by Amy Braun
My life was getting insane.
I finally gave up and sighed, opening my eyes and turning to Hadrian.
“This isn’t working,” I complained, drifting off when I saw that his militant stare was fixed on the clouds. I looked up. They were much darker than they had been earlier, becoming thick rolls of smoke that turned the sky from a pale grey to an ominous gunmetal shade.
“Hadrian?”
“The storm is getting closer,” he stated, eyes still bolted to the sky. “The Stormkind will likely attack soon.”
Fear punched into my heart. “But– how? The Centennial already happened! How could there be another storm so soon?”
“The thunder-Stormkind is probably weaker than it was, but it has probably not been gathered and placed back in its cage.” His eyes were almost as dark as the clouds when he turned them to me. “This could be Mortis’s design.”
Hadrian headed for the exit of the prison. Thunder rumbled over my head. I flinched at the crushing roar and hurried to catch up with him.
“What are you going to do?” I asked, worried about the answer.
“Gather the Precips. Track the Stormkind. Capture it. Kill Mortis.”
The last goal was spoken with pleasure. It was something Hadrian wanted to do.
That was when I heard it. The sound of thunder rolling backward, quiet at first, and growing louder with each passing second.
The same sound I’d heard before the Stormkind attacked in the Centennial.
Real thunder smashed the clouds. Sharp white flashes of lighting dashed the ground. I gasped and spun around, bumping into Hadrian. The lightning continued to flash wildly, slashing like serrated knives that stabbed into the ground beyond the wire fence.
A blazing streak of white light cut through the sky like a comet. It descended less than a hundred feet from where we stood. I could almost feel the static in the air.
Rain poured from the sky in buckets. Lightning sparked wildly, each strike getting closer to us.
Hadrian’s arm wrapped around my stomach. He pulled me back into the prison, then set me behind him and looked at the blinding white flashes beyond the door.
“I truly loathe thunder-Stormkind,” he grumbled. He turned to me. “You need to stay here until we come back.”
“I thought I was supposed to stay with you,” I said. At least it didn’t make me sound like I was afraid of being alone, which was the actual, undisputable truth.
“You will be safe,” he stated. “The tether will let me know if you are in danger, and I will return to protect you.”
I glanced out the window. Lightning slammed into the middle of the yard. The roar of thunder sent a shiver through my bones. Hadrian gripped my arms and squeezed.
“Go ahead of me, Ava. I’ll be right behind you.”
Terror still had me in its unforgiving claws, but I nodded and started to jog down the hallway toward the core of the prison.
We didn’t get more than ten steps before the lightning struck again– directly onto the roof.
I screamed at the sound of disintegrating concrete and groaning metal. A funnel of air slammed into my back and pushed me forward. I landed face-first on the cold floor, air heaving out of my lungs. I groaned and clutched my stomach, trying to regain my breath. Thunder snapped and crashed over my head, cold rain hammering against my back.
I really need to take a vacation in a desert, I thought.
Dragging to my hands and knees, I looked for Hadrian. He was on the ground a couple feet behind me, and he wasn’t moving.
Panic choked me. I crawled over to him. I clutched his shoulders and turned him over. He flopped onto his back, revealing his closed eyes and the bloody gash on his forehead.
My heart lurched. I touched his neck, whimpering with relief when I felt his pulse. I brushed his hair away from his forehead and looked at the wound. It was a nasty tear, but as I prodded his skull, I realized it wasn’t fatal. There were no dents in his head or strange decompressions. He had just been knocked out.
I looked down the hall we’d run from. Or what remained of it. The walls had been sheared, like hooks had embedded in the doorway and pulled it clean off to leave only crumbling remains. The entire space was open, the metal door lying dented and useless on the destroyed concrete. Beyond the rubble, I spotted the fence. It too had been bent and warped in the storm, curled over so that if I climbed it, I wouldn’t gut myself on the razor wire.
It was a perfect escape route.
I knew the right course of action. That I should stay here until Vitae and Zephys could come look after Hadrian.
But I also watched the blinking flashes of lightning. I saw how they were moving in a pattern– one close to the prison yard, another down the street, another further than that. Almost like the lightning was stabbing down in a path I was supposed to take.
I thought about the direction of that path in relation to the prison.
How it wasn’t far from the school where my family was hiding.
I should have been rational. I knew that whatever powers I might have, I wasn’t a warrior like the Precips. I knew the lightning path– if that’s what it even was– could lead me into some kind of trap.
I also knew my family was in danger, and even untrained, I might be able to help them.
My eyes went to Hadrian, unconscious and unmoving. I set his head down as gently as I could. My fingers cupped his cheeks, smooth and strong. My thumb brushed his lips, full and soft.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
I got to my feet and ran for the newly created exit. I would find a way back to my family and protect them. That was the only thing I could think about right now.
The consequences would have to wait until after I survived.
If I did.
Chapter 8
Rain pounded down on me as I sprinted. Lightning flashes lit my way through the streets. I wasn’t familiar with the area– I wasn’t someone who hung around prisons for fun– so I relied on the storm to guide me. A naïve part of me hoped I was wrong, that the thunder-Stormkind wouldn’t be near my family.
Honestly, I had no idea why I thought I would ever be lucky.
I don’t know how long it took me to find Park Vista. But when I did, it was half buried.
I skidded to a stop, my heels slipping on the slick concrete. I clamped my hands over my mouth to keep from screaming. The high school I’d once spent so much time in was caught in a whirlpool, the heaviest of the rainfall smashing into the roof and the front lawn. The water and pressure was so thick that it was creating a sinkhole. Slick mud gulped at the brick, fuelled by relentless water. Lightning danced around the edges of the lawn, tormenting the petrified survivors inside. The windows on the first floor were half submerged, which had to mean that the rest of the floor was filling with rainwater and mud. When the lightning flashed, I could see human shaped-shadows flickering behind the windows.
Standing across the street, the rainwater barely touching it, was the thunder-Stormkind.
It looked similar to the one I’d faced a couple weeks ago, but the differences were apparent. They both had the same humanoid shape and glowing skeleton, and both seemed to have flesh made of water, but the resemblances ended there.
The watery exterior of the Stormkind was jagged and rough, like it was being chipped off with a pickaxe. Violent sparks of lightning spat from the fingers, joints, and face of the Stormkind. It paced back and forth quickly, like a man-eating tiger watching the humans behind the glass.
My stomach twisted. That was probably more accurate than I intended it to be.
Especially when I saw the man on the roof of the school.
He was too far away for me to see who he was. I didn’t know if he was a survivor or an SPU guard... Or my father.
The Stormkind didn’t care. It lashed its hands out, a bolt of lightning ripping from the sky and hammering into the roof. The flash was so bright I lost sight of the man. White spots still danced in my eyes when the darknes
s of the storm crept back into the world.
I blinked rapidly to refocus, long enough to see the man on the roof wasn’t incinerated on the spot. He was lying in the mud in front of the Stormkind.
I didn’t know if he was awake or even alive. A twisted part of me hoped he wasn’t. Having your life force drained by a Stormkind wasn’t a fate I would wish on anyone.
The Stormkind picked the charred man up by his throat. He didn’t stir as it dangled him. Light glowed from its mouth. While all of this was happening, one question rolled through my mind:
How was I going to get to my family?
I was no match for a Stormkind’s power. I had piece of it, but that piece wasn’t enough.
Unless I was smart about how I used it.
Fighting the Stormkind one on one wasn’t an option. Using the storm to get into the school?
Much more viable.
I didn’t use Hadrian’s theory. I couldn’t waste time on figuring out how to weave the tether into the air. Instead, I felt the rain flaring around me, and thought about how I wanted it to be snow instead. I imagined every drop crystallizing into a small white flake, creating an effective white shadow that would cover me until I was in the school.
Closing my eyes, I opened myself up to the cool air around me. I let it dance across my face and fingertips. I reveled in the rain pattering and weaving through my hair. The thundering roars from the air filled me with excitement. I could feel the very life of the storm, and knew it would be mine to manipulate.
I opened my eyes again, and changed the storm.
The rain turned into a white curtain of snow. Soon it was so thick that all I could see was white. I shivered, the chill of the thunderstorm’s wind blasting the snow against me.
The downpour hadn’t stopped, and white blasts of light continuing to flash as thunder erupted through the smoky clouds.
And now the Stormkind had noticed.
It dropped the burned man into the mud and slush, its sparking white eyes searching the blizzard for its brethren. Hadrian mentioned that Stormkind were mostly solitary, so it probably wasn’t happy someone was encroaching on its territory.
I bet its mood would swing to joy if it found out I was human.
Before its gaze could lock on me, I thought about concealing myself in swirling snow. It wouldn’t make me completely safe, of course, but it was better than the damn thing knowing I was carting around a scrumptious life force.
I swung my arms around myself, as though I was throwing a double roundhouse punch. The thick snow responded, spiraling around my body until it was so thick I could hardly see through it myself. It would have to do. I squinted and started running as fast as I could.
My boots splashed through the slush, spraying my calves with cold muck. My legs were stiff with the chill from the rain and my clothes were plastered to me, but adrenaline and utter terror were good at boosting my speed.
The Stormkind throwing lighting at me kind of helped, too.
Blasts of light exploded into the ground mere feet away from me. The world would go totally white, then snap back into a pale version of itself, like someone was flashing a camera in front of my face.
I ran ungracefully, the slippery mud, sleet, and wet road threatening to send me flying. Every breath was icy and charged with static, as if I would inhale the next lightning strike. Through the sporadic lightning flashing and flurry of snow protecting me, I managed to see the school. I was close, and one of the windows looked cracked, so I could–
The ground disappeared beneath me. I screamed when I lost my balance. I tumbled down a slope, thick mud sticking to me with every turn. I lost my hold on the whirlwind of snow acting as my shield and came to a stop on my stomach, my side bumping against hard brick.
Well, at least I reached my destination.
Shaking the dizziness from my head, I looked up at the slope I’d fallen down. The Stormkind stood at the top of it, against a background of cycling snow, torrential rain, wild lightning and death-black clouds. Its skeleton and eyes were beacons in the dark, bolts of lightning spitting from its eyes, joints, and hands in angry pulses.
It could see me. It knew what I was.
It raised its hand and slammed it down like a hammer. The sky exploded overhead, the shaft of lightning mirroring its movement. I shoved to my feet before the blast hit. My back crashed into the brick wall as the bolt pounded into the space where I’d stood. Static made even my drenched hair stand on end. Painful needles danced along my skin.
The flash darkened and I threw out my hand, remembering the way Hadrian fought. The spiked walls of ice he’d used against the Mistrals. A sharp chill covered my bones and pushed out of my skin. White frost wrapped around my hand. My palm prickled as shards of ice blasted from it. The ice moved like fire over oil, blurring up the incline and exploding into a jagged wall in front of the Stormkind.
Holding the wall in place, I looked over my shoulder and tilted my head up. The window ledge was within jumping distance, even for a short girl like me. I planted my other hand on the wall and sent frost up its length. I pictured the frost hardening the glass until it fully shattered. I wrapped my arms around my head so my face was protected from the falling glass.
Once I thought it was safe, I lowered my arm and jumped for the window ledge. My fingers curled around it while my feet scrabbled for a hold. I used all the muscles in my skinny arms to drag myself to the top of the ledge and hauled my body inside. Light ignited behind me the moment I hit the floor. Brick and pieces of wall blasted inward and coated the floor at my feet.
I scrambled up and backed away from the window.
That was when I watched the world tilt. I threw my hand out to the wall and grabbed an open locker. I nearly fell into the thing, but maintained my footing. I panted, each breath sawing in and out of my lungs. Tremors wracked my body, each one sharper than the last. The spinning in my head wouldn’t slow down.
I breathed through the pain as best as I could. I’d made it into the building. That was half the battle. I mean, I had no idea how I was going to get anyone out safely while the school was sinking with a thunder-Stormkind raging outside, but I would cross those bridges when I came to them. For now, I would rely on adrenaline. It was supposed to numb pain, right?
I found my footing and dashed through the bleak, empty hallway.
“Mom! Dad! James!”
As I ran, I could hear voices carrying through the hallway below me. I followed its direction, swinging around the corner to the other end of the hall. A crowd of people were huddled in the corridor, some of them backing against the walls while others shoved each other in search of an exit. A spike of fear went through me when I saw there weren’t anywhere near the three thousand people who had been staying here before I disappeared the second time. A fear that heightened when I glanced in the classrooms and saw they were packed with desperate people trying to punch and push open the windows to escape. SPU soldiers dressed in black uniforms shouted for order, but no one appeared to be listening to them. Their commands couldn’t even be heard amidst all the screams and shouts.
Though the number was still far smaller than it had been. If I had to guess, I would say two hundred people stood in front of me. A pathetic fraction of the three thousand I’d seen before.
I didn’t see my parents anywhere, so I started calling for them again.
“Dad! Mom! James!”
From within the crowd up ahead, a familiar face turned at the sound of my voice. My father was a tall man, and it was easy for him to see me over the crush of panicking people.
My heart lurched. I’d been worried they might not have been here, they could have left sometime after I disappeared– again– or worse, they had been trapped in the sinking lower level.
“Ava!” he shouted, pushing people aside to run for me with wide eyes.
Sobs choked me when he crushed me into my arms. My mother called my name, rushing up with James in her arms. We embraced, none of my family caring about t
he mud I was plastering them with.
Subtly, I could feel the warm pulse of their life forces inside them, but the sensation was small enough that I could ignore it. I was determined to ignore it as long as I could.
My family pulled back and looked at me.
“Ava, where have you been?!” my father asked in a choked voice. “You went missing again.”
I nodded vigorously. “I know, but I’m safe. I’m okay.” I winced, knowing the last part was a lie. If I was half-Stormkind, I was far from okay. “I can’t explain right now. We need to get out of here.”
“How?” whimpered Mom. “One of those… those things is out there.”
Her eyes were filled with fear. So were my little brother’s. James had grabbed my hand sometime during our embrace, and now he refused to let go.
If they felt half as terrified as they looked, how would they react when they found out I was one of those things myself?
I didn’t linger on the thought. I had to trust that they were my family, and they would still love me. After all, I was the same daughter and sister I had been a month ago. Except now I was a little more… complicated.
“I can help you,” I said. “But you need to trust me. Can you do that?”
James was nodding, agreeing and believing in his big sister as only a child could, but my parents were older and wiser. They knew there was a reason I was asking, and they weren’t going to like it.
Forcing myself not to linger about the consequences, I focused on the issue at hand. “The Stormkind out there is one that can make thunderstorms. It’s using the rainwater to sink the school, then electrocuting anyone who tries to escape.”
That was enough to scare them. They didn’t need to know the truth– that the electrocution wouldn’t kill them. The Stormkind would rather suck out their life force than burn them to a crisp.
“I can distract it and lead you to a window, but as soon as you hit the ground, you have to run as fast and far away as you can.”
“How are you going to distract it?” Dad asked, at the same time Mom gasped and exclaimed, “You can’t risk yourself!”