Consuming Fire

Chapter 88

Hunter smiled in relief. She couldn't bear to lose him again. She had no strength to carry him, and she had to tell the authority that it was safe to recover the bodies. So she leaned down and kissed Eli's cheek, then she got to her feet once more.

Her attention was diverted to the crowd outside. She moved her legs through the ruins and down the cracked staircase, around the pile of bodies to the lawn. The sun was almost set over the city skyscrapers, casting bright orange light across the sky. She stood, by herself, before the faces staring at her in awe and said nothing. It was the most surreal moment of her life.

She thought back to the restaurant fire and never imagined she'd be there, fully visible before the crowd. Her life had changed. Her friends were dead and people were going to put it on the television or write it in a comic, but they would never know the pain.

Hunter felt an urge to break down, but thankfully, her life had made her strong. Their support gave her courage. She could break down later, but for now, there was still work to be done. She needed to find the General and whoever was waiting for her to figure out how she was going to get to the army base, or at least contact them and find out if they were successful in preventing the terrorist attack, and then try and stop Dr. Wolfe from finding Ravenadium if he hadn't already.

As she approached the gate, the crowds around her started to clap. The applause grew, people cheering and screaming, lifting her spirit. It was a strange, strange sight.

As soon as she reached the crowd, she was bombarded by paramedics trying to get her into the back of an ambulance while the police forced onlookers and news crews to back away. All the faces and cameras trying to catch even a glimpse of her were too much to handle. Thankfully, Hunter was numb to it.

Amelia rushed out of the crowd. "Where is he?" she shouted.

Hunter waved at the White House. "He's alive."

Amelia snapped at a team of paramedics who carried a stretcher into the war zone. Hunter remembered a day when it would have been her fretting and crying over Eli's body. How things had changed.

The paramedic who was in charge of her asked her to look him in the eye. It was a simple command so she did it, and found it easy to focus on one thing. He had beautiful eyes, startlingly blue with long eyelashes, thick hair and a movie-star smile. She hadn't realized someone was already cleaning up her scrapes and another was slipping a gas mask over her face. She started to feel a little calmer.

"What's your name?" the paramedic asked.

"Hunter."

"Where are you, Hunter?"

"In an ambulance outside the White House."

"How do you feel?"

"Sore."

He smirked amusedly and put a hand on her shoulder. She found herself hypnotized, as though she had nothing more to think about than going with him to the hospital.

"Hey," he said. "You did an incredible thing out there. I've never known anyone braver."

She nodded. Just as he was telling her to lie her head back and relax while they took care of everything, someone angry shouted through the crowd and suddenly, General Rogers was there with another official-looking man she assumed was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs – military advisor to the President.

"Hunter!" he shouted. "Thank God she's alive!"

The paramedic opened his mouth to remind him to keep his voice quiet, but he was silenced immediately.

"Shut up or I'll have you fired!" General Rogers sat down on the paramedic stool beside the bed. The Chairman joined them. "Hunter, David Meyer, David Meyer ... the woman who took down our enemy single-handedly."