“Ember?” a voice echoed, “Ember, can you hear me?” Someone was shining a bright light in her eyes— it was blindingly bright. Em could barely see past it. She groaned. How had she ended up here? The last thing she remembered was….

“Where is that MORON of a Cajun?” she growled, levering herself into a sitting position and shoving the light away from her face.

The nurse—or whoever she was, Em couldn’t really tell. The nurse had long reddish hair, and wore a doctors coat. With a small cry of protest, she grabbed Em’s wrist and tried to pull her back down onto the hard, cold metal table that Em had been lain on. As far as she could tell, she was in some sort of hospital. She sighed. Caught at last—well, it couldn’t have lasted forever. People were bound to find out about her sooner or later. She gazed at the woman. “Where am I?” she asked.

Flames erupted around Em, hissing and twisting as though they were alive. “I don’t know who you are,” Em hissed, “But if you even think about touching me, I won’t hesitate to burn you.” The nurse-lady backed off. Her hands were shaking. Em smiled apologetically, running a hand through her wavy scarlet locks. “Sorry. I scared you, huh? Well…you kind of deserved it, didn’t you? Experimenting on me hardly makes us BFF’s.”

“BFF’s?” the lady sounded confused, “I wasn’t experimenting on you. I want to help!”

Em laughed. “Oh, sure you are. I’m sure that’s what Hitler said when he commited Genocide.” Suddenly she glanced down at her body. “Why am I in a hospital gown?” Em asked slowly, and then, without giving the nurse a chance to answer, she snapped, “Where are my clothes? Do you know how much those boots cost? Greta will kill me, you know. Literally.”

“Your clothes are fine.” The nurse sighed. “I think you might have a concussion though. Why don’t you sit back down and we can discuss this like civilized-“

“Oh. So that’s what you call yourselves these days? Civilized human beings? Experimenting on other human beings just because we’re different? You’re sick, you know that? Really sick. And now I’m leaving. And I’m stealing your coat.”

Em slipped the doctor’s coat over her nightgown and buttoned it up almost to the neck. “Now,” she said once she finished with that, “This may hurt a little bit, but you’ll be fine.” Em lunged forward, and touched the cheek of the Doctor/woman. It was simple to overheat her body, causing her to collapse. She would be fine. Em had done it enough times to know what she was doing.

It was a simple matter to melt the lock off of the door and shove it open. The hall behind it was cold, and metal, lit by those eco-friendly lights and as pristine as….well, as if an OCD freak had gone over every square inch of it forty times over with a toothbrush.

Em raced down the hallway, feeling her pedicured feet jar with every step. Oh, she ached! At the end of the hall, Em turned right, down another, slightly smaller corridor. A person was walking down it, towards her. Em veered towards him, ramming into his chest and shoving him into the wall, holding him there. “How do I get out of this place?” she hissed threateningly. The man was around thirty five, she guessed, with really weird looking hair—it had been comed down in the middle, and the two sides stuck up like ears on a horned owl. He wore a biker jacket, jeans, hiking boots and a plaid shirt.

“I think you’d better let me go,” the man growled.

“Not until you tell me how I get out!”

The man grinned, and twisted out from under her grip—this was unexpected. Hardly anyone could do that.

And then something really unexpected happened. “If you would just calm down enough, we would tell you that we’re like you!” The man hissed, clenching his fists. There was a slight *snick* sound, and foot-long blades slid out of his hands.

Em screamed, and without thinking about it, flames erupted from her hands, enveloping the knife-man with the strange hair.

Somewhere distant, she could hear a voice calling her, telling her to stop. “Cherie!” someone was shouting in her ear, “Listen to me, Ember! You must stop!”

One steaming tear rolled down her cheek, and she clenched her fists together. The fire was so hard to control—sometimes it hurt to hold it in. This was one of those times, where she wanted to hit something hard and painful.

That is what she did. Em whirled, and punched the Cajun—it had been him yelling at her to stop—square in the jaw.

The man with the knife-hands laughed loudly behind her. Strangely, it seemed that he was undamaged by the flames that had, moments before, spilled onto him.

“It’s about time someone gave the Cajun what he deserves!” the man roared.