Joshua approached them what felt like only minutes later to deliver the verdict. Hunter and Will woke up stiff from leaning over Fearne's now still body and stood, waiting like parents in a hospital for news that their child was alive.
Joshua looked as if he hadn't slept for a week. His shirt was still covered in blood and he slumped, not his usual OCD self. Hunter tried to forget about their earlier conversation; there was still a lot to talk about without the current drama to deal with.
"What is it?" she asked.
He motioned for them to follow him outside into the corridor. "It's a toxin," he said and ran a hand through his hair. "A rare one. It doesn't give her long to live, and it's designed with only one cure."
Will's face went white. "M-me, I'm the cure."
Joshua frowned. "I'm sorry Will, I don't think your blood is-"
"Bullshit," he hissed. "My blood will heal everything!"
"Not in this case," said Joshua.
"What? Why?"
He let out a sigh. "The toxin was derived from Feucotetanus."
"How-"
"The only answer to curing Fearne's disease is with Ravenadium. But ... we don't have a sample."
Hunter frowned. "What happened to the one I found?"
"It's gone. Chevie stole it and used it to bring his father back to life."
Hunter and Will were so shocked that they didn't move, standing there like statues. And then, at almost the exact same time, they started to get extremely angry. Hunter's body pulsed a bright, orange glow and Will's muscles clenched as he breathed heavily. Joshua forced the air to cool so that they would both relax, but it did no good.
"He did what?" Hunter hissed.
"I don't care who he is," said Will through his teeth, "I'm going to kill him."
Joshua raised his hands. "We can be angry at him all we want, but that won't bring her back."
"She's not dead yet," Will growled.
"Can we go to the cabin to see if the sample is still there?"
"Already did," said Joshua. "It's gone."
Hunter looked suddenly dizzy and leant against the wall. She put her head in her hands. "Dr. Wolfe has Ravenadium?"
Joshua nodded.
"Holy shit, we're all dead."
"Wait," said Will, "why is this stuff the cure to Fearne's sickness?"
"Hunter, you know what happened when Feucotetanus fused with Ravenadium?" asked Joshua.
"It created my powers, and yours."
"Correct. I thought that by dosing her with straight Ravenadium, it would heal her by boosting her powers and killing the infection in her system. It would be a risk, but the only safe option we have. Giving Fearne Will's blood will fuse with this new toxin and Fearne's already unique formula for her abilities. It would take me years to research the effects, and we don't have the time."
"Then we do it anyway," said Will. "If you don't have a cure for her, then there's nothing else for us to do. We have to save her!"
Joshua tried again to explain the repercussions, but Will only yelled louder and nothing Joshua said or did could calm him until –
"Stop!"
They turned to Hunter, whose palms were on fire. As soon as they paused, she pulled the flame back inside her skin and sighed.
"Dr. Wolfe would rather her be dead than an asset to us. He did this so that we couldn't use her. She was the most powerful weapon we had."
"Have," Will spat and shoved Joshua in the shoulder as he passed, stalking back into the hospital wing.
"He's going to do anything he can to save her," said Hunter. "You should at least let him try."
Joshua turned and put his back to the wall. He was exhausted. "I can't fix her. Trust me ... it's over."
Hunter didn't much want to talk to Joshua anymore. A part of her – the fire and its fury – wanted to scream at him for keeping the secret of Eli and Miss Smart from her for so long, for not telling her that the former love of her life was actually alive. Her skin started to glow the more she let the anger get to her. But then she looked down at the broken man before her and it reminded her of the warehouse.
I walked away from him once. I won't do it again. He's put too much at risk for me this time.
So Hunter sat down beside Joshua, just as she had done with Will.
"We both came back from our powers overcoming us," said Joshua. "But Fearne's power is so damaging and so dangerous, that in the wrong hands, she could be the end of the world. She knows it."
"But ... I beat the fire. I learned to control it. Why can't Fearne be the same?"
Joshua almost smiled. "Because she doesn't want to, Hunter. She can't risk the consequences. I don't know anyone in this lifetime who would rather give up their chance at happiness at the chance that she could be a poison in this world. That is truly brave."
Hunter lowered her head and tears spilled from her eyes. Fearne was a true hero. But Will could never know that she had given her life for it.
"I'm so sorry that I didn't tell you about Eli and Jenny."
Hunter raised an eyebrow at him. "Jenny?"
His cheeks filled with color. "She ... she prefers Jenny. It's a beautiful name."
For a moment, Hunter couldn't believe it. She'd never seen Joshua act this way.
"Wow, not the forty-three-year-old virgin anymore, eh?"
Joshua smiled, his pale eyes glistening with something she hadn't ever seen in them before. It was a completely new Joshua.
"Oh my God," she whispered. "You love her."
"I ... I don't know. I've never felt this way before about a woman. Except ... except Liz."
Hunter put a hand over Joshua's, the strange feeling of ice beneath her fingers like a familiar smell or a memory.
"I want to forgive you Joshua," she said. "But I need you to promise me that we don't have to go through this again."
He nodded, sniffed and met her eyes. "I'll try my hardest. You should know by now that I'm not a perfect man."
"Neither am I. A woman, that is."
He chuckled.
"I know you've done everything you can for Fearne."
"I wish it were enough. But there's nothing more I can do. You should go back to your bed and rest."
Hunter wasn't yet ready to accept that there was no hope left. It was the hardest thing she'd ever had to do.
"You should rest too," she said. "You've done all you can, and it's more than any of us."
"No, I have more work to do." He winced as he stood up, holding his hip. Hunter made to help him, but he smiled down at her "Don't worry about me."
Hunter nodded and went into the hospital wing. Will was standing beside Fearne's bed. He had a syringe in his hand and was trying to find the vein in his arm.
Hunter rushed forward. "Will, what are you doing?!"
"I'm saving her."
"You can't-" He and Hunter wrestled with the syringe as she tried to pull it away from him. "Didn't you hear what Joshua said?!"
Will shoved her away so hard that she skidded back against the bank of cupboards and knocked her head on the handle. She stopped, her mouth open. She gazed at Will, on the verge of losing his sanity. They say that men become monsters when those they love are in danger of dying. This could easily be said for Joshua. But Will was not a monster, just broken and desperate to hold on to the girl who was there for him all his life.
"In ICE, Dr. Wolfe used Mikayla's blood to stop my power from working," he said. "If her power works in my system, then my power will work in Fearne's. If she's going to d-" He grit his teeth and couldn't bring himself to say the word. "I have nothing left to lose."
She stayed silent for a moment. There was no changing his mind unless she forced him to stop, and he may never forgive her for that. Her only option was to help him.
Hunter strode forward and turned on the second monitor for her bed beside Fearne's. "You're doing it wrong," she said. "You need to be monitored just in case your blood reacts to hers. And you suck at finding the vein."
Will let her fix it to a catheter and inject the needle, his eyes never leaving Fearne. But as soon as she asked him to sit back and let the transfusion take place, he grabbed Hunter's hand.
"Thank you," he said. It broke her heart to hear the quiver of fear in his voice that he may actually lose her. "She'll pull through this. I know she will."
Fearne was asleep, her skin paler than snow and the black veins pumping through her blood as they consumed her.
Hunter couldn't look at them anymore. She said goodnight, crawled into her bed on the other side of the curtain and tried to ignore the sound of Will's sobs as they cut into her heart.