"You have pyrokinesis?"
I looked down at my bare hands that laid on my lap. "Yeah."
"Then why... why didn't you ever use it against me?" Aspen asked.
"I can't control it," I whispered, more to myself than to him.
There was a slight pause on his end. "The fire at Haynorr? You killed those people?"
"I said I can't control it, Aspen," I cried, finally looking up at him.
Ever since he got back to his senses, he had been pacing the length of the room and texting people. He now stood leaning against a wall, his hands folded over his chest as he interrogated me. "If you could control it, Ridge, would you still have killed them?"
I gritted my teeth. "Yes."
Aspen let out a sigh and rubbed his forehead. "You've got to help me here, Ridge! You've got to convince me that not handing you over to the cops was the right decision –"
"Well, it wasn't," I sneered. I got to my feet and stood facing him. "I'm a bad guy, alright? Ridge and Gravel are very different people. It would do well if you just got it."
I expected a scoff-like reaction. Instead, he pushed off the wall and walked up to me, so close it killed me.
"But I don't get it," he whispered. He reached out with a gloved hand to hold me. "The Ridge I know is so much more than just killing and stealing."
I looked away and meant to step back but he held me in place with both his hands on either side of my face.
"Hey," he said, forcing me to look at him. "Like it or not, I'm not giving up on you. It's your fault, too. You should've thought twice before coming to flirt with me that night at the party."
I pursed my lips at him. "You can't hold that against me. I barely remember it."
He chuckled and then leaned in to press his lips against mine. Whatever Gravel persona was left in me vanished immediately and I was reduced to a love-sick mess, kissing him back sloppily because everything about the kiss was so honest, I didn't want it to be perfect. With Linden, it was always perfection - precision, control - but Aspen was smiling against my lips and everything about the kiss was soft and patient and kind.
He was the one who broke away, but I caught him by the collar, my fingers fisting around his rough turquoise costume (Satan, I had always wanted to do that) and pulled him into another kiss. He had almost given into it completely, but suddenly changed his mind and took a step back.
"Not," he said, slightly breathless, "now. I have to go save the city."
"Fuck the city," I said, stepping closer to him.
Aspen smiled and shook his head. "I can't."
"Yes, you can," I insisted. "You don't have to clean up others' messes all the time."
He opened his mouth to say something but froze and closed it again. He stepped back, letting go of me and walked towards the table at the center of the room where a map of the city was glowing. "Tell me about Plant-Boy," he said instead, eyes on the map.
I tried to not let my disappointment show. "What about him?"
"What about him?" he echoed me incredulously. "He's out there wreaking havoc, Ridge. Tell me how I can defeat him." He studied me for a second. "Or not," he added. "I'm going out there anyway, but I'd prefer to know which side you're on."
I gulped down the lump in my throat. "What do you mean? I didn't kill you, did I?"
"It doesn't mean you're on my side," he said, suddenly unable to face me. "I know how much Garnet means to you. I've seen it, even before I knew you. In our fights, you'd make sure she was farthest from any danger. I've seen you go crazy those few times she was arrested, and I saw it today when you were so close to letting her kill you, yet you didn't attack her even once."
"It was you," I muttered. "You saved me earlier today."
He didn't respond to that. "I'm sorry it has to be this way. I really am. I want to trust you, but I honestly can't when I don't even know what's going on here. Garnet used to follow Gravel's every word but now, suddenly, she breaks into Haynorr all on her own, then comes back to carry out massive city-wide attacks with a new ally. With Wurzel too, no less."
I froze on hearing the name, Linden's alias. It had been a while since I last heard it. It was not a name that was taken lightly. Wurzel was him marking the world of his presence, of reminding them all that he was capable of. After he vanished, the name did, too.
"How do you know him?" I asked. It was almost a year ago that he had vanished, a few months before Super Storm made his grand appearance in the city. Wurzel was an infamous name amongst Supers so it was possible for Aspen to have heard of him, but it was still strange to hear that name being said with recognition.
"He's been on and off my radar for a while now."
"What?" I didn't mean for it to come off as surprising as it did. "Lin was in the city?"
"Not in the city," he said, eyeing me curiously which did not make me feel any good. "But he's been working with Horwitz for a while now."
"Horwitz?"
Aspen smiled and with a start, I realized how it was exactly similar to Super Storm's smirk - the one I used to gush about all the time. It made me feel stupid. How had I not realised it before?
"Not a team player, are you?" he said. "I admit there were times I suspected you to be working with them. That would've explained where they were getting the money from. And the weapons."
I looked at him, eyes saying things I didn't want to.
"You were working with them," he sighed.
"For, not with," I hissed.
Aspen said nothing and waited for me to continue. I walked over to the fridge and pulled out a fucking diet soda because that was all it had. I poured it in a glass, threw in a few ice cubes, and sat down on the couch.
"There was a fire," I told the drink in my hands. "We were there, the three of us. Garnet was hurt and I - I was a..." I thought about an appropriate word and settled on, "a mess."
Glimpses of orange and green flashed in my mind and I gulped down the drink, eyes squeezing shut. "Linden was there, we were... arguing. He wouldn't listen to me, he never fucking did. The - the building collapsed on top of us."
Aspen waited for a moment as if to let the words sink in. "But you have pyrokinesis."
I wanted to tell him that was exactly how the building caught fire in the first place, but didn't. "I can burn, not save."
"What happened then?"
"We thought he was dead. We mourned for him, had a funeral for him." I was beginning to hate diet soda! "Then I got a call from... from Horwitz - only, I didn't know what they were called. They had him. They had our Linden. They asked me to do their bidding if they were to free him." In other words, kill Super Storm and gather money and weapons for them in the meantime. I kept that information to myself.
"But Garnet did not know about Wurzel being held captive?"
I shook my head.
"That's why she broke into Haynorr? Thinking he'd be there?"
I nodded. Aspen walked over to where I was seated and sat down next to me, a reasonable distance between us. He then reached out to grab the drink from my hands and gulped it down in one go.
"What I don't understand is," he began slowly, "why you didn't go after Horwitz, to rescue him. He is the 'love' you were telling me about, isn't he? The one you said you couldn't save? You can fool the world but I know what you're capable of... Gravel." I looked up at him when he said that and he held my gaze. "Why didn't you go save him?"
There it was, the dreaded question. The one I had been asking myself, yet avoiding for so long.
I told him the same thing I told myself every day I saw Roux mourn for Linden. "Just because I loved him didn't make him any less of a monster," I whispered. "And he is a monster, Aspen. He didn't deserve to be saved."
Aspen sighed and gave me a sad smile. "But Ridge... was that decision really yours to make?"
..
Eeeeek, views, people, views?!
Next chapter will be updated soon, I promise lol. I'm very very excited!!!