Flora quickly filled Krystle in on what had happened after Krystle had left: the scientists coming to her family’s house to do the blood tests, and then her being sent off to live with the Wilkinsons. Their attempts to push her into marrying Loren Haig. And then what she’d overheard between Loren and the man from TerraDyne.
“Did your family even try to stay in touch with you after you left?”
“For a couple of years I’d get cards at Christmas, and then even that stopped,” Flora said. “When I was nineteen years old, I ran away from the Wilkinsons’ farm and headed back to my family’s house. Only they weren’t living in a mobile home anymore – they were living in a huge McMansion and there were half a dozen fancy cars in the roundabout out front. I thought, oh, thank God, somehow they got money and now I can come home. But they looked totally horrified to see me. They told me I couldn’t stay, and they called up the Wilkinsons right away. The Wilkinsons came and got me, and that was when they really started stepping up their campaign to get me to marry that Loren guy.”
Krystle shook her head in disgust. “So your parents got some kind of payoff to ship you off to stay with those weird people in the middle of nowhere. And the TerraDyne people were obviously paying the Wilkinsons a fortune to keep you hidden away.”
“Not only that. If they thought they could get away with it, then somewhere out there, they’ve got a council member on their payroll,” Flora said. “And if they have a council member on their payroll, they’ll know that I came to the Badlands. That will be on record in the council’s database.”
“They won’t know where in the Badlands you are, though,” Krystle said. “The second you drive over the border, you cease to exist as far as they’re concerned.”
“I’m worried that they might come after you too, though. Have you started any fires since you’ve been here?” Flora asked. “Anything that could tip them off to your powers?”
Krystle glanced around to make sure no one was listening.
“Not a single one,” she said. “I don’t think I even have powers anymore.”
“I don’t understand. I’ve never heard of someone developing powers and then losing them.”
“They were always kind of random, even when I had them,” Krystle said. “Sometimes if I was scared, the powers would crop up. Sometimes they wouldn’t. I got in fights in school a lot, and it never happened.”
“So how many times exactly did it happen?”
“Let’s see. One time I was with my mom and some guy tried to mug us. His coat and his hair caught on fire. A couple of times it happened when my dad was beating up on my mom. The second time it happened, my dad’s fur caught on fire, and he ran out of the house and never came back. After that day in the field, though, it never happened again – and I’ve tried, believe me. There’s plenty of dirtbags around here who’d make a better barbecue than a person. Oh, stop,” she added at Flora’s scandalized look. “You know it’s true.”
“I still don’t understand why the scientists think I’m a Firestarter,” Flora said. “I don’t care what those blood tests showed. My brothers beat me up plenty when I was a kid, and nobody ever caught on fire.”
“You say that so casually,” Krystle said with dismay. “Nobody should ever get used to being treated like that. I don’t understand how you grew up to be such a decent person.”
“Well, I looked at how my family treated each other and everyone else, and I made it my mission to do the exact opposite.”
“I’d like to go back and give them a retroactive ass-whipping,” Krystle growled.
“Is that really a thing?” Flora wondered.
“I’ll make it a thing. Your family did you a favor sending you away. God, we come from some fucked-up people, don’t we?”
“Language,” Flora said primly.
