I bunch up the sheets in my fist. My mother said never to tell anyone, but I don’t want to keep doing this—to keep doing everything—alone.
Still, I can’t quite meet his eyes when I say, “My mother was the Legendary Flame.”
CHAPTER 19
Jasper thinks he’s so smart, but the shocked expression on his face says even someone as smart as him did not see my announcement coming. I sit back on my heels to give him some space as he processes what I’ve said.
“The Legendary Flame,” he says.
“Yes.”
“Was your mother?”
“Yes.”
He frowns. “Like... she gave birth to you?”
“I didn’t hatch, Jasper.” I cross my arms defensively over my body. There are some things I want to talk about with regards to my mother and some things that don’t need to be discussed ever. Gory birthday details fall into the second category.
“No,” he says quickly, holding out an apologetic hand. “I didn’t mean it like that. But aren’t superheroes supposed to, like, adopt orphans who have no idea who their parents are and mold them into the superheroes of the future?”
I tug on my earlobe. “You’ve got half of that right. But we look too much alike for me to have not been biological.”
Jasper’s gaze drifts up to the ceiling. “The Legendary Flame was your mother,” he says, with something like wonder. “So, what does that make you? The Abominable Snow?—”
“Don’t say it.” I jab a finger at him.
His grin turns playful. “But I was only?—”
“Jasper. There’s every chance we won’t get out of the loop. If you want any hope in hell of getting laid during our time here, especially if you want it to be a repeat occurrence, you would do best to keep that name to yourself.” I poke his chest and he grabs hold of my wrist, tugging me forward until I fall against him. He holds me close, and I don’t fight him, letting the warmth of his body seep under my skin. It’s nice here. I could learn to like it here.
“The Legendary Flame,” he says again. “That’s wild. So, you’re a superhero?”
I shrug. “Subpar hero. I failed super puberty or something. Until now.” I’m trailing my fingers up and down his arm and as I inhale, the heat of his skin leaches into my fingertips, making the hairs on his forearm stand on end. He shivers, and I pull my hand away.
“Like right now?”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, Jasper. This very moment. I was so wowed by your magic sex powers that suddenly I can suck the heat out of the room.”
His laughter makes me shake against him, but I don’t sit up. The vibration is soothing. Fucking would be better, but this is pretty good too.
“Magic sex powers? You know what I mean,” he says, voice a rumble beneath my ear. He runs a hand over my back and I want to purr like a cat, though animal noises are still Clarissa’s field of expertise, not mine. “When did you learn to do that?”
“When you died.” The words are hard to get out. Slowly, I tell him about the scene in the penthouse. He remembers parts ofit, but what with the bullet in his chest, he missed out on some of the important things, like me turning the whole place into a freezer.
“Entropy versus enthalpy,” he says, nodding like it makes perfect sense.
“What?”
“You said you focused on the man holding you down. Basically sucked the life out of him.”
“I’m a superhero, not a vampire.” I squirm, trying to sit up, but he holds me tight. We don’t fight anymore. That’s what we said. Also, the termsuperheroon my tongue feels weird. I’ve never felt like my abilities—or inabilities, really—were something to be proud of, but Jasper’s heart pumps an excited rhythm in his chest and mine beats in time.
“Flame, like your mom, is energy outward. It creates heat. Entropy. What you’re describing is enthalpy. You don’t release energy, you take it in. Consume it to power something else.”
My instinct is to snap that I understand the difference between entropy and enthalpy. That it’s the foundation of the Ziro Machine’s technology. I know the terms, but I’d never thought about superpowers in that way. Flame, frost, speed, strength. They are their own discrete things. The tie to physics suddenly seems so obvious. It’s what I’ve studied for years. But I never saw it like that before. Maybe because I was too busy thinking about my lack of power. I swallow my reflexive words down and take a moment to consider what he’s saying in the context of myself and what it means. Maybe I’m not broken. Maybe I haven’t been a failure all this time. We never understood how my powers were supposed to work.
The mood thoroughly deflated, Jasper and I lie like that for a while. Legs tangled together. My cheek on his chest. His fingers trace small circles on my skin. It would be easy to let the heatfade completely. We might even fall asleep and I’d probably enjoy that too, but I still want him.
