She put her hands against his chest, but she must have felt the stiffness in his body.
He expected her to climb off his lap, but she didn’t. “Jealous of a text message? Already?”
“Don’t play with me.”
“You weren’t fighting me off a minute ago.”
“Now I wish I had.” He had things to do here. He needed to find his focus before he forgot all that.
He quickly scanned the grounds. No problems that he could see.
Kate was watching him, and the wicked look was off her face. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
That surprised him, and he met her eyes. “You don’t even know me.”
“I’d like to.”
He couldn’t think with her saying things like that while straddling him. He grabbed her waist and lifted her, setting her beside him on the bench. Then he ran his hands back through his hair. “I don’t know what’s real. I don’t know if you’re screwing with me, or if you really want to know me. You know what? Play it straight for a minute. Because I can’t do this.”
Her breathing was quick, and she looked troubled and doubtful.
He was glad, because that was exactly how he felt, too.
“I can’t tell you,” she whispered.
“Why?” he demanded.
Her lips parted.
And then, across the fairgrounds, generators started exploding.
CHAPTER 15
Hunter stood and grabbed at the bars of the car, feeling it rock with his motion. Two generators had exploded, and flames blazed against the sky. On the ground, people were screaming, forming panicked swarms moving in every direction.
He had a perfect view from up here, though the wheel was still turning on its axle, as if the fires were just another spectacle to see from up high.
Another generator exploded, off to his left.
More people screamed. The swarms shifted, moving in a new direction.
Kate was beside him, leaning out as well.
Then her phone chimed, and she looked at it.
What was up with her and this other guy?
Hunter leaned over the side, yelling for the ride operator to let them out—or at least to make the ride stop. He almost couldn’t hear himself over the pandemonium below, so he wasn’t surprised when the guy didn’t look up.
People from other cars were leaning out and screaming, too.
The panic in the air was almost enough to choke him.
Another generator exploded.
The kid running the Ferris wheel yanked a lever in his booth and bolted.
The ride lurched to a stop, so suddenly that Hunter lost his balance and clutched at the bar. The car swung wildly, stuck in the two o’clock position.
Fire was spreading now, leaping from one tent to the next, sending black smoke billowing into the air.
Another generator exploded, also off to his left. The entire carnival was surrounded by fire.
Five generators in a circle. Didn’t get much clearer than that.
Hunter looked for Gabriel, for any of the Merricks. The chaos on the ground was insane: he couldn’t recognize anyone, and the smoke was getting thicker. Several people lay crumpled on the ground, but he couldn’t make out any of them. Sirens screamed somewhere in the distance.
The rage in this fire was familiar: he’d felt it a week ago, during the inferno in the library.
Calla.
He’d been so stupid. He’d expected her to take out a house. One house.
There had to be hundreds of people here. He could feel the fire spreading, forming a true circle, preventing escape. She was going to kill them all.
And here he sat, fifty feet above the ground, unable to do a damn thing.
“We’re trapped,” said Kate.
Hunter looked at her. His head was clouded with too many complicated emotions, and he had to shut them down.
He studied the multicolored lights along the Ferris wheel supports. The whole thing was really just a big complicated wheel held together by steel bars and high tension wire.
The nearest support was in front of him, but lower, about ten feet away.
No, seven. Seven sounded better.
If he thought about this too long, he’d chicken out.
He climbed onto the safety bar, grabbing the steel frame and holding on.
“Holy crap,” Kate cried. “Are you insane?”
His hands were going to be making an impression in the steel in a second. He could feel sweat beginning to collect under his fingertips. “Don’t rock the car!” he shouted.
She went completely still.
Air whipped around him, excited by the frenzy of activity. He had nowhere near enough control to ask it to help him make this jump, but he tried anyway.
“You’re crazy,” said Kate.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he said.
And then he jumped.
He hit the supports hard. The entire frame rattled. The metal rails were narrower than he’d expected, wet and hard to grip. Blood streaked the white paint, and he realized the rusted metal had sliced into his hands.
It didn’t hurt yet.
That meant it would hurt a lot later.
He swung his legs until he found purchase, then looped an arm around the support to take the pressure off his palms.
He took a glance. His hands were a mess.
Then he heard another scream and realized there were a lot of people a lot worse off than he was.
Hunter started to climb. It was like this stupid Ferris wheel had been built precisely to frustrate him, because each support was about a foot too far from the next for him to reach. He had to climb in, toward the center, before he could start climbing down.
His hands were still bleeding. They kept slipping.
Something hit the Ferris wheel and sent a shudder through the frame. He swore and had to loop an arm to stay upright. Had some idiot tried to follow him?
Yes. Kate.
She’d taken the impact better than he had—or maybe she’d just learned from watching him. She’d caught the bars with her arms, and now sat braced in the corner where two supports met. Hunter felt a moment of panic, wondering if he should climb up to help her—or continue climbing down.
But then she started to move, and he realized he should be following her lead.
Kate moved like a frigging acrobat. She twisted between the supports as if they’d been assembled specifically for her use. She’d almost caught up to him in a quarter of the time it had taken him to cross the same distance.
She looked like she belonged in a movie, her blond hair and fair skin striking against the backdrop of the Ferris wheel lightbulbs and the smoky blaze behind her.
“Seriously,” she called. “The staring?”
He shook himself and kept climbing. His palms burned but he ignored it.
The ride had stopped between passengers, so no car sat by the booth. The wheel stopped about ten feet above the platform—which was a six-foot square with a tiny operator booth, sitting about ten feet above the ground.
If he missed this jump, it would almost be worse than the first one. The first would have killed him.
This one would just hurt like a bitch.
He let go and dropped.
It hurt anyway. He felt the impact through his ankles and into his knees.
But he was down, and he was alive. Kate landed beside him, absorbing the jump like a cat.
They stared at each other for a moment. People were still screaming overhead, begging for someone to get them down.
He could still feel their panic.
He could also feel Kate’s hesitation.
If she wasn’t going to take action, he needed to. He gave her a quick shove toward the controls. “Get them down!” he said. “Before this generator goes.”
Then he didn’t look back. He leapt off the platform and went after Calla.
Fire was everywhere. Flames had jumped from the exterior booths to the food stan
ds, and lightbulbs were popping left and right. The heat was intense, and people were running in panicked circles.
He couldn’t even help them—there was no way out until the fire was stopped.
Hunter felt for the cord of power holding this inferno together.
Then he followed it.
At the center, of course. He should have known.
Calla stood amidst the flames, her expression one of glee. The fire was hottest here, and bodies littered the ground around her. He didn’t want to know which ones were dead, but his senses told him.
More dead than alive. And the living ones were in pain. So much pain that it singed his senses, weighing him down.
All these people. He’d failed them all.
And he couldn’t stop her now. He didn’t even have a gun anymore. He didn’t know where the Merricks were, didn’t even know if he could control a fire of this magnitude if they were here.
“I told you,” she said, her voice high above the roar of the flames. Wind swirled through the fairgrounds, whipping the flames higher. “I told you what we would do.”
This was more power than she could generate on her own—and it was wild, almost uncontrollable. He wondered again who else was working with her.
How could they do this? Who could want a war so badly that they would kill innocent people?
“I’ll bring them,” Hunter said. He could feel the anguish and suffering in the space around him, and it made his voice break. “I’ll bring the Guides, Calla. Just stop this.”
“You had your chance. You knew what we would do. We want a war.”
“Please,” he said. “Please, stop this. I’ll bring them.”
“No, you won’t. You’re afraid of them. I know what you are, Hunter. I know what your father did.”
Of course she did—wasn’t that the whole problem? “I don’t—what are you—”
“I don’t think you understand how serious we are. They’re killing people, Hunter. Good people. Hypocrites.”
“You’re killing people, Calla.”
“For the greater good, right? Isn’t that what the Guides say?” Her eyes flashed in the darkness. The smoke in the air was hard to breathe through, but she smiled. “They need to take me seriously. Why should you get to live, when the rest of us don’t?”
“I don’t understand,” he said. His voice broke again. “Please.”
Her mouth opened, but before any sound could come out, her body jerked.
Twice.
At first he didn’t get it. But then she crumpled.
And then Hunter saw the man with the gun.
Oh. Oh, shit.
He ran like hell.
He made it about fifty feet before someone called his name.
Someone. Kate.
Her voice drew his attention, made him almost turn.
And then something hit him in the shoulder. He stumbled and saw stars. His forearms were suddenly in the dirt. For a horrifying moment he thought he was going to be sick on himself.
Run, he told himself. Run, you wuss.
He forced himself back to his feet. One foot in front of the other.
This didn’t feel like running.
He stumbled again. The ground came up and hit him in the face. His arm wouldn’t work.
Then he was sick and he hated that they were going to find him dead, lying in his own puke.
His dad would be so disappointed.
“Hunter.” Someone was shaking him. Rolling him. “Hunter.”
He opened his eyes. It felt like he’d been sleeping for hours, but fire still filled the air. He could feel it everywhere, burning against his senses.
Gabriel was there, backed by fire, looking down at him. “Can you hear me?”
“Guide,” said Hunter. His voice sounded funny, distant and somewhat tinny. “You have to run.”
“I saw,” said Gabriel. “Don’t worry, we’ll—”
Hunter didn’t worry. The flaming sky went black.
CHAPTER 16
Kate made it to Silver’s side just in time to see him pull the trigger again.
Too much was going on for her to examine the sudden wrench in her chest. “Stop!” she cried. “He’s not the one who started this!”
“I know.” Silver’s ice-blue eyes flicked her way.
“Then why are you shooting him?”
“Because he was negotiating with the one who did. You were with him. Why didn’t you detain him?”
“I was getting the people off the Ferris wheel.”
Wind was snapping at her hair, throwing smoke in her eyes and inciting the flames higher. Silver, by comparison, seemed to stand outside the maelstrom, as if it didn’t dare ruffle him.
“That is not your task here, Kathryn.”
“Isn’t our task to protect people?”
“Have you never heard the saying, the end justifies the means?”
He glanced at the sky, and Kate followed his gaze. The flames were over ten feet high now. At first she’d thought smoke obscured the stars above, but now she realized those were clouds moving in.
Heavy clouds, flickering with lightning. Thunder cracked overhead, and she watched Gabriel Merrick crouch over a very still Hunter.
Silver raised the gun again.
Kate didn’t know if he was pointing at Gabriel or Hunter. Her heart was beating a path into her throat.
She had to think. Think think think.
Silver cocked the gun.
“Kill them now and you’ll send the rest to ground,” she said.
She kept her voice even, a mere observation in the middle of an inferno fed by a windstorm. Sweat rolled down her back, tracing a line between her shoulder blades, and she ignored it.
Silver hesitated.
Kate shrugged like she didn’t care. “They’ve already outsmarted . . . how many Guides did you say?”
He released the hammer and lowered the weapon.
“Don’t you have a body to get rid of anyway?” Kate asked, thinking of Hunter’s issues with Calla—and wondering how this all fit together.
He’d been negotiating with her?
“I’ll make sure the fire takes care of it,” said Silver.
Thunder cracked overhead again. A bolt of lightning struck the carousel. Sparks shot into the air. Kate jumped a mile. She could feel cool air swirl through the grounds, tickling her cheeks despite the fires.
Hunter and Gabriel were gone.
Silver had his gun up again, and he was headed for where they’d been. “I will not stand by while they cause more harm.”
Another bolt of lightning blasted into the dirt ten feet behind them, and this time even Silver jumped, whirling with the gun in hand.
The power stroked along her skin, so she knew Silver had to be feeling it. Part of her wanted to drop her guard and ride the streamers of energy.
She shut down the thought almost before it could form. That would make her like them.
If Hunter’s father had been a Guide—what was he doing with the Merricks?
How did they fit with that Calla girl?
The sirens were close now. The wind picked up more fully, swirling sparks and debris from the ground, lashing at her face. The power in the fire pulsed against her skin. It had to have spread farther with the wind—she couldn’t see an end to the flames. For a while she’d felt nothing but pain and suffering, but now she felt nothing.
Had she made a mistake, stopping Silver when he could have stopped the Merricks? Were they working with Calla? Did that explain Hunter’s fight with Gabriel in the cafeteria?
Were they spreading the fire even now?
She had more questions than answers.
“We must find them,” said Silver. “They’re spreading the fire. They’ve already taken enough lives—”
“Wait.” She held out her arm. A drop of water clung to her wrist, but it quickly evaporated.
Another appeared.
And another.
Then rain was pouring down, a fu
ll deluge, the kind you usually saw in late summer. Lightning crackled in the clouds overhead, but the rain was heavy, wet, and constant.
And it put out every single lick of flame.
Hunter was drowning in darkness, every now and again breaking the surface of awareness.
The first time, his eyes were pried open, and the light was blinding. He flinched away. He wondered if he’d fallen in among the flames, because his entire body felt like it was burning and freezing at the same time.
A woman’s voice was speaking. “He’s lost a lot of blood. He’s going to need—” But just as he was about to make out the rest of her words, everything went black again.
The second time, he opened his eyes to fire and darkness, and he felt sure they’d left him. He sucked in a huge choking breath, breathing more smoke than oxygen. A hand squeezed his, hard, sending sparks of pain shooting through his shoulder. Gabriel Merrick’s voice. “Come on, Hunter.” Then the sparks took over, and he was out again.
The third time, Hunter woke to whispers.
At first, the sounds were nonsensical, and he couldn’t puzzle them out through the haze in his brain. His eyes didn’t want to open yet. He didn’t sense fire or danger, but rain rattled against windows.
Windows. He was inside.
He just didn’t know where.
Now he kept his eyes closed on purpose, trying to assess more before revealing that he was awake, and alert.
Think.
Carnival. Ferris wheel. Fire.
Calla.
The way her body jerked.
The way he’d run. The way he’d hit the ground.
He wanted it to be a dream, but the pulsing ache in his shoulder convinced him it wasn’t. None of it was.
Hunter fought to keep his breathing even.
The whispers drew close, but he still couldn’t make sense of the words. Breath brushed his cheek, then a finger stroked across his eyebrow.
Hunter flung out a hand and seized a wrist. He jerked upright and looked at his captive.
A boy, looking just as shocked as Hunter felt. Young and blond and wide-eyed, he couldn’t have been more than five or six. His expression was frozen in that state where crying was a possibility.
Hunter let him go.
Then he winced, as the adrenaline wore off and his body suggested that sudden movement hadn’t been a bright idea.