by Wendy Knight
Both waiting for his response.
“Aquis...” he said slowly, as if the words pained him. “Ms. Cora said—”
“I know what she said. I know she’s probably listening now. I don’t care. You can’t hold back a dam with a fire wall and it’s putting you and your team at risk.”
Flint dragged a hand across his face and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I have to follow orders, Aquis.”
“I’m mission leader. Follow my orders.”
Flint jerked his seatbelt off and flung himself from his seat, pacing the small area. “Aquis, Ms. Cora specifically said—and after you argued with her even—”
“I don’t care!” Aquis snarled. “I’m mission leader and I’m telling you not to go on that wall.”
Flint rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry, Aquis. I have to follow Ms. Cora’s orders.”
Aquis was quiet for several long minutes. Flint continued to pace or paused to stare out the window. It was killing him to argue with her, Galvan could see that.
“Galvan.”
Aquis’s voice echoed in his ear. Flint stopped pacing and turned toward him, eyes wide.
Galvan flipped his mic on. “I’m here.”
“As your mission leader, I’m telling you to not go on that wall.”
Galvan met Flint’s eyes and could see the betrayal there. The pain. Kenna, next to him, went very still.
She was next, they all knew.
“Aquis, do you realize what you’re asking?” Galvan’s voice was hoarse, strangled even to his own ears.
She paused. “I’m asking you to not risk your life blindly following orders.”
“You’re asking me to choose between you and Flint, and I don’t want to do that.”
“I would never ask that.” Her voice was infinitely sad. “Because I would always lose.”
Galvan didn’t respond, even as the decision warred within him. Aquis didn’t come back again to ask them or Kenna, instead they heard her rapidly firing directions to the rest of her team.
“Flint, two minutes until touch down,” the pilot said from the front of the pod. Flint, positively gray in the face, sank into his seat without a word and fastened his seatbelt.
The pod landed several hundred feet from the dam wall. Galvan had no idea how they would even get over to the top of it, and with the water several meters below, their fire wall wasn’t going to do any good.
As your mission leader, I’m telling you to not go on that wall.
Galvan followed Flint off the pod, surveying the thin walkway in front of them. It was blocked by a padlocked chain-link fence, but that was it.
It seemed to Galvan like such a dangerous walkway should have more security than that.
Flint pulled out his flamethrower and stole the flame, throwing it at the lock. It hissed and sizzled and fought the flames, until Galvan and Kenna joined Flint’s efforts, heating the fire until it melted the metal.
Flint dragged the door open, the gate screeching across the cement at their feet, and started out onto the wall, moving slow like each step pained him.
Galvan stared down toward Aquis’s forces. She’d assembled them in a fan-like shape with the Amazis in the center. They would take the brunt of it if the dam failed. He couldn’t see her from this distance, but the thought that she was down there, facing such an insurmountable task, nearly drove him to his knees.
Humans worked frantically on the dam, where Galvan could see huge cracks in the massive wall. There was no way they could fix it in time. Water already gushed from leaks in a hundred different places.
“Elites are on their way,” Ms. Cora said through the comms. “Just hold it at bay until they get there.”
Another pod dropped down next to theirs, and they spun toward it. Aquis jumped out and sprinted toward them.
“What are you doing?” Flint yelled to be heard over the roar of the water and the pod’s dying blade rotation.
Aquis ignored him, shoving her way past all three of them like she wouldn’t be burned with a single touch.
Flint reached for her, stopping just shy of her arm, but she shrugged away and stormed onto the wall. “If you won’t come down to me, I’ll protect you from here!” she snarled, loud enough to be heard over the water, but just barely.
“But your mom said—” Flint started.
She turned furious eyes on him, eyes that usually were a metallic, friendly blue but now raged angrily like the water below her. “I don’t care.”
Obviously.
Flint looked helplessly at Galvan. He could feel the dam rumbling beneath their feet. If it went down...they would go with it.
But she was out there alone, already pushing the water back. She was just one, small person, and even though she was so powerful, even she couldn’t hold back a dam.
“She’s a pain in the ass,” Galvan muttered as he passed Flint and jogged to Aquis’s side. Kenna followed, Flint a second later. Aquis pushed, roiling the waves back and trying to hold as much of the water at bay as she could. Below, Amazis pulled the escaping water away, throwing it in rivers and streams and anywhere else that might work. Terras tried to stabilize the dam and Cealis used their mighty air forces to direct the water.
But up here, Aquis was alone.
And pushing the water back.
“Flint, get your team off the wall and back in the pod. Stay close in case we have need of Pyra strength again,” Cora said through the coms.
It had been a test all along.
But nobody moved. Galvan couldn’t believe what he was seeing, the sheer force of Aquis’s strength as, drop by drop, she turned the water away.
“The problem is the water keeps coming back,” Galvan mused. “But if we evaporate it—”
“It would have to be really hot,” Flint said. “Do we have that kind of strength?”
“We have to,” Kenna said. She opened her flamethrower, flicking the flame out. Galvan did the same, and Flint added his own to it. Then they grew it, strengthening it, until it was a wall.
Water hissed and boiled as Aquis, with one hand still holding the water away, pulled droplet after droplet into their fire, just enough that they could consume it but not enough to put out their flames. He could see it taxing her; already her arms shook and sweat beaded across her forehead, but she said nothing.
Just kept fighting.
The ground rumbled beneath them.
Galvan redoubled his efforts, drawing more fire from the lighters. Aquis fell to one knee, risking a glance over her shoulder at the humans below.
They worked as fast as they could. Unfortunately, it wasn’t fast enough.
There was a horrendous crack and roar as the dam gave way. Galvan felt the ground collapse beneath his feet. Kenna screamed, but Galvan didn’t have time to react before he was falling through a wave of concrete and water and debris. It washed over his head, burying him as it roared over the edge.
Toward the ground, several hundred feet away.
They were going to die.
He tried to swim, his lungs burning with the need to breathe, but he couldn’t even tell which way was up. He tumbled head over feet, felt the world spinning, and horror consumed him.
Suddenly, the water parted, and he was thrust on top of it, riding the wave like he was on an invisible surfboard. He sucked in grateful breaths, trying to scrub the water out of his eyes.
Aquis was in front of them, falling fast toward the ground but pulling all three of them and the human workers up out of the water. She was bleeding, pale, her white hair a tangled mess plastered to her face, but her eyes were narrowed in concentration.
Keeping them above water.
The closer they came to the ground, the weaker she got, but still she refused to let them go. Amazis nearby joined her efforts, diverting the waves away from the main mass of water.
Elites.
The Elites had come.
He was carried to the ground and set gently on his feet, although his knees promptly
gave out and he collapsed. Flint landed next to him, Kenna a few feet away.
No one noticed. Everyone who had fought to get them to safety was now sprinting toward Aquis, who lay motionless several feet away.
Galvan’s soul froze, seeing her still form. He tried to gasp her name, but his lungs wouldn’t have it. Scrambling past Flint, half-falling over himself, he rushed to her side.
They were pulling water from her lungs and trying to stop the bleeding from a head wound. Her eyelashes fluttered and she forced her eyes open, meeting Galvan’s gaze. He fell to his knees next to her, smoothing white strands of hair away from her face.
The barest hint of a smile turned her lips before her gaze bounced away to the others working on her.
She’d saved them.
And almost died trying.
CHAPTER FIVE
AQUIS coughed water out of her lungs, scrubbing her eyes so she could search for her friends. Her heart thudded painfully against her ribcage, terror roaring in her ears.
Or maybe it was that half the lake had found its way past her eardrums.
Elites gathered around her, kneeling next to her, crowding her vision so she couldn’t see if she’d gotten Galvan and Kenna and Flint down safely. She’d tried so hard, but she’d been so tired... and then she’d fallen.
Trying to control the force of an entire dam while she fell was an impossible task.
“Aquis!” Galvan fell to his knees next to her, his usually wild red hair plastered to his face, soaked and still pale. “Are you okay?”
She coughed up more water and nodded, hoping he’d read the question in her eyes because she couldn’t muster the strength to ask it.
He did, thankfully.
“Flint and Kenna are fine. We’re all fine. Thanks to you.”
“How did you do that?” an Elite warrior asked her. He’d gone to Vitolas and had only graduated a couple of years before. His eyes were a stormy grey and swam with intelligence. If she remembered right, he’d been close with the Firestarter, Blaise. Aquis couldn’t remember his name.
“What kind of training have you had?”
She blinked up at him in confusion, her brain still sluggish from the fall and near-drowning. Flint forced his way into the circle, leaning over her and checking for any visible injuries.
“Who cares how she did it? She saved us.”
“Yeah, but we can’t recreate that kind of power if we don’t understand how she did it,” Stormy Eyes said.
“The only way to recreate that kind of power is to train like she has since the day she was born,” Galvan said. “It’s literally all she does.”
Aquis wanted to point out that she also played football with him sometimes, but she lacked the energy.
“Are you okay?” Flint asked, his voice low and crumbling with worry. Aquis forced herself to sit up, nodding. Her arms felt like limp noodles and shook with the effort it took to support her weight, and she was grateful when a Terra Elite pulled up the earth to give her something to lean on.
Someone handed Galvan a comm, and Aquis absently listened to his conversation while she surveyed the devastation around them.
The Elites had managed to control the water, so it hadn’t killed everyone in its path, but it had spilled over the riverbanks and flooded fields and roads. Trees had been uprooted, and even now, she could see the rest of the Elite forces holding the water at the mouth of the canyon. It was a wave a hundred stories high, curling and roiling and threatening at any second to come crashing down. She had no idea what they were going to do with all that water, but she was furious that her school had sent a handful of seniors to try to contain it when it was obviously taking a hundred Elites to control it.
“Yeah, she’s okay. We’re all okay. The Elites—” Galvan paused, glancing down at Aquis. “No, she’s not up to talking yet, Ms. Cora.” He hesitated again. “Well, because she just surfed us all down a collapsing dam-full of water and made sure none of us died. While she fell. So there’s that.”
Aquis almost smiled. Almost. Her mom was going to be furious. She’d specifically told Aquis not to go up there. She’d told her to stay with the main force at the bottom and if there was a problem, to take care of it from there.
Aquis hadn’t agreed.
“Let’s get her back on the pod and back home.” Flint dumped water out of his helmet, checking the comm. They were waterproof, but apparently that had been too much water.
Aquis coughed, trying to form words that weren’t cooperating. “I’m—mission—lead—leader.”
“She’s mission leader,” Galvan said helpfully when Flint only stared at her in confusion.
Aquis nodded.
“I’ll take over,” Flint said. “You’re spent. You’re no good to anybody here anyway.”
Flint had always been blunt. He wasn’t cruel, but he didn’t mince words. She knew this.
Still, it hurt.
“I’m fine,” she growled, but it came out as more of a choke.
Not intimidating at all.
Galvan handed her a stick and she grabbed it, letting him pull her to her feet. Her legs were, as she’d suspected, weak and practically unusable, but they held.
As long as she didn’t have to move fast.
“Aquis, come on,” Flint sighed. “You’re not up to this. You probably need medical attention. I’ve got this.”
Of course, he had this. His Pyra abilities were strong and everyone followed him. She felt lately like they were constantly butting heads over who was the real leader of the school.
Ironic, since Galvan was class president.
“I think she’ll be okay. The Elites have it mostly under control anyway.” Galvan shoved his hands in his pockets. “She probably knows best what she’s capable of.”
Flint opened his mouth to argue, but it was impossible to argue with Galvan’s logic. Aquis looked smugly toward him and strode off toward the Elites to see what her team could do to help.
The students were instructed to dig a hole.
A huge hole.
The dam was only thirty percent full now, which meant all the rest of that water was being held up in a wall by rapidly tiring Elite forces. The water needed somewhere to go until the dam could be fixed.
She gathered her team, ignoring Flint, who kept insisting she should rest, and divided them into groups. Each group was in charge of a chunk of land.
It was destroying someone’s farm, but better that than an entire city. She just hoped the farmers had flood insurance.
Within an hour, her Terras had moved the earth, and the Cealis had carried it away. The Amazis helped hold the water, and the Pyras burned everything in their path. Slowly, the Elites let the wall go, filling up the holes.
It had been dark for hours by the time they finished and they were working by the light of the Pyra fires. Aquis had never been so tired in all her life, but every time Flint looked her way, she raised her chin and fought on.
Galvan, of course, thought it was hilarious, although he had been nicer than usual since she’d saved his life.
By the time the water was contained and they were back on the pods, the sun was coming up. Aquis made sure everyone was accounted for before curling up in her seat like a cat to sleep. It had been a long day.
A very long day.
“Hey.” Galvan nudged her seat, glancing at Flint, who was already snoring next to him. “You did good today.”
Aquis felt her cheeks flush with pleasure. She literally could not remember the last time he’d complimented her directly.
“Thanks. You too.”
Galvan sat back into his seat, adjusting it so he could lie down. “I know.”
Aquis laughed softly. “So humble.”
They rode in silence after that. Aquis was not sure what to do with this friendlier Galvan. She felt like most of the time he barely tolerated her, and yet he always had her back and sometimes even cheered her on when she was at her lowest. Almost against his will, probably, but he was on her
side. She knew that.
The thought made her insides all warm and squishy, which was completely unacceptable. Yes, Galvan was amazingly gorgeous. She’d noticed that years ago. She’d have to have been blind not to notice. And yes, she was aware that she was more amused when he was around, that things were more fun that way. But warm and squishy where Galvan was concerned was not okay.
They were supposed to be bitter enemies. Or at the very least, frenemies. He needed to stay in his designated frenemy role.
“How angry do you think my mom will be?” she turned toward him, her ponytail tangling on the headrest.
Galvan squinted at her while he untangled her hair, almost like the whole process annoyed him. “Angry? Why would she be angry? You saved us. She was the reason we were up there in the first place.”
Aquis turned forward again, tapping her fingers restlessly against the armrests. “Because I wasn’t supposed to be up there. It was a test to see if we would all follow orders. I failed.”
Galvan smirked. “You’ve never been great at following orders.”
Frowning, she whipped back toward him indignantly. “I have always been the epitome of obedient. What are you talking about?”
Galvan’s smirk didn’t fade as he leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, leaving her to fume silently without a response.
CHAPTER SIX
THE pod touched down and Aquis immediately tensed, although that was the only outward indication that she was nervous. Her hands folded in her lap and she waited patiently, staring straight ahead with no expression until the hatch doors opened.
Galvan nudged Flint with his elbow before unbuckling his own seatbelt and rising to his feet. He was the first out of the pod, ducking through the low doorway.
Cora and Ren stood in the middle of the hangar, arms crossed and formidable. He nodded as he passed them, but they were watching for their daughter.
Flint came out next, still rubbing sleep from his eyes. He looked young and vulnerable. “Good job out there, Flint. You did exactly as we asked and led your team accordingly.”