by Nina Walker
I loved him more.
More than anything.
He was my reason. He was my reason for living and I couldn't go on without him. I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it.
“Please,” I whispered again, pulling my face from the sweater.
The purple alchemy swirling around the office separated, the color changing to red and blue. I had done this before. This wasn’t new. On several occasions, I separated a color down into its two primary sources. But all it had ever done was exhaust me. It was useless! I hadn’t ever been able figure out what these primary colors could do. What was different today?
At first, I was annoyed. Angry. This was the last thing I needed. It would only exhaust me and I didn’t want to fall asleep in this moment. I wanted to be here with Lucas, to keep trying.
A startling thought popped into my mind.
Why not? Why not try this new magic on Lucas?
“Come back to me,” I whispered to him, one last time, a new kind of power taking hold, running through me like wildfire.
Instinct as my guide, I pushed the color, the blue and the red, down into Lucas’s body. The blue bounced away, became frenetic, almost electric, and bounded through the room.
The red, however, was quick to take. It swirled into him like a loving caress.
I gasped, a jolt of adrenaline shooting through me. Hope swelled, my eyes hardly believing what I saw. The colorless gray blood that covered him from head to toe was changing.
Slowly, it transformed back into its original red.
The shine of steel gray blood disappeared, vibrant red taking its place.
I shrieked, pushing green alchemy at Lucas once again. His pale face began to brighten, blood flowing.
The tears in my eyes streamed down my face as I stared, mystified, at everything. At Lucas, and at the colors still whirling through the room. The purple I had separated had created a rare kind of red magic, not the kind that destroyed, but rather the kind that restored. It had started that night of the ballet, and for months and months I had been wondering what this separation magic meant. Now I knew. Once separated, a color could return what had been lost. My mind raced to the Shadow Lands, to all this could do for our world. But that only lasted for a moment as I stared at Lucas, he was all I could see. I collapsed on top of him, sobbing with relief and awe.
“You okay?” Lucas asked in a scratchy voice. “Why are you crying? Are you hurt?”
I hugged him tighter. “I’m fine,” I mumbled between the sobs. He winced against the pressure of my body. I reached out behind me until I found the bamboo shoot and pushed what little green I could into him, healing the last of his wounds. Then I sat back and looked at him, running a gentle palm down the side of his face, staring into his sparkling gray eyes, my breath catching, my heart filled.
“Seriously, Jessa, are you okay?” he asked again.
“Am I okay?” I shifted off of him, giving him space and studying his eyes. “Lucas, you died.”
He sat up slowly, rubbing his head, looking me up and down like a man returned after years away from home. He smiled. “Well, whatever happened, I’m not dead now.”
I crawled over, sitting on his lap and gripping his face between my fingers, kissing him as hard as I could. He met me with equal passion, and my tears once again broke free. To be here, in this moment with him, it meant everything. I never wanted it to end. I’d lost him once, maybe more than once. I couldn’t lose him again. After a moment, he gently pried me off him, eyes gleaming with mischief and passion.
“What was that for?” he asked.
“I love you,” I said. “I love you so much.”
He smiled as his eyes darkened. “I love you, too. And Jessa?”
“Yes,” I breathed.
“I remember everything.” He wrapped his warm arms around me and kissed me all over again. He tasted of everything I’d ever longed for, his lips the comfort I’d been longing to find.
Another blast of sound followed by a violent shake of the earth pulled us apart. “We’d better get out there,” I said.
He held me back. “I’m not supposed to be alive, remember?”
I frowned at him.
“What I mean is, my father has been hiding me. I had to use invisibility to get out here in the first place. I’m supposed to be back in the bunker right now. I can’t just walk out there like this.” He motioned to himself.
I scrunched my nose as I looked around the mess of objects and the splattering of blood. Under a pile of fallen papers, I located the edge of the rose. I pulled it out with a smile and held it out to Lucas. “There’s still some white left,” I said. “We can’t stay here.”
He took it in his hands and I wondered if he had enough strength after dying and all, but that question was answered as he instantly turned himself invisible. He grasped my hand in his free one and changed me, too.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s see what’s going on outside and take it from there.”
I sucked in a breath, knowing I had to ask the question. “Umm, Lucas? Whose side are we on?” Now that he had his memories back, how did he feel about this war? He had to know Richard was evil. If I told him about what his father had been making me do with my red alchemy, he’d be livid, but I felt so much shame in admitting the truth.
“Not my father’s,” he answered quickly. “But also, I don’t know how I feel about the other side, either. Mostly I just want things to go back to the way they were. I want to step up and do a better job with what we have, to make the best of it instead of trying to change everything.”
I laughed. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
I felt his gaze looking fruitlessly for mine. “Don’t say that. We can still try.”
I nodded, even though I knew he couldn’t see me. Together we stood, hand in hand, and left the office. The double doors to the outside world loomed ahead. This was the beginning, or maybe it was the end, but at least this time we had each other.
“What will we find out there?” I whispered.
“I honestly don’t know,” he replied, his voice catching in defeat.
I squeezed his hand in reassurance. If he could be strong for me, I could be strong for him. “Don’t worry. Whatever is next, we’ll figure it out together.”
We burst through the doors, confronted with chaos. On the front lawn and out into the streets, soldiers and citizens fought in a clash of hand-to-hand combat. Occasional bullets streaked through the air. A small bomb detonated, crumbling the side of a building. A window broke, the sound crashing through the moment of stillness.
And the alchemists? They were retreating. All of them.
I froze, not quite sure what I was seeing. Most of those left were New Colony’s super-soldiers, proud Guardians, suits embedded with stones making them nearly impossible to fight. From the yellow that made them strong and fast, to the green that allowed them to heal instantly, to the more unique situations, like the persuasive blue, or the telepathic purple, or even the emotional driving force that was orange. All of that should’ve meant The Guardians of Color ought to be running into the fight, not away from it.
“Come on.” Lucas hauled me forward, talking low into my ear, “Nobody can see us. I have the rose, remember? We need to figure out what is really going on here and make a plan.”
I nodded, realizing too late that he couldn’t see me. Not that it mattered. We ran down the steps together, solid in our agreement.
I caught sight of Sasha sprinting across the lawn toward us and faltered.
“Sasha!” I screamed, not even thinking.
She must have heard because she stopped, looking around with confusion and panic lighting up her glacial blue eyes. Lucas and I ran over and I spoke normally when we were a couple feet away from her.
“I’m with Lucas. He’s alive. What’s happening?”
She blinked. “Jessa?”
“Yes, we’re here. White alchemy. Remember?”
Her confusion cl
eared and she spoke, words rushing out, “We have to get out of here. Our powers, they’re not working. If she gets close enough to you.”
“What are you talking about?”
Sasha didn’t answer me. Her head swung side to side, taking in the sight of more retreating alchemists.
“There!” Lucas called out, tugging me back against his warm body. He very well could have been pointing to something off in the distance but I couldn’t see it. It didn’t matter. I saw exactly what he was concerned about. Fear welled up inside of me, fear, and the realization that nothing would ever be the same.
An older woman dressed in the black garb of alchemy strode up the lawn. Around her, West American soldiers held out their guns, as if protecting her. In the center of the mass of soldiers, was a familiar face. I knew him! I knew that closely cropped white-blonde hair and those intense brooding green eyes. I knew that confident swagger, the way he looked at the world as if he were in charge of keeping it. He was Sasha’s friend! One of the two guys who’d come to get me out of the cellar the night I’d run away. He looked different in full daylight, younger somehow, but just as intense as before. Actually, way more intense than before. He looked deadly.
“What are they doing? Who is she?” I turned to Sasha.
Sasha growled. “She is the American President! And Apparently she is Weapon X!”
“Weapon X?”
“I’ll explain later…” Sasha’s voice trailed off.
She didn’t have to explain because I saw it. A dark cloud of black billowed at Weapon X’s feet, like a supernatural mist. The president was an alchemist? The news was both shocking and completely reasonable. No wonder she’d been rumored to be such an advocate for alchemy.
“See that? It’s black alchemy,” Lucas said.
“I didn’t know such a thing even existed. What does it do?” I asked.
As if in answer, a string of the black snaked out from the woman, swirling around one of the fleeing alchemists. The speed at which the man had been running slowed to almost nothing. He stumbled and fell, and the West American soldiers swarmed him, placing him under arrest.
“It’s rather obvious, don’t you think?” Sasha replied, but not in a mean way, but a defeated one. “It makes it so we can’t use our powers. We need to go. One lick of that black over here and you two will be visible again.”
The president jogged up the lawn, her eyes darting around as she looked for her next victim. Suddenly, she closed her eyes, intense focus lining her features. The cloud of black multiplied, billowing out across the lawn, moving in all directions.
“What the hell are you still doing here?” A guy ran out in front of us, arms waving at Sasha. He turned back toward the group of West Americas, yelling over the chaos at the woman. “Stop! She’s one of us! Remember?”
She froze, black magic pausing.
I also recognized the guy as another of Sasha’s friends. Wasn’t his name Tristan? I’d met him the first time I’d dropped my parents off at the Resistance camp, and then again later. He was the other soldier who’d accompanied Sasha to the farm to get me.
“Don’t go after her!” Tristan yelled, standing in front of Sasha. “She’s one of us.”
“Stand down,” the blonde soldier called out. “Our orders are to collect all of the alchemists, on either side.”
“So that’s why you brought all those untrained alchemists out here!” Sasha yelled angrily. “Most haven’t even fought, you know. They all ran and hid the second we landed, my sister included.”
“We have your sister,” the guy replied, voice carrying over the lawn. “She’s fine. I made sure of it myself.”
Sasha shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest, eyes roaming the field as if she were trying to decide whether to give in to the order, or to make a run for it. The soldiers surrounding the president were much closer now, moving in succession and ready to strike. Lucas and I crept back but my sister seemed to be totally transfixed on the men in front of her.
“Sasha, come on!” I called out as loud as I dared.
She didn’t budge.
“What does that stuff do to them long-term?” Tristan yelled at the group, staying put in front of Sasha. His black hair gleamed in the sunlight, so sweaty it stuck to his face and neck. His arms were folded, a rifle slung over his back. “Does it wear off?”
Nobody replied. The black magic had snapped out again, catching another alchemist, and the soldiers were at work detaining the screaming woman. Again and again, it went on. A piece would reach out from the small billowing cloud, travel across the ground like a snake, and wrap itself around an alchemist from as far as a hundred feet away.
Sasha, Lucas, and I? We were much closer than a hundred feet away. All it took was that woman deciding she was going to send her magic at us and that would be it. We’d be caught.
“Sasha, let’s go,” I ground out again. “We’re going to leave your butt here if you don’t get moving.”
“They won’t stop,” Sasha replied angrily. “This was never part of the deal. I can’t believe she kept this secret for so long! Well, the military must have known…”
She gasped and pointed. I caught sight of someone I knew. Someone I loved!
“Callie!”
She fell to her knees, helmet popping off her head and glasses flying. In an instant, West American soldiers surrounded her.
“Please!” she screamed. “I didn’t want to help Richard, I never wanted this.”
I held back a scream, remembering the time she’d questioned me out on the terrace about the Resistance. She hadn’t been one of Faulk’s spies. She’d been honest, wanting to help, to join up, and I’d lied to her. Guilt swept low in my belly and I turned away. I couldn’t help her, not without magic.
“Mastin!” Sasha called. “What is this? Why didn’t you tell me ahead of time about this?”
The crowd parted and he stared from across the lawn. His face faltered as he met Sasha’s angry expression. He broke from his group and ran forward.
“I’m sorry,” he replied, coming to stop in front of her. Tristan stood to the side, glaring. Both men were dirty and bloody, both looking at Sasha like she meant the world. “We’ll sort it all out later. Right now, we need to finish this thing. Where’s Richard? He was just here.”
She shook her head, hands clenching into fists. “I can’t believe you would do this to me, after everything. I really want to punch you right now, Mastin.”
His head dropped and he stepped back.
“Whatever, I’m out of here,” she grumbled, and took off running. Lucas and I followed, footsteps light on the grass, heartbeat loud in my ears. Tristan caught up quickly, bringing in the rear.
“It’s the only way!” The president called out, apologetic. “Please forgive me.”
The black magic shot out across the grass, lightning fast. It swirled around us like a tidal wave. A dull aching pain burned through me, creeping up my bones, coupled with overwhelming exhaustion. I stumbled, losing Lucas’s hand.
It didn’t matter. The magic wrapped around him, too.
Visible now, we fell to our knees.
Just ahead Sasha laid on her side, face pinched in frustration. Tristan tried to lift her into his arms, but he was too slow. Soldiers swarmed. My mind was too tired to notice much of what else was happening. I pushed through the fog anyway, trying to find coherent thought or a way out.
Zip-ties cinched my arms behind my back. I was under arrest. Lucas, too.
“Don’t you dare touch him!” Richard’s voice bellowed over the landscape. I blinked up against the grass, the black mercifully gone, to see the King’s beet-red face.
My exhaustion was beginning to weigh on me, and now it was stronger than ever. But it was my magic that concerned me. My magic, a faint humming sensation, a flowing presence in my body that I didn’t even know existed before, was gone.
The King ran, guards and officers flanking him. A group of three shuffling just behind them. Imm
ediately, I recognized Jose and Lily. I had wondered where they’d been, but had been grateful not to see them until now. Had I interviewed them like I had Branson, they’d be dead, too. They were Resistance, but as I saw them now, a tug of confusion pulled at me. Jose had a gun pressed to a man’s head. A man dressed in the kind of West American regalia that meant he was important.
“Dad!” Someone called out in a horrified tone. It was blonde soldier from before that Sasha had called Mastin. My heart dropped for him. I knew what felt like to see your own father in that kind of situation.
Richard cackled, eyes angry. “It really is a family affair.”
Jose, sparkling in his white Royal Officer uniform, pressed the gun closer to the man’s head. “Don’t come any closer or he’s dead,” he snapped, nodding at Mastin and the others.
“Everybody put your hands up,” Richard spat. He glared at the group of enemy soldiers. “Do it, or watch your General die.” The group froze, nobody wanting to relent.
Richard walked forward, “Who’s the highest ranking here?”
“Me,” Mastin replied coolly with the jut of his chin.
I craned my neck, looking for the president. She was the highest ranking! But in all the chaos, she’d disappeared.
Very convenient.
“Give me my son and I’ll give you your father,” Richard replied. He was splattered with blood and dirt, soot smeared across his cheek. But even with all of that, he was the same commanding man he’d always been.
Silence filled the area as if everyone had forgotten to breathe, and maybe they had. I forced the air from my lungs, taking it all in. The West American soldiers on one side, weapons drawn. Richard on the other, his loyalist people surrounding him. Lucas, Sasha and I, kneeling in the dirt. Jose, Lily, and the General, the gun pressed to his head.
It was too charged, too intense. My heart pounded, my palms grew sweaty, my heart racing ahead of my thoughts. Before this was over, someone was going to die.