart monitor, and the only pain she felt was located in her hands. However, those had been filled with a dull pain since the fire had first come.

She blinked her eyes a few times. She tried to remember what had happened. Something with fire.

uh oh. She realized that it had been the fire. The one that came from her. That wasn't good. Other people couldn't know about the fire. it wasn't safe. Scott had drilled this into her head from the moment her hands had first begun to glow.

And if she was in a hospital, then that meant someone knew about the fire.

She turned her head, searching for clues of how long she had been in the hospital, while thinking of possible escape routes from the building if someone started talking about the fire.

The only thing she found was Scott. He was curled up on a chair next to her bedside, his red glasses askew, and eyes closed, snoring in that odd low rumble that he had had since he was young.

She smiled at the sight. Her big brother looked much younger without the ever present worry lines marring his face. He was only twenty. The thought struck her suddenly. He shouldn't have to worry all the time.

As if her though had summoned them, the lines etched themselves back on his face, as Scotts hand shot up, adjusting his glasses before opening his eyes.

"Liza." he said, quickly, "you're awake." he sighed with what Eliza suspected may have been relief. "Thank god." He rose from the chair and approached her, pulling into his arms, the best that her lying position would allow.

"How long was I asleep for?" Eliza asked. Her voice came out horse, and sounded to her as if it was coming from very far away.

"Two days." her brother replied, scrunching up his eyebrows even tighter. "It was the fire, wasn't it." Eliza understood that that he hadn't meant it as a question.

She nodded morosely, closing her eyes for a moment.

" I tried to stop it, Scott. I tried, really hard, but I couldn't. And the it was everywhere, not just my hands I was so scared, Scott."

She still was, it sent a tremble of fear through her body, knowing that the fire was growing.

Scott's face hardened.

" I know, Liza. But no one is going to hurt you. No one is going to get anywhere near you.

Elizabeth looked up at her older brother. He did this sometimes. Rants about how he would never allow her to be harmed. He got so distant during them, that it occasionally terrified her.

But something in his eyes was different this time. It wasn't the look he normally got when her was so angry at the world that he just couldn't hold it in any longer. No, this was the look that only appeared when Scott Summers was thinking extremely hard about something.

"Liza..." He paused after the word, as if contemplating the next ones extremely carefully. "We're leaving. Tonight. And we're never coming back.


Yeah, its been forever since I updated, but I have a ton of school work right now. Its as if all of my teachers decided that they would give us as many random tests and homework assignments as possible within the last two weeks. I had three tests this morning, and had to do six pages of algebra for homework. but its okay, because the plot gets a lot more interesting soon, and there will probably be a new chapter every day next week, because that's when I go on spring break, and I, the boring person, will be staying inside my house with a laptop all week.