by Wendy Knight
“No. They’re not monsters. Not unless they’re raised to be.” She tried to push past him, her entire right side burning from his touch as tears soaked her cheeks.
Galvan stood his ground, pushing her back and igniting a fire between them.
He was really going to fight her.
Indecision warred within her. Was he right? Should she return with him to the pod and leave those babies to their fate? Follow orders?
For some inexplicable reason, Flint’s lost baby flashed before her eyes, the features a blur but the desperation was there, wishing for someone to save it. Flint couldn’t save it. Aquis couldn’t save it.
But she could save these.
She raised her hands, pulling the fury back to the surface.
“Don’t make me do this, Galvan.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
GALVAN had hoped she would listen to reason. Her career was destroyed—through no fault of her own. If Akash had just followed her orders, they would have gotten out and none of this would have happened. But she would take the blame for their deaths and judging by the look on her face when she’d brought their bodies out, she already blamed herself.
She had nothing to lose by going back in.
She’d lost everything already.
He knew that.
But he honestly didn’t think she’d fight him. She was kind. Obnoxious and annoyingly kind. She always had been. She wouldn’t fight him.
She was in love with him.
So when she raised her hands, dousing his fire wall too easily, it took him several seconds to react. By then, she was already trying to push past him again.
He shoved her back, the burn making her cry out. She reacted on instinct, hitting him hard with a wave of slush—she’d tried to freeze it and failed.
Still, it soaked him, sending ice through his body.
His flames were so weak, already spent from fighting the Chaos. He felt the ice in his soul, attacking his Pyra element.
He’d reached his limit. He couldn’t fight anymore. Not unless he wanted to risk losing his abilities altogether.
But she was trying again to get past him. He hit her with a fireball—not powerful enough to kill her but it should have at least stopped her.
She doused it and moved again, dodging to the side, her skin blistering where he had burned her.
She knocked him over with a wave, wrapping it around him and holding him in place while she skidded past. Galvan sent the fire after her, burning her again—this time in the back. She went down hard as the wave dropped and he moved toward her, ready to accept her defeat and help her into the pod.
She spun, kicked hard, and swept him off his feet. Galvan fell backward, his head smacking on the concrete and for several seconds, he saw stars.
She was back on her feet and racing away by the time he got up. He could feel blood seeping from the head wound, but all he could think about was stopping her.
He hit her with daggers in the legs. She screamed, falling again and rolling around the corner.
They’d been too sharp.
Galvan jogged after her, worried that he’d really hurt her, wondering what he’d been thinking, cursing himself, and didn’t see the giant wave she propelled toward him until it was too late. It hit him and carried him down the hall, and he was lost to it, spinning over and under and twisting, but unable to escape. It was too big, too powerful. Like being lost in that wave when the dam broke. He felt it seep inside, into his soul, to his stoicheío, the organ that housed his element.
The fire within battled back, the war burning through his insides in unimaginable pain—like the Pyra burn times a hundred. A thousand. He screamed, but water went into his mouth, down his throat, to his lungs.
She was killing him.
He felt it the second the fire lost. The second her Amazi element defeated his Pyra element. It was like his soul tore in two, or a chunk of his heart was torn from his chest.
All at once, the water dropped and Galvan fell to the ground, unable to move, unable to breath.
He heard her screaming, felt her hands burning him and it took him far too long to wade through his waterlogged brain and realize she was trying to save him. Pulling the water from his lungs, giving him CPR, and then dragging him from the building and out into the sunlight, screaming against the pain.
She’d killed his element, so how was he still burning her?
“He needs medical attention—” she sobbed. “Please, take him to get help. I’m sorry, Galvan. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t realize—”
She hadn’t realized how powerful desperation made her.
He’d spent his life trying to pretend he hated her. He’d spent his life pretending he wasn’t wholly and completely in love with her, because he thought that was being a good friend. Pretending even to himself that he could live without her.
But it wasn’t until that second that he admitted it.
Coughing, trying to expel the last of the water, he forced his eyes open. The infants were nearby—he could hear them crying—but he couldn’t see beyond her face. Tears soaked her cheeks and burns covered her body.
He’d nearly killed her.
He was being lifted away from her. She rose to her feet, following, making sure he was set carefully into the pod, and then she backed away.
“Officer Hillcrest?” one of the pilots asked.
She shook her head, her lips trembling. “I can’t.”
She couldn’t?
Why not?
“Please, stay with him. Don’t—don’t let him stop fighting,” Aquis begged. “Don’t leave him.”
Like she was leaving him?
In Galvan’s comm, Rene was screaming. Screaming at him to apprehend her, screaming at the pilots to kill the infants. No one listened.
Galvan coughed again and Aquis was there, standing next to him, smoothing his hair back.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“I love you.”
Her blue, blue eyes widened as she was pushed back so the pod hatch could close. It was the last he saw of her.
HE was kept in a medically-induced coma for several days. When he woke, the world was changed.
He could feel it.
They’d told him his stoicheío wasn’t dead, but it wouldn’t recover. He would never have the power he’d had. His body reacted badly, and everything hurt.
It would always hurt.
They told him he wouldn’t walk again.
That he would never fight again.
They also told him the paperwork Ciel had stolen from the nursery had been hugely informative. It gave them insight into how the Chaos were created and how they functioned.
He didn’t care.
When he had the energy to speak, she was the first thing he asked about.
“What happened to Aquis—to Officer Hillcrest?”
Kenna, who had stayed by his side, glanced uncertainly at the doctor. “She—she’s gone.”
Galvan struggled to sit up, but the pain was too much and he collapsed back to the pillows. “What?”
“She never came back from the mission. She took two of the infants and ran, and all attempts by the Elites to bring her in have failed. She’s—she’s too powerful for any of them.”
“Even Flint?” Galvan’s voice rasped like it was dragged over sandpaper.
Kenna shook her head. “No. Flint won’t go after her. I’m not sure where he is, actually. Killing things, no doubt. But not Aquis.”
Galvan breathed a painful sigh of relief.
She’s too powerful for any of them.
She always did work best when she was following her own orders.
“Someone... anonymously, of course, has been calling every day to check on your progress. I’m fairly positive it’s her. I hope she comes back. I’ll strangle her with my bare hands and kill her twice. Once with the Pyra burn and once with strangulation.”
Galvan shook his head. It hurt. “I did this.
”
Kenna raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“I attacked first. She tried to run, and I attacked again. She was only trying to get past me. This wasn’t her fault.”
“She almost killed you!”
“I forced her to.” Galvan leaned back, closing his eyes, Aquis’s voice echoing in his head.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
She’d never realized how powerful she was. That denial had been the one thing holding her back all these years.
Apparently, now she’d learned.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
BEING a single mom to twins wasn’t something Aquis had ever expected. It had been a rough few months on the run, fighting Elites day and night, but those babies were safe.
They were well-fed.
They were loved.
She hadn’t been able to save the third baby. When she’d gone in to try to break his cage open after she’d gotten the other two out, he’d been gone. She hadn’t seen Chaos come in, and she couldn’t imagine them taking the baby and leaving instead of waiting to attack, but when she’d gone back, the nursery had been empty of anything living.
She’d searched for as long as she could.
Now, she was sleep-deprived and heart-broken and ashamed, but it was all worth it. Even when Beck spit his rice cereal back in her face and Sonas took that opportunity to escape from her highchair and crawl across the floor toward freedom. She loved to be outside.
She loved the trees.
Aquis hurried after her, scooping up the wriggling little Ceali before she made it. Sonas had a habit of blowing open even the tightest of locked doors.
Already, her power was terrifying.
“It’s lunch time, not play outside time. Aren’t you hungry?” Aquis wrestled her back into her highchair and turned back to Beck.
He was gone.
They did this often, working together to escape. Beck never went far, just far enough that he could giggle when she caught him.
She managed to wrangle him back into his seat, as well, and the rest of lunch was passed as uneventfully as it could have been with two Chaos babies. If Aquis had to guess, she’d say they were about six months old, and Sonas was a double Ceali.
Beck, she wasn’t sure about. She thought maybe double Amazi, but he had a bright blue streak that had shown up when his hair had grown in a few weeks after she’d rescued them.
She had no idea what that meant.
She leaned back against the table and watched in amusement while they patted the puddles of cereal on their trays, babbling to each other in a language Aquis couldn’t understand, and yet both of them seemed to.
She didn’t hear the door open.
She didn’t hear footsteps until a shadow fell across the table. Both babies went still, staring up with their huge, glowing eyes.
“You have rice cereal in your hair.”
Aquis jerked to her feet, already pulling water from the faucet, putting herself between the new threat and the babies.
“Galvan?”
He smiled, leaning heavily on a cane. That smile—sarcastic and amused and annoyed all at once—still so much the same even though pain was etched permanently across his face and his body—once so strong, so tall and lanky—now reliant on that cane to hold him steady.
She’d done that.
She’d nearly destroyed him.
“How’d you find me?”
He shrugged, easing stiffly into a chair. “You’re not that hard to follow. Flint could probably have found you months ago. I just barely got released from physical rehab, so it took me longer.”
Aquis edged closer to the highchairs, hoping this would be one of those times Sonas escaped from the seatbelt so Aquis could grab them and run. “What do you want?”
Galvan twirled his cane between his hands. “You.”
“What?”
“I just want you. In my life. If it means a life not following orders and fighting the Counsel and the Elites at every turn, then fine.”
Her hands froze on the highchair trays.
“I almost killed you.”
“I almost killed you too. Common ground is an excellent start to any relationship.”
“I’m—I’m on the run from the Elites.”
He nodded. “I know. I literally just said that.”
She ignored his snark. “Why would you want that in your life?”
He shrugged. “I love you.”
“You—you what?”
He sighed. “Did you really not know, Aquis? I followed you like a lost puppy.”
“You were following orders. That’s what you do best.”
“No. I was following my heart, which wanted you. It was when I deviated from that that I had problems. Besides,” he eyed the babies behind her, raising an eyebrow. “It looks like you could use some help.”
“You’re—you’re not here to take me in?”
Galvan sighed, rising painfully to his feet. He brushed the hair away from her face, his dark eyes devouring her own.
“I love you, Aquis. I’m here to be with you. I’ll say it as many times as I need to.”
“I have no future, Galvan.”
He shrugged. “You’re one hell of a legend though.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m serious.”
“They want me to work in the office on the comms. That’s not much of a future either. At least with you there will be excitement.”
“You’re really here—for me?”
He laughed; the sound healed some of the tears in her soul.
“I’m here for you. And for them.” He nodded at the squirming, escaping Chaos babies behind her.
“I—I don’t know what to say.” She plucked Beck out of his highchair and set him on the floor. He crawled to Sonas’s chair and waited patiently for his sister to be set next to him.
“You say you love me.” Galvan smirked, so familiar her entire heart ached. “And then you say you’d be glad to have my help.”
She fought tears, holding Sonas tight to her chest like she could hold all the pieces of her broken heart together.
“I love you, Galvan. And I’d be glad to have your help.”
TWO months later, after four months on the run, the Elites cornered her, and the Counsel offered her a truce. She would give the Chaos infants up to the Counsel where they would be placed with safe homes. Under no circumstances was she to raise them or contact them.
Sonas would go to Akash’s widow. They had been in the process of trying for a baby when he’d died. She was heartbroken and inconsolable, and they hoped that the baby would help her to heal.
The Counsel was still looking for a home for Beck. The blue streak gave him away as the Chaos he was, and no one was eager to bring that into their homes, no matter how sweet and adorable Beck was.
No one could see past his hair.
For her part, Aquis agreed to have her powers bound. No more fighting. No more rule breaking.
It was that or death for all of them.
In the end, although it broke her heart, she agreed.
She said goodbye to Beck and Sonas at sunrise from the safety of Vitolas Academy. Her heart shattered watching them disappear into the pods, knowing how much they needed each other. Knowing how much she needed them, and how much they’d come to rely on her.
Without them, she had no idea what she was anymore.
A shell of what she’d once been.
When they left, they took her heart and her soul.
She stood on the lawn until the sun was high in the sky, praying the pod would bring them back.
“So... I had a thought,” her father said, sitting on the porch rail next to her.
She hadn’t heard him come out. She hadn’t seen the world continue on while she mourned.
She glanced sideways at him and returned her attention to the sky.
“In the contract you signed, it was stated clearly that they had to be allowed to attend school. Our academy is the biggest in the count
ry. There’s a very good chance they’ll come here. If you were, say, a teacher or headmistress, you wouldn’t be raising them, but they’d still be under your care.”
Aquis felt hope shimmer into her heart for the first time in months. She turned toward her father, barely daring to breath. “I wouldn’t be breaking the contract.”
“No, you wouldn’t. And Galvan already accepted a position here.” Ren grinned innocently.
He was offering her a future. A chance to be with Beck and Sonas and Galvan.
Hope.
“There is one thing I have to do first,” she whispered.
Ren raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Just someone I need to find.”
Ren smiled, ruffling her hair like she was still five years old. “We can help with that.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Mother Nature might be crazy, but she doesn’t do half the stuff she’s blamed for.” Aquis had been headmistress of Vitolas Academy for three years, but she’d been waiting for this day for five. Galvan watched from the doorway, monitoring incoming students and directing parents, just like every other year.
Except this was not like every other year. This was the day they’d waited for.
“Pompeii? Have you heard of Pompeii? Maybe Mount St. Helens?” She had to work not to let emotion into her voice, to keep her words steady and smooth.
But they were here. After five years, they were here.
Some of the adults nodded, but Aquis barely saw them, her eyes scanning the crowd for the fiery red and orange hair.
Her name was Adara, and she was a Firestarter.
Her mother had tried to kill her. To stay out of an Elemental prison, she’d given Adara up, to be raised in the school by Aquis. She was tiny, so tiny, like she’d never once in her life gotten enough to eat, and she was covered in scars and bruises and recovering wounds.
Because when the Counsel had told her mother she had to give up her rights, they’d decided letting her stay there for five years first was a good idea.
Adara snuck peeks at the other kids. Most hid behind their grown-ups.