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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 stands, 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.
