The Hunters

Part 23

23.

Tyler

    Oh crap! Well isn’t that an understatement. I knew it was coming. I’d have to tell her eventually but this isn’t exactly how I envisioned her finding out. Actually, I hadn’t really planned much past tonight let alone dropping this atomic bomb on her.

     My hands burn like I’d held them over a naked flame but they are the least of my worries at the moment. Rowan is staring transfixed at the television screen with her eyebrows knitted together as if she is trying to figure out a maths equation, no doubt wondering how it is possible for her friend to be on the television at all.

     That’s the thing about trust isn’t it: it takes a hell of a lot of time to build it up but once you’ve earned it, people try not to let it go. Of course the other thing about trust is that it is a lot easier to break it than to earn it. Something tells me that it I’m going to need a miracle to get myself out of this one.

     “Beth,” she whispers almost inaudibly but the words ‘the calm before the storm’ spring to mind.

     “Listen, I know how it seems-“

     She whips her head around and shouts, “Yeah? And how exactly does it seem?” her eyes begin to glow. Red. Bright red. Blood red.

     “Calm down,” I tell her but she refuses to listen.

     “Because to me it seems like you’re a fucking liar!” now I know she’s mad because that’s the first time I’ve heard her swear even after everything that had happened.

     “Listen-“

     “So what, you told me you’d kidnapped my best friend just so you could blackmail me into coming with you? How could you do that to me?” She’s shouting louder and I feel the temperature in the room rise; a bead of sweat forms between my shoulder blades.

     “What else was I meant to do? Would you have stayed any other way?” I plead with her to understand and slowly edge my way backwards so that I am between her and the door.

     “That’s not the point!” She spits, “I’ve been worried sick for months and you just let me keep thinking Beth is in trouble!” Another wave of heat erupts from her. It feels like standing next to a supernova and slowly I am burning up.

     “For God’s sake, calm down!” I order but she takes little notice of it. Her eyes are blazing now, fire exploding in her irises. Her cheeks are reddening with exertion but her face is growing paler.

     “Get. Out. Of. My. Way.” She snarls, clenching her jaw.

     I plant my feet solidly on the ground and square my shoulders, “No.”

     “Move,” she growls in a voice so unlike her own musical one, if I were to close my eyes I would never know it was her who had spoken. I would think it was a monster. Without warning a ring of fire forms around Rowan, caressing her legs all the way up to her thighs. She keeps her gaze steadily on me, unfazed by the flames.

     “Move.” She repeats but there is no way I’m letting her walk out of that door.

     “No.”

     She howls in frustration and the fire grows with her anger reaching higher than her torso. My whole body is damp with sweat and the pungent stench of burnt carpet wafts in the scorching air.

     “I did warn you,” she says and I have a split second to wonder what she is talking about before I feel it. I’m being burned from the inside out, like the fire is being contained by my skin and it is desperate to burn it’s way out. I can’t breath because it feels like all of the oxygen is being devoured by the fire and boiling blood is being pumped around my body, searing every inch of flesh and bubbling just beneath my skin.