Sacrificed (The Ignited Series)

by Dantone, Desni

  Micah shook his head, but said, “You specialize in fire manipulation. Personally, I don’t have any experience with fire. But I know how to manipulate elements in general. It’s all about meditation and concentration.”

  “What elements can you manipulate?”

  “Water, earth, and air,” he answered. “I’m best at manipulating air.”

  Now, I was intrigued, and the grin growing on my face was genuine. “What can you do with air?”

  Micah pursed his lips without answering. I expected him to lecture me about reading the book to learn what air manipulators could do. But he said nothing. Just stared…and stared.

  A soft breeze tickled my neck, stirring my hair as if someone were standing behind me, blowing on me. I nearly turned around, convinced Alec was pulling a prank on me, but then the breeze strengthened. A strong gust blew my hair into my face like someone was holding a blow-dryer to it. As I struggled to contain the unruly strands, I caught the look on Micah’s face.

  He was showing me what he could do with air. The satisfied grin on his face was infectious and, before I knew it, I was laughing.

  Laughing. I hadn’t laughed, really laughed, in…

  Well, it’s been a long time.

  “Pretty cool, huh?” He bordered on bragging, but I didn’t care. I’d probably brag too if I could do what he’d just done.

  “That was awesome,” I admitted as I combed my hands through my hair to fix what the unnatural breeze had done. “How do you do it?”

  “Like I said, it’s mostly about meditation. You’ve got to concentrate on what you want to achieve,” he explained, then pointed to a stone by our feet. “If I wanted to move that rock, I’d focus on it, repeat what I wanted it to do over and over in my head…”

  The rock shifted and I jumped back in surprise.

  He’d just moved a rock with his mind. I’d officially entered the Twilight Zone.

  “How…”

  “Focus,” he said slowly. “You’re specialty is fire. You don’t have anything to look at, to focus on. That makes it harder. Maybe just think about fire in your head. See what happens.”

  I wasn’t in any type of condition to be meditating with all that was running through my head, between my anxiety and seeing what Micah had just done, but I followed his instructions. I doubted it would work anyway. As Micah’s soft voice floated around me, I closed my eyes and cleared my mind of everything but thoughts of fire. At Micah’s suggestion, I envisioned a tiny flame on the end of a match, growing, spreading, engulfing everything in my mind’s eye.

  Fire...fire...fire...

  Micah called my name sharply and I opened one eye to look at him. That was when I saw it.

  The glowing orange-red ball in my right hand. Both eyes opened now, I took in the clear view of a golf ball sized fire ball swirling in my palm. Though it wasn’t burning me, the sight of fire against my skin kicked my survival instincts into gear. And I freaked out.

  I’m not ashamed to admit that I screamed like a girl while waving my arm frantically in all directions. In the process, I inadvertently propelled the fireball like a flaming baseball into a nearby tree. Though the fire had been small, the fully grown tree was engulfed within seconds. As my heart hammered in my chest, the tree was reduced to a smoking skeleton of scorched limbs.

  After checking that my hand had not fallen to the same fate as the tree—not one burn, thank God—I turned to Micah. “What the hell was that? You trying to kill me?”

  He stood motionless, looking at me with awe. “I’ve never…”

  “What?” I screamed at him.

  “I’ve never seen anyone do that. Ever.”

  Great. What was that supposed to mean?

  “Only the earliest hybrids have been known to throw fire,” Micah continued. “Most hybrids can’t even yield it anymore.”

  “I’m supposed to be as strong as the early hybrids,” I reminded Micah, but he didn’t seem as relieved as I would have liked.

  He was still in shock over what he’d seen me do. I didn’t consider that a good thing.

  He finally looked me in the eyes. “That was the first time you tried it,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’m as strong as you. Stronger even, since I’ve been developing longer, and I can’t manipulate my elements like that. It took me months to get anything to happen.”

  “So?” I tried to keep the nervousness out of my voice, but couldn’t. Not with the way Micah was staring at me like I was some freak.

  He didn’t get a chance to answer before Alec and Callie appeared, walking toward us.

  Alec motioned to the smoldering tree with a grin. “Hey, Kris,” he called, “I can’t find my lighter. Light my cigarette?” His grin dropped when he got close enough to see my face—and lack of amusement—clearly. “You okay?” he asked with genuine concern.

  “Did you do that?” Callie squeaked.

  I nodded numbly.

  Alec turned his attention, and developing rage, on Micah. “What happened?”

  Micah dodged that question by asking Alec one of his own. “Can you do that?”

  Alec hesitated and glanced at me before looking away quickly. “No.”

  Awesome. Just what I wanted to be—the weirdo in a herd of black sheep, with supernatural powers unparalleled by others with supernatural powers, and surrounded by people who have seen some weird shit, but looked at me like they have never seen anything quite like me before. It didn’t fill me with the sense of security I hoped for these days.

  “So what,” I asked, looking back and forth between Alec and Micah, “I’m developing faster than Alec now? Is that what this means?”

  Micah shrugged one shoulder, not appearing certain about that theory. But what else could it be then? Why was I doing things I shouldn’t be able to do yet—when hardly trying?

  The ringing in Alec’s pants’ pocket interrupted me from completely freaking out. Suddenly, I had more to be concerned about than rapidly developing specialties.

  They never called.

  Alec answered quickly and put it on speaker phone for all of us to hear as Nathan’s voice came through. The fact that it was him calling settled some of the galloping in my chest. He was fine, obviously. I didn’t need to worry about him. But what about Gabby and Richie?

  I could hear the apprehension in Nathan’s voice as he asked for all of us to drive down to the cliff overlooking the warehouse. With one urgently spoken word, everything and everyone around me disappeared.

  Now.

  Something had happened. Something was wrong.

  I didn’t have a guess as to what it could be, but I knew it couldn’t be good if it had Nathan on edge.

  CHAPTER 9

  I was relieved to see Nathan waiting for us when we pulled up. I got the confirmation that he was okay, but I could tell from the look on his face that something big was going on. Though I didn’t know them very well, and what I did know is that they didn’t like me very much, I felt a pang of concern for Gabby and Richie. I hoped nothing had happened to either of them, and Nathan didn’t call Micah down here to do some diamond injury curing.

  Nathan didn’t say a word as he led the way from the road to the overlook. It was a slightly uphill hike that was just long enough and steep enough to cause a little bead of sweat to pop out on my forehead. Gabby and Richie met us at the top, and neither of them were writhing in pain or muttering gibberish.

  So what was the problem, and why the glum faces?

  I opened my mouth to ask, but was interrupted by Micah.

  “They’re gone,” he said in a hauntingly soft voice.

  Who? The Skotadi? Gone? How did he know that, I wondered, and then I remembered who I was questioning.

  Of course. I had read in that stupid book of his that some prophets could sense Skotadi from a distance. Micah, as arguably the strongest prophet alive, surely had that ability.

  “Are you sure?” Nathan asked him.

  Micah nodded. “Positive. I can usually sense them in th
e car on the way here, and it gets stronger the closer I get. Now, I’m getting nothing. I can’t feel them at all. They’re gone.” He hesitated, then added, “And I think they left in a hurry. Maybe middle of the night.”

  Alec scoffed. “You can get all that from just standing here?”

  Micah glared. “Yeah. I can.”

  Alec narrowed his eyes at Micah, and looked close to firing a smartass comment in return. It was obvious that Nathan wasn’t the only one that didn’t like Micah. The animosity between Alec and Micah didn’t go anywhere though, since Richie interrupted their testosterone-charged staring contest by suggesting that we all go check out the warehouse. Then, there was something more important to worry about than who would get first dibs on kicking Micah’s ass.

  “Go check it out?” I spun on Richie. “Are you crazy?”

  “I’d think you would be eager to see what they’ve been hiding in there,” Gabby said coolly. She was intimidating for being such a small framed girl, but I refused to let her know she scared the hell out of me.

  “Let’s go see what they might have left behind.”

  That last statement came from Nathan, and was what started us all down the embankment to the warehouse.

  I wrung my hands nervously as we approached the building. Sure, I trusted Micah’s weird ability to sense a group of Skotadi. I trusted that he believed they were gone, but it still freaked me out to go inside their warehouse. Part of it was fear that a few, not enough for Micah to sense, had stayed behind to ambush us. Most of it was fear of what we might find.

  What if it was something I didn’t want to see, to find out? What if we found that there wasn’t a way to alter the path I was destined for? The words that Skotadi muttered in the woods just before Richie put a bullet in his head still haunted me. What if we were about to stumble upon something bigger than what we were prepared for?

  My skin prickled as we entered the building. Inside, it was cold and dark. The windows were haphazardly covered with black garbage bags, with weak bands of sunlight spilling through the occasional gap. It was a big, and old, and creepy building, but I was glad to see that it was open and spacious, which left few places to hide.

  Our footsteps echoed ominously off the concrete as we fanned out. I jumped when Alec suddenly called out from beside me.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” he shouted. Gabby shot him a scathing look, and he shrugged his shoulders. “Wouldn’t you rather know if there’s anyone left now, than to keep looking over your shoulder?”

  Before she could answer, Micah chimed in with a confident, “There’s no one left.”

  “We should split up,” Richie suggested. “We can cover more ground before the sun sets and we can’t see at all.”

  Richie, Gabby, and Micah—because they wouldn’t let Micah out of there sight of course—took one phone and said they would canvas the lower level. The rest of us climbed up a shaky set of metal stairs to a cluster of rooms that looked as if they might have served as offices.

  The first room we came across was mostly empty, aside from some boxes that, from the amount of dust layered on them, had obviously not been touched in some time. Same went for the second room. The third room we entered had more boxes, but with less dust, and appeared to have been some sort of storage room. Likely for the Skotadi, since this room had been used more recently. It also appeared to have been emptied quickly.

  Chances were that whatever they had kept in this room had been taken with them, and the boxes that remained held nothing of importance. We paused to sort through them anyway, just in case something worthwhile had been left behind.

  After a few moments it became clear that nothing would be found there. Turning away from another empty box in frustration, I caught a glimpse of Nathan as he wandered through a door into another room. With a quick glance at Alec and Callie, who were busy sifting through a cluster of boxes in the corner, I followed him.

  He looked up when I entered, and I saw the bluish hint still left in the corner of both of his eyes, all that remained of the broken nose I had given him. Seeing the bruises now only made me feel all the more guilty.

  “Hey, Nathan…” I started hesitantly. I didn’t know how to apologize for what I had done. Mostly because I knew that he wouldn’t expect, or want, an apology. As far as he was probably concerned, one wasn’t necessary. I had only done what he’d encouraged me to do.

  It was the rest of it that I felt I needed to apologize for. The out of body experience I had encountered the moment I’d connected my fist with his face, the fact that I didn’t really remember doing it, and that I still couldn’t explain what had happened. But how could I apologize for all of that when I didn’t really want him, or anyone, to know what had happened? Not before I could explain it.

  “Don’t,” he said like he knew exactly what I was trying to do. And of course he did. It was Nathan. He always knew what I was up to, sometimes even before I knew.

  Sometimes I really hated that. “Yeah, but…”

  “But nothing, Kris. You did what I wanted you to do. You hit me.” He rolled his head with a smile. “Just a little harder than I anticipated.”

  I sighed, and then said the rest in a gush, “I’m sorry I broke your nose.”

  His smile widened. “No, you’re not.”

  My mouth gaped open. Did he really think I’d wanted to break his nose? Surely not. But then, well, I had been pretty pissed at him at the time.

  He used my hesitation as an opportunity to close the door on the whole incident. That was fine. I’d apologized. Maybe not for all of it, but he’d gotten the message.

  He turned toward the desk in the corner of the room. It, too, had been cleared, except for one piece of paper placed neatly in the center. He picked it up and examined it.

  Since I couldn’t read it without stepping close to him—and being close to Nathan wouldn’t help me with that impulse control I’d been working on—I watched Nathan’s reaction as he read what was written on the paper. A muscle in his cheek twitched and his eyes hardened.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  Wordlessly, Nathan handed the paper to me. It was a letter addressed to him. From Lillian. My chest tightened as I read the words.

  Dear Nathan,

  I don’t know how you did it, but apparently you found us. I’m not sure what it is that you and your pet are looking for, but I can assure you that you are wasting your time. You won’t find us again. You can’t win. Give up and let us have the girl. You’re only postponing the inevitable. Until next time, when I find you...

  Love,

  Lillian

  I had hoped she’d been killed when Nathan and Alec blew up her underground Skotadi compound in Kentucky. We hadn’t heard or seen anything from her since. Until now. She was alive and still looking for me. And still referring to me as Nathan’s pet.

  He was across the room, rummaging through a filing cabinet, when I turned to him.

  “This is the second time she’s called me your pet,” I said to him. “What does she mean by that?”

  Nathan shrugged without turning to look at me. “We were dating when I found you. She knew what I was doing, checking up on you, protecting you. We got into a few fights about it.”

  They used to fight about me? About Nathan protecting me when I was a kid? That was…weird.

  “Why did she care so much?”

  Nathan slammed one drawer shut and opened another. As he flipped through the files, he answered, “She didn’t want me to get caught, I think. I don’t really remember now. It was so long ago.” He stopped what he was doing to look up at me. “I was breaking just about every Kala rule there was.”

  I half smiled. I doubted I would ever grow tired of hearing how Nathan had risked everything by helping me. In learning about the actions he had taken over the years to protect me, I’d uncovered the deeply rooted, though heavily guarded, feelings he had for me. I’d learned that he genuinely cared for me. Even if it had only started because he’d
felt sorry for me, the pathetic little girl who had no one else.

  Except for him. He had always been there.

  His girlfriend had known…and hadn’t liked it. It wasn’t like it could have been a jealousy thing. I had only been three when he’d first started protecting me. And I had only been eleven when Lillian was changed to a Skotadi.

  The same year Nathan had removed me from foster care.

  When the Skotadi had lost track of me.

  “Hey, Nathan?”

  “Hmm?” He was flipping through a file he had withdrawn from the cabinet, and not paying much attention to me.

  “Was Lillian changed before or after you took me out of that foster home?”

  He tossed the file, apparently having come up empty on finding anything useful in it. He glanced at me distractedly. “Huh? Why?”

  “I have a theory,” I said slowly as I sorted through my jumbled thoughts, hoping I was wrong. But afraid I was right. My pulse thundered in my ears. “Just go with me. Was it before or after?”

  He tossed his head back as if to think. He pondered for only a second before his eyes flicked to mine, hard and serious. “Kris, don’t…”

  “Just think about,” I insisted. “What if it wasn’t a coincidence?”

  He shook his head as if to prevent my suggestion from planting, as if the idea was too painful to consider.

  “She knew you, your strengths and your weaknesses,” I added. “They knew you were messing around in my life, and she knew you better than anyone.”

  I saw from the look in his eyes that Nathan had never considered the possibility before. Honestly, I didn’t know how he hadn’t thought of it sooner. But I could also see that he didn’t want to believe it.

  “You don’t think it’s possible that they targeted her and changed her to use her to find me?”

  He shook his head, but it wasn’t very convincing. Neither was his voice. “No, I don’t.”

  I did. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became. And it made me sick.