Captive (Tainted Elements, Book 4)

by Linwood, Alycia

  “It would be great if they stopped being so delusional. They think they’re safe because they can scan energy levels.” He scoffed. “Even her mind control and element blockers are still in beta testing and not that good.”

  “I know. We both found a way around things like that before.” Unless the energy levels were scanned at their strongest, I didn’t think there was something that could stop us if we really tried to break through it. “I don’t want anyone near Blake except us.”

  “I think I know how to get to the house. Do you have the address?” Jaiden asked.

  “Yeah, why?” I looked at him in surprise.

  “We’ll take a taxi.” He grinned. “If we find one in a crowded area, the agents won’t be able to track our energy since we won’t be using our elements. We can get out somewhere near the house.”

  “I like that idea.” I smiled. We headed for one of the bigger streets, which was usually busy and full of taxis.

  A shudder went through me as we neared the house. Blake and I had actually lived here for months, and I’d been under his mind control the whole time. Maybe the reason he hadn’t gone on many missions with the rest of his group was that he’d been wasting his energy on me. Hell, maybe that was why he couldn’t have broken completely through Lily’s block.

  “Is this the one?” Jaiden eyed the house suspiciously. It was a big two-story house with a light blue façade, and multiple windows and balconies. Everything was in the dark, but that didn’t mean Blake wasn’t somewhere in there. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d mind-controlled one of the neighbors or someone in the city to monitor the activity of Lily’s agents so they’d alert him if someone were coming.

  “Yeah.” I stared at the house, my mouth suddenly dry.

  “Do you happen to have the key or know of a secret entrance?” Jaiden looked at me.

  “Not really.” There had always been someone in the house to open the door or guard it if the door was unlocked.

  “Great, then we’ll break in.” He flashed me a smile.

  “Yeah, but be careful. Someone might be inside. I don’t know if any of the tainted elementals who hadn’t been captured are here.” I remembered Helena. She was the one who’d usually never gone with us, but I had no idea where she lived. She’d just popped up when we needed her.

  “How many elementals does Blake have in his group?” Jaiden asked.

  “I... I don’t know. He convinced me I knew some of them, but for some reason I could never focus on the others. I just knew they were there, but the moment they went away, I forgot about them.” I shrugged.

  “He mind-controlled you so you wouldn’t pay attention to any of them,” Jaiden said. “Figures. He didn’t want you to know everyone in case you turned against him.”

  “Yeah.” My hands were trembling as we stopped in front of the door. Hopefully, if Blake was here and tried to mind control one of us, we’d notice it. I didn’t want to lose my mind again. Surely, Jaiden wouldn’t let Blake do me any harm.

  Jaiden took my hand in his and gently squeezed. “Ready?” he asked when he let go.

  I nodded, and he slammed his shoulder into the door, which flew open. Silence greeted us as we stepped into the dark hallway, and I used a fireball to light up the room. I found the light switch and flipped it on. Everything looked exactly like Blake and I had left it, but that didn’t mean someone wasn’t here.

  Jaiden pointed at the door to his left, and I nodded, going for the door to the right. My breath got stuck in my chest when I turned on the light in the kitchen. Helena was sitting in one of the white chairs at the table, clutching a big kitchen knife in her hand, her face shielded by her long brown hair.

  “Helena?” I whispered, slowly going toward her. Her hazel eyes lifted toward me and she immediately placed the sharp edge of the knife under her throat.

  “Don’t come closer,” she said, her voice strained.

  “Helena...” I stopped, my heart thudding in my chest.

  “Don’t try to get inside my head. If I feel the pain, I’ll cut my throat. You’ll want to hear what I have to say,” she said, the knife steady on her throat. Oh God. Blake had mind-controlled her to do this. He’d known we’d come here.

  “I have a message for you,” she said. “If you don’t clear out the Sacred Place of your stupid agents and go there yourself in six hours, many people will die. And bring Jaiden Maiers with you.”

  Helena’s eyes focused on me and her hand moved. I sprinted toward her, but I was too late. Blood splattered on the white table as she collapsed to the ground. “Jaiden!”

  He immediately appeared in the room, his lips parting as he saw Helena’s body. “What happened?”

  “Blake left us a message. He wants both of us at the Sacred Place in six hours and doesn’t want any agents nearby.” I thought I was going to throw up.

  Jaiden swore, crouching next to Helena and checking her pulse, but then he just shook his head. I looked around and spotted a phone in the corner. Jaiden and I had tossed our phones so Lily couldn’t use the signal to track us, but now we needed her to find us. I dialed the number with shaky fingers.

  “We have a problem,” I said as soon as she picked up.

  “Moira? Where are you? I can’t believe you ditched my agents!” She sounded annoyed.

  “Blake... He wants your agents to clear out from the meadow. And he wants Jaiden and me to be there. If we don’t do it in six hours, he’s going to kill someone.”

  “How do you know all of this?”

  “He left us a message. Mind-controlled one of the elementals from his group to wait for us. He knew we’d be coming.”

  “Where is this elemental now?” Lily asked.

  “Dead. She killed herself after delivering the message.” A wave of rage went through me.

  “Oh God. I’ll send a team to the house. And... Blake... What should we do about him? We can’t just give the two of you to him. What if he wants to mind control you or kill you?”

  “Don’t worry about us,” I said. “We can’t let Blake kill any more people.”

  “I know. He needs to be stopped,” Lily said. “We can’t have a powerful psychopath roaming around. He doesn’t even have to kill people himself. He can get any person in the city to do it.”

  A loud explosion sounded not far from the house, and I looked at Jaiden in alarm, and he immediately turned into air and darted outside.

  “What was that?” Lily asked.

  “I don’t know. It sounded like an explosion.”

  “Do you think Blake did that?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. Look, just get your people out of the meadow.” Blake could mind control anyone he wanted. He could force the city to destroy itself, but I was hoping he’d be saving his energy for the ritual.

  “I will,” Lily said, voices buzzing around her. “And you be careful, and catch that son of a bitch.”

  “Yeah.” I ended the call and went to find Jaiden. He was standing on the driveway, watching wisps of smoke rising in the distance.

  “Looks like someone blew up something,” Jaiden said. “I don’t know if it’s Blake. What did Lily say?”

  “She’ll tell her men to leave the meadow.” The chilly night air made me shiver. As I rubbed my arms, Jaiden pulled me into a hug, kissing the top of my head.

  “We’ll stop him, okay?” he said.

  “Yeah.” I only hoped we were powerful enough to do that. “But why does he want the two of us? If he wants to complete the ritual... I could have sworn he thought you were another Murderer, not the Strong.”

  “Maybe he thinks it doesn’t matter as long as we’re both powerful.”

  “Well, I don’t care what he thinks, but he’ll probably try to kill one or both of us.” If he still believed in what that stupid note said, then someone would have to die. “What if he’ll try to mind control one of us so we’d kill...?”

  Jaiden looked into my eyes, his grip firm on my arms. “We won’t let him.”

  �
��Yeah, but if he knows we care about the people in the city... We might be forced to let him mind control us to save the others.”

  “Do you really think that would help anyone? The two of us mind-controlled by Blake?” Jaiden asked. “If the ritual doesn’t go like he expects it to, and it probably won’t, he’ll take his rage out on the city.”

  “Fuck.” I pulled away from him and stared into the dark night. It seemed that no matter what we did, someone would get hurt, but Jaiden was right. With us on his side, Blake would be more dangerous than ever. We couldn’t let that happen. “What if we bring with us one of those fancy devices that render elements useless for a couple of moments?” Maybe that would give us enough time to take Blake out.

  “I’ve had a chance to study that device when I was following you and Lily’s agents were busy attacking Blake and you. That thing is actually huge and has to be transported in a truck. He’d see that coming,” Jaiden said. “And it doesn’t cover a large enough area. Besides, once it’s used, it takes a lot of time to recharge it. So if they miss or it doesn’t work...”

  “Awesome.” I rolled my eyes. “So what do we do?”

  “We go there, see what he wants, and try to find an opportunity to kill him,” Jaiden said, and I turned around to face him. “If he threatens the city, we’ll tell him we don’t give a damn.”

  “Wonderful plan.” I ran my hand through my hair.

  “Like all of our plans.” He grinned.

  Chapter 19

  The sun was about to rise when Jaiden and I landed in the middle of the meadow. Everything was quiet, and I couldn’t see Blake or any shimmering anywhere. I stopped near that box in the ground that Lily’s men hadn’t managed to open.

  “Blake!” I yelled. “Show yourself!”

  Nothing moved, and I gritted my teeth together. What if this was just a distraction? For all I knew, Blake was somewhere else mind-controlling people into destroying the city.

  “You’re finally here.” Blake’s voice came from behind one of the trees, and he stepped around it. “I thought you’d never show up.”

  “We’re here, so what the hell do you want?” I clenched my fists at my sides, trying to stop myself from rushing him.

  “So much anger in your voice.” Blake sighed. “You used to love me once, don’t you remember?”

  “That was a lie, and you know it. I would never love someone like you.” I curled my lip in disgust.

  “And you’d love someone like him?” Blake nodded toward Jaiden. “Interesting.”

  “You didn’t go through all the trouble to get us here just to question my love life, and I know you never really loved me, so cut the crap and tell me why we’re here.”

  He smiled. “Do you see the door next to you?”

  “Yeah. What about it?”

  “I want you to open it,” he said.

  “Don’t you think I would’ve done it already if I could?” I glared at him. “I don’t think there’s a way to open that. If it actually is a door. For all we know, it could be a piece of metal. Oh, there’s something I need to tell you about the prophecy. It’s fake. What we felt when we touched the book was created by a drug that was on its pages.”

  His face was expressionless. “A drug? So that’s what that was?”

  “Yeah, your prophecy isn’t real,” Jaiden said. “You’ll never get the power of all the elements.”

  Blake grinned. “That’s what you think. But you see, the fact that the prophecy might not be an actual prophecy is a good thing for me. It means I can break the rules.”

  “Come on, Blake. I know you’re not that stupid,” I said. “If the book is fake, that means whatever is written inside is a lie, too. It isn’t some old, important book.”

  “You don’t understand a thing about this, Moira, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that only one of us will walk away with all the power,” he said, and a wave of wind blasted through the field. Jaiden and I created protective shields as Blake’s wind raged around us.

  “You can’t defeat me!” Blake yelled as ice joined the air, going toward us and shredding the grass in its path.

  Jaiden and I looked at each other and had no other choice but to force our fire out to stop the ice. I gritted my teeth, trying to hold up the air shield so Blake wouldn’t unbalance me, and I focused on my fire. My shield faltered a little, and I stumbled back. A fireball flew toward Jaiden, who had lowered his head, so I knew he couldn’t see it.

  Forcing all of my energy out of me, I threw a blue fireball at Blake’s fire, and as they collided, a strong wave of energy rippled through the field. I fell to the ground, my elements smashed back into me, and gasped for breath. Warmth was spreading up and down my body in waves. I lifted myself up on my elbows and realized the metal door was open and Blake was sprinting toward it. I forced myself up despite the protest of every muscle in my body.

  “Finally!” Blake exclaimed, picking up something that looked like a syringe. “I’m the chosen one,” he said and stabbed himself with the needle. I stared at him in shock as I approached him. The door in the ground wasn’t leading to anywhere; it was just a box, and it was empty now. Blake’s breathing was ragged, a look of pure ecstasy on his face.

  “It wasn’t a prophecy,” Blake said. “But it was a gift for those worthy of it.”

  “What are you talking about?” I had no idea what he’d just injected into himself.

  “You’d never understand, baby.” He turned into air and surged toward the sky. I wanted to follow him, but all I could do was make my hands shimmer. Fuck. Turning around, I saw Jaiden still lying in the grass, unmoving. I dashed toward him.

  “Jaiden!” I said, checking him for any wounds, but there weren’t any I could see. Finally, he opened his eyes and smiled at me.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Just... too much energy.” His smile faded. “Where’s Blake?”

  “I don’t know! He injected himself with some shit and flew away!”

  “What?” Jaiden gaped at me.

  “There was a syringe in that sealed box. I guess we opened it because we used all of our elements around it.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would there be a syringe in a sealed metal box in the middle of nowhere?” Jaiden pushed himself up to his feet.

  I kept shaking my head. “We have to find him. If he gets even more power from this, we’re screwed.”

  “Yeah, but I can’t turn into air.” Jaiden let out a frustrated groan.

  “Me neither.” I kicked at the grass with my foot, then felt my pocket for a small device Lily’s men had given to me before we’d left the house. Lily wanted us to alert her when her team could come or in case we were in great danger. I pressed the button, and Jaiden and I had no other choice but to wait for help. The empty syringe was cast off in the grass, and I hoped Lily’s scientists would be able to find enough of the liquid left in it to analyze it and figure out what the hell it contained.

  “This is insane,” I said as I paced up and down, avoiding the burnt grass. Then I noticed something black in a green bush. A device of some kind was lying upside down. I picked it up and realized it was a small camera.

  “What’s that?” Jaiden asked, peering at the camera over my shoulder.

  “I think Blake dropped it.” Knowing Blake, this was probably one of the things he wanted us to see. Maybe another fun message that would tell us what he was planning to do, or maybe the thing was meant to explode in my hands. Oh crap. I narrowed my eyes at the camera, twirling it in my hand.

  “Let me see,” Jaiden said, and I reluctantly handed it over. He pressed a few buttons and a video started playing. Blake’s face covered the whole screen, his lips pulled into a smile.

  “Yesterday, the enemy managed to stop me from achieving greatness, but that won’t happen again. I’ve been thinking about the prophecy and what the note said. As I was looking at the hidden door, I realized it couldn’t be that old. But I knew that whoever had written the Sacred Book had a bigger pl
an. The prophecy wasn’t really a prophecy; it was a test to see who was smart and worthy enough to open the box and get the prize,” Blake said.

  “I figured it all out. The prophecy said we’d get unlimited power and take other people’s elements, and I believe whoever wrote that book found a way to do that, but he didn’t want everyone to know about it, because we all know that great things are wasted in the hands of wrong people. So, there’s a test we need to pass to open that door. I don’t think any elemental can resurrect anyone, so that’s probably meant to be the hardest part of the test. The book and the notes were hidden in places that could be unlocked by elemental energy, and I don’t see why enough energy couldn’t open the box itself. If you’re watching this, that means that I was right and that I got what I wanted.” Blake’s face came close to the camera, his eyes flashing dangerously.

  “Beware, people. I’m going to take all of your elements!” He sighed. “Ah, feels so good not to have to pretend to be a hero anymore.” An emotion flashed through his eyes but then the video stopped.

  “What the fuck?” Jaiden frowned. “He’s completely insane, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah. He told me something... I don’t know if it’s true, but apparently, he failed to save his mother and sister. I think at some point he wanted to be the Hero, but now that he knows none of that is real...”

  “He’s going to do whatever the hell he wants.” Jaiden shook his head, handing me back the camera. “Great.”

  The sirens could be heard in the distance, and a few minutes later, Lily’s men stormed the meadow.

  “Where’s Blake?” Lily asked, dressed in battle gear, her weapon ready.

  “He injected himself with some weird liquid that was in the box and went away,” I said. “Your team has to find out what was in that syringe.”

  “Do you think it could be some kind of an element enhancing liquid drug?” Lily asked, and I glanced at Jaiden.

  “Maybe,” he said.

  I’d seen the serum Jaiden had to use to keep his elements, but it looked nothing like this one, which didn’t mean it wasn’t similar. And I doubted Jaiden’s father would go through all the trouble to create a book and a prophecy to lure the elementals out and give them a syringe. If he wanted to test one of his theories or whatever, he’d just catch an elemental and do it. Speaking of Mr. Maiers, I wished Jaiden would tell me where his father was. I didn’t like not knowing if that bastard could pop up somewhere and try to catch more elementals.