by D. N. Hoxa
Marie and her warm brown eyes made me feel like a normal being each time they turned to me. She was the only one who looked at me like I was anything close to normal so that was probably why. She handed me a plate filled with scrambled eggs, and I didn’t even forget to thank her before I made my way to Ella.
“Morning,” I said to Ella as she took off her earpieces.
“You look like you’re in a good mood today,” she said, studying my face both curiously and suspiciously.
Was it that obvious? Damn, now there was no difference between me and a cheesy schoolgirl. Ugh.
She wasn’t going to buy it if I said nothing, so instead I told her the important part of the night before.
“I reached an agreement with the head shifter.” My smile faltered at the thought of the three guards—the ones I hadn’t even thought about since the night before. Shit. My appetite drained and my cheeks flushed.
“Really?” said Ella, excited. “That’s great!”
“Yeah, it is. We’re going to need as many allies as we can get.” I had the feeling she wouldn’t be that excited if she knew the whole story.
Someone sat across from us and my heart jumped, skipping a long beat, but a sense of disappointment washed over me when I saw Jack. Alone. For a second there, I didn’t think I could even look him in the eyes after last night and that feeling of embarrassment washed over me again, but I controlled myself. It was none of Jack’s business what I did and didn’t do with my private life. It was my problem who I made out with. I was better than a schoolgirl because I had my body under control, at least. So I made myself look up and meet Jack’s curious gaze.
“Morning,” I said because there was no reason not to.
“Good morning to you, too, ladies.” Jack’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. He didn’t have the thermos with him today. Nick joined us a second later, causing my heart to skip another beat, but no Aaron. I chewed and chewed on my food, and it felt like dirt in my mouth, but I made myself swallow.
Where the hell was he? And why couldn’t I stop thinking about it?
I wanted to ask Jack so desperately. What could possibly be more important than skipping breakfast?
I tormented myself with a million questions and put myself on autopilot to partake in the conversation with the others before I forced my brain to clear. I would see him in the training room soon enough. There really was no need to panic and the fact that I was so panicked was a big cause for concern.
I caught Jack more than once throwing confused and curious looks my way. I even caught him looking at me with what I was sure was pity once and almost asked him what the hell that meant. I deserved a fucking prize for holding my tongue.
When we made our way to the training room, Jack opened his mouth to say something to me. I was ready to hear it, but Nick interrupted him.
“I know you said that you’d train those under twenty-one when the new training room was ready, but since I already started training with you in Lyndor…”
His voice trailed off, and he refused to meet my eyes.
With a sad smile, I shook my head. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Nick, but we were training on a different level with the others. Maybe the boy could handle it, maybe not, but I needed him to learn properly from the beginning. Him and everyone else his age.
“No, you can’t. You’ll train with the rest of the people your age when the room is ready.”
I didn’t mean to be a bitch, but I wasn’t going to drop weight he couldn’t handle on him now, so without waiting for his response, I turned around and walked away. He didn’t follow.
I contemplated the best way to ask Jack about Aaron without actually asking him, but there was none. So I eagerly opened the training room door, and I scanned the place for him.
But Aaron wasn’t there. Not against the wall where he always was and not sitting on my chair. Huh.
“He won’t be here for a couple of days,” Jack said matter-of-factly. He probably saw me looking. The question was at the tip of my tongue already. There was no way I could’ve stopped it.
“Where is he?”
“They called him in for new recruits in Ohio.” Like I was going to believe that.
“Really, Jack?”
My brows were raised, my hands on my hips. He clearly saw that I wasn’t buying his bullshit. But he nodded with his lips pressed, never meeting my eyes.
“Yeah. So I’ll be your partner from now on.”
Without waiting for me to protest, he made his way to Aaron’s place, moving lightning fast as if to make sure I wouldn’t be able to stop him, even if I tried.
A million unwanted emotions grabbed me by the hair and pulled hard, causing the worst headache to start building in only half a second. I felt like I wanted to throw up when realization hit me. Even my heart had decided to reside in the back of my skull from now on, and it was happy to beat fast and heavily in there, enjoying the pain it caused me.
Aaron had left. And it was all because of me.
11
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Three days passed and no Aaron. I was feeling restless, but the silver lining was, I’d started to train my powers. I needed to be doing something all the time if I was going to keep from losing my sanity so I squeezed in a couple of hours whenever I could. Besides, if I didn’t master my powers by the end of the year, we were fucked.
On the forth night, dressed in a clean, black sweatshirt and a pair of jeans, I made my way to the thick iron doors, through the long hallway, and to the square iron door on the ceiling. The cold October air hit me hard, and it felt like it froze my head because I hadn’t bothered to dry my hair after the shower. I’d needed as much energy as I could spare from the long day.
The dark sky above me never ceased to amaze me with its elegance and velvet pureness. A full moon was standing guard with all her silver glory and a few stars here and there kept her company in the wide sky. They knew their mission, and they knew what they were. I envied them and everything and everyone else who knew their place.
My mind went back to Illyon, the White Book of Wisdom. Holding that book in my hands, reading it word by word until I knew everything about myself was something I imagined a thousand times a day. It was going to be glorious, that day. The day I would figure out who I really was.
Eleanor had already sent me the address where Sam was staying, and I couldn’t wait for two more days before I left the Base. Kyle was first and Sam was second on my list of people to visit.
With a deep breath, I pulled my hands in front of me and closed my eyes. I turned my senses on, calling out to the land beneath my feet. It immediately started to tell me its stories, each older and more interesting than the last. I welcomed and cherished each one of them as they filled me with peace and life that wasn’t mine. I felt the energy, the small beans of dirt and the humming coming from them, and I slowly invited some on my hands.
My eyes popped open once the rocks and dirt gathered below my palms. I was getting stronger, I could tell. The ground’s energy had become clearer, and I could communicate with it better. It listened to every thought that formed in my mind, and eventually it learned to obey.
The night before, I’d practiced with water because it had been raining. The plan was to dedicate one night to one element, one after the other, and that night, I was Earth’s.
I started slow with bits and pieces of small rocks and dirt to give time for my powers to familiarize with me, to know me. I treated the elements like I did people because to me, they were as alive as every living and breathing creature in the world. Next, I kneeled on the slightly damp ground and pressed my palms to it. The energy responded to me as if I’d called it out loud, the connection deeper than the ocean.
A sense of calmness and pride washed over me as I watched the ground and the short blades of grass attached to my palms like they were glued. I smiled at how easy—how normal it felt to be doing that. It cost me nothing, and it was giving me strength instead.
It was strange to think that there ever was a time when I wasn’t connected to the elements like this, that there was a time when I’d allowed myself to be fooled by the people I trusted.
Now, as everything around me breathed, I felt could do more. I was sure of it, so I challenged myself. Nothing better to motivate me to improve than a good challenge, so I stood up again. Aiming ten feet ahead, I focused on a particular area between the dark trees, and once I felt the ground’s humming energy, I called it.
It resisted my calling because it didn’t know if I was worthy of control. It was my job to show it that I was, but it was hard. The farther the element, the harder it was for the connection I created with it to remain intact. That didn’t mean that I stopped trying.
As time passed, impatience never won me over like it usually did. In those moments, time could stretch endlessly for me if I wanted it to and patience was my very strong companion.
It didn’t take too long for the ground to begin to shake. It vibrated together with my body before dirt and rocks and even bushes began to float on air.
I’d seen sups perform magic before. I’d been impressed, hypnotized by shifters as I’d watched them change form in front of my eyes, but nothing—nothing was like feeling a whole piece of ground detach itself from the Earth just to come to me. Just to answer my call.
My body didn’t feel like my own, and my mind was completely blank. A big smile had taken over my face as I watched the piece of ground slowly float toward me. Nothing else existed. This was what I was made for.
But I wasn’t strong enough yet, and before it could reach me like I wanted it to, the ground fell. Dirt and rocks crumbled a few feet away from me as the connection broke and my legs shook. I was physically drained, but mentally, my mind had never been stronger.
That was why I was going to try again. My body could hold me if my brain insisted. And I had five more hours to get sleep. I took a few deep breaths and brought my hands in front of me again, but I never got the chance to begin.
“Your hair looks wet.”
I recognized the voice when the first word left his lips. I froze, my palms stuck in front of me. I hadn’t heard anyone approach me, but then again, I could never hear Aaron come or go. My heart was beating so loudly that I was sure he could hear it echoing through the night. I squeezed my eyes shut for a second, to gather the courage to turn around to face him.
He was standing there, looking even more beautiful than he did when I last saw him. In the same place. When we’d kissed. I shivered at the memory and focused on the sight in front of me instead. The moon was full, the stars bright, and I could see better than last time. He was wearing a black long-sleeved shirt with a gray, unzipped hood and dark jeans that looked almost black in the night.
Instead of running to him and punching him in the face before I started yelling at him to tell me where he’d been, I settled for the first lame reply that came to my mind.
“Who starts a conversation like that?” He didn’t need to be asked where he was because just the fact that he’d ran away meant that he didn’t care how his departure had affected me.
He smiled half a smile and approached me with small steps. All the while, my heart beat like crazy. “A man who just spent fifteen precious minutes of his life looking at you smiling at nothing and playing with the ground we walk on.” He stopped barely two feet away from me.
“Are you out of your mind? My power can be tracked through you,” I hissed, thankful that I actually had something to yell at him about.
“I know, Star. I was out of reach of your energy. I’d worry more about the headache you’re going to get,” he said. The asshole. I hated how calm he was. Couldn’t see how hard I was trying not to let my hands shake?
“I’ll worry about my headache,” was my way of telling him to mind his own damn business. When it came to headaches. He tilted his head to one side and raised half a brow in question. Like I said, damn him. “Where have you been?” The words were already out of my mouth. I refused to regret them.
“Ohio. I just got back. We have new recruits, and someone needed to bring them back here. I’m waiting for them right now.”
See? I was right. He had run away from me. Somone had to bring them back here meant that he’d decided to willingly go. Jack was full of shit. Nobody had appointed Aaron anywhere.
So I nodded. “Good.” For the past four days, I’d wanted nothing more than to see him. Talk to him. Ask him that damned question. And now that I had, I couldn’t wait to be left alone already. It hurt too much to realize I’d been right.
“How are things around here?” he asked before I could turn my back on him.
“Great! Things are really great,” I said with a bit too much enthusiasm.
“With Ella?”
“Even better,” I said through gritted teeth. “Thank God for Jack.” It was a low blow, one I was glad to deliver because…well, in case you didn’t get it, Aaron was an asshole.
He only nodded, either not wanting to or not really realizing that I was trying to make him jealous.
“And you?” he asked with the same expression on his face, like he was asking me what time it fucking was. Like it was all good between us and nothing had happened four nights ago.
How dare he? The anger taking over me because of his indifference was too powerful to control. I kept dragging in deeps breaths, hoping that I could just tell him that I was okay and be done with it, but it was a lost battle.
“Great!” I spit. “I’ve been just great, Aaron! Perfectly fine right after you kissed the hell out of me and then disappeared without a single word. Thanks for asking.”
I hated him for bringing out this part of me, and I hated him more when he stepped closer to me, and I couldn’t move away. My feet were pinned to the ground.
“I’m sorry about that. I needed to...” But he didn’t finish his sentence. For God knows how many seconds, he just stood there in front of me, watching me with an unidentified expression on his face.
“You needed to what?” I exploded when it was obvious he wasn’t going to say it. “Get away from me? Is that it?”
And what do you know? Aaron looked away from me and I laughed dryly.
“Well, guess what? You didn’t have to go all the way to fucking Ohio to do that. You could have just told me how you felt.” My hands were gathered in fists at my sides, and my whole body was shaking but this time from the anger that was burning in me. It was a welcome change.
“No, no, it wasn’t like that!” he said, but he didn’t look like he meant it.
“Then what was it like, Aaron? Tell me what it was like because I really want to know.”
But he said nothing. I waited, holding his eyes, trying to read something, some small thing that’d tell me I was wrong, but there was nothing. Geez, it was like I was trying to get the words out of his mouth with fucking pliers!
“Did you or did you not run away from me, Aaron?” It was as clear as I could make it.
For a second, I thought he was going to slap me across my face, but he put his hand under my wet hair and grabbed the back of my neck instead. I had the urge to knock his hand off, but my damned body wasn’t responding to my brain’s commands.
“I did,” he said in a whisper, leaning so close to my face that I could see every thick hair of his lashes individually. I wanted to—needed to—move away, but I couldn’t.
“Then why the hell are you here?” I whispered because I couldn’t find my voice. It was lost like so many reasonable parts of me. Parts that should’ve kept telling me to step away and remove his hand from my neck.
He leaned in, pressing his left cheek on mine with his mouth a hair away from my ear. I could feel his warm breath on every inch of my skin. The small hairs of his stubble softly pinched my cheek, and I wanted to feel each one of them on my fingertips. My eyes closed instantly, and I wasn’t sure if I was breathing. All I could hear were the sounds of two hearts beating rapidly like they were on a race.
&nb
sp; “What are you doing to me?” he whispered so slowly in my ear, sending shivers down the entire length of me, that it took me a second to attach the words together and realize their meaning.
Whatever I’d thought we had going on here, whatever I made myself believe was in that kiss, it was gone now. Gone because he didn’t want it.
Didn’t I tell myself over and over again that it was dangerous to hope?
Turns out, I’m no smart cookie.
I put my palm on his chest and pushed him away, because that’s where he needed to stay. “Just stay away from me, please.” I held his eyes for another second just to make sure he saw I meant every word, before I turned around and went back inside the Base.
I cried that night away for the last time until sleep took me.
***
It was raining. I felt it before I heard the drops on my window and saw the gray skies outside, like they were mad at us down here for something. I looked at my surroundings, and for a moment, I forgot where I was. The coldness of the things in my room reminded me soon enough, though.
I got up reluctantly, and my feet froze when I stepped on the stone floor of the castle. The winter was very cold that year, especially when surrounded by stone. I dressed quickly to try and escape the frost. My breath turned into steam as soon as it left my mouth and nose.
I put on the thickest hood I owned, even though I knew I wouldn’t be allowed to keep it on. I had training with Young, and the sonovabitch liked to go to extra lengths to see me suffer. I think he was amused that I never showed any emotion on my face whatsoever, and he wanted to see just how far I could go.
A clear picture of Ella in my mind kept me company while I walked downstairs. The burning curiosity to know what she looked like after almost two years was sometimes too hard to handle, but I managed because there was no other choice. With a steaming coffee in my hands, I reluctantly walked outside in the rain to wait for Young. He would take his ten minutes, like always, but I wanted to get a head start.