Captive (Tainted Elements, Book 4)

by Linwood, Alycia

  “Can’t you see how many people are trying to stop you?” he asked. “Don’t you think that if this were your destiny, you wouldn’t have been interrupted?”

  I let my hand drop to my side and saw the meadow had been turned into a fighting field. Blake and the rest of our group, who must have come to help at some point, were trying to fight off the oncoming agents. Some of the agents were dousing fire with their water to stop it from spreading.

  Not far from me, the blue-eyed agent was kneeling in front of Hayley, who was huddled under a tree and sobbing. The agent caressed her hair and helped her get to her feet. I frowned. Why would he be helping her? Weren’t they supposed to hunt down all tainted elementals? Or was he trying to trick her into coming with him without a fight?

  “Noah won’t hurt her,” Jaiden said. I tried to get up, but Jaiden suddenly gripped my arm and pulled me toward him. I fell forward, my face only inches from his, my breath catching in my chest. A shield of air surrounded us both as elements assaulted it. I wanted to push myself up, but Jaiden was too strong.

  “Why are you protecting me?” I asked.

  “You’d know if you could remember, and you can’t do that. But can’t you see there’s something wrong about this whole thing? You have huge memory gaps and don’t seem to recall many things, and yet your mission and your desire to complete the ritual are crystal clear in your mind.” He ran his hands down my arms, his shield still getting hit by elements. “In fact, that desire is so strong that you aren’t able to see what’s right in front of you. Your mind doesn’t allow you to think what you’d really think in this situation.”

  My mind screamed that what he was telling me couldn’t be true, and as I tried to think his words over, they eluded me. I sat up, pressure building behind my eyes. Someone had messed with my mind really bad, and I could no longer trust anything. Not even a tiny detail about myself or anyone else. Jaiden’s shield had dissolved, and agents surrounded us, their rifles pointed at us. A burst of energy rippled through the air, and my elements curled up inside of me. We could no longer use our elements; I was sure of it.

  I raised my hands in the air, and someone grabbed me from behind, cuffing my hands behind my back. Another agent grabbed Jaiden and pulled him to his feet. In the corner of my eye, I could see Ulry and Raven being led away too, but Blake was nowhere to be seen.

  Chapter 14

  “Moira, hey, wake up,” an unknown voice said, and I forced my eyes to open. A guy was standing next to my bed, and I realized we were in a small windowless room with pale yellow walls.

  “Who are you?” I frowned at the guy, who had dark brown hair and green eyes.

  “My name is Nick. We used... We used to know each other,” he said. “When I heard what happened to you, I had to come see you. My sister, Kenna, and I had been mind-controlled and you managed to help us.”

  “I did?” I’d never heard of him before, and I wasn’t sure if I should believe anything he said.

  “I know you don’t believe me, but you can check. Get inside my mind, and you’ll see I wasn’t mind-controlled by anyone to come here and tell you this, and that I’m telling you the truth.”

  “You’d let me do that?” Trusting someone enough to let them inside their head was a big deal.

  He nodded. Just in case he was bluffing, I let my air out of me and got inside his mind. All of his brain signals looked fine, and they weren’t blackened. I immediately slipped out, and Nick winced.

  “I wish I was strong enough to help you out,” he said. “But I can’t do what you can.”

  I sat up, surprised that I wasn’t tied to anything or that my elements weren’t blocked. “Where are we?”

  “In one of Lily’s safe houses. We couldn’t exactly bring you in. The government wants your head for everything those rogue elementals and you have done. Lily is trying to negotiate some kind of a deal, but I don’t know how that’ll work out. You’d have better chances if you regained your memory.” His brow furrowed. “And that guy who was with you...”

  “Jaiden?” I asked.

  “No, the other guy. The one who probably mind-controlled you, judging by the fact he was powerful enough to escape at the last moment,” Nick said. “Would you happen to know where to find him? If you handed him over, you’d have better chances of getting out of this.”

  “Blake?” So Blake had managed to flee. I didn’t even know how I felt about that. Nick believed Blake had mind-controlled me, but how? He wasn’t that strong, or was he? I bit down on my lip. I had to figure this out. I couldn’t stay like this and not know who I really was.

  “Oh, so that’s his name? His real name?” Nick asked. “It’s been hard to track him down. There’s absolutely no record of his existence, only blurry surveillance images.”

  “Is there any way... to fix what’s been done to me?” I needed to know if anyone had come up with a reliable method that I didn’t know about yet.

  Nick averted his gaze. “Unfortunately, no. You’re the only one for now who knows how to heal brain signals and fix the damage, but I don’t know if you can fix your own mind.”

  My heart skipped a beat. That didn’t sound promising. How could I dig around my own mind? I didn’t even know if that was possible. But even if I found another person to do it for me, how could I trust them? Maybe if they let me mind control them first so they wouldn’t harm me intentionally. “Where’s Jaiden?”

  “He’s here. In a cell. Waiting for execution,” Nick said.

  “What?” I gaped at him. “But they can’t just kill him! He...” Well, I didn’t really know what he’d done. Maybe he was dangerous, but he’d been helping me. “Can I see him?”

  “Yeah, I guess. He’s in the only element-proof room here.” Nick shrugged. “Do you think he could help you? I mean, I wouldn’t really trust him, but he seems to care about you, so...”

  “Take me to him.” There was a sour taste in my mouth, and I got to my feet, running a hand through my hair.

  “Okay, come with me.” Nick opened the door for me. “Just don’t try to escape. If you do, the team has an order to kill you immediately.”

  “Great.” I knew Lily wouldn’t let me get out of here so easily. There had to be some other form of protection around the house or wherever we were that Nick wasn’t telling me about. Maybe there was only one way in and out of here, since I couldn’t see any windows or openings, which meant the house might not be a house at all but some underground hideout.

  As we strode down the hall, I could see various armed guards watching me carefully. Nick and I stopped in front of a big green door, and he punched in the code. The door slid open, and Jaiden looked up at me. He was sitting on the floor in an empty room, his hands in chains.

  “Hi,” I said softly as the door closed behind me. As I came closer, I could see his sweaty hair was plastered to his forehead, his eyes a little bit too wide. The room. There was something wrong about this room; something related to Jaiden. His shoulders relaxed as I settled on the floor next to him.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said.

  “I’m not okay.” I met his eyes. “I heard they...” My throat constricted.

  “Don’t worry about that.” He flashed me a weak smile. “You’ll be fine.”

  “I need to know something.” I reached out and placed my hand over his. “Can you heal my brain signals? I know you’re powerful and...”

  He looked away. “No, I can’t. I... I don’t know how to do it. I tried once and I messed up. I won’t try again. Not with you.”

  “Do you think I can do it myself?” I needed to know who I was, who he was to me, and everything else.

  His head snapped toward me, his lips parting. “What? No.” He shook his head. “You can’t do that. I know you want to remember, but it’s not worth the risk.”

  “Don’t you want me to remember you?”

  He offered me a sad smile, his chains rattling. “More than anything, but if I have to choose between you not knowing who I
am and you losing your mind, then my choice is clear. And I... I won’t be here for much longer anyway.”

  “Jaiden...” A tear slid down my cheek, and I leaned forward to whisper into his ear. “Maybe there’s a way to get out of here. Maybe we can mind control our way out. Nick wasn’t protected...”

  “No,” he said urgently. “You can’t do that! There’s only one way out of here, and it has a shield programmed to destroy any person who goes through it.”

  “What? But how do they get out of here?” I couldn’t believe what he was saying.

  “They don’t. Not until someone from the outside disables it, and I’m sure that can’t be done by request of anyone in here. They have many ways of monitoring you, and they’ll know if you try anything. They need some information out of you and me, and that’s why they’ll keep us here probably for a week or two. Whatever you do, don’t give them a reason to take you out. This is a test. If Nick isn’t protected, that’s because he didn’t want to be or because he had a reason.”

  “How do you know all this?” I frowned.

  “Because I saw the shield when we were brought here. It was built based on one of my father’s designs. Lily must have taken it after Elemontera was attacked. If they created it right, the shield can’t be destroyed by force or elements.”

  “Wonderful.” But that at least meant I still had time to find a way to help Jaiden. Maybe I could convince Lily to at least give him a fair trial and buy us some more time. I didn’t know why I wanted to save him so badly, but I did.

  “You should go now. They won’t be happy to see you with me,” he said.

  “I don’t care.” I leaned my head on his shoulder, not willing to leave him alone. Besides, I needed some time to think, and it didn’t matter if I was trapped in the four walls here or down the hallway.

  Chapter 15

  I strode down the hallway toward my room. The guards openly stared at me, but I ignored them.

  “You can’t remember him, and yet you still go to him whenever you can,” a voice behind my back said just before I was about to open the door. I turned around and met the guy’s blue eyes.

  “You are... Noah?” I believed that was his name.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s me. And I don’t know what that bastard told you, but you shouldn’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth. He’s still refusing to reveal his father’s location to anyone, and his father is one of the biggest criminals in the country; he tortured and killed people like us. Do you want to see Jaiden’s file? Maybe that will open your eyes.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m tired right now. Maybe some other time.” I gave him a small smile and went into my room. As I was closing the door, I saw Noah was gaping at me like a fish. What did he expect? That he could just tell me who I was and what I should do?

  Calling to my element, I used it to push the bed in front of the door so that no one could come in and interrupt what I was about to do. I didn’t know of any other ways to regain my memory, but I couldn’t live based on fake memories and only bits and pieces of my life. I needed to know the truth. It was worth the risk.

  Lily’s men could probably detect elemental energy levels, and I knew my levels would shoot through the roof, so I needed to make sure they didn’t burst inside at the wrong moment. I didn’t want to mess up my mind or turn it into mush. But if I told anyone here what I was planning to do, I was sure they’d try to dissuade me just as Jaiden had done.

  I sat down in the middle of the floor and took a deep breath. Closing my eyes, I called to my element and let it roam through the room. How exactly was I supposed to do this and get inside my own head? Wouldn’t my element simply slide back inside of me like it did when I wanted to stop using it? As I guided the shimmering toward my head, it wavered as it entered inside and disappeared, slamming itself back inside of me. Shit.

  I gritted my teeth and increased my energy. I could control this. I had to. This time, the thread slipped inside and didn’t disappear, but my mind was fuzzy and I couldn’t see anything. Five attempts later, I glimpsed at an image of the brain signals, and they were almost all dark gray or black. I swallowed, my heart thudding in my chest.

  I fed my energy into the signals, hoping I wouldn’t lose control. A splitting headache made me gasp, and tears pooled in the corners of my eyes. My element slid out, and I was vaguely aware of falling down to the ground, my head hitting the cold floor.

  Blake and I were standing in the middle of our room at his house.

  Elemontera. The word flashed through my mind like an echo, and I put my hand on my forehead.

  “Moira,” I heard Blake say. “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” I said as the pain assaulted my head again.

  “It’s not nothing. I can see it on your face. Tell me,” he pressed, his voice almost a whisper.

  “I remembered something called Elemontera,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. Why was the pain doing this to me? Why couldn’t I stop myself from doing things I didn’t really want to do?

  “It was a TV show,” Blake said, but when I looked up at him, I could see his shoulders were tense. He was lying. I knew he was lying, but why? “Forget about it. We have more important things to do. Don’t you agree?”

  “No.” My head was spinning, and I was afraid I was going to topple to the ground. I stumbled and leaned on the wall, pressing my head against its cold surface. “You’re hiding something. You’re...” I almost cried out as I felt as if someone had run a knife through my brain.

  “Moira, this never happened. You didn’t remember anything. You won’t try to remember anything. All you want to do is find the Strong, because that’s the right thing to do.”

  I sank to the floor, hugging my knees. The whole world was spinning, Blake’s face going in and out of sight. I was vaguely aware of Raven entering the room.

  “What the hell did you do now?” She scowled, and she and Blake crouched in front of me.

  “I was wrong to pick the easier way. I can’t only twist her memories. She’ll remember things she isn’t supposed to,” he said.

  I wanted to push him away from me, get up, and run out, but my whole body was shaking.

  “You can’t just erase and rewrite someone’s whole life,” Raven said. “We’ll lose her. Her mind might not be able to handle it.”

  “We won’t lose her! I’ll fix this,” Blake yelled, grasping my chin. “I can do this,” he said quietly as if he were trying to convince himself. Do what?

  “Hope you don’t mess up this time, because I have a feeling it’ll be your last chance,” Raven said. “We need a safe way to control her, not lose her every time something familiar pops up.”

  “Not while I have this.” Blake was holding a small red book.

  The pain was too much for me, and before my eyes closed, I thought I saw something shimmer around me.

  Images flashed in front of my eyes in quick succession: my parents, the university, Elemontera, Roivenna... Everything clicked into place. I opened my eyes with a gasp. Someone was banging on the door and yelling, and I pulled myself up, my vision slightly blurry. Rage spread through me, my whole body shaking.

  It had been Blake. He’d mind-controlled me to be his girlfriend and get me to believe in the prophecy. He’d been mind-controlling me the whole time, and somehow using the energy from the book to hide his shimmering thread from me, but when he was mind-controlling other people he left it visible. And he’d invented an accident so I wouldn’t be suspicious of the headaches. That sick son of a bitch! Because of him, I hadn’t been able to remember that brain signals could be healed until Nick told me about it.

  “Moira! Open the door!” Noah yelled.

  “Just a second!” I gathered what was left of my strength and pulled the bed away from the door with my air enough to open the door, sinking down to my knees. Noah burst inside.

  “What happened? The energy levels in here set off the alarm...” He crouched next to me, placing a hand on my face. “Y
ou’re burning up. What did you do?”

  A shiver ran through me because his hand was cold against my cheek. “I... I remember everything.”

  “What? But how?” He gave me an incredulous look.

  “I used my element... like with Nick and Kenna.” My whole body felt as if it were filled with pins and needles.

  Noah’s eyes bulged. “Are you crazy? How could you risk...?”

  I chuckled. “Crazy? We’ll see. Are you going to yell at me for doing something that actually worked?”

  “No, I just... I can’t believe you did this.” He put his arms around my shoulders and helped me get to the bed. “How are you feeling?”

  “Exhausted. Pissed off.”

  “It’ll be okay,” Noah said, helping me to lie down.

  “No, it won’t. I almost killed a little girl because that fucking psychopath made me believe my only purpose in life was to complete some stupid ritual!” I ran my hand over my face. Part of me wished I hadn’t been able to remember the parts of my life when I’d been under mind control, but I couldn’t just forget about that and erase it as if it hadn’t happened.

  “None of it was your fault,” Noah said. “He gave you fake memories and your actions were a consequence of that.”

  The corners of my lips quirked up, and I closed my eyes. It was nice of Noah to believe that, but I knew the truth. Blake might have changed what I knew about my whole life, but there were things I’d done and decisions I’d made that were all my own. There was some small part of me that did want the power. I couldn’t deny that.

  “Do you want to see your parents?” Noah suddenly asked, and I looked up at him. “We’ve told them to stay away until we decided what to do with you, but if you remember everything...”

  I nodded. “Yeah.” My parents must have been too much of a trigger for me that Blake had completely pushed them out of my memory and switched them with images of unknown people. I didn’t know who the dark-haired fake mother was, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she were Blake’s own mother.