by Kat Adams
“Eww,” I groaned. “Him too? What happened to the Barbie twins?”
“My boys.” She rested her palms on each of their cheeks. “I let them play with their toys, their little Barbie dolls, but they belong to me, don’t you? You know what you need to do, boys. They are abominations. Get rid of them.”
Spencer used air to push the bus closer to teetering over the edge and plummeting down over the bridge.
“No!” I tried stealing his air call and wasn’t surprised when the element ignored me. I hit him with fireball after fireball until it broke his concentration. The bus slammed back down onto the road.
“Stop the dilute,” Sammie ordered.
“With pleasure. Here, hold this.” He nodded at the bus. She grinned and brought up her own airfield, keeping the elementals trapped inside.
I didn’t wait to see what he planned to attack me with and hit him with my fire, keeping it on him as I intensified it to purple. He growled, which grew into a howl. I wouldn’t let up, not until he no longer moved.
The blast of air behind me knocked me off balance. I called the trees attached to the side of the cliffs surrounding the bridge to trap Spencer while still keeping my fire on Alec.
Sammie clotheslined me with a tree trunk, sending me flying. It knocked the wind out of me and killed my calls. I saw stars when I landed hard on the road and smacked my head.
“Hey, bitch. That’s my girlfriend.” Rob appeared and hit her with a massive stream of fire. She countered with air. When the two elements hit, the impact created a shuddering boom that sent air and fire flying in all directions.
“Careful where you throw things,” Clay stated and dodged a flying flame. “You almost hit me with that.” He grinned as he regarded Sammie. “Hey, Mom. Can I call you Mom? Too soon?”
The cavalry had arrived. I jumped to my feet and readied myself for the next round.
“Here to die with the dilute?” She brought a tidal wave of dirt from the cliffs up over the side of the bridge, crashing it down on Clay.
Leo appeared and countered with water, washing the dirt all over the road and turning it into a muddy mess. Clay shook the soggy soil from his hands. “Gross. I hate earth. It’s all over me. Yuck.”
“You’re welcome,” Leo said before facing Spencer. “Now, help me do something with this one.”
“With pleasure. Hiya, fandler. That’s my nickname for you. You’re a fake handler. Fandler. Get it? Goddamn, I’m funny.”
“Fascinating.” Spencer blasted through the cage of roots. “Where’s the earth elemental?”
“Right behind you.” Bryan summoned fresh roots from the surrounding cliffs, caging Spencer once again.
Rob and Alec hurled fireballs at each other, neither fire elemental getting ahead. Leo joined him, hitting Alec with water and leaving me to face my mother.
“My Katybug.”
“Don’t call me that.” It hurt too much to hear and reminded me of a time when she wasn’t a raging psycho bitch.
“I know you think you hate me.”
“I do hate you.”
She cringed, the words almost physically cutting her. Good. “I know you think everything I’ve done is evil or that I’ve come back to punish you. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Please believe me, baby. Everything I’ve done, everything I’m doing now, is for you.” She extended her hand. “Come with me, Katybug. Come with me, and we’ll fulfill the prophecy together, just as I promised we would.”
If this was what she’d meant when she said she had big plans for us, count me out. But I couldn’t deny the compassion in her eyes, the emotions heavy in her voice. I had to swallow several times. “I don’t want to fulfill the prophecy like this. Innocent people are going to die. This is not the way and will only reduce our numbers even more.”
“It’s thinning the herd. We don’t need great numbers. We need great power.”
“With great power comes great responsibility.” Because of course I’d quote Spider-Man at a time like this. It fit. “Being the prophecy isn’t about fame and fortune. It isn’t about glory or forcing everyone to follow you. It’s about standing up for what’s right even when you’re outnumbered. I know what’s right. This is not right.”
Her hand began to tremble as she leaned in, her eyes wide, pleading with urgency. “Katy, sweetheart, please think about what you’re doing. If you don’t join me, convince the others to follow, I’ll have no choice. Anyone not willing to stand as my ally must fall as my enemy.”
I swallowed several more times. As much as I wanted a relationship with my mother, I couldn’t do it, not like this. My brain and heart waged a war inside me. If I agreed to join her, I’d finally have her attention, maybe even earn her respect. But at what cost? I’d be betraying everyone, including myself. I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t betray everyone I loved, especially my guys. “I’m sorry, Sammie. No dice.”
Her expression, so full of compassion, of eager anticipation only moments ago, melted into icy rage. She jerked her hand back as she transformed into the cold stranger that’d tried to kill me back at the ruins, turned and squared her shoulders. “Then so be it. Their deaths are on you.” Without warning, she whipped around, throwing her arm out and hurling a speeding current of air at the bus. The elementals who’d made it out of the bus, relief on their faces from escaping death, were launched over the side of the bridge. Screams echoed into the air as they fell.
I ran to the side of the bridge and called air, stopping them from plummeting to their deaths. The bus groaned beside me as it lifted and slid the final distance needed to knock off its center of gravity.
The elementals still inside the bus screamed and jumped out the back, only to be swept away by the wind she used to push everything over the edge. The bus descended, tossing and turning as it tumbled toward the airfield I’d created to stop the elementals from hitting the water. They hovered in place, halfway between safety and sure death, as the bus barreled toward them.
“Clay!”
“On it.” He hurried to the side and called air, halting the bus still partially full of people.
“Let me help.” Virgil Graves finally decided to join the rest of the class.
What happened next sealed his fate. And ours.
Instead of working with Clay to save the elementals, he faced Samantha Reed. “This was not part of the deal, Sammie.”
“Deals change, Virgil.”
I regarded Clay, who glanced back at me with wide eyes. The shock holding my expression frozen matched his. Rob and Leo took advantage of the distraction and helped bring the muted elementals back over the edge, setting them onto the pavement.
Graves and Sammie squared off. “Are you sure you want to do this? Double-crossing me is not going to end well for you. I handed you the prophecy.”
“And I handed you the Council,” she retorted, ignoring the rest of us as we saved the elementals. She spotted them on the bridge and shook her head. “Now look what you’ve done. They lived. You never wanted these dilutes in our world. Now we have to start over.”
“I have a better plan.” He lifted his hand and, with the flick of his wrist, sent Sammie spinning through the air. He then froze her in place and slowly walked toward her. She bared her teeth as he casually grinned. “Sometimes you have to make tough choices when you’re in a position of power.” He repeated the same words she’d used on me.
“Virgil,” she whimpered, showing a lack of control for the first time since she’d returned. “What are you doing?”
He glanced over his shoulder, nailing me with that piercing blue stare. “Restoring order to our world.”
Why the hell look at me while saying that?
“As you said.” He paused to return his attention to Sammie. “If they don’t join as allies, they will die as enemies.”
She struggled against the invisible restraints. “No. You can’t mean that.”
“I assure you, I can.”
“Katy,” she gasped and clawed at he
r neck. “Run.”
What?
“Katy!” Her eyes rounded. “Run!” When I didn’t react, she shifted to Clay. “Get her out of here! You can’t trust—ah!” She was abruptly silenced as her expression twisted in pain.
“We’ve heard quite enough out of you. Thank you for your service, Samantha Reed. You’re dismissed.”
Then, right before my eyes, he squeezed his hand into a fist and twisted his wrist. Her head mirrored the movement, turning impossibly wrong, and she crumpled to the pavement.
“No!” I screamed, paralyzed with shock. I did not just witness my mom’s murder. That did not just happen. Please, God. Please someone tell me that didn’t just happen.
“No!” Alec shouted at the same time and rushed to her side, pulling her lifeless body into his arms. “Samantha! No!”
“Good God, man. Pull yourself together,” Graves stated without an ounce of emotion as he adjusted his tie. “I told you this was going to happen. She wasn’t to be trusted.”
What the holy soap opera was going on? Virgil Graves…was dark? Cutting deals with Samantha Reed? With Alec von Leer? Just how long had he been siding with the wrong side? I blinked at her, limp in Alec’s arms, and grew even more numb with disbelief.
“This is war,” Alec growled, shaking with rage.
“Of course it is,” Graves fired back. “And as in any war, there will be casualties. If you want a position on the Council when this is all over, you will remember who has allowed you to get away with as much as you have without any repercussions.” He rested a cool glare on him. “Hide something from me again, and the next neck broken will be yours. Now, clean up this mess. We’ve got a world to put back together.”
“Oh my God. Katy.” Bryan rushed to my side.
I couldn’t take my eyes away from my mother’s body. She might have been dark and batshit crazy, but she was still my mother. Now, she was gone. Permanently. I finally looked away and turned, falling into Bryan’s arms.
Graves walked over to Spencer, still trapped in a cage of roots. As he approached, Spencer shrank back. What kind of power did this guy have to instill such fear into two of the most powerful elementals I’d ever met? “You were brought here to unite elementals and leechers, not to make a fool of yourself harassing my prophecy.”
His prophecy? I was no one’s prophecy. I pushed out of Bryan’s embrace. “You’ve been behind everything. Alec finding me at that science center before I was ever part of this world. Bringing Spencer here to shatter my confidence. Even having my own mother turn against me. It’s been you this entire time. How can you be so cruel?”
“I’m uniting a world, Ms. Reed, by any means necessary. That doesn’t make me dark. Or light. Good. Or evil. I told you before, we have a world to heal. For that, I’ll need your help.”
“My help?” I motioned to the shit show around us. “You sent innocent people to prison. Y-you killed my mom.” I shook my head, steeling myself. There’d be time to mourn later. Right now, I had to think of the world I’d sworn to protect. With someone like Virgil Graves heading the Council, my world would be no more.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures. This is your deciding moment, Ms. Reed. Are you willing to help me put this world back together?”
I had to be the one to stand in the way. To do that, I had to play my part and kiss all the right asses. “What would I have to do?”
The guys all looked at me like I’d lost my mind. I probably had, considering the plan I began to concoct in my head. Get back to the academy. Rally the troops. Gain the Council’s trust. Have them lower their guard.
Then strike.
23
The blow of losing my mom had dulled to a tolerable pain after a few weeks of crying myself to sleep. At least I had one of the guys with me every night so I didn’t have to fall asleep alone. Most of the time, it would be Bryan, since he lived in the same building, though sometimes, Clay would pop over from Ventus.
Leo had passed his final tribunal with flying colors and graduated from the academy. Since the Council was light on members, they’d offered him a position hunting alongside Rob. Now they lived together in the cabin, which I would have never guessed would happen. Not those two. They got along about as well as Clay and Bryan, but ever since Leo had grown into a trio, they seemed to be developing quite the bromance.
When Samantha Reed had turned on everyone at the party and revealed her true self, she’d been labeled dark elemental enemy numero uno, so when news of her death went public, the elemental world rejoiced. Instead of the man who’d snapped her neck going to prison for murder, Virgil Graves had practically ridden back to Deception on a float. He’d elevated his status from the man who’d defaulted into the role of head of the Council to the hero who’d save our world from annihilation. Some even hinted at him being the true prophecy.
What-fucking-ever.
He was the darkest of them all, hiding in plain sight as he made deals with both sides. Why couldn’t anyone see that? There was an entire bus full of elementals who’d witnessed what he’d done, both from bargaining with the dark side and killing my mom when she’d double-crossed him.
But no. No one spoke up. No one claimed to have seen what I’d seen. Why the hell not?
They didn’t want to go back to Carcerem. That’s why.
So, Virgil Graves had played both sides and literally gotten away with murder. What was that saying? Burning the candle at both ends will get you burned. That sounded about right. And I had to play my part by pretending to support the bastard. Disgusting.
Even worse, I had to make nice with his ice queen bitch of a daughter, which was the worst form of torture. After everything she’d done to me, I had to suck it up and convince her daddy that I was a goddamn nice person.
I finished enough webisodes of the comic and uploaded them on scheduled releases so I didn’t have to worry about it until the holidays, when we’d be on a break from the academy. I’d already coordinated to stay in my old place above the gym Stace still kept up in exchange for working during the day just like I had all summer.
Leo was going to be here any minute to take me to the movies. I hadn’t seen him in almost a week and was looking forward to spending time with him. I didn’t feel like going out, but anything was better than sitting in my dorm room contemplating any number of alternative endings to this story than the one it had. At least I had my webcomic so I could write the endings I wanted instead of the endings I lived.
The sound of laughter outside my door drew my attention. Was that Clay? Leo didn’t tell me he planned on bringing a friend. I was totally okay with it. Clay made me laugh. That was exactly what I needed right now.
I opened the door and didn’t get a chance to ask what was going on before I teleported out against my will.
Again.
And landed in the center of the heavily warded cabin. I braced myself for battle, relaxing only once I spotted Leo and Rob on the couch, a familiar board game on the coffee table. Clay kissed my cheek before releasing me and taking a seat in the chair, leaving a new love seat for Bryan and me.
“What’s going on?” I pushed my hand against my stomach to get it to settle.
“Rematch,” Clay and Bryan said at the same time, both rubbing their hands together in excitement.
“I thought we were going to a movie,” I said to Leo, giving him a look.
He colored hard and shrugged. “Sorry, babe. Majority rules.”
“These two yahoos insisted on playing Elementopoly like a couple of ten-year-olds.”
Oh, why the hell not? A mindless board game might be exactly what the healer ordered.
I grabbed the little metal piece signifying dark and slapped it onto the board before kicking off my shoes and padding into the kitchen to grab beers, pausing for them to finish their whispered conversation over the piece I’d chosen.
“Dude, we have to do something,” Bryan whispered. “You see the piece she picked.”
“It’s a game
piece,” Rob responded. “Nothing more.”
“What if it’s something more?” Leo asked.
“It’s just a game,” Clay groaned.
“Is it?” Bryan challenged.
They all fell silent, my cue for returning with libations. I handed them each a beer and took a seat next to Bryan on the love seat. I rubbed the soft material on the arm. “This is new.”
“My contribution,” Leo pointed out as he cracked open his can.
“Now, if you’d just put your dishes in the dishwasher…” Rob mused, taking a drink.
We all focused on the game, laughing at the insults on the red risk cards and groaning at the cheesy lines on the green reward cards. I wound up owning all the element squares again, collecting a hefty two hundred dollars every time someone landed on one, which was just about every time they went around the board.
“I miss this, us just being us,” I declared as I rolled the dice and tapped out the count, landing on a red X. I pulled a risk card and read. You’ve been slapped with an elemutus. Go back two spaces. I’d never gotten that card before. Would have been nice to know what an elemutus was before being slapped with one myself. I then read the option and immediately moved my piece back two squares.
“What’d it say?” Leo asked.
“Nothing.” I wouldn’t be repeating it.
Bryan grabbed the card out of my hand and held it out of reach. I gave up and left the room to find something stronger than beer.
“Dude, what’s it say?” Clay asked.
“Uh…nothing.” Bryan’s clipped reply closed the conversation. “Let’s just keep going. Whose turn is it?”
Someone rolled the dice, but an uncomfortable silence filled the entire cabin, thickening the air and tightening the tension. I felt someone behind me and turned, glancing up into those handsome hazel eyes.
Bryan rested his hands on my hips. “You have every right to hate your mom.”
“Is it wrong that I don’t?” I searched his gaze.
“Not at all. After everything my granddad did, I still loved the guy. I hated him, but I loved him. He was my granddad. He bounced me on his knee, took me for ice cream and read to me while rocking me to sleep. He was evil to the core, granted. I can’t change what he did to instill fear in the Gunderson name. But he also taught me how to carve a turkey at Thanksgiving. Played Santa at Christmas. I get it, Katy. She was your mother. She was evil to the core. That doesn’t stop her from being your mother.”