Cold Fire

But she could not sit still and control her temper at the same time. She needed to work off some of the energy of anger that was overcharging her batteries. She pushed her chair back, got up, and paced as she responded to him: "No, that's exactly what I don 't want to be. I don't want to be your chronicler, intrepid girl reporter. I'm sick of journalism." Succinctly, she told him why. "I don't want to be your swooning admirer, either, or that well-meaning but bumbling gal who gets herself in trouble all the time and has to rely on you to save her from the evil clutches of Lex Luthor.

Something amazing is happening here, and I want to be part of it.

It's also dangerous, yeah, but I still want to be a part of it, because what you're doing is so. so meaningful. I want to contribute any way I can, do something more worthwhile with my life than I've done so far.”

"Do-gooders are usually so full of themselves, so unconsciously arrogant, they do more damage than good," he said.

"I'm not a do-gooder. That's not how I see myself I'm not at all interested in being praised for my generosity and self sacrifice. I don't need to feel morally superior. Just useful. " "The world is full of do-gooders," he said, refusing to relent. "If I needed an assistant, which I don't, why would I choose you over all the other do-gooders out there?" He was an impossible man. She wanted to smack him.

Instead she kept moving back and forth as she said, "Yesterday, when I crawled back into the plane for that little boy, for Norby, I just.

well, I amazed myself I didn't know I had anything like that in me. I wasn't brave, I was scared to death the whole time, but I got him out of there, and I never felt better about myself" "You like the way people look at you when they know you're a hero," he said flatly.

She shook her head. "No, that's not it. Aside from one rescue worker no one knew I'd pulled Norby out of there. I liked the way I looked at me after I'd done it, that's all.”

"So you're hooked on risk, heroism, you're a courage junkie.”

Now she wanted to smack him twice. In the face. Crack, crack. Hard enough to set his eyes spinning. It would make her feel so good.

She restrained herself "Okay, fine, if that's the way you want to see it, then I'm a courage junkie.”

He did not apologize. He just stared at her.

She said, "But that's better than inhaling a pound of cocaine up my nose every day, don't you think?" He did not respond.

Getting desperate but trying not to show it, Holly said, "When it was all over yesterday, after I handed Norby to that rescue worker, you know what I felt? More than anything else? Not elation at saving him-that too, but not mainly that. And not pride or the thrill of defeating death myself Mostly I felt rage It surprised me, even scared me. I was so furious that a little boy almost died, that his uncle had died beside him, that he'd been trapped under those seats with corpses, that all of his innocence had been blown away and that he couldn't ever again just enjoy life the way a kid ought to be able to. I wanted to punch somebody, wanted to make somebody apologize to him for what he'd been through. But fate isn't a sleazeball in a cheap suit, you can't put the arm on fate and make it say it's sorry, all you can do is stew in your anger.”

Her voice was not rising, but it was increasingly intense. She paced faster, more agitatedly. She was getting passionate instead of angry, which was even more certain to reveal the degree of her desperation. But she couldn't stop herself: "Just stew in anger.

Unless you're Jim Ironheart. You can do something about it, make a difference in a way nobody ever made a difference before.

And now that I know about you, I can't just get on with my life, can't just shrug my shoulders and walk away, because you've given me a chance to find a strength in myself I didn't know I had, you've given me hope when I didn't even realize I was longing for it, you've shown me a way to satisfy a need that, until yesterday, I didn't even know I had, a need to fight back, to spit in Death's face. Damn it, you can't just close the door now and let me standing out in the cold!" He stared at her.

Congratulations, Thorne, she told herself scornfully. You were a monument to composure and restraint, a towering example of self control.

He just stared at her.

She had met his cool demeanor with heat, had answered his highly effective silences with an ever greater cascade of words. One chance, that was all she'd had, and she'd blown it.

Miserable, suddenly drained of energy instead of overflowing with it, she sat down again. She propped her elbows on the table and put her face in her hands, not sure if she was going to cry or scream. She didn't do either.

She just sighed wearily.

"Want a beer?" he asked.

"God, yes.”