Consuming Fire

Chapter 104

The scream that came from her mouth was so angry and broken that it didn't feel like hers. Will took hold of her again as the ground cracked. Beside them, two trees crashed in on each other. She heard him tell her to run, saw the panic in his eyes and felt his hand wrench her to her feet. Then suddenly she was sprinting from the caves, focusing on her footing as they fled down the mountainside.

She and Will ran for their lives as the ground continued to quake and the volcano roared at them. Hunter didn't think of anything else but putting one quivering foot in front of the other and Will's tight grip on her hand. Twice they tripped on roots and rocks and Hunter's battered and bruised body could hardly get up, but Will picked her up and they ran further to escape the volcano. Suddenly, they broke through the trees and onto the shore of the beach.

Hunter collapsed on her knees. She couldn't catch her breath. Things were quieter there, the rumbling of the volcano background noise now. She turned around and saw an ash cloud climbing slowly into the baby-blue sky.

The volcano had taken him. Joshua had been killed by fire. She never thought it would happen this way. He was gone.

Will sat beside her. He took her hand and put his arm around her as she sobbed, just as she'd done when he lost Fearne. The last time she felt so torn apart by grief was when the young girl died.

She buried her head against his chest, clenched his arm and whispered, "don't ever leave me."

Will kissed her hair and held her tightly, rocking her back and forth. "Never," he said.

They remained on the shore until Hunter felt it safe to open her eyes to the real world. After time, she became soothed by the gentle crash of the waves on the shore. She tried to pretend that she and Will were alone and everything they'd been through that day was a dream. But it wasn't. Joshua was dead.

Eventually, dark clouds moved over them and thunder rolled across the mountains in the background. They realized they had to get back to the others to find out what happened, but the plane that Will and Dr. Wolfe arrived on had vanished. The Agent Hunter didn't kill must have fled in it. They decided to take shelter inside the shack and figure out what to do next.

They crunched over palm tree branches and ducked under vines until they came to the clearing in front of the shack. For the second time that day, Hunter stared at the house with a sense of what used to be. She'd lost her entire family. Her mother at birth. Her father, whom she thought had been resurrected but turned out to just be a figment of her delirious imagination and her desperation for someone to cling to, someone to shelter her.

And Joshua. He protected her from the start. He loved her unconditionally. He was the father she never knew she had.

A fresh wave of tears swept over her and she curled up against Will just feet away from the porch, feeling his arms wrap her tightly in a comforting embrace. Thunder clapped and the heavens opened up to a heavy shower of tropical rain. Hunter looked up at the downpour. The water washed away her tears, taking her back to the warehouse when it rained upon her and reminded her of what she needed to fight for.

For love.

Will started to laugh in wonder of the heavy drops of warm water. His child-like glee made her realize that she needed to be thankful she still had someone to love, so she leaned in to kiss him. Hunter never thought she'd get to kiss him in the rain, and what better time to do it than –

"Hey!"

The shout came from the porch. Hunter and Will broke apart and whipped around.

"I'm gone five minutes and you're already fornicating on my property!"

Hunter couldn't believe her eyes. Through the rain she saw a distorted image of a man with glacier-blue eyes standing under the porch.

It couldn't be.

Hunter away from the rain and up the steps of the shack. And there he was, leaning on Ryo with his hand over a bleeding wound in his stomach, alive.

"Joshua," she breathed and threw her arms around him. "How-"

"I couldn't do it," said Ryo. "I couldn't leave it up to fate."

Hunter gazed down at the girl in wonder. "You came back for us?"

"Of course," she said with a mischievous smirk. "What use is my power if I can't save lives? Besides ... the world can't live without this creep."

Hunter laughed and hugged Ryo, her hand still in Joshua's and Will by her side. If they hadn't managed to save the country, it didn't matter. She still had the two most important people in her life.

When she broke apart, Will held his hand out to Joshua. Weakly, he shook it. "I'm glad you're okay," said Will.

Joshua nodded. "Thank you."

"What happened at the base?" asked Will.

After the way they left it, Hunter didn't want to know. But Ryo merely smiled. "It's a pretty epic story. We're meeting back at the SSS compound to celebrate our win."

"We did it? The world isn't in danger anymore?"

Ryo smiled. "Well, not for now at least."

"Come on," said Joshua with a smile. "Let's go home."

"Wait, I just have to do something first." With that, Hunter took Will by the hand and pulled him back down the porch. She turned in the pouring rain, lifted her hands and pressed them against his cheeks. "How's this for paradise," she said with a loving smile.

Then, they kissed.