Hellfire (The Flash - Book 2) [RE-UPLOAD]

Chapter 13 - Fast Lane

There's this song lyric I like.

'All the broken hearts in the world still beat/Mine's beating, but bruised/Hopefully, not for long/The one thing I do know is time changes everything'.

I had been called in to assist Joe and Barry with a case at a auto repair shop. When I walked in, I looked around, half-expecting to see Patty and then I remembered that she was in Midway now.

Barry looked at me. "Zoe, you good?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "Yeah, no, it's just--You know, it's weird Patty's not here."

Joe sighed. "Oh, not for the same reasons, but I miss Patty too." Barry and I looked at each other, smiling as we remembered the special night we shared. Joe noticed, looking between us. "It's so cute. You guys are trying not to be affectionate in front of me."

Barry and I looked at Joe in unison. "What?"

Joe chuckled in amusement.

I cleared my throat. "What do we got?"

"Uh, victim's name is Daniel Burge," Joe said, leading us towards the body. "Not exactly a Boy Scout, but managed to buy this garage two years ago." I knelt next to the body, lifting the sheet. "It looks like he was dipped in a volcano."

I sighed. "Oh, yeah. Actually, the depth and uniformity of the burn pattern is something you would see if the body was covered in something like lava but with a lower burn temp and an added chemical characteristic." I looked around to make sure no one was watching before placing my hand around Burge's wrist, my skin glowed in a flicker before I let go. "There's no secondary accelerant. A meta did this."

I stood.

"All right, let's take a sample back to S.T.A.R. Labs," Barry said. "Have Cisco run some tests."

"Good," Joe replied. "I'm gonna go meet Iris for lunch. She wants to talk to me about Wally."

"Yeah, how's that going?" I asked. "You and him?"

"Great. Well, good," Joe answered. Barry and I exchanged a look. "I don't know. Baby steps. I'm trying to give him space. I mean, he just lost his mom, just met me and his sister. He's got a lot on his plate."

Barry smiled. "Yeah, he just found the best dad he could've wished for."

Joe pointed at him. "Oh, you say that now, but you didn't always think that.

Barry laughed. "Well, you were pretty strict, that's for sure."

I chuckled. "But strict isn't always a bad thing, especially when you know it's coming from love."

"I'll talk to you later," Joe said, walking away.

I knelt next to the body, taking a sample from the burnt corpse.

Barry groaned. "How can you stand that? It's disgusting."

I looked at him, smiling. "Don't be such a girl."

Barry raised his brows at me.

------>

Cisco, Barry and I walked into S.T.A.R. Labs.

Cisco was showing us an app on his phone. "Okay, now click here. Bam! That's my app. See? The app just went live. So, you can sync up all social media postings about metahuman activity. Somebody sees something crazy in Central City? I get an alert about it."

"Yo, man," Barry said. "This is cool."

"You have too much time on your hands," I told him.

Cisco chuckled, sarcastically.