Scorching

Thrown to the Wolves

Hunter

Diviners could conjure any weapon from their star, but once they found the one that clicked, they stuck to it. Some diviners had a few in their rotation, and even less were able to master any weapon they conjured. Peter was one of them. That made training even worse. I relied on my brains to predict things, and he was unpredictable. Conjuring anything from a sword, to a club, even to a scythe just to get in my head. Before I was in tune with the sun he would use a scythe with me and tell me I'm nothing special, anyone can conjure this, trying to provoke me into channeling the sun. He tried all tactics and dirty ones weren't off the table. None of it worked not even sending me out to fend off 5 creatures at once while he watched. Not until that night he brought one in my room, my comfort bubble—if such a thing was possible living with Peter Black. Maybe it was because I had that night terror again that night, but the scorching inside me clicked and the sun manifested in me. Since then training only got worse, apparently Peter was only at 50% till that point. Hard to believe. I had barely escaped death a hundred times in the 2 years prior. But he was in fact right. That was 50%. I could only hope now he was at 100%, because if he was still holding back I might truly die. And I wouldn't care, but I have things to do. After that I don't give a shit. And I know he wouldn't actually, at least I think not. His reasons for taking me in never quite added up, over the years I've thought he must have been in love with my mom. That's the only reason I can think of him also wanting Lucas Hunt dead. My grieving alone wouldn't push him this far, but he cares for me, or at least needs me, he wouldn't kill me.

I'm 18 now and Peter says I'm ready for the next stage in our plan. Infiltrating the school, specifically Lucas and Kaien's team. Although I don't know how I'm going to manage that much.

I should be able to keep an eye on them just by being in the same school right? But Peter says it will work. Kayce is worried about me but I tell him I'll be fine. I'm a lot stronger now, and more determined than ever. I know what I need to do. And that involves killing two people. One of them I already know, the other part of the plan is figuring out who the hell poisoned my mom and hundreds of other civilians, slowly turning them into creatures. I'm hoping the school will also give me some answers to that, they should be trying to figure it out too, I mean their whole objective is to kill creatures, they have to be investigating this.

Kayce breaks my train of thought with a knock at my door, but walks in before I reply, per usual. "I still don't know why you knock if you're just gonna come in anyways," "Hunter how many times do I have to tell you, it could be an emergency, someone could have broken in and it would be too la—" I tackled him to the ground, a good way of shutting him up I learned over the years. "Still think I need protection?" I stare into his gorgeous blue eyes, running my hand over his pink buzzcut. Last year he got bored and I've been helping him dye it different colors since. Kayce flipped me over before I could even blink, now he was on top of me. "Yes I do actually." "I'm about to infiltrate the diviners school I think I can handle myself, if I couldn't Peter wouldn't send me." He gave me an odd look, and opened his mouth like he was gonna say something then decided not to, as he unpinned me, "Kayce I'll be fine I promise, we've gone over the plan a million times, I get onto Lucas's team, get all the information I can about this crazy ex-diviner who's poisoning or injecting people or whatever they're doing with the creatures' blood, then I can kill Lucas and get out." "Don't talk about killing 'The Lucky Star' like it's on a chore-list next to making the bed and washing your dishes. I'm serious this is dangerous and you need to be careful." Kayce countered. "Uggghh could you please not use that nickname, we don't need to feed his arrogance any more, and I am taking this seriously. I know he's dangerous, and I won't let it slip that he's my deadbeat daddy." "My turn to gag, I won't call him that nickname if you don't call him daddy, and the apple doesn't fall far from the ego tree does it." I laughed and it slowly fizzled into sadness. I tackled Kayce again, this time in a hug. "I'm gonna miss you reminding me of my big ass ego," "And I'm gonna miss reminding Hunter Valentine of her ego, and hearing her feisty replies." He picked me up and brought me to the be, laying with me, playing with my hair. I traced the tattoos on his arms until I fell asleep.

The next morning Peter, Kayce and I went over the plan one last time. Kayce will release a creature we trap once we get to the outskirts of New York, onto me. Then I just have to do my best to keep it at bay until the diviners arrive to "save" me, without using my powers, especially not the sun. If they see that, they'll know I'm the Lucky Star's daughter. And then it's over. But I've been training for this. As hard as it was to manifest the sun, it's even harder to go back to using a basic ol' star to form weapons. But I trained for months, even after Peter would finally give me a break I begged Kayce to keep going with me. His weapon of choice is a a beautiful blue sword, matching his eyes. I wonder what the other diviners' weapons will be, and what color. My scythe glows a bright yellow, more flamboyant with orange flares when I conjure the sun, Kayce's sword is blue, Peter's 45 weapons are always a different color. He says he does it to throw me off, and that diviners only choose a color because it feels comfortable to them, and he doesn't find comfort in anything. I'm feeling weirdly excited about meeting them. It's making me anxious. I have a goal, I don't need to make any friends besides the surface level to gain trust, but I've never really had friends besides Kayce, and I've never met other diviners. This should be interesting.

Peter gave me one final warning to hide my identity, and to never channel the sun if anyone is around, even if my life is threatened. Jeez. Love you too Peter. He's harsh, but I'll take that over someone blowing smoke up my ass. I like it when people give it to me straight instead of beat around the bush, it's a waste of time. "Don't try and contact me, it's too risky, I'll contact you when I need something or to tell you the plan on killing him. Only you can do it, but you need my help. Don't be hasty." "I won't Peter, I promise. How will I know you're contacting me?" "You'll know," he said and then he did something weird. He hugged me. He hasn't hugged me since I cried as he told me my mom was dead. I guess he does care, has a weird way of showing it though. Feeding me to the wolves, watching me get beaten half to death, beating me half to death, but I know it's all in my best interest, for the most part, I think. Ugh, whatever all that matters is killing Lucas Hunt and making Kai feel every ounce of pain I did.

Kayce and I took off out of New Haven, Connecticut towards the city around 4pm. Apparently New York has one of the highest rates of creatures in the country, so that's where home base is for diviners. If we were gonna get their attention that's where it needed to be. We pull into a motel around 5pm. Close enough to the headquarters to get their attention, now we need to find a creature and stall it until one of them senses it and shows up. The technology today is crazy, they set up sensors for them all over so if one crosses into a certain area the diviners are alerted and someone's dispatched immediately. We just need to draw one into that area, I can play cat and mouse as long as I need.

I have gotten over my fear of creatures through rigorous training and out of necessity. When Peter locks you in an abandoned building crawling with them, its die scared or get over your fear and fight, and I chose the ladder. But something about this was eating at my stomach, possibly the fact that I'll be unarmed. I've fought them bare-handed before, that was a good chunk of my training, but I could always conjure if I needed to. My scythe and I are one, we're in sync, he protects me. Yes it's a he, I can feel it. I can feel my scythe in my soul, like it's a living breathing being. Not being able to rely on that terrifies me. It brings me back to the place I was 5 years ago, my mom, no, that creature pinning me do— "Hunter," Kayce wipes a tear that snuck out, "It's gonna be okay, I'll be watching from here the whole time and if anything happens, fuck the plan I'm getting you out of there." "No you're not Kayce. I love you but I'll be okay I just had a moment, I went back—" fuck. I got choked up again. He hugged me. I love his hugs, I love his smell, how warm he is. It's all hitting me now that I won't have him. My only friend. My family. "You don't have to explain V, I know," he calls me V for short because the only other possible nickname from 'Hunter Valentine' would be hunt, and anyone can guess why that's off the table. Thinking of my name reminds me of how I can't go by Hunter Valentine here. Lucas knows my mom's name so we had to come up with something else. Hunter Reid. Weird.

"I know Peter said no contact, but I can't agree to that. Text me anything you need, I put my number in this here," he hands me my new phone, wiped clean of any Peter schemes. I can't say anything I'll break down, again, so I just hug him again, hoping it could last forever. Once Lucas is dead it can. And then he tenses, "it's your spidey-senses isn't it?" I ask him. "There's one close by, let's go."