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"We are here because we want to help you," Corinne told him. Her smile was sad, hopeful. "You may not remember me, but you are my son. I named you Nathan. It means 'gift of God.' That's what you were to me, from the moment I first laid eyes on you."
He stared at her for a long moment, blinking quickly, studying her face. Then his struggles began again, a careful twisting and bucking, testing Hunter's hold on the collar.
"I once wore one of these too," Hunter said, catching the wild gaze and holding it steady.
"I am a Hunter, like you. But I found my freedom. It can be yours too. But you have to trust us."
The boy went wild now, and Hunter had to wonder if it was his words that had terrified him so much - the mention of freedom, a concept both foreign and dangerous to their kind - even more than the threat of the collar.
In Nathan's struggles, the thick black ring of polymer and high technology knocked hard against the floor of the truck. As it did, a small red LED blinked on.
"What's that light mean?" Corinne asked, panic edging her voice. "Oh, God, Hunter ... we can't do this to him. You have to let him go ... before he hurts himself. Please, I'm begging you, let him go, Hunter."
A sudden flash of Mira's vision shot through his mind at Corinne's terrified words. He pushed it away and focused on the task at hand. "If we let him go, he is dead for certain. The detonator is active now. He can't run without setting it off."
And now that the LED was blinking, time was even more fleeting. He glanced around him, searching for a tool to use in removing the collar, even while he understood too well that tampering with the device would only hasten its explosion.
Then he remembered the cryogenic containers.
The liquid nitrogen.
"Stand up," he told Nathan. "Do it carefully."
Corinne gaped at him. "What are you doing? Hunter, tell me what you're thinking."
There was no time to explain. He walked the boy over to the tanks, his hand still wrapped around the lethal ring at his neck.
"Hunter, please don't hurt him," Corinne begged, a further confirmation that Mira's precognition could not be thwarted. "Can't you understand? I love him! He means everything to me!"
Hunter held fast to his conviction that he was doing the right thing - the only viable thing - to possibly save her child. With his free hand, he reached for the hose that connected the cryo container to the tank of liquid nitrogen that fed it. He yanked it loose. White fumes spewed from the severed hose.
"On your knees," he told the boy, firmly guiding him to the floor. "Take off your shirt. I want you to place it over your head like a hood, tucked between your skin and the collar."
"Hunter," Corinne cried, weeping now. "Please, just let him go. Do it for me ..."
Her fear clawed at him, but he couldn't stop now. "This is the only way. It's his only chance, Corinne."
Nathan obeyed, silent, uncertain. When the tank top was in place, Hunter told him, "Lie down on your stomach."
Slowly, the boy got into position on the floor. Hunter wound the tail of the cotton shirt around his hand then took a firmer hold of the collar, the liquid nitro hose in the other. He exhaled a low curse, then brought the hose toward the back of Nathan's head and held the plume of freezing chemicals directly onto the collar.
Clouds of white steam frothed up into the air. Even through the layers of fabric protecting his hand, his skin burned from the intense cold blasting the impenetrable casing and circuitry of Dragos's cruel invention.
Beneath him, Corinne's son was utterly still. He panted quickly, quietly, just a terrified kid who was giving all he had to hold himself together in what could very well be the final seconds of his life.
All too soon, the liquid nitrogen began to thin and sputter from the hose. Hunter would have liked to freeze the damned collar for a lot longer, but the tank was petering out. He'd have to take his shot right now and hope for the best.
"What's happening?" Corinne asked. "Is it working?"
"We're going to have to find out." He threw down the hose and reached for one of the daggers sheathed on his thigh. He took it out and turned the hilt around in his hand, ready to bring the butt down on the frozen collar.
Corinne's hands took hold of his arm. "Wait." She shook her head, her face stricken with fear. "Don't do this. Please, you will kill him."
He might end up killing the boy and himself, if his gamble failed and the device went off in that next moment. With Corinne weeping, pleading futilely for him to stop - the vision playing out just as Mira had predicted - Hunter pulled his arm out of her grasp. Then he brought his fist down on the collar.
It shattered.
The pieces broke away, crumbling down around Nathan's shirt-covered head as the device disintegrated. Hunter got up and stood back from the boy. Corinne threw her arms around him.
