The Hunter

by Jessica Gunn

I rushed, fumbling the phone as I shut the ringer off, then picked up the call while looking everyone in the eye, asking them to move along. “Hello?”

  “Benjamin Hallen?” someone asked.

  No one used my full first name. Ever. “Yes. Who’s this?”

  The feminine voice on the other end said, “My name is Beverly Rose. I’m a nurse at Theodore Memorial.”

  My stomach dropped. It was Amanda, wasn’t it? God. If she was hurt… “Is she okay?”

  “Sandra is fine,” the nurse said. “But she was in an accident and is requesting you come see her, to help with her discharge papers, given the baby.”

  My breath stilled, heart thundering in my ears. “The baby. What happened? Are they—”

  “Please, Mr. Hallen, calm down.”

  No. I couldn’t calm down. I stood from my chair and started packing my bags. I’d be at Theodore Memorial in ten minutes—less, maybe, if I sprinted from here on foot instead of going to the parking garage on the other side of campus, fighting the lines of people leaving for the night to study, the traffic on the way there—

  “Mr. Hallen? Are you still on the line?”

  I nodded fast. “Yes. Thank you for calling. I’ll be there right away.”

  I’d been so focused on finals. So freaking engrossed, while Sandra had been at work, saving money for the baby on top of what I’d already been saving from work, and now…

  The hospital called and said to come down. They wouldn’t have done that if she or the baby were seriously hurt. Would they? Of course they would, if she was unconscious and I was the only person they could reach. Oh God.

  “What’s up?” Michael asked, following me as I ran out of the library. He reached out and pulled on my shoulder. “Ben.”

  “Sandra’s been admitted to the hospital. Some sort of accident.” I’d run. It’d be faster. I’d be sweaty as hell and smell of something awful, but at least I’d be there sooner. I threw my backpack at him, which he caught with a groan. “Take this. I’ll get it later.”

  “Ben—”

  “No!” I shouted. “Just take it.”

  If Sandra died, or the baby died after all of this these past few months, I didn’t know what I’d do. I loved Sandra more than anything else in this world. I might not have been the best boyfriend in the world, but I was trying.

  That had to count. Right?

  I sprinted from the college to Theodore Memorial, entering their emergency room wing and demanding to see Sandra. Beverly Rose, the nurse who’d called me, was waiting for me at the door.

  “She was in a car accident,” the nurse said. “Not a major one, but it shook her up. She’s got a few abrasions on her arms and face, but both she and the baby are fine. They’ll make a full recovery.”

  I swallowed hard as we walked. “Are you sure? About the baby?” I didn’t know much about this medical stuff beyond what I needed for my major, even less about pregnancies and babies, but a car accident while pregnant didn’t sound like a good thing.

  Beverly nodded. “Yes. The doctor cleared her a while ago, but we needed an adult to take her to discharge and she requested you be here. She shouldn’t be driving right now.” We stopped outside of a room. “She’s right in there.”

  “Thank you.”

  Beverly left me outside of the door and returned to the nurse’s station. I knocked lightly.

  “Come in,” Sandra said. Her voice was quiet.

  I nudged the door open and stepped inside. “It’s me.”

  Sandra was still hooked up to an IV and vitals machine, and some other contraption. She followed my confused line of sight and said, “It was for the baby. To hear his heartbeat.”

  I blinked. She’d been so badly banged up, they had to monitor the baby’s heartbeat? Then it hit me. “…his?”

  She smiled, small at first. Then as the silence dragged on it turned into a grin that reached from ear to ear despite the tears gathering in her eyes. I rushed to her bedside and embraced her as best I could without dislodging the IV.

  “We’re having a boy, Ben,” she said. “A boy!”

  I laughed, overcome with so much emotion and relief that my eyes watered with it all. “Thank god.”

  She smacked my shoulder. “You would have been happy with a girl, too.”

  “Yeah, but it’s a boy.”

  “We weren’t supposed to know.”

  I shrugged. “Let’s be honest; someone was probably going to spoil it anyway.”

  We’d elected not to know at that ultrasound. Guess it didn’t matter anymore. And it didn’t, not as long as they were safe.

  I pulled back and stared into her eyes, happy for every second they were open and alight. “I’m so happy you’re okay.” I lifted my hand and placed it on her small baby bump. “Both of you.”

  And for the first time ever, a pure sense of utter joy, colorful and bright and warm, overcame me. I blinked, staring down at her bump. Our baby boy.

  I glanced back up at Sandra. “I should have been there. Drove you to work and back home or something.”

  “It’s not your fault. And you were studying,” she said. “Besides, the other driver was at fault.”

  I moved my hand in small circles on her stomach, wondering if the baby could feel or sense that I was here. Could he hear me yet? “Still. You’re okay and that’s all that matters.”

  She nodded quickly, tears brimming in her eyes—then they spilled over and she started crying. I wrapped my arms around her, rocking her.

  “I thought it was over,” she cried. “That we’d lost the baby. I was so scared, Ben. So terrified.”

  “Shh,” I said, stroking her hair. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

  I held her like that until they’d come to do one last checkup and I filled out the discharge paperwork.

  But as I walked back to her room a few minutes later, I saw a person outside of it. The same person who’d been at Castle Island.

  “Hey!” I shouted. “Hey, what do you want?”

  I was close enough this time to pick out more features. Dark hair. Baggy clothes. He was tall. And when he saw me coming, he smirked and took off for the stairwell.

  I followed him down there, lightning prickling between my fingers. Fuck. Not now. Stay in control. But the faster my shoes beat against the tile, more and more lightning cracked and hissed. Heat waved over my hand and side with every crackle of power.

  The door to the stairwell slammed shut behind the man. I hurried to it and into the narrow space, but when I swung the door open, no one was there. I rushed toward the railing, pressing my abdomen against the metal, and peered down at the spiraling stairs below… and saw no one. Not even a janitor.

  The man had vanished into thin air. Again.

  I paced around Rachel’s dorm room like a mad man, my mind whirring faster than the speed of light. After I saw Sandra back to her room, I’d come here and urged Rachel’s roommate to take a long walk elsewhere.

  “Ben, stop,” Rachel said, watching me.

  “Don’t you get it? They’re after us. They have to be.”

  She stood from her bed and put her hands on my shoulders, her eyes urging me to see reason. I wouldn’t. Not now. Not after that asshole had been outside Sandra’s hospital room.

  “You don’t know that, Ben,” Rachel said.

  “Then let’s review what we do know, shall we?” I snapped, lightning crackling around my fingers.

  Rachel looked down at it and let me go, backing away. Not because I’d hurt her on purpose, but because she knew as well as I did that when I was mad, my powers did some dumb shit of their own accord.

  “When we went to Boston for information regarding our powers, we found that guy playing with water on Castle Island like he was some superhero,” I said. “Then he’s here five months later, stalking my girlfriend’s hospital room?”

  She nodded. “Okay, I admit it’s a stretch to think it’s a coincidence.”

  “Stretch,” I repeated.

  “Look, all
I’m asking is, why do they care? Because we saw him using his magic?” she asked. “It was a two-second encounter five months ago.”

  “We also went poking around that office building with the fire,” I said. “Maybe it’s their hideout or something.”

  She looked away, chuckling under her breath. “Do you hear what you’re saying? How crazy it sounds?”

  “Yes, actually,” I said, then lifted my hand that was now filled with lightning. “But it’s not any crazier than this.” And if someone was after Sandra, or the baby—my son—they’d find themselves in a whole world of hurt. “We need to be careful. Or at least increase our search for answers before this guy shows up again.”

  “You don’t know that he was there to hurt them,” Rachel said, sitting back on the edge of her bed. She looked up at me with eyes rounded in concern.

  My fists clenched. “I’m tired of not knowing.” I was exhausted—period. From this night. From every night since the rowboat accident.

  “Me too,” Rachel said. “We need to hang in there. Research more, but maybe not go back into the city. Okay?”

  I nodded slowly. “Okay.”

  But if that guy showed up again, I’d force answers out of him. I wouldn’t let him disappear into nothing next time. I was learning how to control my powers. But I might be less inclined to use that control if anyone went after my son. Possible demon or not.

  Sleep didn’t come that night. I should have stayed with Sandra despite her telling me to let her rest. I should have slept on the floor of her dorm, close by but not in the way, just to keep an eye on her.

  The look in that man’s—possibly demon’s—eye when he saw me coming down the hallway at the hospital, it wasn’t the gaze of someone intending no harm. Maybe he wasn’t going to hurt Sandra, but he sure as hell wasn’t planning on leaving her alone, either.

  Lightning flashed in through the one tall, narrow window in my dorm room. Thunder crashed a while later, the storm still far off. I wish the storm that had caught me out on the lake a year ago had arrived just as slowly. Maybe then we wouldn’t be in this mess now.

  The lightning flashed again, catching the trees just right to cast crazy shadows on the dorm room walls. Like it was sending me some sort of coded message, buddy to buddy.

  I scoffed. We weren’t buddies. If anything, we should be master and slave. But instead of me controlling it like my power would suggest was possible, the lightning kept tugging me around like some sort of puppet.

  “Asshole,” I hissed at it.

  “Wha?” Derek asked, grogginess seeping into his words.

  Great. Wake Derek up, why don’t you?

  “Nothing. Go back to bed.”

  “Mhmm,” Derek mumbled.

  I rolled my eyes and stared at the ceiling, my legs aching for movement. To run and get the hell out of this damn tiny room. To be free.

  When thunder rolled across the window for the second time, loud and invading, I jerked the covers off my bed and slipped a hoodie over my shoulders. I dug my feet into a pair of running shoes and left the dorm, heading for the stairs. Anything to get my mind off of what had happened today, and how even though the baby wasn’t even born yet, I was already terrified for him for his entire life. It was like everything that could happen—crashing his first car, getting lost in a city, going to college across the country, simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time like my parents had been—it all came crashing down after seeing that demon man outside Sandra’s hospital room.

  I could barely protect myself, forget the idea of watching over a helpless newborn. How could this possibly end well?

  Regret slammed into me. I should have called the police. Was it too late now? But would it even matter if the guy kept vanishing every time he showed up?

  I pushed open the door to the dorm’s roof before the next crash of thunder. The pebbled surface crunched underfoot and rain battered my face, reminding me too much of my accident on the lake. But this time, I wasn’t scared.

  “Do your worst!” I shouted as lightning flashed across the dark, early morning sky. “I’ve beaten you once. Go ahead and try again.”

  Wind whipped at my hoodie, pulling me closer to the edge as if the storm actually had arms. I rushed the edge of the roof, daring the storm in the only type of defiance I had against my powers and my fear. Both so intertwined I wasn’t sure how to cope. I couldn’t cope.

  Rage built within me, warming my face and neck despite the cold rain and wind beating my body. A fire so strong, so rooted inside of me back before the accident, before any need for football to become an outlet, all the way to the core of who I was.

  My hand burned, sizzling upon contact with the rain. I didn’t need to look down to see why. My lightning always manifested there, like some sort of joke. Except I wasn’t sure what the punchline was, or if there even was one.

  Lightning scorched the sky anew. I held up my hands and watched the electricity bouncing between them, crackling between my fingers, reaching toward the sky to meet its natural twin.

  The storm didn’t respond in kind. Lightning struck somewhere off to the left, unfazed by my will to wield its power as my own. That’s what I needed after all: more power. More control. Endless amounts of both to ground me. To make me whole again.

  I’d been taunted enough. First by the void, then by everything that'd happened afterward. And now this demon-man and the storm and everything they possibly stood for.

  I screamed, pushing everything I had within me into the lightning streaming from my hands. Willing it above myself and into the sky. Away from here, away from me. Hopefully off to someplace useful.

  My power clashed and thunder boomed, the rattling of it overtaking my senses and voice. Drowning me out.

  But the lightning, my lightning, met the storm’s halfway and the entire sky lit up with the energy from the blast.

  I felt the connection in my bones, my very soul. Adrenaline surged through me and my body tensed like I was lifting the heaviest weights on our gym’s set. Power built and intensified until it felt like I couldn’t possibly channel any more of it out from myself into the sky, or from the storm to me.

  And then the moment was gone, ending with the next roll of thunder. A rush of satisfaction, of pure elation, raced through me. I’d done it. I’d controlled this ability, harnessed it into a storm of my own.

  I heaved breath after breath as my body recovered. But when would my life recover and return to normal?

  Not every problem rolled on like a thunderstorm.

  Chapter 8

  One and a half months later…

  The sun shone brightly on my face, warming my skin under the summertime New Hampshire sky. This wasn’t the first time I’d brought Sandra with the family up to my grandfather’s lake house, but it was the first time she’d come up pregnant. Obviously.

  Sandra was due any day now, weeks after college graduation, and the anxiety of it, this mix between excitement to meet my son and wondering if we were actually, finally, ready for him to be here, had started hitting me with every waking breath. I kept having nightmares about Sandra going into labor when I wasn’t around, or that something would go wrong, or that I’d rush home to take her to the hospital only to find that creepy demon-man standing outside the house her parents were letting us rent from them until we found a place.

  But then Sandra would touch my face, bring my hand to her stomach, and I’d feel Riley kick. In that moment, it was like the world righted itself all over again, and I could handle absolutely anything that came my way.

  Frankly, it was fucking exhausting. And Riley wasn’t even here yet.

  “Come on.” Sandra slid her arm beneath mine and pointed at the lake on the other side of the small hill. “They’re having all the fun without us.”

  I nodded. Of course they were. They weren’t about to have a baby.

  Sandra urged us as fast as her swollen feet would take us. She’d started not sleeping well, though she tried to lie about it. The ba
gs under her eyes told the truth. Just a few more weeks. Then Riley would be here.

  I couldn’t wait to meet him.

  We made our way over the hill and down to the lake shore, where Michael and Rachel had set up a small tent. He’d also apparently dragged down a small grill and a cooler, the latter of which I ignored. I hadn’t drunk since Sandra’s accident.

  Rachel hopped off her lawn chair and jogged over to us. “Hey. Glad you guys could make it. How was the drive?” She wrapped Sandra in a hug and spared Riley a soft pat.

  Sandra grinned, shielding her eyes from the sun. “Good. Not much traffic, which was nice for a change.”

  Rachel went to speak but paused, her mouth open, and she squeaked. She put her hand back on Sandra’s stomach. “He kicked!”

  Sandra chuckled at Rachel’s bright expression. “He clearly has a favorite aunt already.”

  “Don’t tell Amanda that,” I groaned. They were already fighting over that, albeit lightheartedly.

  Rachel smiled up at me. “I can’t wait to hold him for the first time.” Then to Sandra’s belly, she said, “Come on, little buddy. Hurry up in there.”

  Sandra hushed her. “Give him a few more weeks.”

  “Anyone want lunch?” Michael called from his mini grill. “It’ll be ready in five.”

  My stomach growled in response. I covered it with a hand and tried to remember the last time I’d eaten something. Probably late last night over my laptop and endless tabs of research about people with powers.

  While Rachel and I had stopped actively going to Boston and other locations around Massachusetts, I hadn’t stopped looking for answers. My control still wasn’t the best and nothing told me why I’d been given these powers.

  I was starting to think I’d have to just chalk it up to fate and leave it at that.

  “Yes,” Rachel said, spinning to be closer to Michael. “Cheese on my burger, please. Sandra, do you want anything?”

  She nodded. “Definitely. I’m starving.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  We crowded around Michael and waited for him to cook. Amanda was still in school for the year but got out sometime next week. After that, I’d probably be calling on her to help with the baby. Which, for the record, she was excited about. Possibly more than me and Sandra.