The man blinked up at her and released a moan. Quinn turned away from him to search the rubble. The man had chosen his course when he’d agreed to help The Commission. Her course was to find Julian; that was all that mattered right now.
She tilted her head back to look at the hole above her again, but Chris had been driven away from it by the smoke and flames closing in above her. Rising to her feet again, she balanced herself on the shifting rubble with her hands out at her sides.
“Julian!” She strained to hear any cries for help over the fire closing in on her. The heat licked at her hair, blowing it forward. Tears streaked her face as the acrid smoke thickened and burned her eyes. She doubted her voice carried more than a foot or two beyond her, but she continued to shout for him. “Julian!”
She made her way deeper into the catacombs of the burning building. The flashing red lights cast shadows through the smoke, disorienting her more than helping her find her way.
“Julian!” she screamed again. “Julian!”
A sound to her right had her spinning in that direction. She nearly smacked into the wall beside her. She ran her hand over the smooth concrete, feeling her way forward. Her hand fell away into nothing, and she felt blindly around the open space.
Finally, it sank into her dazed mind that she’d found an opening in what she assumed was the main tunnel beneath the building. She saw only a flash of movement before a hand grabbed her wrist.
Quinn jerked back, flattening herself against the wall when a small whistling sound pierced through the buzzing. Something whizzed past her face, creating a shift in the smoke. Quinn lashed out, bringing her hand down on the arm that had swung at her. She smashed into someone’s forearm with enough force to crack bone. A woman screamed as the coppery tang of her blood filled the air and the stake she’d been clutching clattered against the concrete.
Quinn pulled her arm back and drove her fist into the woman’s face. The woman’s scream abruptly cut off as the punch knocked her teeth out, causing the woman to gag on them. Quinn enclosed her hand around the woman’s neck and dragged her into the tunnel with the flames.
Blood pooled from between the hands the woman covered her mouth with. She moved her hands away only to spit out a few of her teeth. Quinn kept hold of the woman as she dragged her toward the fire. Tentacles of power slithered from Quinn’s palm and into the woman. She gave a subtle tug on the woman’s life force in order to heal the wounds she’d sustained from her fall. Judging by the swell of life within the woman, she was a Hunter.
The woman’s head swung toward her when she felt Quinn taking from her. “What argh ya doon?” her voice was so thick and heavy with blood when she spoke that Quinn struggled to understand her.
Ignoring the question, she drew more from the woman until Quinn was certain the woman wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight or get very far if she tried to escape. The woman’s life fueled her, heightening her senses. Beneath the cloying scent of the fire and smoke, she scented Julian.
The woman’s legs trembled. With a whimper, she jerked against Quinn’s hold when the fire blasted against their skin, but Quinn didn’t relinquish her. They were nearly to where she’d left the trapped man when something crunched behind her.
The woman’s feet flew off the ground as Quinn whipped around to face whatever was behind her. She jerked to the side when a man with a massive bruise on the side of his face, a swollen black eye, and his clothes hanging in tatters on him lunged at her with a stake in hand. The stake sliced down her arm, digging into the bone and bouncing off it.
Biting back a scream, Quinn released the woman and drove her elbow into the man’s Adam’s apple. He choked, and his eyes bugged out as his hand flew to his throat. Using Quinn’s distraction to her advantage, the woman jumped at her. Her fingers hooked into Quinn’s necklace, and with an abrupt tug, her locket gave way. Dismay swelled within Quinn as that piece of her family fell away from her. She punched the woman in the face again, sending her reeling into the wall.
With the woman temporarily out of the way, Quinn lunged to finish off the man before he could completely recover. Before she could grab him, a blast of something hit her in the chest, flinging her back. Her spine screamed in agony when she crashed onto the jagged pile of debris and bounced across it. A broken piece of rebar pierced through her side, impaling her and stopping her from falling into the fire.