by Rye Brewer
And I had the feeling he wouldn’t want to hear about Jonah. Certain things I didn’t need to be told.
“Where is she?” I asked instead of getting into my messed-up issues.
“I can take you to her.”
Something about the way he was evading the question bothered me. On top of that, he had to take me to her—like maybe she couldn’t meet up with me somewhere.
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked.
I could feel panic rising in my throat. My hands started to shake.
“You’ll understand everything when I take you. Believe me, it’ll be easier if you see it with your eyes than if I try to describe it.” His eyes swept back and forth over the room, where people were enjoying coffee and pastries even late at night.
The city that never slept needed its caffeine, I guessed.
“Oh, man. You’re not helping me feel better, Raze.”
“We need to get out of here before you have a panic attack.”
“We need to get out of here so I can see my sister,” I hissed. I missed her so much—and I was terrified that something happened, that she was hurt. I had seen too many things, witnessed too much of what all the multiple dimensions held, to believe she was all right. The more I saw, the less I trusted that anybody I cared about would ever really be all right again.
We stepped outside, and the cool air helped calm me just a little. It hit the sweat that had built on my forehead, on the back of my neck, when I thought about my sister in danger. I had been through enough of that—and so had she. She deserved a little peace. “I wish you would tell me she’s safe, at least,” I muttered as we walked side-by-side.
“She’s safe. I wouldn’t be taking you to her if she wasn’t. Do you think I would lead you into a dangerous situation?” He looked down at me with a disapproving smirk. “Do you even remember me? I’m Raze. I’m that guy you’ve known for years and years. We used to talk about things. Remember? And you would tell me what was going on with you…”
“All right, all right. I get it. Call it some… what is it? Post-traumatic thing, what humans get when they go through something scary or stressful. I’m on edge, in other words. I watched her suffer in a dungeon.” I looked around when I realized my voice was getting louder and louder all the time.
None of the people walking past on the sidewalk seemed to hear me. If they did, well, it was New York. There were stranger things than dungeons.
Raze noticed my discomfort and did his best not to laugh, but he should’ve tried harder.
“Shut up,” I whispered.
“Listen. I get it. Okay? You’re worried about her because she’s already been through a lot.”
We walked down a narrow alley, and I immediately thought back to the night I met Jonah. The attack from the werewolves. If I had only known where that night would lead me…
“Yes. She has. I’m afraid she won’t be able to take much more before she breaks.”
“She won’t break. She’s strong. Like you.”
I hoped he was right. I didn’t have anything to hold onto but hope just then.
We walked for another five minutes or so, zigzagging through traffic and ducking down alleys. I wondered where he was taking me—but when the buildings started turning from high-rises and apartments over storefronts and became big, boxy warehouses, I got the idea.
She was hiding in a warehouse.
My imagination spun out of control, putting together all sorts of scenarios for what she was going through.
“Why couldn’t she stay at the Bourke penthouse?” I asked. “Why here?”
“You’ll see.”
“Raze, I swear…”
“You will see, Anissa.” His voice was sharp, sharper than he had ever sounded before.
I wasn’t used to hearing him lose his temper like that. If anything, it made me respect him a little more. But just a little, since it was me he was losing his temper with.
I didn’t say another word until we stepped inside a dark building with most of its windows broken.
The walls were covered in ivy, the chain-link fence containing it and separating it from the rest of the warehouses on the block held back an amazing array of garbage—bottles, cans, clothing. Clothing? It smelled, too. I wondered if there was a dead animal in there someplace.
And my sister was here.
“Could you have maybe picked a better place than this?” I asked.
“Sorry. The other abandoned warehouses were all booked up.”
I followed him as he led me further and further into the darkness.
The air still carried the smell of death, mixed in with dampness and rot. What a beautiful combination. I wrinkled my nose in distaste.
“Watch your step,” he cautioned. “It gets pretty rough.”
“So I noticed.”
Boards with nails sticking up out of them, rusty tools, rat nests—thankfully, without any rats. Animal feces. That explained some of the smell, at least.
There was a doorway on the side of the building which was propped open with a brick. Raze went to it and pulled it open.
The hinges screamed in protest.
“What’s this lead to?” I asked, covering my ears.
“There’s a set of tunnels connecting the four warehouses in this four-block square. I guess they were all owned by the same company, I don’t know. Maybe one set of products were in one place, another in another, whatever, and they used the tunnels to transport things in bad weather.” He chuckled. “I’m making this up as I go along.”
“As good an explanation as any I could come up with,” I shrugged.
We started down the tunnel, which was wide enough for us to walk side-by-side and still have room to stretch our arms out. I followed Raze’s careful footsteps. It looked as though he had sort of cleared a path at some point.
“Here,” he said. “There’s a door hidden in one of these walls.”
I kept my eyes trained on the wall, looking for a door. I would never have seen it if I didn’t know it was there, and I had to wonder why my sister was behind it. Was she that deep in hiding?
“Okay. We’re going in. I want you to promise you’ll keep your cool.”
“You are scaring me again.”
“Promise me. You’ll see how important it is when you get inside—but by then, it’ll be too late for you to get it together.”
My heart took off even faster than before. I could barely breathe. Sweat popped out again on my neck. For Sara’s sake, I nodded firmly and told myself to hold it together.
He didn’t look convinced, but he nodded and opened the door anyway.
The room wasn’t large, but there was more than enough room for three of us. An old office, maybe, or a supply room. Three bare bulbs lit it, hanging from the ceiling, and I could see my sister sitting in an old, wooden chair.
“Sara?” I whispered.
She looked fine, like there was nothing wrong with her at all. That was a relief.
I had half-expected her to be missing an arm or something.
She turned to me and burst into tears.
I took a step toward her with my arms outstretched, but Raze’s hand on my shoulder held me back.
In the blink of an eye, I could see why he had held me back.
One of the lightbulbs above her head exploded, sending a shower of glass shards flying everywhere.
I jumped and shrieked softly—it was a natural reaction, something I didn’t even think about. Maybe I should’ve held myself together.
Sara started crying harder, almost sobbing.
She lifted her hands and I gasped in shock as sparks of electricity shot from her fingertips.
Raze’s grip on my shoulder tightened—funny how I almost forgot he was there. It must’ve had something to do with the lightning bolts shooting from my sister’s fingers.
“What is this?” I whispered, frozen solid. I could feel the electricity in the air. It made my hair stand on end.
As if she wa
s answering me, Sara let out a sharp cry. Her arms started shaking, and the bolts started branching out into intricate spider webs of electricity. All of them were aimed at the wall, which I could see was burned and charred. So she had done this before—a lot.
The entire room lit up in shades of blue and purple and white as the bolts spread even further, climbing up to the ceiling, spreading like fire in a web of light and crackling energy. The lightbulbs started glowing brighter, brighter, until I was sure they would explode, too.
“Stand back!” Raze called out over the ear-splitting snapping and cracking. Like a thunderstorm, only contained in a very small space. I covered my ears and let him pull me closer, away from the ever-expanding web my sister was building around her. Soon, she was surrounded in light, sitting in the center. Still crying.
And just like that, it was over.
The room went dark except for the two remaining light bulbs, which had somehow managed to stay whole.
I realized I had been holding my breath through much of what had just happened, and I took a gulp of air.
It even tasted funny after that strong electric charge.
Almost metallic.
I looked at her again, then up at Raze. “Can one of you tell me what’s happening here?”
33
ANISSA
I waited for Raze to answer. Somebody needed to start answering, very soon.
All he did was shake his head and mutter a single word. “Elemental.”
I waited for more. When he didn’t continue, I said, “And?”
“And I don’t know exactly what’s happening. The two of us are the only people who know about it besides Sara. I can’t ask anybody else—I mean, I don’t know what they would do to her if they knew what she was capable of.” Sara let out a little whimper. His head snapped around in her direction. “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to make you upset. Everything’s okay.” He talked to her like he would talk to a temperamental child, trying to soothe her.
He was afraid of her, I realized. I couldn’t blame him. I was sort of afraid of her, too. But I was more afraid for her.
“She called me a couple of days ago,” he explained. “She told me what was happening to her, that these… impulses… were started to take over. She was terrified, since she couldn’t control it. It was getting strong every day. She was afraid she’d kill somebody, or maybe set the penthouse on fire. Once it started, she didn’t know how to stop.”
“It doesn’t stop until I’m worn out,” she whispered from where she still sat.
None of it made sense. “She’s a vampire, but what you're describing is something an elemental witch would be capable of.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“There’s no witch blood in my sister—and definitely no elemental witch blood.” I looked at her, then back at him. “Right?”
A few quick flashes of light burst from Sara’s fingers, and I cringed against Raze.
She whimpered again. “I don’t know anymore. I don’t know anything.” Sara tucked her hands under her armpits like she was trying to contain what was coming out of her. Her face was tearstained and smeared with dirt. Her eyes were swollen from crying.
“Just try to relax,” I said, feeling completely useless.
What was I supposed to say to her? That it was cool? That there was nothing out of the ordinary about her being able to shoot lightning out of her hands?
“I’m trying,” she said in a weak voice, so soft I could barely hear.
My heart went out to her. My poor sister. She had already been through so much.
Raze spoke up. “We’ve been talking throughout this whole time. The best I can figure out is, she consumed contaminated blood at some point.”
“Elemental blood?” That would explain it, to a degree. I was sure Sara was a pure vampire. I remembered when she was born, for Pete’s sake. I remembered her father, my stepfather. He was a vampire, too. A pure-blood vampire.
He nodded. “I overheard something at school one day, not long ago. I was walking down the hall, going from class to class, and there was a group of guys behind me. I didn’t recognize their voices, but I overheard them talking about blood. Something about European clans. The word elemental was thrown around, too. Of course, I didn’t put anything together at the time because it meant nothing to me—I didn’t think about it again until this happened. I was disinterested, so I didn’t pay attention to who was speaking. I wish I had. I feel like I could’ve helped.”
Same old Raze. He had the best heart of anybody I knew.
I touched his shoulder and looked him straight in the eye. “You’ve done more than enough,” I said. “Without you, who knows what would’ve happened?”
I didn’t even want to think about my sister being on her own in this condition, suffering and hurting, nowhere to go, always in danger of somebody discovering her.
He looked a little embarrassed and cleared his throat before continuing. “So, yeah. I’m suspicious. And it does make sense, since there’s no other way this could’ve happened to her.”
I looked at her again. Where would she get contaminated blood? The blood we consumed was synthetic, but it was always closely monitored. That was one of the many rules the humans had for us—and it made sense. It was actually for our benefit. If the production of synthetic blood was regulated, it meant we were safer and healthier. There would be less of a chance of a sick vampire running around shooting lightning bolts out of their hands.
“Who would do this?” I asked neither of them in particular. It was just something I needed to verbalize. Then, I asked her, “What’s going on? Is there something you aren’t telling me? Were you getting blood someplace you shouldn’t have been?”
That was the wrong thing to ask.
Wrong by a mile.
My sister’s eyes went almost scarily wide. She stood, slowly, raising her arms as she did. “I don’t know what’s happening!” she yelled. “It’s not my fault!”
She flung her hands upward, toward the ceiling, and out of her palms jetted two crackling, zigzag lightning bolts—heading straight toward me.
“Duck!” Raze screamed.
My reflexes were always strong—I had needed to hone them when I was Marcus’s assassin—and I managed to sidestep one and duck the other.
Only I didn’t duck deep enough.
So much for my reflexes.
I screamed as one of the bolts hit my shoulder. The force slammed me into the wall. I didn’t know which hurt worse—hitting the wall, or the burning of my shoulder where the lightning hit me.
On reflection, it was the lightning.
I tried to move my arm and screamed again as agonizing pain ripped through me. I felt sort of buzzy, like my nerves were dancing. The sensation wore off after a moment or two.
Sara ran to me, babbling apologies, and I flinched away when she tried to touch me. Her face fell. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered through even more tears. “I didn’t mean it. I can’t control it. I would never hurt you, Anissa. I never would. Tell me you believe that.”
“Of course, I do,” I whispered, still clenching my teeth against the pain.
Raze sank to his knees beside me. “It’s all right,” he said to Sara. “Be calm. We know you didn’t mean to do it. Anissa would never blame you for something that was beyond your control.” He looked at me, and his eyes were startlingly intense. “Would you?” he asked in a voice heavy with meaning.
“No. I wouldn’t.”
What else could I say? If I told her off for hurting me, she’d probably strike me again—maybe with even higher voltage.
I glared at him—probably because I was angry and hurting and couldn’t glare at my sister. “What else do you know about this? There has to be something else, Raze. Come on. You’re smart, you read a lot of books. You’ve never heard of anything like this before?’
He shook his head. “I already told you everything I know.”
“Come on!”
“I know that�
�s not what you want to hear, but it’s the truth. You know, you’re not the only one who’s worried about this. It doesn’t only matter to you. I’m the one who’s been trying to protect her while you were—”
“All right,” I hissed. I didn’t need to get into that. Not then, not ever.
I heard a crackle and winced, and when I looked at my sister, she was shaking. Her hair started standing on end, the way mine had, and the air started getting that metallic taste to it again.
“Sara! You need to calm down. Be calm.” Raze turned all his attention to my sister. “Close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths. Come on. We’ve practiced this, right? I know you can do it. Come on, Sara.”
He coached her through it as she did what he asked.
Slowly, slowly, the energy in the room lessened. The air started feeling normal again, and she stopped crackling.
For the time being.
Once it was clear she was over her excitement, Raze looked down at me. “The more excited or upset she gets, the worse it is.”
“No fooling,” I whispered, looking back at my sister.
She was never good at controlling her emotions in the first place. And the worse she got, the worse it got. Which made her feel worse, which made the electricity worse.
On and on until we would all be burned to a crisp.
I told myself to get over my pain and confusion for her sake. “Hey. Nobody blames you for this, okay? I’m sorry if it sounded like I was blaming you before. I’m just as confused about this as either of you, and I’m worried about you. That’s why I sounded the way I did. I hate that this is happening to you. I love you.”
She gave me a weak smile. “Still?”
“Always.”
“It just… it seems that you’ve gone through so much for me already, and this is just another thing.”
“But you’re the one who kept us both alive when we were on our own. I’ll never forget that. Besides, you’re my sister. I’ll never stop wanting to help you. Okay?”