Embers & Ice

Chapter Fifty-One

Hunter regained consciousness not on an operating table, but in a cell. It was so dark she could hardly see her own hands. Her lungs were dry and itchy with sawdust and her body ached from lying so long on the damp, concrete floor.

Everywhere was silent. It took her only a second to realize she was behind the bars of a Death Cave and again, she panicked. Her heart thumped in a tired beat. She picked herself up slowly, dizzy and sore, and hobbled to the door of the cell. Her stomach was patched up with bandages, but the movement made the wound throb. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she became aware of what was outside her cell.

Rubble. So it hadn’t been repaired yet, meaning it could only be days – hours, even – after she and Will were captured. Either that, or Dr. Wolfe didn’t care for the architecture of the underground prison.

Only days ago, Hunter voluntarily walked the halls of the Death Caves. Now she was locked inside one. Which number was it? How close was she to Jack?

And the most pressing question of all: Where was Will imprisoned?

She stood with her hands on the bars for a long time, listening to the silence and thankful that her thoughts, too, were silent. Sometime later, Hunter heard a female sobbing far away from her cell. The sound was like poison in her ears and she stumbled back until she hit the wall and slid down to the ground. She curled up in the fetal position, even though it hurt like hell.

Then she, too, was crying. Heaving. She cried so much that her tears dried up and her chest ached. The fire tried to warm her, but it couldn’t reach her skin. Once again, a bracelet circled her wrist and she was back where she started.

“Hunter?”

His voice broke through the darkness, hoarse and wonderful. Hunter lurched upright and looked for him in her cell.

“Will? Where are you?”

“Next to you. There’s a crack in the wall.”

Hunter scrambled to the left side of her cell where his voice was coming from. She pressed her body against it, desperate to be close to him. She scratched at the concrete with her fingers until they ached.

“You’re the stupidest person I’ve ever met, do you know that?” he said from his cell. “Do you always go running off into danger without any concern for your safety?”

Smiling, Hunter remembered saying those exact words to him when he lay on the floor of the breakfast hall after the dinosaur attack. “You came with me, you know.”

“Yeah. I guess it’s my hero tendency again.”

At that, Hunter found she couldn’t control herself anymore. The tears bubbled up in her throat as she muttered, “Will, I-I can’t – I’m so sorry – it’s my fault you’re–”

“Stop it Hunter,” he snapped at her, but his tone was soft. “You’re being ridiculous. It’s not your fault.”

“But it is. We should have just left with the others. Why did I have to run down here to save crazy people who only attacked us and Alfie, who could be dead too and Jack, who was-”

“You went back for Jack? Why?”

Hunter wished more than anything that she could see his face. She put her hand against the cold, crumbling wall and sighed. She owed him the truth.

“Because it’s my fault Jack is here in the first place.”

Will paused. “Hunter, you’re delusional. Not everything is your fault.”

“You’re right. I am delusional. Delusional that I thought I could make everything right and save the world. That I could bring my friend home to his sister, to a life in New York where my guardian kidnapped him from his own home and studied him like Dr. Wolfe himself. I’m delusional for not making sure he left the warehouse safely.”