Consuming Fire

Chapter 47

"Help! Somebody help!"

Hunter snapped awake at the sound of Will's voice. She flipped the rug off her body and wrenched away the curtain. A group of men and women carried a young girl into the hospital wing.

A young girl with blond hair.

Hunter's heart started to beat with the pace of sprinter. They rested Fearne's body on the spare bed. Dr. Mark was there, and Joshua. Will stood beside the bed, holding her hand as she frothed at the mouth. There was something in her veins like a dark, green poison spreading through her body.

"What's happening to her?" shouted Will.

Hunter stood back as though in a dream. She wanted to help, but there was nothing she could do. Others were standing around in panic, including Chevie from the jet.

Dr. Mark held his stethoscope against Fearne's chest and rested a hand on her forehead. "Turn her on her side," he ordered.

Will and Joshua helped. More people crowded around as Fearne started choking.

"Tell me what's happening to her!" Will shouted. Hunter hadn't heard him so panicked since the night she seized in the cabin, and that frightened her more than the distorted scene before her.

Dr. Mark looked at Joshua. "We need to run a rest. Something has poisoned her. Okay, I need everyone out of this room who is not a qualified doctor, a scientist or a patient. Now!"

The crowd cleared. Will refused to leave Fearne's side, so Hunter took his arm and tried to pull him from the room.

"Let them fix her," she said gently.

"No-" He wrenched his arm from hers. "I can fix her, my blood can fix her!"

"Son, until we know what this is, we can't determine a solution. You need to leave and let me do my job," said Mark. A nurse whipped past them. Mark asked her to take a blood sample.

Hunter met Joshua's eyes. Save her, she begged him. He understood and gave a curt nod.

"Come on," Hunter urged. At that point, Will let her.

Once they were out in the hall, Will started pacing, clenching his fists. A moment later, he threw a punch into the steel wall, the sound making her jump more than the sickening crunch of his hand.

Will's wrist snapped in half, the bone jutting out like a red iceberg. His face contorted in pain as he pushed the bone back beneath his skin, groaning loudly. The wound started to seal seconds later.

"Did that help?" she asked him.

Will met her eyes. "For a second, yeah."

"Don't worry, they'll make her-"

"What if they don't? Hunter, what if this is the effect of whatever the Agent injected her with?"

Hunter didn't answer. Will sunk down against the wall, cradling his healing wrist. She walked over to him and sat down.

"Don't you think we've been through enough?" he asked her. "After all the suffering in ICE, we had a few days of freedom only to lose two of our friends at once? And now Fearne as well?"

Hunter stared at the wall, not wanting to admit how differently they saw things. So much had changed since she left ICE. People had come and gone. A part of her didn't want to accept the death of Mosi and Benji, or the possibility of Fearne's passing, because death was not the end for her. She had just been reunited with her father, her teacher and the love of her life all in the space of a week.

So she did the only thing she could do to comfort him. She took his hand, she held it, and sat with him as he had with her earlier, and every time before that when they needed each other most of all.