It wasn’t hard to spot Blake in the distance. His cloud of air was shimmering, and he was slower than usual, which meant the injury I’d given him was serious enough to do damage. As I came closer, I saw more shimmering clouds appearing on the horizon.
Blake reduced his speed even more and tried to reach an empty space, but the agents and I surrounded him. He went for one of the clouds, blasting the agent out of the air. Suddenly, Blake plummeted toward the ground, too, and I went after him. This was nowhere near the area where Lily’s special truck was. It would take her some time to bring it here.
“Moira!” I recognized Noah’s voice. He was the shimmering cloud closest to me. “Need help?”
“Totally. We need to keep him here!” I descended on the pavement, turning visible. Blake was leaning on the wall across the street, and I could see passersby watching us in shock. Cars had stopped, and everyone stared as various people appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the street. Catching Blake was clearly Lily’s priority since she’d allowed her agents to be seen like that.
“You’re not strong enough to take me out!” Blake yelled, but his voice was strained, and he was limping, his jeans soaked with blood.
“We’ll see about that,” Noah said, and the six of us surrounded him and attacked. I used my air to try to get inside his head. If I could do that while he was distracted, this fight could be over in a second. But with a warrior cry, Blake rose a shield of all four elements in front of him, and our attacks simply melted into it.
He cut off my shimmering thread with ease, but he didn’t try to use mind control on anyone, probably because focusing only on such a complicated and difficult task would leave him vulnerable to other attacks. Quickly dropping his shield, he hurled fireballs at us. I lifted myself in the air to dodge them, but one of the girls hadn’t been fast enough and the fire hit her straight in the chest, throwing her across the street.
Someone immediately threw water over her, but she didn’t move. Another guy was so distracted with what had happened to the girl that he hadn’t seen the branch of a nearby tree extending, and it wrapped itself around his neck. Before anyone could cut off the branch, it flung him down the street. We were down to four, and I didn’t know if reinforcements were coming.
Noah raced toward Blake and dodged his attacks. But when he created a blast of water, Blake met it with his own, and Noah couldn’t come any closer, his face strained as he tried to push the water back toward Blake. Another agent tried to attack Blake from the other side with a cloud of sand, but Blake deflected it without any problems.
The strength of Noah’s water faltered, and he was thrown back. I used my air to stop the water from covering him completely, but Blake had used the opportunity to hit me with his air. I didn’t have enough time to use my air before my back collided with a window. The glass exploded around me, the shards cutting into my skin. I managed to turn invisible right before I would have fallen into a pile of broken glass.
The last agent on her feet, a girl with long blonde hair, faced Blake, her brows drawn in concentration, her fire and air mixing into a fiery tornado. She was trying to send it at Blake, who was defending himself with his shield. The girl reached for the gun and started firing through her fire.
But Blake dematerialized and flew up, letting the fiery bullets and the tornado hit a building. Windows burst, and screams could be heard, but I couldn’t see any civilians. One part of the building collapsed from the force of the girl’s elements, and Blake dropped on her, and she made choking sounds.
I could still see Blake’s shimmering, so I sent my fireballs at him. He dodged but had to let go of the girl, who fell down to the ground, her eyes closed. Her chest was still rising and falling, so I hoped she was still alive. Blake turned toward me, visible again, but surrounded with a protective shield of air.
“Looks like it’s just you and me,” he said with a sneer.
I readied myself for another attack, my elements surging out of me. Blue fire erupted from the ground where Blake was standing and licked at his shield.
“You’re going to have to do better than that.” He laughed, his eyes focused on something behind me. I rolled over and barely managed to avoid fireballs that attacked me from behind.
“You’re bleeding,” I said. “If you keep this up, you’re going to die no matter what. We can still help you... Take care of that wound.”
“Do you think I’m stupid enough to believe that? You want to kill me. You can’t stand the idea of someone being more powerful than you, but I am. And this little wound is nothing.” But the grimace on his face told otherwise.
I let my air surround him, trying to break through the shield. “Nothing? Okay then. Let’s see for how long you can stand here.”
“You’re wasting your time. You’ll never be stronger than me,” Blake said, and his shield grew bigger, pushing my air away. I was getting tired, sweat trickling down my back. Maybe he was right. Maybe he could do this for longer than I could.
I pulled out the remaining gun and aimed it at him. As I fired, I coated the bullets in blue fire and made them even faster with my air. The bullets made holes in Blake’s shield, but his whole body turned into fire, and the bullets disappeared into it. I stared at the burning mass, barely breathing.
The fire ebbed away and Blake laughed at me, his face paler than before. A gush of blood came out of his leg, and his knees wobbled. He’d made a wrong move and he didn’t even seem to realize it. Turning into fire must have been harder than turning into air, and it’d affected his wound. He could be losing even more blood, and with that more energy. The feverish gleam in his eyes was still there, and I had to avoid another one of his attacks. He had to be staying upward by the pure strength of will.
Energy rippled through all of us, and I stumbled, feeling my elements curl inside of me. Lily had done it. She’d used the device. Blake was staring down at his hands, a shocked expression on his face. I didn’t know how much time I had, but I knew it wasn’t much.
Jumping to my feet, I dashed at Blake and brought us both to the ground. He cried out but managed to punch me in the jaw. Pain erupted through my face, but I ignored it. If Blake was throwing punches, that meant he didn’t have his elements at the moment. Besides, he was injured and hadn’t had training like me.
I punched him a couple of times until blood started to seep out of his nose and he ended up lying on the ground. I climbed on top of him and snatched the knife out of my boot.
“You don’t have elements either, and mine will come back soon. I can feel them,” Blake said. “You can’t...”
I stabbed him in the shoulder, and he screamed. “That’s for killing all those people, Blake.” I pulled out the knife, and before he could do anything, I stabbed him in the stomach. “This is for being a sick son of a bitch.” His eyes were wide, blood pooling underneath him.
“No, don’t die yet. I’m not done.” I grasped his chin, digging my nails into his skin until his eyes met mine. “This is for what you did to me, because yeah, I want revenge more than anything else right now.” I cut his throat open and watched as the blood gushed out through the wound, covering my hands. Blake sputtered, and then the life left his eyes.
“Moira!” Noah yelled my name, tugging at my shoulders. I let go of the bloody knife and let him pull me off Blake’s body. As I looked down the street, I saw Lily’s agents swarming the street and trying to help the wounded and keep the crowd away. I wanted to wipe the sweat off my face, but my hands were still coated in Blake’s blood.
“Hey, are you okay?” Noah asked softly.
I nodded, but the world seemed as if it were covered in a thin sheet of something.
“Let’s get you out of here.” Noah gently guided me toward one of the cars.
We’d stopped Blake. He was gone and would never be able to hurt anyone again, and that was the only thing that mattered. Agents and doctors approached me, asking questions, but their faces blurred in front of me and I had no idea what th
ey were saying. As Noah helped me get into one of the cars, I curled up in the backseat and closed my eyes.
Chapter 24
Lily placed her hand on my shoulder as her doctors fussed over me. “How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Fine,” I said automatically, and her smile faded a little.
“I know you’ve been through a lot, and taking Blake out like that... It affects you.”
“I’m fine,” I repeated.
“What you did was amazing. You saved thousands of people. You saved our city, and I’ll be forever grateful for that,” she said. “Even the president has agreed to pardon Jaiden and you for your past crimes.”
“Good.” I toyed with a strand of my hair. “Can I go now?”
“Sure. If you ever need anyone to talk to, you know where to find me,” Lily said, and I jumped off the bed. I snuck into Jaiden’s room. His face brightened when he saw me. His left arm was tightly wrapped up in bandages, and I sat on the bed next to him. A frown creased his brow, and he placed his good hand over mine.
“I didn’t have a chance to thank you for saving my life,” he said softly. “If it weren’t for you, he’d have killed me.”
Tears pooled in my eyes, and I couldn’t help it anymore. Jaiden shifted on the bed and I curled up next to him, unable to stop the tears. I didn’t even know why I was crying.
Jaiden just caressed my hair, and when I finally calmed down, I looked up at him.
“Feeling better?” he asked.
I nodded, sniffling.
“Did Lily tell you the big news?” he asked. “Or did she forget in between all the excitement?”
“Tell me what?” I wasn’t quite sure if she really hadn’t told me, because I hadn’t really been paying much attention to what she’d been saying.
“The government decided that it’s time for everyone to know about tainted elementals,” Jaiden said. “The fight with Blake showed them that the city hasn’t been adequately prepared for such a threat, and some people got injured simply because they didn’t know what they were dealing with. And many people saw everything, so it’s not easy to cover it up. Actually, that’s probably the main reason.”
“Really?” Lily hadn’t told me anything about that. I knew at least that much.
“Yeah, Lily has three months to come up with a perfect way to explain everything to people so they don’t turn against us,” Jaiden said. “Considering she was the one who revealed big secrets in the past, I don’t think she’ll have a problem with that. People are more likely to believe her than anyone else. She’ll probably have to lie about some things, though.”
“I hope that goes well.” It was pointless to keep trying to hide our existence.
“Me, too.”
I pushed myself up on my elbows and bent my head, placing a soft kiss on Jaiden’s lips. “Tell me,” I said when I pulled back. “How’s your arm?”
“It hurts a little,” he said. “But the doctors said I’d be fine in a few weeks. Luckily, the bullet didn’t hit anything overly important.”
I felt a little bit better about that. “That’s great.”
“Yeah, and it looks like we’re free to go wherever we want. Lily will keep a close eye on us, but her agents won’t try to kill us on sight. I hope.” The corners of his lips tilted up.
“I have an idea,” I said. “I don’t think all tainted elementals will be happy when Lily reveals the truth to the world.”
Jaiden nodded, but his brows were drawn together in confusion.
“Well, she was the one who took over everything related to element preservers and carriers, and that worked out because they trusted her, but I doubt tainted elementals will trust her. She’d taken Elemontera’s place and keeps a list of elementals for the government. I don’t think that’s very trustworthy.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“We should start our own organization. You and I,” I said. “We can help tainted elementals and everyone else. They need their own kind to help them through this. We could be the ones to negotiate things and deal with rogue elementals. I’m sure we’d be better than Lily at catching them and anticipating their moves. She might not like that idea, but she doesn’t have to be the one to decide and care about everything. Just because tainted elementals are the biggest worry right now doesn’t mean she won’t have problems with carriers later, and maybe she won’t have time for us then.”
Jaiden watched me carefully for a moment. “That doesn’t sound like a bad idea.”
“I could accept my inheritance and use it to do good things.” I’d never wanted to take over the company and the money my grandfather had left me because I didn’t want to be involved with anything of his. But if I could use that money to help people, then for once, my grandfather’s money would have a purpose.
“Your grandfather wouldn’t be happy about that.” Amusement filled Jaiden’s eyes.
“I know.” A smile tugged on my lips. “But he hurt so many people, and if his money can be used to help, then why not?” I’d hurt too many people too, with and without Blake’s mind control. I didn’t want to do that anymore.
Jaiden’s face grew serious. I looked into his dark brown eyes and knew what was bothering him.
“We’ll find your father,” I said. “And then we’ll get you the serum.”
He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah, we will.”
“You didn’t use up your elements yet, right?”
“No, they’re still here. If I don’t use them much, I could go on for a few months.” He traced his fingers down my arm.
“Great.” That would be enough time to figure out where his father had gone and catch him. Jack was only a regular elemental. How could he possibly hide from us? Besides, even the cops were looking for him. We just had to get him before the cops did, because I wasn’t sure they’d let him make a lifelong supply of the serum for Jaiden before tossing him in prison.
“It doesn’t matter. I’d give up my elements anytime as long as you’re with me,” he said, and I pulled him in for a kiss. Someone knocked on the door, and I let go of Jaiden and sighed. My mother poked her head through the door, her lips pressed into a tight line.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“No...” Her eyes flitted to Jaiden and her jaw tensed, but then she smiled at me. “I wanted to see you. We hadn’t really had a chance to talk since...”
“Yeah, we can talk in my room. I’ll be there in a moment.”
She nodded and closed the door, but not before giving a disapproving look to Jaiden.
“Your mother still doesn’t like me very much,” Jaiden said.
“She will,” I said. “Eventually.”
“I won’t be holding my breath.” He didn’t want to let go of my hand, so I lightly squeezed his fingers.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” I gave him my brightest smile and headed for the door.
Chapter 25
Mom and Dad were waiting for me in the room Lily had temporarily given to me. My mom immediately hugged me, and Dad patted me on the back.
“I still can’t believe you fought that awful...” my mom said. “He could have...”
“Moira’s here and she’s fine,” my dad said. “I don’t think she needs a reminder.”
I smiled at him. “Yeah.”
“All right.” My mom let go of me. We all went toward the bed, and I sat in between them.
“It’s over now, right?” she asked hopefully. “This nightmare is finally over, and we can go home and live our lives without fearing someone will steal you from us or make you forget us.”
“Yeah, but Mom...” I started to say, and I hated to see disappointment in her eyes. “I was thinking I could do something to help elementals like me, and I... I’m planning to use the inheritance Anton Marlau left me.”
She flinched away from me. “I don’t think you should take anything from that man.”
“He’s dead,” I said. “At least his money can be u
sed for a good thing. If I don’t take it, someone else will. And they’ll use it for God knows what.” My name was in Marlau’s will, but I wasn’t his only family. It was a surprise someone hadn’t already filed a dispute against me.
“I guess you’re right.” A forced smile appeared on my mom’s lips. “But what are you planning to do?”
“I don’t know yet, but I’ll figure something out.”
“We’re so proud of you,” my dad said. “And you have our support no matter what you decide to do.”
“Thanks.”
“Is that... Is Jack Maiers’ son going to stay with you?” my mom asked, not hiding her dislike for Jaiden.
“Yes. He’s my boyfriend.”
“Honey...” My mom licked her lips. “I think you should be careful around him. You don’t know what he really wants from you. He could be using you to get off the hook for what he’s done. If you think he’s anything like you, you’re wrong. You were drugged and mind-controlled, but he... he knew exactly what he was doing when he killed all those people.”
“Mom...” I shook my head. I knew she was only worried about me and she didn’t really know Jaiden. Actually, most of what she knew about him was what she’d heard from other people. “Jaiden isn’t manipulating me. If he simply wanted to escape, he could have done it countless times already and no one would have stopped him. But he stayed here in the city and searched for me even when he knew Lily’s agents could capture or kill him. And he gave me something that was precious to him.”
I still didn’t want to tell anyone about Jaiden’s expiring elements. My mom knew he hadn’t been born with them, but she didn’t know the truth about the serum. I was sure there were still people out there who considered Jaiden an enemy for what he’d done when he’d been working for Elemontera. And if they’d heard he’d helped his father escape, they’d try to get revenge for it sooner or later.
I didn’t want that particular piece of information about Jaiden to get into the wrong hands. I only wished I knew what Jaiden’s father had in mind. If we didn’t catch him soon, I’d have to try to explain everything to my mom or maybe to some of Lily’s scientists, even though I wasn’t sure if anyone other than Jack could successfully create the serum. There was still time for that, though.
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