Consuming Fire

Chapter 102

When the ground started to shake around them, Hunter saw that as her opportunity to make a move. There were four Agents, each of them with their guns raised and pointed at them both. When they were surprised by the earthquake, Hunter burned through the cuffs, lifted her hands and concentrated hard.

She had learned the limits of her powers, but it seemed that there, in the presence of the very power that made her, she was strongest. She didn't know if it would work, but like Joshua, she had faith.

Seconds later, all four Agents gasped and threw their guns to the ground. The weapons were bright orange as though they'd been drowning in fire. Hunter smiled and whirled around to face the four of them.

It all happened so quickly.

The Agent next to Will drew a knife. Hunter couldn't save him – the other three Agents were about to force an attack on her. Will twisted just as the Agent went to stab him and managed to catch the knife between his bound hands. She was sure the knife sliced his hand open, but at least he was free, and as he drove his foot into the Agent's chest, he tore Mikayla's blood bags from his waist and threw them on the dirt.

The three Agents had knives out too, and they were circling her, trying to determine what angle would be the best attack. She only smirked at them. For men who once haunted her nightmares, they were suddenly nothing compared to the fight she'd just survived at the White House.

The first Agent charged and Hunter easily dismissed his attack with a quick jab to his gut. Bent on one knee, she ripped the knife from his hand and drove it into his lower spine. The second Agent tried to stab her also, but she dodged his blow by a hair's width. Leaping to her feet, she threw a fireball into the Agent's face. While he was distracted, she scooped one of the guns from the ground and fired two shots into the third Agent's chest. She turned to the second Agent whose face had started to sprout nasty blisters and was about to fire when Will stopped her.

"Hunter, don't!"

She turned. His eyes distracted her, and the face she loved so much gazed at her pleadingly. Why? Why shouldn't she shoot this man who would have killed her if she didn't attack? A man who took children from their homes and threw them in ICE? Hunter looked down at the two Agents she'd killed and the third Will had knocked out, then she turned her eyes upon the last. She recognized him. He was there the night they took her outside the schoolyard with a packet of cigarettes in hand. It seemed like so long ago.

But if they hadn't, she would not have met Will. She wouldn't have more friends than she'd ever had. And she wouldn't have a purpose. For that, she was thankful.

"Kill me," he sneered.

Hunter shook her head and dropped the gun. "You're not worth it."

"Hunter, the entrance!"

At that, she raised her head and turned to the cave entrance that had been blocked by stones. "Joshua," she breathed. Forgetting about the Agent, she ran to the wall of rocks with Will on her heels. "He's trapped in there!"

Desperately, she started clawing at the stones.

"Hunter," said Will. "Hunter! You can't get in there."

"Don't tell me I can't!" she yelled back. "He trapped himself with Dr. Wolfe so that he can't have Ravenadium."

"Then perhaps it's a good thing that they can't ever get out."

"No, I have to get him out, and then I have to kill that son of a bitch!"

Will took Hunter's arm and stopped her from heaving at the giant rocks. "I'm sorry Hunter."

"No, I have to-"

"He's gone."

The rumbling beneath her feet began again. Hunter looked behind them to see that the Agent had fled. He sensed the danger, felt the awakening of the volcano. Hunter stared at the rock wall stopping her from reaching Joshua. The volcano was rising, feeling her pain, her desperation. She could sense the unimaginable heat inside it.

Don't hurt him, she begged it. Please, don't let him be dead.

"I can't leavehim."

"Even after everything he did to you, after Eli?"

Hunter heaved at a rock. "I used to think he could never give me – what my real parents could. But he gave me more than I could ever need." No matter how much she tried, the stones wouldn't move an inch. "And even when I didn't know it, he showed me what it means to love someone so much that you would do anything for them. I just can't let him die!" She was scratching at the rocks with so much force that the skin of her fingers was shredding.

"Hunter, stop!" Will grabbed her wrists and forced her away from the wall.

"No!" She wrenched away from him and dove on the rocks, pulling harder than her body could muster.

Will's arms wrapped around her again. This time he didn't let her go. He dragged her, kicking and screaming, across the dirt until –

BOOM!

The volcano erupted. From outside, the force was so great that Hunter and Will tumbled head over heels and rolled to the tree line. They kept rolling, their backs colliding with trees so powerfully that the wind was knocked out of them. When Hunter stopped rolling, she coughed dizzily and turned to see lava seeping between the rocks of the cave entrance way up the hill.