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Chapter Sixty-One: Hellfire

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"Evacuate the building," I said into my earpiece to the others.

"What?" Nat's voice came in response.

"What's happening?" Steve's voice sounded next.

"Just do it," I said, as I brought a flame to my hand, "I need you to trust me. Please."

There was a silence. I sustained unbroken eye contact with Alessandro the entire time.

Then. "Okay," Steve said.

"Be safe," Natasha said next.

I stared the two men across from me down, as Van Leer took a step closer.

"Years spent trying to track down your mother to continue our experiments. Years spent trying to create a formula to replicate those powers," he said, hands clasped behind his back, "And then, I see on my television that a young girl with those same powers has saved New York. And then, in Greenwich. Then again in Sokovia."

Van Leer shook his head and smiled.

"Alessandro had one hell of a time trying to track you down, and finally, he did," he continued, eyeing me like I was some fascinating specimen, "But, like your mother, you seem to have a knack for getting away."

"I also have a knack for using my powers," I said, "I've had my whole life to practice. I was born to these powers. Unlike him."

I strained to keep my powers held back. I couldn't let them out until I knew the others were out of the warehouse and safe.

"Alessandro has become quite adept at handling them," Van Leer said.

"How adept can someone become with something that was never theirs to begin with?"

Van Leer smiled. Then nodded to Alessandro.

And then, an arc of flame was whirring in my direction. I threw out my hands, just narrowly managing to catch the flame in my hand and divert it in the other direction.

"Tell me, I've always been so curious," Van Leer began, "Your mother. She is dead, I presume?"

"Murdered. By you." Saying the words out loud kindled new anger, bright and hot in my chest.

Then, moments before I knew my powers would get the better of me, Natasha's voice sounded again over my earpiece. "We're out. All of us. Where are you, Al?"

"Perfect timing," I said to no one in particular, as I finally let my powers out. I let them surge through my fingers and toward Bram Van Leer. The man who'd murdered my mother. Who would've done the same to me. I let them surge toward Alessandro. The man who'd stolen his fire from hers.

And then, like the wick of a candle, the fire was extinguished by Alessandro. I growled. Screamed in rage, letting a flurried frenzy of fire shoot out from my finger tips. Gone, and gone, and gone, in a puff of smoke.

Frustrated, I pulled out my gun, taking aim and firing at Alessandro's skull. A burst of flame from him melted the bullet in mid air.

I took his momentary distraction to unleash another torrent of flame on him. He diverted it, and it crashed into the side of the room. There was a deafening boom as it smashed into the wall.

"Alivia?" Loki's voice came from the earpiece. "What the Hel was that noise?"

"Are you still down there?" Steve queried next.

"What's going on—" I switched my earpiece off, cutting off whatever Nat was trying to say.

"If we could get to the root of your abilities, Alivia, think of what we could do," Van Leer said, stepping closer to me. He didn't even seem afraid.