Chapter 7: BREAKING DISTANCE
Fifty-three attempts. Fifty-three failures.
The flame sat in my palm, orange and obedient, dancing like it had every right to be there. Which it did—I'd mastered that much over the past week. Palm ignition was automatic now, no more fumbling for the emotional trigger, no more waiting for panic to spark the fire.
But throwing it? Projecting it away from my body? That was the wall I kept slamming into.
I thrust my hand forward. Willed the fire to leap. The flame stretched, elongated for a heartbeat like it might finally break free—then snapped back against my skin like a rubber band. Still attached. Still useless at range.
"Come on."
The abandoned warehouse lot had become my second home this week. Every evening after my shift at Martinez Auto, I drove here and practiced until exhaustion or hunger drove me back. The concrete was scorched black in a dozen places from my attempts. The pigeons had learned to keep their distance.
Fifty-four. Same result.
The frustration built in my chest, feeding the flames. They responded, growing wilder, climbing up my forearm without permission. Heat shimmered in the air around me. I forced myself to breathe, to pull the fire back under control.
Anger made ignition easier. Anger also made control harder. The same lesson I'd learned with Neil—emotion was a double-edged sword.
I sat down on the loading dock, legs dangling, and stared at my palm. The flame had died when I stopped concentrating, leaving only the warmth that never quite faded.
Week one of this new life. Seven days since I'd woken up in Billy Hargrove's body with fire in my hands and death in my memory. In that time, I'd intimidated an abuser, revealed myself to a suspicious stepsister, landed a job, and trained every spare hour. Progress on every front except the one that mattered most.
What good was fire I couldn't throw?
The Mind Flayer wouldn't politely stand within arm's reach while I burned it. Demogorgons wouldn't wait for me to walk up and touch them. If I wanted to protect anyone—Max, Steve, the kids who didn't know yet that their world was about to break open—I needed range.
I needed to be more than a human torch.
My stomach growled. The training sessions had taught me to recognize hunger as a warning system. Push too hard without fuel and the body would shut down, same as that first day when I'd collapsed in this very lot and barely made it to Mel's Burgers.
But I wasn't done yet.
I stood up. Held out my palm. Let the fire return.
The flame danced, waiting. Obedient but limited. Tethered to my flesh like it was afraid to leave.
Afraid.
I stopped. Turned the thought over.
I'd been trying to throw the fire. Push it away. Cast it off like something separate from myself. But that wasn't how it worked, was it? The flames weren't a projectile I was launching—they were an extension of my will. Part of me, not apart from me.
Don't throw. Extend.
I visualized my arm reaching forward. Not my physical arm—the fire was already on that. My intent. My will. The part of me that decided where the flames went and how hot they burned. I imagined that part stretching outward like a limb I'd never known I had.
The flame in my palm shifted. Leaned forward. Started to flow.
Yes.
I pushed my intent further. The fire followed, streaming off my palm in a narrow jet. One foot. Two. Three feet of continuous flame, reaching toward the far wall like a pointing finger made of light.
Then it died. The connection snapped. The fire dissipated into nothing, leaving only a fresh scorch mark on the concrete.
I stared at that mark. Three feet. Maybe a meter.
It had worked.
My hands were shaking—not from exhaustion this time, though that was coming. From something closer to joy. The pure, ridiculous satisfaction of solving a problem that had beaten me for days.
Again. I had to try again.
Palm ignition. Extend, not throw. The fire leaped outward, reached the same distance, held for a few seconds longer before dying. I laughed out loud, the sound echoing off the warehouse walls.
Third try. Same result. Fourth—yes. Fifth—still working.
Consistency. That was the key. I could do this reliably now. Not far, not for long, but reliably. A foundation to build on.
The exhaustion hit on the sixth attempt. My vision swam. My legs went wobbly. I sat down hard on the loading dock, breathing like I'd run a marathon, hunger clawing at my stomach with desperate fingers.
Heavy cost. Projection burned through energy much faster than static flames. Good to know. Also extremely inconvenient, but that was a problem for future me with a full stomach.
I lay back on the concrete, staring up at the darkening sky. The first stars were emerging, faint pinpricks against the fading blue. In my old life—my real life, my dead life—city lights had drowned them out. Nothing to see but airplanes and satellites and the occasional wandering planet.
Here, now, in this abandoned lot on the edge of San Diego, the stars were actually visible. Small gift. Unexpected beauty in the middle of industrial decay.
I watched them brighten as the sky turned from blue to purple to black. My body demanded food with increasing urgency, but I gave myself this moment. This quiet victory.
One meter of projected fire. Not much by superhero standards. Laughable compared to what I'd need to face the Upside Down. But it was progress. Real, measurable progress.
A week ago I'd been dead. A week before that I'd been a mediocre middle manager drinking himself toward an early grave. Now I was seventeen again, in a body that could make fire, with knowledge of the future and the power to change it.
The stars didn't care about any of that. They just burned, distant and ancient, indifferent to the small dramas of one planet's inhabitants.
I liked that. It was honest.
Eventually, hunger won. I dragged myself to the Camaro, every muscle protesting. The engine caught on the first try—faithful machine, reliable as always. The dashboard clock read 8:47 PM.
There was a diner on the way home. Open late, cheap food, waitresses who'd seen everything and judged nothing. Perfect for a teenager who was about to eat like a professional athlete after a championship game.
I pulled out of the lot and pointed myself toward civilization. My hands were steady on the wheel now, warmth radiating from my palms into the leather.
Fire I could throw. Not far, not yet, but the wall was broken. The rest was just practice.
I was smiling when I walked into the diner. The waitress gave me a look—probably wondering why a seventeen-year-old was grinning like an idiot at nine PM on a Friday—but she took my order without comment.
Three burgers. Two orders of fries. Milkshake. Pie.
She definitely thought I was crazy. That was fine.
I had fire. I had range. I had time.
Everything else could wait.
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