Scarlet flame in: the wrath of nv

Chapter 1 - Prologue

HEUSMONDE, QUEBEC

Maman had warned her not to go down 43rd Street, but Natalie Lafayette was a stubborn girl, and a brave one, and as hungry for adventure as she was for all the sweets and treats, pastries and tarts and delights that were forbidden in the house--though the restriction was useless to control the resourceful girl. Really, if her mother didn't want her eating candy, she shouldn't have left her alone to play outside, where one might easily find a dollar on the sidewalk to place on a shopkeeper's counter on tiptoe, when it even took a dollar. For a six-year-old, Natalie was outstandingly outgoing. She had no reservations about walking up in her gingham dress and braids and striking up a conversation with a random vendor, and nine times out of ten, all it took was for her to help them shine their shop windows or chase the birds off their patio before they hooked her up with a freebie.

She was on her daily mission to procure yet another morsel of sweet, sweet contraband, skipping along the street she'd been warned not to tread, when a scream alerted her from an alleyway. Lacking any sort of flight instinct, she poked her head between the buildings to investigate.

There, against the wall, two older boys held a struggling little girl about Natalie's own age against the bricks. Small, blonde, the picture of vulnerability, she met Natalie's eyes briefly before her assailant redoubled his efforts to hurt her. "Teach you to show up on our block! Fucking French bitch," one of them sneered at her before kneeing her in the stomach. The girl collapsed, cried out and pleaded in French for them to stop, but they had no mercy.

As the other boy moved in to take a swing, Natalie threw herself into the alleyway. "Leave her alone!" she screamed in French, launching herself against him, only to collide with his sturdy lower half and bounce off, landing on her butt in the snow.

"What's this?" the boy turned around and rolled his eyes. "Ah, just another stupid French girl."

"Hey, look at this!" His buddy hoisted the blonde, kicking and screaming, over his shoulder and tossed her into the dumpster. Cackling, he lit a match from the book in his pocket and tossed it over his shoulder.

In seconds, the whole trash heap had caught fire. There was just screaming and screaming.

At last, the gravity of the situation hit Natalie. To use a favorite phrase of Maman's: Ostie et Tabernak.

See also: merde, merde, mille merdes.

The taller of the two boys rounded on her. "Wanna throw her in too?"

"Like we could lift her. Fucking ball of lard."

"But she could talk."

"She won't."

The flick of a folding knife.

The bricks against her back. The edge of cool metal against her throat.

"You listen here, girl, and you listen good. You say anything, to anyone, and we will find you. And when we do, we'll cut you to pieces and spill all that blubber down the storm drain. Got it?"

Breathless, she nodded.

Release. Disorientation. The burning in her legs and lungs as she sprinted home, adrenaline her guide, fear the prod behind her.

She didn't speak for three days after that, but Maman never bothered her. If anything, she seemed relieved by Natalie's sudden docility. Then, finally, at the breakfast table, Natalie confessed in spontaneous tears what she'd seen.

Maman got up and squeezed her shoulder. "Mon petit chou...I'm so sorry. This is the way the world works. And in this world, you need to know how to survive. You have to learn to be either pretty or clever. For you? Let's go with clever. You can start by observing. Learn your ins and learn when to retreat. Be sweet, I know you know how to do that...but watch your back. And above all...know when to keep your head down and your mouth shut."

SIX YEARS LATER - CASON DU WANDEAUX, WASHINGTON

Here in America, things would be different. Maman had promised. That's not to say that nobody cared what your last name was or what language you spoke or what you had in your pants. But, hypothetically speaking, there were laws in place that protected a person from senseless violence on account of who they were and where they came from.

Unfortunately, though, there was still one class for which there existed no protection.

"Give it back!" Natalie cried, reaching skyward for her math textbook as one of the eighth grade bullies held it out of her reach. "I need that!"

"You're gonna have to jump for it, Fattalie!"

"Stop it!"

"Make me!"

The older boy shoved her to the ground. She landed on her hands and knees and he tossed the book at her with great force, narrowly missing her head.

Grasping her book, she struggled to her feet and scuttled around a corner, practically pressed to the wall. Head down. Mouth shut. Shrinking into herself, hoping to make herself as unnoticable as possible, she slipped into the bathroom to relieve herself of the burden of the oncoming tears.

After school, she walked home alone.

She walked home every day, and yet, she never got any smaller.

Maman was out--no doubt drinking on some stranger's dime, 'socializing', pretending she was still a relevant supermodel. Free and unsupervised, Natalie parked herself on the couch and tuned the TV to her favorite program.

No matter how awful her day had been, there wasn't a problem Natalie couldn't fix with a little women's wrestling. Watching the girls throw each other around the ring in their elaborate costumes awed her--more than that, it transported her to another world, where one day, with enough grit and determination, she would kick ass and take names with just as much glamor.

SIX MORE YEARS AFTER THAT

She'd finally done it. It had been an arduous summer of long runs under the overbearing sun, endless crunches and jumping jacks, lunges, squats, and lung-burning, hours-long sessions on the stationary bike, but she'd done it. It had taken her an agonizing amount of self-control to limit her intake to one can of condensed soup per day, interspaced over the course of three meals--or to punish herself for the occasional return to her sugar addiction with yet more exercise or, once in a while, two fingers down her throat before a porcelain throne--but she'd done it.

Her first week back to school after the summer was spent reintroducing herself to classmates who found her unrecognizable now that she'd whittled herself down to a svelte 108 pounds. The same people who'd either outcasted her or ridiculed her were now amazed by how quickly she'd managed to halve herself.

It was Friday morning when Martin Price approached her in the courtyard. Broad, blond, captain of the football team, he was the object of nearly every girl's desire, and here he was, within her grasp. Not that she had any interest in boys, anyway--girls were much prettier, and much nicer-smelling.

"W-wow. Natalie Lafayette! I can't believe it!"

"Well, you're not hallucinating." Or maybe he was. He did smell faintly of pot. "What do you want, Martin?"

"Oh, uh...well, it's just that Michelle's parents will be out of town this weekend, and she was planning on throwing a party."

"Was she, now?" Natalie wouldn't know. The only parties she'd ever been to were the ones Maman was invited to, and she never had any fun at those. Mostly, they entailed sitting around in someone's bedroom, packed in with the children of other fading celebrities while the moms all got high on coke downstairs.

"Anyway, I was kind of hoping you'd be my date."

"But...you hate me." He had tormented her since middle school as a ringleader to the gaggle of bullies who gleefully reveled in stealing her stuff and calling her 'Fattalie'. And now he wanted her to appear on his arm at a party thrown by someone she'd never spoken to?

"I never hated you! You were just...well...you know. But now--now, you're beautiful!"

For some reason, she'd imagined it would be satisfying to have her former antagonists at her sexual mercy. In the moment, though, all she felt was rage on behalf of her old, fat self. What made that girl any less deserving of love--hell, of basic decency--than the 'new' Natalie?

"You know what, Martin?" On the surface, she was uncharacteristically cheerful, smiling, even, speaking with a soft voice, while on absolute fire within. "Guys like you are pathetic. You think that just because you don't want to stick your sad, limp cock into a girl, means you get to treat her like she's lower than dirt. Well, I have news for you: not even 'Fattalie' would have said yes to a date with you, and do you know why? Because you're nothing but a complete waste of carbon. You ought to choke on your own tongue--you'd be doing womankind a favor."

She turned on her heel, expecting some snide retort shouted at her back, but when none came, she glanced behind to see just how badly she had wounded him.

It was bad.

He was standing right where she left him, gagging and turning blue in the face. Seconds ticked by and his struggle worsened. Natalie somehow understood that she was responsible--that his fate was in her hands. But even as it dawned on her how easy it would be for her to reverse the damage, she couldn't bring herself to do it.

He collapsed, drawing the attention of several nearby students. "What's happening to him?" asked a teacher who had rushed over to investigate.

"I don't know," said Natalie. "He was fine one minute, and the next, he just fell over! You have to believe me!"

"Of course I believe you," said the teacher, her expression suddenly glazed. "Who wouldn't?"

Natalie wouldn't believe her luck, if she weren't so thrilled.

She had a superpower. An actual, bona-fide superpower.

And, sacrament, was she going to have fun with it.