by C. J. Felver
Oh wait. That’s just my imagination.
His insidious laughter makes my skin crawl. “The board is set, Miss Daniels. I’m curious, what move will you make?”
That bastard. He’s punishing me for escaping him, I know it. Aulder couldn’t kill me on his own, or rid me of my connection to water, so he’s going to force one of my best friends—who seems to be unaware of his own actions—to do it for him.
It’s all too real when Joe jumps into action, thrusting a flaming orb in my direction. I dodge the first one, and surround the next one in my water sphere. It sizzles, flash boiling as the flames dissipate.
I really need to stop letting my thoughts run away with me. Before it gets me killed.
The lights burst back to life at the same instant Joe makes his next move. For a moment I’m blinded, but I move by instinct and the fireball barely misses me, heat licking across my cheek.
We fall into the familiar dance of back and forth as we fight. Attack, block, dodge, attack again. It’s not the same as when we used to spar though. Joe isn’t present; his eyes are hollow.
“Come on, Joe!” I shout. Water splashes across his face, but it does nothing to wake him up. “I know you’re in there. I’m not giving up on you.”
The floor rumbles again, sending vibrations up through my shins. It has to be one of the most uncomfortable feelings there is. Wren must be facing off against an elemental with an earth affinity.
Fire blazes across my arm and the acrid scent of burning fabric stings my nostrils. Looking down at my shoulder where the fireball hit, I see it about the same time I feel it.
My sleeve is on fire.
Water surrounds my hand like a glove and I staunch the flames. The exposed skin is puckered and screaming red. I ignore the pain as best as I can, gritting my teeth.
“This isn’t you, Joe. Wake up!”
I snap him across the face with a water whip, but it doesn’t have the desired effect. It breaks against his cheek and the flames dance higher up his arms. A telltale sign he’s getting angry, more aggressive.
This is exactly what I was trying to avoid, battling a raging inferno.
Well, it looks like we’re going to push the boundaries harder than we ever have before. The ultimate spar. If only my friend were present to enjoy it. This is sure to be the most miserable fight I’ve ever had in my life.
Sweat trickles down the side of my face, dampening the hair at the base of my neck. I shed my jacket and drop it to the floor. The extra give in my yoga pants is bliss as I run toward Joe, careful to avoid his flaming arms.
I send the water out, willing it to engulf his arms and douse the flames. Steam rises from his right arm. But … my water evaporates, disappearing into the air around us, leaving me weaponless as his arms burst into flame once more.
Uh … now what?
Control
Think, Cleo, think.
Of course! Just like my dad had said: trust in the water. So that’s what I do. There’s water somewhere around here. I can feel it throughout the building, running through the pipes above my head. Bringing it forth is going to take some effort, but as long as I can continue to dodge Joe’s attacks, I should be okay.
Another fireball careens toward me. This one has a tail like a comet.
Shit.
With a running start, I duck under his flaming onslaught and launch myself toward the wall, kicking off of it and landing on the other side of Joe. I don’t stop there though, propelling myself out of the way of fire attack after fire attack, dodging, running, putting distance between us as I force the water to fight the obstacles keeping it from my control.
The ceiling above begins to creak and groan. Fatigue spreads through my limbs, but I push through it. There’s no other choice for me. Joe is under Aulder’s control somehow. He won’t stop until one of us is dead.
That won’t be my fate. Or Joe’s. I won’t let it.
A blow to the back of the head knocks me forward onto my knees. Dirt rains down around me.
“Cleo!”
I look up in the direction of Wren’s shout in time to see Joe barreling down the hallway toward me.
Are you serious?
Go freaking figure. Between his palms is a glowing, growing fireball.
Yeah, I definitely should’ve known he’d use this move. This was always a scare tactic he’d use when we’d spar.
Pushing off the floor, I try to stand, but my foot slips out from under me and I fall in a heap back to the floor.
I hiss at the sharp pain in my wrists. Joe is so close now. I have no hope of getting up fast enough to be able to get away from him.
He steps toward me, glowering over me with a menacing mask on his face.
Above us, a deep groan rumbles. I look up, feeling triumphant.
An ear-splitting explosion echoes around the hall. The pipe bursts, sending chunks of PVC and ceiling tiles everywhere. Water erupts from the hole, flowing in a torrent, before calming to a steady pour with the waning pressure.
Joe’s attention shifts from the ceiling to me. Flames lick up his arms. I pull water from the floor, surrounding Joe. Steam rises from his body, his heat simmering away every ounce that touches his skin.
Yep, should’ve used more. Definitely more. But at least only his arms are on fire at the moment. He sloshes through the water, making his way toward me.
More water pulls toward me, heeding my call. It flows over his body, saturating everywhere I can manage. This time, I’m not taking any chances, though I make sure to leave space around his face for him to breathe and see. He may not be himself, but I’m not going to kill him for it.
Despite my best efforts, he and I are now face to face. His body still encased in water, I’m also soaked to the bone with water dripping from my hair, the tip of my nose, chin, and elbows. I don’t know where Wren is or what else is going on. My attention is solely focused on my mind-controlled opponent, who’s unaware of his own actions.
Joe attacks me head-on.
I grip the water, holding him in place with it. Bubbles form in his water cast, boiling from the heat he gives off. His arm is shaking as he strains. Lines dance across my vision. I struggle to hold him, pushing everything I have into it, but my arms feel as if they weigh a thousand pounds each, and I’d equate the pain inside my skull to splitting open a coconut.
“Damn it, Joe! Snap out of it!” I’ve resorted to screaming at him. A whole lot of good it’s doing too. There’s no way he can hear me.
To stop him, I’m going to have to knock him out. He’s not stopping.
Guilt stabs at my chest. I must be the worst friend ever. But if I don’t do this, Aulder won’t let him stop until one of us is dead.
There’s a wall close to our left. Glancing at it, I form a quick plan.
“Joe, if you’re in there,” I hope you’re in there, “I’m so sorry. When this is all over, I hope you can forgive me, my friend.”
With a steel grip on the water, I move fast, not wanting any time to talk myself out of what I’m about to do. I slam his head into the wall.
His unconscious form sinks to the ground.
I wait a moment before withdrawing the water surrounding him. Once I’m confident the possibility of fire is no longer a threat, I let it flow back into the flooded hallway. Then I prop his heavy ass against the wall so he doesn’t drown.
Before turning to find Wren, I check Joe’s pulse, just to be sure. As my fingers touch his neck, I notice something discolored on his skin directly behind his ear. It looks … it looks like an injection site—one that’s been used repeatedly. There’s a circular spot, like scar tissue, but deeply bruised underneath. In the center of the spot, there’s a pinprick. The mark’s color is a mixture of purple, blue, and red, and looks extremely irritated, as if it hasn't been allowed to heal.
Well, shit.
That pretty much confirms what I was thinking. Why does Aulder Harlow think he can play with people’s lives this way?
Time to rectify this situation.
Once convinced Joe’s pulse is adequate, I turn to find Wren walking toward me, stomping through the water. His opponent is out cold, leaned against the wall.
“I was beyond worried. When I saw that fireball coming straight for you and you were on the floor … I thought it was going to do some serious damage. Then I saw him coming for you, covered in flames—I didn’t think you’d be able to get out of the way.” His voice is small, quiet. Almost as if he didn’t want to admit this to me. Something blossoms in my chest.
He reaches for me, linking our fingers together. I smile, enjoying the feel of his hand in mine. We fit perfectly together. It sends warmth through me.
I tug him toward me, needing to feel more than just his hand in mine. He stills for a moment, then wraps his arms around me, crushing our bodies together. Wren’s fingers thread through my hair, massaging my scalp as he tucks my head under his chin.
“Let’s get out of here before Harlow sends reinforcements,” he suggests, but doesn’t make an effort to move.
Neither do I.
At least until a grunt of pain comes from Joe against the wall. Wren releases me, but not before trailing his fingers across my cheek and tucking a stray hair behind my ear. We both slosh our way over to my friend. He sits up away from the wall in the ankle-deep water, looking around with a lost look on his face. His amber eyes settle on me and grow round with surprise.
“Cleo? What are you doing here?”
I crouch down in front of him. “I’m here for Aulder. Are you okay, Joe? How are you feeling?”
Joe doesn’t answer. He trails his fingertips over my cheek, cupping my face with his hand. “Are you real? You’re really here?” I nod, placing my hand over his.
Joe’s inspecting gaze runs over me, landing on the red puckered skin of my arm.
“Shit,” he says, tugging his hands through his hair. “I hurt you.” He cradles his head in his hands and lets out a growl.
“Hey, I’m—” My reassurance is cut off by his rush of words.
“Cleo, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened. I don’t remember anything.”
“Joe, I kn—”
“How did I hurt you? I didn’t mean to! I’m so sorry, I would never do it on purpose! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’mtheworstpersonever!” He’s word vomiting. I can’t even understand half of what he’s saying at this point.
“Hey, Joe. Stop,” I say firmly, grabbing his shoulders and giving him a small shake. He looks at me, anguish shining in his eyes. “This. Was not. Your. Fault. And my arm looks worse than it is. I can’t even feel it. Honestly.”
At this point, Joe notices Wren standing behind me, giving him an unsure look. “This is Wren. He’s been helping me and Lyza out recently.”
“Helping with what?” he asks as I stand and pull him to his feet. Water has stopped raining down from the ceiling and the lights begin to flicker.
I let out a huff of air. “Dude, it’s a really long story. One I’ll tell you about later. Right now, we need to get you out of here and I need to find Aulder. Do you know where he is?”
Joe narrows his eyes. A determined look if I’ve ever seen one. “Yeah, I know where he is. Come on, I’ll take you.”
We start moving down the hallway, following Joe’s lead. Before we can make it to the intersecting hall, a howl of pain escapes Joe and he grips the side of his neck, crumpling to the floor.
Rushing to his side, I immediately notice he’s clutching the spot behind his ear, the spot where it looked like he’d been injected with something.
What’s up with that? It definitely has something to do with whatever Aulder is using to control him. That’s about the only thing that makes sense.
Joe is writhing around on the floor, splashing water all around. His scream ricochets off the walls. I feel so helpless, no idea what to do to calm him down.
“Cleo …” he grunts through clenched teeth, pausing to work through the pain, “you have to go—” He lets out another scream. He’s a heaving mess as he struggles to catch his breath. “Take care of the doctor.” More huffing. “He’s in room two-oh—”
His words cut off again as he arches back at an unnatural angle, screaming in pain. The sight has my stomach roiling. I grit my teeth so I don’t lose the contents of my stomach.
What is happening to him? Is this what Aulder was talking about when he said he had to be persuasive with Joe? This is worse than anything I ever could have imagined. My whole body shakes with anger.
Joe’s scream cuts off with a gurgle as he goes limp.
Decisions
I waste no time checking for a pulse—for the third time today. It’s faint, but still there. Thank fuck.
This is bad. Really bad. Way worse than I had thought when we walked in here.
How many elementals does Aulder have trapped here? What had Rowe said? Something about needing this building for discretion? No doubt this practice—drugging elementals to control their minds and actions—would raise some eyebrows. It’d be hard to hide all of the screams from everyone if what we just witnessed is a regular thing. I’d bet money that the screams would be loud enough to be heard from the street if this were taking place at HSI Labs.
Rising to my feet, I turn to Wren. “What room number did he say? Two-something?”
“Yeah, he said ‘oh’ before he was … interrupted. We’re at …” Wren pauses, looking around in the flickering light. His gaze lands on something behind me. “258. It looks like we need to keep going that way.” He indicates in the direction Joe was leading us.
Without a second thought, I take off at a dead sprint. Wren is keeping up no problem, as I knew he would. I barely even spend extra energy as I move the water out of my way, carrying it with me down the hall. Not that I really have a whole lot of energy left to spend. I’m pretty well sapped.
What a day this has turned out to be. A long day. Hell, a long week.
At the juncture, I make the split-second decision to turn left. I could almost sigh with relief as we pass by a door marked 248.
My heart gallops in my chest, keeping pace with the rhythm of our footfalls. If this bastard tries to run, I swear I’ll hunt him down and—ugh!
It’s rather strange that Aulder hasn’t made some snide comment over the speaker system since we started fighting. He’s the type to rub things in your face. His silence on the matter is enough to make my stomach sink. It either means we have the upper hand, or that bastard is on the run.
As we race through the halls, the numbers continue to drop. We’re getting closer. Behind us, a literal wall of water cascades along in our wake, effectively blocking any possible attacks from that direction. It’s a good thing there isn’t any decor on the walls, because it would be severely water damaged.
Finally, finally, we’re in the right place. Surpassing room 210, I move straight for the next door, which is marked 208. Wren darts to the other side of the hallway.
Time to start busting down some doors.
Together, Wren and I work efficiently. I force the water into the lock, bursting the mechanism, then he busts through the door and clears the room.
No words pass between us as we make short work of each one. He doesn’t need to tell me if the room he breaks into is empty, I can easily tell by the way he moves on to the next door.
There’s only one problem. We’re running out of doors.
Could Joe have been wrong?
I move to the next door, as I form a sphere, the door pulls open. Standing before me is Aulder Harlow, himself.
For just a moment, no one moves. The world stands still as we stare at each other.
Aulder moves first, pivoting to scramble back into the dark room and around a counter in its center.
I follow after him, darting around the counter, cursing myself for not acting faster. Wren runs into the room after me, jumping up and sliding across the counter, dropping down on the other side. He lands right in front of Aulder, grabbing him by the shoulders and slamming hi
m into the counter. On his other side, I help Wren hold him down.
“Really, asshole?” I say in a furious growl. “You thought you’d just make a break for it? That we wouldn’t catch you?”
A disturbing laugh sputters from Aulder’s mouth, and I’m so sick of hearing this fucker laugh that I pull back and punch him in his perfect teeth. Hopefully, it’ll leave a bruise on his handsome face. Goodness knows I owe him one. And as an added benefit, it helped alleviate some of the anger and frustration swirling around my body. Aulder’s face screws up and his hand twitches toward it, but I don’t let him budge. There’s no way I’m letting this slimy fucker’s hands free.
“Well, Miss Daniels,” he says with a groan, “I can’t say I didn’t deserve that, though I’m afraid it’s going to leave a mark.” His tone is disapproving, but I couldn’t care less. I hope it leaves a mark. In fact, I’d punch him again to ensure that it does.
“It’ll be alright, Aulder. At least your face will finally match your black heart.”
It’s difficult to tell with the lack of lighting and windows, but it looks as if Aulder’s eyes narrow in my direction.
“What is this place, Harlow?” Wren asks, somehow managing to be calm as a cucumber while drawing Aulder’s attention away from me. Wren’s serenity in this situation is a stark contrast to everything I’m feeling. It speaks volumes of his training. My limbs are practically shaking with anger and anticipation … and maybe a little excitement? Yeah, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that one. Does that make me morbid? Eh, oh well.
“What, Sayers, you haven’t figured it out yet? This is my home away from home. A place where I’m free to conduct the experiments I’d never be able to conduct at my public scientific laboratory.”
“You mean like drugging elementals so they lose their free will and do your bidding? I thought you wanted to rid us of our powers?”
“Oh, Miss Daniels, you disappoint me,” he says with a sigh, shaking his head. “I thought I had made it quite clear. It is not my sole intention to eradicate the elemental race. Such a thing would be wasteful. That’s why the thought of killing you has caused me such grief. Some things must be done, no matter the cost.”