Consuming Fire

Chapter 101

Joshua remembered the day he and Leo found the cave. He was young, a bit of a dreamer but not as adventurous as his best friend and partner Leo Phillips. It had been a long and strenuous journey to find the volcano, and back then the mouth of the cave had been covered in rocks and shaded by the rainforest trees. It was a miracle they stumbled upon it. Leo had hired a device from one of the local geologists that measured spikes in volcanic activity, and Joshua had followed him there.

"Look Joshua!" Leo said gleefully as he pointed to the screen of his thermometer. His rich curls were stuck to his forehead, the loose beige shirt he wore drenched in sweat. "Can you see that, it's on eighty nine!"

"Uh huh." Joshua swatted flies away from his face. It was covered by a ganza cloth attached to his wide-brimmed hat and still the flies managed to get under it. Every part of him was hot and he had only half a bottle of water left. "It's because we're on a volcano, Leo."

"No, the guy said when it goes above seventy, we've struck gold!"

Joshua didn't understand Leo's fascination with the volcano. Their expedition was purely to come up with as many different types of igneous rocks they could find. But their trip had been extended courtesy of Leo and his obsessive need to discover greatness. Joshua wasn't sure whether the volcano was really extinct – which they were certain of when they arrived – and that it had erupted in the past thousand years, or that there was something strange going on. Leo spontaneously bought the shack with some money he'd earned through college years ago – the owner was happy to get rid of it – and said he was going to come back in a month to explore the volcano in more depth. This was after they'd found the cave.

At first, Joshua didn't want to go inside. It made him nervous to think that there was live magma inside. And Leo was suspicious of volcanic vents. He was far too young to die.

Leo had been pulling rocks away from the mouth of the cave for half an hour when finally, he found an entryway.

"Are you sure you want to go in there?" asked Joshua as he swatted at the flies with a banana leaf. "I mean, it could be really dangerous."

Leo turned to him, his golden eyes more alive than ever. "Joshua," he said, "what if we find something wonderful in there?"

Leo had a kind of charisma that other people flocked toward. Sometimes Joshua didn't know why they were friends in the first place. Leo kept him alive and reminded him of what it was to live in the real world rather than through a microscope. That was what made his presence so contagious. "What if this changes our lives?" he continued. "I mean ... don't you ever think about finding a substance so amazing that it could cure cancer? Or make you rich enough to never have to work again? You could just travel and keep exploring and ... and Liz and I could start a family-"

"Leo, those are your dreams!" Joshua moaned.

Leo stood up straight, looking like Indiana Jones in the rays of sunshine that filtered down through the trees.

"And what are your dreams, Joshua?"

Twenty years later, Joshua stood inside the entrance to the cave and felt a pain in his chest. He never had dreams like Leo. He never thought about his future.

He thought about Hunter's.

About which classes she needed to take in school. About which college she would go to. About whether or not she would be happy if she found out about her powers, and how to make her life as normal as possible when she got them. He thought about her future with Eli, and then he thought about Will. He accepted that they were in love and he was happy for her to be with him, because Joshua knew he would always stand by her, just like Hunter said he would.

His dream had always been for her to be safe. And he was okay with going into the caves with Wolfe, knowing that he would never come out, because he had done well for Hunter. It might not be completely his doing, but one way or another, she was a hero because he made her so.

Dr. Wolfe's gun between his shoulder blades bought Joshua back to the present. Inside, the volcano caves hadn't changed. There was a narrow path in which they both had to duck under that led down a few meters before opening up into a large cavern. On the left was a lake the size of a house pool filled with bubbling, molten lava. Joshua winced at the heat that struck his body. It wasn't agreeing with him at all. The day that he and Leo explored the volcano, they had to take regular breaks from the heat and even then, they were burnt for days afterwards.

The doctor started to cough behind Joshua, but he did not move the weapon. Joshua skittered down the jagged path into the lower chamber where there were spherical stones imbedded in the right wall. They glowed bright red, shelved in perfect symmetry the way one might align photographs on a wall. Beautiful, as Joshua remembered.

The doctor's mouth hung open at the sight of them. "Incredible," he said. "It's like they were purposefully placed there. Marvelous."

Joshua couldn't agree more. But it soon became obvious to the doctor as he stood well back from the wall of Ravenadium stones that they needed to be pried from their place in the wall. He turned to Joshua.

"How do we do it?"

Joshua shrugged. "Ask your fancy scientist."

Before Simon could interject, Dr. Wolfe rolled his eyes. "Joshua, may I remind you that I could have Hunter killed if you so much as try to cross me?"

"And may I remind you, Dr. Wolfe, that this is my mountain. You should have been more careful stepping inside someone else's territory."

With moves much quicker than he expected to use in such extreme heat, Joshua snapped the flexi-cuffs around his wrists. They were weakened from the temperature. He whipped out a hand and struck the Agent in the jugular, cutting off his air supply, then threw a sharp haymaker into the Agent's jaw, knocking him out and possibly snapping his neck. The Agent stumbled back a step, dangerously close to the edge of the lava lake. All Joshua needed to do was finish him with a roundhouse kick and the Agent tumbled into the pool of lava at his feet.

Joshua turned back to the doctor and his scientist, who were gazing at him, completely gob-smacked.

Dr. Wolfe raised the gun and pointed it at Joshua. "No more games, Joshua. Simon, go over there and take one of those stones. I don't have all day."

Simon gazed at him in fear. "I ... I ... I ..."

"Well go on, you blubbering idiot!"

Simon started toward the wall. Dr. Wolfe trained the gun on Joshua, but his attention was on Simon. So was Joshua's, waiting.

And then, just as the scientist stepped within arm's reach of the stones, his foot knocked the trip wire Joshua had set up the last time he was in the volcano caves. He knew that the world wasn't safe with Ravenadium in the hands of men. If anyone tried to take the stones –

The trip wire set off a detonator he'd buried in the ground at the entrance to the cave. Miraculously, the wire was still connected. Simon and Dr. Wolfe knew it was too late and suddenly, there was an explosion in the entrance. The rocks started to cave in, covering the exit.

The explosion caused Dr. Wolfe to fire his gun. The rockslide crushed Simon, who stood closest to the entrance beside the wall, smothered before he could dive to safety. Dr. Wolfe and Joshua were thrown backwards, then there was nothing but silence.

Joshua covered his head as he lay on the ground. When the stones stopped falling and all he could see around him was dirt and dust in the air, he rolled over and saw that Dr. Wolfe sat beside the wall of glowing stones looking at the entrance in horror.

Pain came from a wound in Joshua's stomach. He looked down to see a dark stain spreading through his suit, slowly bleeding him out.

"What did you-"

"Now, Dr. Wolfe," Joshua coughed. "It's over."