Rouge Read Online Free PDF Page A

it in a minute. Mark? Hey, it’s Liz.” She turned away from Joshua
and walked into the living room. “I know, I’m so sorry to put you through that
I just needed time…”
    Joshua tuned himself out of
the conversation to save from the pain of hearing her talk about the fire. Not
only that, but he never liked Mark. Liz always talked about him as a
smooth-talking man who knew exactly how to treat women. Joshua knew him as a
man-whore. He would have liked to ask the guy for tips, if he wasn’t so
intimidated. Why couldn’t Liz ever talk about him the way she talked about
Mark?
    Joshua picked up a glass
from the sink and poured himself a cold drink of water. Thoughts of the
volcanic substance – which he hadn’t managed to track down anywhere in any of
his textbooks, and so assumed it hadn’t been discovered yet – blocked out
sounds of Liz and Mark in deep conversation. He knew their only option was to
leave New York and go to Cuba. It would be painful to move to the shack where
he and Leo had spent the last few weeks before his death, but getting Liz out
of the city and into some fresh, tropical air would be good for her. There, he
had supplies for testing and boundless materials of the stone, which they would
be able to study in the peace and quiet of their shack. It was perfect. All he
had to do was convince Liz to go with him.
    Joshua made his way back
into the office where he sat himself down at the computer and checked his
emails. There was a message from his old college professor, who had never heard
of Feucotetanus. Where had this homeless man found the drug that killed him?
All of this was too crazy to be real. Especially Liz’s immunity to flames.
    They had never tested her
boundaries. Even the sight of flames reminded Liz of the fire and watching Leo
burn in it, so Joshua didn’t get to fulfill his desire to put a candle to her
skin and see what happened. Sometimes he even wondered if her story was true.
He had no proof, anyway, that Liz had survived the fire. What if she was
already outside when the fire started? What if she was just lucky? He pretended
to believe her just to make Liz happy, but a part of him needed to see it with
his own eyes.
    “Mark is going to email the
files,” she said from the doorway. The phone was still in her hands.
    “Great. How is he?”
    “He’s… alright. Wasn’t too
happy that I quit, but he was still sympathetic.” She started massaging her
neck as she moved to the desk. “What have you found?”
    “Oh, nothing.” Joshua closed
the application and smiled as best he could. “I think I might go to bed.”
    “Okay. I’ll stay up a bit
longer and wait for the email.” As Joshua left, Liz gripped his arm and
squeezed it gently. “Night.”
    “Goodnight,” he replied and
ignored the rapid beating of his heart as he climbed the stairs to his bedroom.
He undressed in a daze and climbed under the sheets. There, he lay awake for
what felt like hours as his thoughts shouted at each other in protest and
wouldn’t quiet long enough for him to fall sleep.
    He was finally nodding off
when he heard the door to his bedroom creak open and the shadow of Liz in his
doorway fell upon the bed.
    “Joshua.” Her voice wavered.
“I have something to tell you.”
    He sat up fast, switching on
his bedside lamp and thanking God he kept his pajamas on instead of sleeping in
his underwear. It was just getting hot enough to do so.
    “What’s up?”
    Liz came and sat on the edge
of his bed, wringing her hands and biting her lip. Worried she may have found
something shocking in the information Mark had sent, Joshua opened his mouth to
ask when she blurted out four words that knocked him speechless.
    “I’ve missed a period.”
    Joshua’s mouth snapped shut.
Now that he hadn’t been expecting.
    “I’m two weeks late,” she
said. “And I know that the stress of the fire might have changed my cycle, but
I have this feeling that… I mean Leo and I were…”
    Joshua forced a