Heat rolled up the hall before the first spark showed.

Zubair lifted his hand and the darkness around them turned red along the baseboards, a thin line at first, then a rushing wall.

Fire opened its eyes in the cracks of the paint and in the dust along the floor, took a breath, and then ran with it.

While to most, it would have seemed like it had its own mind, its own spirit, that wasn’t the case at all. It went where he pointed. It stopped when he closed his fist. It curved around Sera and the men like it knew their names.

If there was ever a doubt as to the control that Zubair had over his power, it was completely erased at this point.

"Left wing," Elias called out, already moving in that direction.

"Basement vents," Alexei answered, palm raised to feel the draft. "We’ll choke them there."

Lachlan laughed once, his breath white in the cold seeping under the doors, machete riding his shoulder like a promise. Luci stayed pressed to Sera’s hip, his head low and his ears pointed forward as if he, too, was keeping an eye out for whatever humans were trying to escape.

Meanwhile, Zubair simply walked forward.

Flame followed him like an obedient puppy, eager for his approval and direction.

He brushed his fingers over a door and the seam glowed, then went to orange, then to white. Wood popped as the water inside of it evaporated. Smoke blew through the cracks and then died when he closed his hand and starved it.

Zubair opened his fist again and the fire flowed past his boots, fast and flat, hunting the low edges of beds, the piles of paper on desks, the rags tossed into corners when someone had been in a hurry.

A guard stumbled out of a side hall, coughing hard. He lifted a rifle and saw Zubair through heat shimmer.

Zubair flicked two fingers like he was swiping right on an app. Only this time, swiping right did not mean approval.

The rifle bloomed into fire from muzzle to stock.

The man shrieked and dropped it as flames skinned his gloves, turning them to ashes.

He slapped at his sleeves as fire licked up them, bright and calm. Zubair squeezed his hand closed once again and the flames vanished, leaving smoking cloth and a man who didn’t know which way to run anymore.

Luci raced away from Sera’s side, hitting the guard at the knee, taking him out.

The man went down and didn’t get back up.

"Door," Elias grunted.

The door in front of them was a heavy one metal one with a blast frame, specially designed to take high temperatures and not fold under the pressure.

Zubair set his palm to the hinges and pushed heat into the pins. Metal groaned but still refused to completely submit. Walking up beside Zubair, Alexei tapped the frame once with two knuckles and it cracked, frost and fire arguing along the seam.

Lachlan jammed the machete into the gap where the lock met the frame and levered. The door gave, and Sera slipped through first.

Inside there were two more guards and a lab tech with a length of pipe, their focus on the door as the lab tech faintly trembled in fear.

Elias shot the first guard in the faceplate. The second aimed at Sera, but never got to pull the trigger. Zubair sent flames out from under the sole of his feet, the river-like flames danced across the floor and the man’s boots lit. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

He hopped once, twice, before falling flat on his face. Sera crossed the room and broke the tech’s neck with one hand.

"Next," she said, her voice completely devoid of emotions.

Zubair turned back to the corridor and lifted both hands.

Fire went up the walls in vertical stripes, thin and straight. They didn’t touch the ceiling. It didn’t touch the floor. It was a cage with lines you could see.

The far end of the hall glowed brighter where the stripes met and not even the smoke from burning debris was enough to blanket the light of the fire.

There was a door at the end of the hall that burst open as the flames licked around it. Three soldiers started to run through, saw the wall of fire, and froze.

Zubair clapped his hands together, creating a loud sound that caused the three soldiers to flinch.

The stripes of flames joined into a solid sheet of fire. The men jumped back, their rifles up, and shouted into dead radios begging for backup.

Only there was no backup to be found anywhere.

Zubair let the wall of flames lean forward as they circled the three soldiers, locking them into the square of space where they were standing. The massive amount of heat pushed them to the floor, where they struggled to take a breath of air that wasn’t polluted by smoke.

They tried to crawl forward, away from the prison of flames, it like children under smoke, but the fire lay down with them and showed them there was no ’under’.

Sera didn’t bother to watch.

She led them into the side wing that ran parallel, not willing to let so much as a mouse continue living. Elias checked the corners with short bursts of rifle fire. Lachlan took the first door on the left, the machete hitting bone and metal, cutting through both like it didn’t know the difference.

Alexei cooled the floor where the blood of their enemies began to pool, causing everyone around them to slip on the ice.

Zubair came last, not caring enough to look around.

He glanced once into a glass-walled office and saw the shape under a desk holding its breath like they were the boogieman coming out to get all the bad boys and girls.

Zubair scoffed and flicked out with two fingers. Flames flowed under the door of the office before dancing their way to under the desk where the shape was hiding. It went white-hot for one second before going out.

But that second was more than long enough to accomplish its goal.

The shape did not move again.