Authors note: ok people I am sorry this took so long to get to you. I have been busy with exams and other stories I've got up all over the place and I will be a bit more busy in two weeks with my Exam. So please bear with me
And a warning, this story is coming to a close.
Chapter 59
The night air whipped around us as we flew back to the place of our nightmares. The moon was full, illuminating the ground below in a pale ghostly light, but nothing penetrated the shroud of darkness I had formed around us. We had stayed up in the mountain cave I had used while escaping until the night was full and then had left. I looked forward into the night and saw the harsh electric glow of the lights from Haven. As I had guessed, the wall that had been blown away was still under construction.
Derek and Aaron split from the flock and went in low, sweeping in barely above the cliff face, but low enough to avoid detection from anyone. As we drew closer, Cass, Courtney and Sierra split from the flock and lead the main distraction. That left me, Ryan, Dean and Keira. On the roof during my stay, I had noticed that the main cafeteria had a skylight in it, but was reinforced with solid steel bars. Too bad they forgot that Ryan could manipulate the metal with his mind.
The skylight began to crack as the beams bent, then chunks began to fall out and crash into the cafeteria below. There was a shrieking and much twisting then the beams broke free from the roof and flew for a brief few seconds before coming to land on the guard house at the front entrance. I sincerely hoped no-one got hurt… yeah right. We dove in through the now open skylight and into the Cafeteria, to find it entirely deserted. It left us unnerved that no Erasers had rushed to the Cafeteria when the glass began to break.
"Be prepared for anything," I warned them, "Something's not right here."
We moved carefully through the corridors, leapfrog tactics used, one person moved ahead of the previous one, while the other two provided back up until the person in last was first, then it started again. The corridors were empty and the lights were off. I kept getting the feeling that something wasn't right. The hair on the back of my neck was prickling. We arrived at the labs and I quickly scanned the room and my hopes fell right away. The Lab had been trashed, vials lay on the benches and floor, their contents spilled into foul smelling and lethal mixtures that had burnt holes in the ground.
I stepped around these and headed for the refrigerated containers kept in the cooler at the back of the room. There was a faint hum coming from the cooler and I realized the power for it was still on. I pulled it open and searched for the drug I had heard my mother mention before. It was in the bottom right hand drawer. I pulled it open… only to find that it had been emptied. I turned back to the mess on the lab floor and realized that many of the tubes were from different experiments, but they also had tubes of the gene therapy that I needed. It had all been destroyed.
We heard the sound of footsteps outside the room and prepared for battle as they came rushing closer and closer. The doors burst open and I almost fired a dark bullet at them, until I realized it was Derek and Aaron. A moment later Cass, Sierra and Courtney appeared.
"They're right on our heels," Sierra replied, "Erasers and a ton of them. I suggest we get out of here as soon as possible."
"What the heck happened here?" Cass asked.
"It was like this when we arrived," I replied, moving for the door, "There's nothing left anymore. We have to get out of here before…"
I didn't get to finish my sentence as we reached an intersection of the corridors and found ourselves surrounded on three sides by Erasers waiting in ambush and a fourth group following up from behind us. We were trapped.
"Well done, Nathan," A voice spoke, "Well done indeed."
"Andrew Corway," I replied coldly, "I should have guessed. You ordered the stuff in the labs destroyed, but you knew I'd come back for something to cure Laura. So here I am."
"What no 'Hello Father' greeting?" Andrew asked, "Oops, I suppose they didn't know that did they?"
"I'm one step ahead of you there," I replied, "They already know. Now what did you do with the gene therapy?"
"Ah yes," Andrew said, and pulled something from his pocket, "I'm afraid this is the only vial left. But I don't intend to give ti to you, unless you are willing to make a deal. Keira in exchange for Laura's life. How does that sound?"
"Shove the offer where the sun don't shine," I replied, "I'm not trading anyone to save Laura. You wouldn't hold your end of the deal anyway. You'd have us all killed, except for Keira who you'd drag out the information from, then kill her."
"Well," Andrew said, "I definitely wasn't expecting that answer. So I suppose you don't want this anymore?"
He lifted the vial of the gene therapy liquid and threw it into the air. It spun and climbed for a few seconds before it began its kamikaze dive for the ground. I dove for it and four squads of Erasers raised their guns and prepared to fire…
Chapter 60
I closed my eyes as the guns fired. I felt heat around me, but there was not searing hot pain as the bullets hit and I wondered why I wasn't hurt. I opened my eyes, to find a wall of fire surrounded us on one side and both Aaron and Dean were holding up telekinetic shields on two other sides. Ryan held a wall of bullets on the fourth. I realized I was holding onto the vial tightly and loosened my grips slightly, so as not to break it.
I looked back at my father and saw shock on his face. I felt all my anger and hatred coil inside of me and I didn't really care what happened to him now, I really didn't. I let go of the vial with one hand and felt the familiar coolness as the gun formed in my hand. I lifted it and pointed it at my father.
"You' can't do it, Nathan," Andrew said, "You can't kill your own father. No matter how much you hate me, I know you better than you know yourself."
"I doubt that," I replied, "I doubt that a lot. You were never around to know me. I buried you long ago, after you staged your death, now I have no problem killing someone who is already dead."
"Let's go," Cass replied, "We've got what we came for and the other prisoners are free. Ryan's pretty sure he can make the building implode on itself. We're finished here."
"Cassandra," Andrew replied, "It's a shame to hear your brother was killed. Some Erasers got annoyed that you turned and took it out on him. Too bad he didn't survive."
Cass turned back to my father, but this time, I didn't even recognize her. This was the first time I had ever seen her angry. Her eyes and started to glow orange, and her hair had turned to fire. He fists curled at her sides and suddenly fire surrounded them. I was the first to notice the temperature in the building increasing and then the faint whisper.
"Run, Nathan," Cass said, "Run."
She burst into flames so bright it looked like she had become a mini sun. I couldn't look at her directly and the temperature had risen close to unbearable. The Erasers were backing off and so was Andrew, but Cass seemed to be focused on one thing and one thing only, revenge. The floor beneath her began to melt and I felt the air around us begin to scorch from the heat as well and decided to listen and ran. The rest of us followed soon after and we began to run until we had reached the half repaired wall and jumped out through the hole. We plummeted towards the ground until, at the last second, we spread our wings and let the air currents lift us back up.
"We have to go back for her," Dean replied, "We can't leave her there."
"We have to," Keira replied, "She's already passed the stage of no return. A Pyro has a limit as to how hot they can go before they are fully consumed by fire. When that happens they have about thirty seconds to cool off otherwise the go supernova. The area around them will be scorched and if it isn't quarantined properly, could cause some serious damage to the area. Supernova's can scorch the very air around the person."
"So we'll be brunt to a crisp if we even try," I replied, "But a Pyro going supernova? I've never heard of that before."
"Because when Pyros do that," Keira said, "They raise their core body temperature far higher than it should ever go. Cass is the highest I've ever seen it go before while she's…"
Keira trailed off and I looked back at the building and saw the glow coming from inside, saw the melting of the building from the heat and I heard the screams, screams I wanted to block out but couldn't. Worst thought was the smell, it made me want to upchuck my dinner.
"While she's alive," I managed to say, "Pyros normally end up dead after doing this… don't they, Keira?"
"Normally there are no traces left to be identified," Keira replied, "They burn themselves up and become ash. That's what people think. No-one has ever figured that out. No-one can get close enough to watch it happen, not without burning."
Suddenly the building exploded behind us and debris became a deadly rain. Twisted steel beams and droplets of melted steel flew through the air, either crushing or burning anything it came in contact with. A blast wave of heat pressed onto us, forcing us along for the ride. We found it hard to breathe as the oxygen was sucked from the air around us to fuel the fiery column that had appeared where Haven had once existed. Once we were able to breathe again, we hovered in the air and watched as the column of fire slowly disappeared and all that was left of Haven was a giant crater in the ground, still cooling from molten lava back into rock. Heat still radiated from the crater, but that too was slowly disappearing, just as Cass had done, when the place had gone up in flames…