Hunter

by Joanna White

  There was a pause that seemed to stretch out forever. I hated how my heart pounded at the thought that she was close. “You’re right, Lehlax,” a soft voice murmured. Her voice sounded rough, as if she had cried too much.

  “I gathered the necessary herbs for the cure to try and help Runx, but… I didn’t get there in time to help him. I still have them and they’re ready,” Lehlax explained. “What’s with the blindfold?”

  “He was the Hunter who Municx told us his weakness,” Sine said.

  There was a short silence as if the news shocked them. Fire burned me, and my stomach felt like it was being eaten away. This time, I vomited. I started coughing and I tasted acid and blood in my mouth. As the fire spread, I continued throwing up everything inside me.

  “I think he’s too weak anyway to do anything. Take it off for now,” Lehlax said.

  Instead of blackness all around me, there was nothing but white. I realized we were in the ice caves. It seemed like I was lying down and Lehlax, Quinn, and Averella were on both sides of me. I coughed up more blood and I felt like the fire had reached my lungs. Wheezing harshly, I couldn’t get enough air. My breathing came in short gasps.

  “Help him drink that, Averella,” Lehlax ordered her.

  She put something to my lips and I felt a hot liquid go down my throat. It tasted bitter but seemed to slightly relieve the burning.

  “What are you doing?” Averella yelled at Lehlax.

  He took something and stabbed it into my neck.

  Maybe he changed his mind and letting the poison kill me would be too slow, I thought.

  “Look. The poison is in his lungs. It just shut down his stomach, now it will shut down his lungs in less than a minute. This will help him breathe,” he explained. My vision blurred for a second before everything came back into focus. He took the stem of a plant and blew through it and inserted it inside the hole in my neck.

  Instantly, it was easier to breathe. I gasped in relief and filled my body with air. With a grunt, I felt the fire in my chest again, all over my body, burning it, and that was all I could think about.

  All I could focus on was this fire inside me, killing me.

  Chapter 15

  JARED

  When I woke, the first thing I noticed was that everything hurt. I had two gashes on my arms, right where my veins were in the crease of my elbow. I had one small gash on my chest. The arrow wound was just a cut sewed together by stitches now. All the fire in my veins was gone. I tried sitting up, but two hands gently pushed me back down.

  I looked to see Averella sitting beside me. She trembled but had a fur pelt wrapped around her shoulders. I realized then that it must be cold, but I didn’t feel it.

  “How do you feel?” Her voice sounded distant, not the gentle, tender tone she normally used.

  “Better.” I noticed both of my wrists were tied with ropes that connected to ice pillars that were on either side of me. Looking at them, I raised an eyebrow but said nothing. I could have easily broken out of them, but I stayed where I was, unmoving.

  “We figured that you wouldn’t recover if we had you blindfolded, so we decided to tie you, in case you woke up and tried to kill us.” Her eyes still had that determination there, but it was a different kind of determination.

  I nodded. An awkward silence passed, but she didn’t move away from me, nor made an effort to say anything to me.

  “Averella, I know I lied, but when I got to know you and the others, I realized there was something more than being a Hunter, and I hated knowing what I am, and that I had to keep it from you. I knew that if you found out you—"

  “Just stop, Jared,” she said in a tired voice.

  I wanted to tell her I was sorry, but that word didn’t seem like enough.

  “When you pretended to save us to get us to trust you, what was your goal? And I want the truth this time.”

  “Hindah knew that we had underestimated you the first time we went after you, so he wanted me to convince you and the others to trust me so that I could help the Hunters find you and draw out killing you. Hindah likes… toying with his prey.” I winced.

  “So, it was all a game to you?” She glared at me.

  “To Hindah, not to me.”

  “Right.” Averella clicked her tongue and avoided my gaze.

  “What can I do to get you to believe me?” I pleaded.

  “Did you tell Hindah that I came here for my brother?” she asked me.

  I shook my head. “No, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t already know somehow.”

  “What do you mean?” Averella turned to me with a frown, lips parting with a sharp inhale.

  “He knows everything that goes on in here.”

  She clenched her jaw but said nothing.

  “Averella, you never told me his name, so there’s no way Hindah or I could find him, even if I wanted to.”

  “Did you mean any of it? What you felt?” She looked at me in the eyes and to see hers so full of pain and heartache instead of kindness and hope made my chest ache.

  “I didn’t understand it, I still don’t. We’re not made to feel anything but hate and anger. Hunting is all we know. But yes, whatever it was I felt, I meant it. I did—do—feel something for you,” I explained to her honestly.

  I can still sense your life force, Jared. How disappointing that you somehow managed to live, Hindah hissed at me in my thoughts.

  I’m sure you are. I mentally growled at him.

  “What’s wrong? You get that distant look sometimes… Like you’re lost in your thoughts.” Averella’s voice snapped me back to reality.

  “It’s because I am.”

  She shot me a questioning look. “Wait a minute, what’s your special thing? All the other Hunters can do these things, but… what can you do?”

  “I can see through things. Not just objects, but people, into their thoughts and feelings.” Somehow saying it out loud made me feel too exposed.

  Her eyes widened in surprise before they narrowed at me. “As if you didn’t do enough by lying to me, but you read my mind and thought you could just… just lead me on like that?” she screamed at me.

  “I can’t read yours,” I said quickly. “The most I can get is a flash of a feeling… Like your anger right now. And… something else… but you’re burying it too deep for me to pick it up.”

  “Why can’t you?” She frowned.

  “I don’t know. That’s why Hindah was so interested in you at first. We both thought you had Hunter potential, so he wanted me to get close to you to find out why I couldn’t see through you like I can everyone else.”

  How did you survive the poison, Jared? Hindah asked me in my thoughts.

  No one can survive that, Vinmir snapped.

  “So, when you get that distant look you’re… seeing people’s thoughts and stuff?” she asked.

  “Not all the time. All the Hunters can communicate telepathically, so when I hear one of them telling me something, I hear that and sometimes answer, which distracts me from what’s in front of me.” Trying to explain it out loud was more difficult than I had imagined.

  “You’re talking to the Hunters?” Her voice rose as she jumped to her feet.

  “Hindah could feel that I was still alive. He’s angry and wanted to know why, but I didn’t answer him. Vinmir is ticked because it was his special poison.” I sighed and slightly shifted my weight, but didn’t want to break out of the ropes, so I stilled.

  “How can I be sure? I mean, you could be telling them our location right now,” she said.

  “They don’t know where you are.” I met her gaze, wanting her to see the truth in my eyes.

  She shook her head violently. “You’re just trying to get us to stay here so they can ambush us.”

  I stretched out with my powers, sensing for Hindah, trying to pinpoint where his thoughts were coming from. Looking through the cave walls, then the trees, I continued miles and miles as far as I could see, until I found him.

  �
��Hindah is with Ysogi searching the hills. He sent Novarch, Becx, and Gurnarch to search the lake area. Malik is doing fly-by’s around the rock forest to see if we went there or to the cliffs. Vinmir and Kehlarch are in the swamps to look,” I told her.

  “I don’t know their names.” She crossed her arms and her nose crinkled in irritation.

  “But there’s no way to know if he’s telling the truth,” Axe pointed out. I didn’t notice, but the others had been listening in. They gathered around me on the left side and had stayed quiet and out of the way until now.

  “Do you think we should leave or stay here, Lehlax?” Sine looked at Lehlax before training his eyes back on me.

  “I’m not sure.” Lehlax appeared to be deep in thought.

  “Eventually, they will search here. It won’t take them long. You could leave and avoid them, at least for a while. If you stay, they will send Kehlarch here and he’ll be right in his element. No one will be able to stop him then.” I calmly met each of their eyes as I spoke.

  “If they were ambushing, he would want us to stay here.” Sine rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  “But he could be trying to lead us right to them.” Axe glanced to the left as if expecting the place to already be surrounded by Hunters.

  “I didn’t tell you where to go. I told you which places not to go. There are plenty of places left for you to choose to travel to.” I clenched my jaw, but deep inside I knew I couldn’t blame them for not trusting me.

  “The Hunters could be there, and you could be hoping we run into them,” Axe snapped.

  I sighed. “Send a couple of people to the swamps then if you want to check it out, but it will take at least a day to get there and, by that time, they will move on.”

  “So, basically, there’s no way to know if he’s being honest or not. Great.” Averella narrowed her eyes but refused to meet my gaze.

  You’re with them, aren’t you, Jared? They saved your life, even after your betrayal. Well, they may have saved your life, but you will not be able to save theirs, Hindah taunted.

  I clenched my jaw. You won’t touch them. As long as I breathe, you will never get them.

  He laughed in his thoughts. I will kill them off one by one and then I will take your girl and kill her the slowest. I will make you watch. You will beg for death and I will not let it come. Then, you will know what it’s like to be truly alone.

  “He’s talking to them,” Sine said out loud.

  “Blindfold him,” someone else said.

  No! I yelled at Hindah in my mind.

  He laughed at me again. Why don’t you turn yourself in? We will capture you and it will give your friends time to get away from us. I promise I’ll let you live.

  Someone put a blindfold over my eyes and I was engulfed in darkness.

  “Wait!” I thrashed, trying to remove the blindfold.

  “We should leave.”

  “Hindah is taunting me,” I blurted without thinking. They had to believe me. I had to finish the conversation with Hindah. “He wants me to turn myself in. Don’t blindfold me. I promise you’ll have plenty of time for that later.” There was a pause then the cloth was taken off my eyes.

  “Why does he want you to turn yourself in?” Lehlax asked.

  “He wants to capture me, make me watch him and the others as they kill you all off. He knows it’s the best way to torture me.” My tone was distant and detached in my own ears, despite how the words themselves brought pain to my chest.

  They all exchanged glances.

  When they didn’t say anything, I did. “If I turn myself in, it will give you guys a chance to get away from them, at least for a while. It would give you time to figure out where you want to go.” Set my people free…

  As I spoke and heard the words that the man repeated in my mind, I knew that turning myself in was the best thing to do—it was the right choice.

  “Why would they want to capture you? They had you surrounded,” Averella said.

  “Hindah thought the poison was going to kill me.” My eyes found their way to the old arrow wound on my shoulder.

  She furrowed her eyebrows but nodded.

  “And you would turn yourself in for us, why exactly?” Sine crossed his arms.

  “To give you a chance. It’s not much, but it’s better than no chance at all.”

  “Yeah, but why?” Sine demanded.

  I looked down and felt a heavy feeling deep inside my chest again. Maybe it was what they called guilt or shame. “It’s the least I could do after the things I’ve done,” I whispered, looking up to meet each of their eyes. I stopped to rest my gaze on Lehlax, swallowing deeply.

  “I was the one who killed Luke that night.”

  No one said a word. Lehlax stared at me for a minute, feeling waves of shock, grief, and pain slam into him again and again, before he turned his back and walked away.

  Sine started after him, but Axe caught his arm. “Just let him go.”

  Sine clenched his fists and I was sure the only reason why he didn’t attack me was because of Axe’s hold on his arm.

  Come on, Jared! We know where you must be hiding with them. If you turn yourself in, we will leave them alone, take you to the special place we have for you, and they will have time to get away, Hindah said in my thoughts.

  You’re bluffing. You don’t know where they are, I snapped.

  “Now, what?” Sine asked, infuriated.

  “Hindah says that he knows where we are, and that if I turn myself in, he’ll take me and leave, instead of killing you all. It will give you a chance to get away,” I said out loud.

  Am I? Jared, you know I’m not, Hindah said in reply.

  He pictured himself and the other Hunters killing the prisoners one by one, imagining all of their dead bodies. He pictured Averella and thought about how he had enjoyed hurting her and beating her.

  I clenched my fists and my jaw. Rage gripped me so tightly that I trembled.

  “What is it?” someone asked.

  I couldn’t tell who it was. In my thoughts I screamed at Hindah, cursed at him, and called him the foulest names I could think of.

  “Whoa,” someone murmured. I saw my face mirrored in Sine’s thoughts. My eyes were completely black.

  “What’s going on?” Averella asked.

  At that moment, I knew exactly what Hindah had planned. I growled, sensing the Hunters arriving at the entrance of the ice caves, and pulled on the ropes so hard they broke, cracking one of the ice pillars in half. I jumped up, moving as fast as I could, and unsheathed a dagger from Sine’s belt before any of their human eyes followed my movements. Darting straight for the entrance, I threw the dagger where I knew Kehlarch was, just as he smiled.

  “Hindah thinks you all need some special alone time, so why don’t you go run deeper into the caves before I send this whole entrance into an avalanche? He’ll give you about a day before we come in there and slaughter all of you unless Jared gives himself up. I’ll find you all tomorrow. If Jared comes with me, you’ll live, and we’ll take him. If not, you all die. It’s a simple choice,” Kehlarch said.

  He had frozen the dagger before it reached him.

  I knew what he was going to do.

  “Get back! Go now!” As I warned the others, I looked to make sure they ran deeper into the cave, and then charged toward Kehlarch. I sped toward him as fast as I could, hate filling me, too angry to sense or do anything else but get to him and kill him.

  “I can’t move!” someone screamed. When I realized it was Averella, I stopped all my movements and focused on her. Kehlarch was drawing all her heat away from her. She quivered more and more, uncontrollably so, and within seconds her face and hair were covered in icicles.

  I dove for Sine and took his sword and another dagger and ran toward the fire they had somehow managed to start. The blades turned bright red as I darted toward Averella. This had only taken me a couple of seconds to do, with my speed. Stabbing the sword in front of Averella, I stood protectively i
n front of her. Then, I ripped the sword out of the ice and embedded it on the ground in front of me.

  Kehlarch looked at me with widened eyes and cursed.

  The next second that ticked by seemed like hours.

  Kehlarch started an avalanche and brought down the entrance. Seconds before the avalanche began, I threw the hot dagger that he hadn’t noticed in his direction. It hit him in the stomach, just as the ice cave collapsed around us.

  “Jared, watch out!” Averella screamed. She tackled me on the ground out of the way of a stalagmite that had fallen off the ceiling and stabbed the floor where I had been standing.

  I looked at her eyes, filled with worry and kindness once again. Every part of me felt human, felt the opposite of a Hunter with her. That tug pulled at my chest again and I didn’t want to let her go. The lies and mistakes I made before were horrible lessons, but I had learned from them and I realized that I never wanted to disappoint her again. I wanted to stay by her side, protect her, care for her, and be there for her.

  I realized this was what love must have felt like. I didn’t know how I understood what the feeling was, but that word kept replaying itself over and over in my mind, a distant memory that I had forgotten.

  “I love you,” I murmured before I could stop myself. She had to know what I felt, had to know that I finally understood what the feeling was.

  She looked surprised and opened her mouth to say something, but Sine cut her off.

  “Hello? There is an avalanche about to crush you, let’s go and deal with the love drama later!” He yanked us to our feet and shoved us forward.

  The cave rumbled, and I looked toward the entrance. It was piled full of ice and the rest of the cave was seconds away from collapsing all around us.

  I pushed them forward in front of me and ran with them as fast as they could. We traveled about a mile before we finally escaped from the avalanche’s range. The space opened into a large cavern. It was massive, almost a hundred feet tall and hundreds of feet across. Ice glistened in every single direction, making it appear a bright blue hue, rather than dark as I expected. Other corridors sparkled and glistened off the ice. It was an amazing sight to see.