Free Flicker & Burn: A Cold Fury Novel by T.M. Goeglein Page A

“taking” part is the whole transformative point.
    My parents’ favorite scene in the film couldn’t be more different than Lou’s.
    It’s a sappy song that makes them exchange a look as my dad caresses my mom’s lovely long fingers.
    The first time they met, my mom was working as a hand model at Marshall Field’s, an improbable gig if there ever was one, but her natural beauty really did extend to her fingertips. It’s an often-told story in my family—my mom displaying a diamond ring, my dad removing it from her hand, inspecting it, putting back on her finger and asking her to marry him. There are so many little details—what they wore, what they discussed, but the one that stuck with me was the song playing over the tinny department-store sound system. It was a pop tune from 1963 sung in a falsetto that I’d later be surprised to learn was sung by a man, and famously lip-synched by Ferris Bueller on a parade float.
    The song is “Danke Schoen.”
    It means “thank you” in German.
    When the scene appeared, my parents gazed at each other and sang along, while I tried to pretend that their nostalgia fest wasn’t happening on the same couch. I didn’t think much of it when Doug announced that we would be watching the film in Classic Movie Club. But first came Abe Froman and then “Danke Schoen,” and I was overcome by that plummeting feeling, pulled over the edge by helpless sentiment and desperate love. And then anger took root and mushroomed in the muck, an organic wrath spreading through my brain and body. I thought about what Lou had told me at the Ferris wheel about my dad’s brain being invaded by merciless captors, pictured my family being violated like lab rats, and the blue flame flickered. I was filled with the same preternatural calmness that stills the sky before lightning strikes, and when I blinked, blips of blue light from my eyes reflected in the dark. I gritted my teeth, trying to hold it back, and turned away so Max wouldn’t see me, but it was impossible to stop thinking about my family. I was peppered with tiny sharp volts, and it was even more impossible not to picture my dad caressing my mom’s hand as Max tenderly took mine in the dark.
    I thought,
All of the love my family had for me is dead, while he has both of his parents plus a whole new family?
Showers of sparks turned the room orange and gold as I squeezed his hand as hard as I could and didn’t let go, even after he stopped screaming. And then I was on the ground being smothered by Doug, shaking my shoulders so hard that my head danced on my neck. I wasn’t sure where I was or what had happened until he shrieked, “Are you done now? Is it you again?”
    “Doug . . . what . . . ? Where’s Max?” I said, trying to sit up, feeling little electrical
clicks
and
zips
draining from my fingertips.
    “There, on the floor!”
    He was crumpled on his side, unconscious, with his hand raw and purple where I’d touched it. It was burned, not seriously but sure to be painful. I felt his pulse—it was steady—then lifted his head, touched his face, and whispered, “Max. Oh, Max . . .”
    “What did he do to piss you off?” Doug hissed.
    “Nothing!” I said, staring at Max’s eyes, willing him to wake up. “It wasn’t like with Teardrop when the thing was
trying
to kill me, or you when you were
trying
to make me mad! Something about the movie ignited cold fury, and then the electricity kicked in, and Max was just sort of there.”
    “You mean like a convenient target? You attacked him because he was nearby?” Doug said, gaping at me with awe and dread, shaking his head. “This is getting too dangerous. You could’ve hurt him a lot worse than a simple burn. You could’ve . . .”
    “Don’t say it,” I muttered, as Max emitted a faraway groan.
    “It’s time you told him.”
    “Told him what?” I said, as Max’s eyelids fluttered and he groaned again.
    “Everything,” Doug said. “Not just this