Fury and Flame | 3

2 | 4

F I N N

      Walking into Mr. Hunt's apartment was strange.

      Though I knew him perhaps better than anyone else on our team, I'd never even thought about the fact that he had his own home like this. It was silly; of course he had to live somewhere. But we'd only seen him in the context of the ONNT headquarters and in meetings. Seeing that he had a whole other aspect to life seemed to make him seem less like a distant businessman and more like an actual person.

He was fast to usher us inside. "Come inside. Quickly." I was glad to see he had nothing with the ONNT logo on it; every time I saw it, I was reminded of the charred remains of that soldier. And then the nausea and revulsion set in.

As we followed him down a fancy hallway leading to the main space, Mr. Hunt threw a look over his shoulder. "I'd better not notice anything missing after we're through."

"It's sweet how well you know us," Arlo replied to him. He then gave me a wicked grin that gave me the impression he wouldn't follow our host's request.

In fact, when Arlo was like this—his normal borderline-psychotic self—it was easy to forget he was sick. He did a good job at hiding it. But I saw what he tried to hide with maniacal smiles and slightly off-kilter comments. His thinning, bony frame. The dark smudges under his silver eyes.

Before he saw me looking and became smug, I turned my focus back to this new place. Though Mr. Hunt's prestige and elite status had probably diminished after he was fired, it still showed in his living arrangements. Glass tables, dark silk curtains and ornate flower arrangements decorated his home. A wall fully made of glass showcased a beautiful view of the city below.

     To my left, Riley kept suspicious eyes on Mr. Hunt. It then occurred to me that she didn't know who he was. My heart sank with the weight of what had happened to her. There had to be some way to retrieve her memory.

     Mr. Hunt sat in a chair and gestured to the couch opposite him. I sat along with Arlo, while everyone else opted to stand.

     "So." Our old boss opened his hands in a curious gesture, "What brings you here so urgently?"

     "We're sorry for the short notice." I spoke for us, knowing none of the others would be as polite. "We just...have a bit of a problem."

     His eyes flicked upward when Jaxon hissed the name, "Marcella Krasowski."

     "I don't know you," Riley gestured to Mr. Hunt, "Or any of you." She turned to the rest of us. "I'm not even quite sure why we're here. I don't even know who that woman was, but I do know she's horrible."

      Mr. Hunt watched her in a way that made me realize he had only heard the bare minimum of what happened to her. This was the first time he was really catching up with us in weeks. Contact with him had been dangerous, for reasons he wouldn't disclose to me.

     "Describe to me what she's done so far."

     Taking turns speaking, we caught him up on everything noteworthy—the several fights against Delphinium, Ms. Krasowski's constant undermining us, Benny and Delphinium's accident and the latter's incident last night.

      "A broken neck practically healed in only a week?" He asked in awe. "That's miraculous. Whatever Orion did to her clearly worked."

      "We assume she's still back at the ONNT headquarters." Jaxon's voice was hard, angry at the mistreatment of our friend. "We haven't had any contact with her since yesterday."