Chapter 18: QUARRY FIRE
The quarry was mine now. Mine by right of discovery, mine by necessity, mine by the simple fact that no one else seemed to know it existed.
Three days since arriving in Hawkins. Three days of unpacking, exploring, establishing the rhythms of a new life. School started next week. Basketball tryouts the week after. Until then, my evenings belonged to training.
The rock walls made excellent targets. I'd started marking them with spray paint—circles of different sizes at different distances, training aids for projection accuracy. The scorch marks from my practice sessions were accumulating, dark patches against the grey stone that would be invisible to anyone who didn't know to look.
Three-meter projection was consistent now. I could hit a dinner-plate-sized target nine times out of ten, could hold the flame for five seconds before the connection broke. Progress.
Tonight I was pushing for more.
Four meters. That was the goal. Extend the reach, push past the plateau I'd been stuck on since California. The fire was ready—I could feel it coiling in my chest, eager to be used. The wrongness in the air gave it something to push against, like resistance training for the soul.
I squared up to my target. Breathed. Centered myself.
Fire bloomed in my palm. I extended my intent outward, feeling the flame stretch toward the distant wall. Three meters. Three and a half. The connection wavered, started to collapse—
I pushed harder. Visualized the flame as an extension of my arm, reaching, reaching—
Contact. Four meters. The stone sizzled where the fire hit.
I held it for two seconds before the connection snapped. The flame died. My arm dropped.
"Yes." The word came out breathless, triumphant. Four meters. I'd finally broken through.
The exhaustion hit immediately—not collapse-level, but significant. My legs wobbled. My stomach clenched. The caloric debt from pushing that hard would need to be paid, and soon.
But it had worked. Four meters. That was Phase 2 territory, solidly within the range the powers document I didn't technically know about would have predicted.
I sat down on a boulder to catch my breath. The quarry walls rose around me, silent witnesses to impossible things. Above, the sky was shifting from blue to gold as evening crept in.
Peaceful. Almost.
The wrongness pulsed in the distance, a reminder that peace was temporary. But here, now, in this moment—I could pretend it wasn't.
My fire senses flared.
Not the wrongness. Something else. Something closer. A heat signature—no, movement. Someone watching from the rim of the quarry.
I spun, killing my flames instantly. The sudden darkness was disorienting after the firelight, but my eyes adjusted quickly.
There. At the top of the slope, silhouetted against the fading sky. A small figure on a bicycle, frozen mid-observation.
A kid.
For a long moment, neither of us moved. I couldn't make out details at this distance—just the general impression of curly hair, maybe a cap, definitely young. One of the Party? A random local? Someone I needed to worry about?
Then the kid bolted.
The bicycle kicked up gravel as it accelerated, disappearing over the rim and down the access road. By the time I scrambled up the slope, there was nothing to see but dust settling in the evening light.
I stood at the quarry's edge, breathing hard, trying to process what had just happened.
Someone had seen me. Someone young, someone local, someone who now knew that the new kid in town could make fire appear from his hands.
The bike tracks were clear in the dirt—distinctive tread pattern, fresh marks leading toward town. I memorized the pattern, filed it away. If I saw that bike again, I'd know.
But that was the problem. Hawkins was full of kids on bikes. The Party practically lived on their bicycles, riding between houses and schools and secret locations. Any one of them could have been the watcher.
Dustin Henderson came to mind first. Curly hair fit. So did the curiosity—that kid stuck his nose into everything, which was both his greatest strength and his most dangerous weakness.
But it could have been Lucas. Mike. Will, if he was feeling well enough to ride. Even some random kid who'd stumbled onto the quarry and gotten more than they bargained for.
Whoever it was, they were carrying information I couldn't afford to have spread around.
I walked back to the Camaro, mind racing through scenarios. Best case: the kid kept quiet, too scared or too confused to tell anyone. Worst case: they went straight to parents, teachers, police, and by tomorrow half of Hawkins would know there was a pyrokinetic teenager in their midst.
The in-between cases were more complicated. If it was one of the Party, they might tell the others. If they told the others, it might eventually reach Hopper. Or Eleven. Or someone at the lab who was still monitoring for unusual activity.
I needed to find out who it was. Needed to assess the threat level, develop a response.
The drive home was tense. Every kid on a bike got scrutinized through the window, every curly head earning a second look. None of them seemed to be my watcher, but I couldn't be sure.
Max was on the porch when I pulled into the driveway, skateboard propped beside her.
"You look stressed," she observed.
"Long day."
"Training stuff?"
I hesitated. She knew about the fire—had known since California, had even helped with practice sessions. But telling her about the watcher meant admitting I'd been careless, that someone had seen me, that our secret might not be secret anymore.
"Something like that," I said. "Someone might have seen me."
Her expression sharpened. "Seen you seen you? Like, fire seen you?"
"Yeah."
"Who?"
"Don't know. A kid on a bike. Ran before I could get close."
Max processed that. Her strategic mind—inherited from years of surviving in hostile environments—was already working through implications. "You need to find them."
"I know."
"Before school starts. Before this becomes a thing."
"I know."
She stood up, grabbed her skateboard. "Then we need to figure out who rides bikes around here. Who uses that quarry. Who knows about it."
"We?"
"You think I'm letting you handle this alone?" She rolled her eyes. "You're terrible at talking to people. I'm better. We do this together."
For a moment, I just looked at her. This wasn't the hostile stepsister who'd barely tolerated my presence two months ago. This was an ally. A partner. Something that felt dangerously close to family.
"Okay," I said. "Together."
She nodded, satisfied. "Good. Now come inside. Susan made pasta and you need to eat before you pass out."
My stomach, right on cue, reminded me that four-meter projections didn't come free. The hunger was building, that familiar gnawing that demanded payment for services rendered.
I followed Max inside. The mystery of the watcher would have to wait until tomorrow.
Tonight, there was pasta. And problems that couldn't be solved on an empty stomach.
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