Invisible

by Alycia Linwood

  “Because of things you did,” I said and meant it. I’d seen him help us, even when I was sure he could lose a lot if his father found out about it. That couldn’t have been fake. He didn’t have a reason to do all of that just to betray us in the end.

  “Hey, who the fuck let her near him?” the guard yelled as he saw me crouched not far from Jaiden. I got to my feet and faced the guard.

  “You should leave before I lose my patience,” the guard said.

  My eyebrows shot upward. “Are you threatening me?”

  “No,” he said, his lips pulled into a twisted smile. “Threaten a girl? Me? Nah, never. I just don’t want you to be here when things get nasty. Girls are sensitive to...”

  I brought my knee straight into his crotch with full force. Maybe I couldn’t mind control him again because I was afraid someone would notice and take it the wrong way. Hell, at this point I wasn’t even sure I could break through the bracelet again, but at least I could do something to force this violent pig out of the room. The guard cupped himself, swearing and shouting. Finally, one of the guards told him to leave. I looked down at my bracelet, wondering if there was something more that Lily wasn’t telling us. She wouldn’t be offering us deals if Elemontera remained the one to control us.

  “We should transfer him to the cell,” a guard said.

  “The cell?” I asked, frowning at the guard.

  “There’s an area down the hall with element-proof bars that was used for storage. Lily wants him there for now.”

  “Element-proof? But he can’t use his elements.”

  “It’s for precaution,” the guy said. I nodded, stepping back so the guards could take Jaiden with them. Why transfer him now? Was Lily upset I found out they were trying to torture the information out of Jaiden or had someone somehow noticed what I’d done with the bracelet? Or maybe Lily’s team was closer to the solution than they were letting on, so the force of the bracelet had weakened a little. I didn’t know, but I intended to find out.

  Chapter 26

  I went to the main room, looking for Lily, and one girl told me Lily was in her office. Apparently, one of the well-hidden rooms on the other end of the building was Lily’s office. As I stepped in front of the door, the two guards that were keeping watch blocked my path.

  “I want to talk to Lily,” I said, crossing my arms.

  The guard on the left pressed a commlink on his vest. “Miss, Moira Arnolds wants to talk to you.”

  The door opened a moment later, but instead of inviting me in, Lily stepped outside. “I heard you wanted to see me.” She placed her hand on my shoulder and I fought the urge to shrug it off. We went a bit down the hall, away from the guards, which was strange. If she needed protection, why weren’t the guards following her everywhere? Why only keep her office safe? It could be because important information was in there.

  “Yeah. It’s about Jaiden,” I said, searching her face for any emotion. “I can’t believe you allowed the guards to torture him! That’s not how you’ll get him to cooperate!” I realized I had raised my voice, so I took a deep breath. “He won’t be of any use to you if you continue like this. You shouldn’t lock him up. Show him some good will. The bracelet and the guards will keep him here. Isn’t that enough?”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s not going to happen. He has information that we need, and we can’t just let him roam free and gather intel about us. If he somehow makes it back to Elemontera...”

  “He won’t!” I threw my hands up.

  “Moira, I know this is hard for you, but trust me, you can’t let your personal attachments cloud your judgement.”

  I cut her a glare. “We have better chances to get him to tell us something if we’re nice to him. I know he’s not fully committed to Elemontera. They treat him like crap there. I saw it! I don’t think anyone ever truly believed in him or trusted him, so if you could just show him that you’re not the bad guys...”

  Lily sighed. “Do you think a little faith in him will be so life changing for him that he’ll immediately betray his family? Do you think you can fix him? Get him to do whatever you want him to? Sweetie, it doesn’t work that way.”

  “That’s not... what I’m trying to say,” I fumbled for words, because there was a chance she might be right. “This isn’t about me. He helped us, and he kept other elementals safe from Elemontera on that island and still didn’t reveal the hideout’s location to anyone. If he had, Elemontera would have been there ages ago.”

  “Yeah, unless it’s their plan to gather elementals there until more powerful ones come. There’s a reason only Noah and you were taken and not the rest,” Lily said.

  I chewed on my lip. If it was like that, then why did Elemontera recruit weaker elementals like Nick? Not all elementals there were extremely powerful. Some didn’t pass the training, true, but only the weakest ones. I doubted Elemontera would just let Marissa and the others roam free for no reason. They’d have killed them already.

  “If Jaiden really wanted to help like you claim, he would have told us everything already. He’d have tried to find a way to ensure the others’ safety,” Lily said.

  “He doesn’t trust you!” I said. “And the others think he’s a traitor, and he knows it. If his father finds out he helped us against Elemontera, he’d be in trouble, and there would be nowhere to go because no one really has his back. You wouldn’t protect him and the others wouldn’t be quick to forgive him for lying to them either. He’s just afraid.”

  “What possibly could someone with Jaiden’s abilities fear from a regular elemental?” Lily snorted. “He just doesn’t want to help. That’s all.”

  “You know, I’d be more willing to think about your proposal if you offered me something in return,” I said, realizing arguing with Lily over Jaiden would lead me nowhere, especially after Jaiden’s attempt to escape. I wondered why I was willing to go to such lengths to protect him. Yeah, he’d done some bad things, some good things, but I also had a feeling that if I were in his place, I wouldn’t have wanted to tell anyone anything and wouldn’t trust anyone at all.

  “I don’t have to offer you anything,” Lily said, crossing her arms. “You know what could happen if you accept my proposal and what could happen if you don’t. I believe that you’ll think about it carefully and decide what you feel is right.”

  “So you’re just going to keep him in some kind of a cage or what?” I needed to know if she’d allow the guards to torture him again.

  “He’ll be locked up, yes, but he’ll be comfortable. I promise you no one will do him any harm. Only his guards will know the code to let him out as necessary. Let’s see if your way pays off and he suddenly starts talking, although I doubt it,” she said, turned on her heel and walked away.

  I stared after her. That wasn’t really my idea, but it was better than torture. I glanced at my bracelet. I’d have to find out who I had to mind control to get the code, because I was planning to get Jaiden out of his prison to help me. Hopefully, I could repeat what I’d done before and break through the bracelet, maybe even figure out a way to take it off completely.

  With enough power, I could be unstoppable. The light burning of my bracelet brought me back to reality and I realized my element had stirred inside of me, as if it were happy at the prospect of being free soon. I shook my head. No, my element wasn’t a living thing with a mind of its own. It was my subconscious or something like that playing with me. With one last look toward Lily’s office, I walked away.

  It wasn’t hard to find the cell where Jaiden was being held, but I didn’t dare to come any closer because I didn’t want the guard to see me. I kept checking in on the guard and realized he didn’t really leave his post, and when he did, it was only when another guard was there to take his place. Getting to Jaiden wouldn’t be as easy as I’d expected, but maybe there was something I could do.

  Taking a deep breath, I gathered all of my energy and focused on my element, pushing at it until I thought my bracelet would burn
off my arm. Surprisingly, there were no visible marks around the bracelet, and I hoped my skin was equally untouched under it. What kind of magic was involved in the mechanism of these bracelets? For all I knew, the burning sensation was only an illusion.

  I gave my element one last big push, and I felt the burning in the bracelet increase and then suddenly go away. Before the bracelet could start working again, I strode toward the guard, making sure no one was around to see me. Thankfully, the hall was empty. My air swiftly reached out for the guard’s brain, and he perked up, his eyes going blank.

  “What is the code for the cell?” I asked, offering him a piece of paper. “Write it down for me.”

  The guard’s glassy eyes stared at me, but he took the paper and scribbled the numbers on it.

  “Thank you.” A small smile spread across my lips as I snatched the paper. “You haven’t seen anyone and you went on a break. You will return in ten minutes and you won’t mention anything to anyone about it,” I said. “Now go.”

  The guard trudged off and I stepped closer to the cage. Jaiden got to his feet, peering at me through the bars.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I need to talk to you,” I said. “In private.”

  “Okay,” he said, spreading his hands. “No one here but us. So, why did you force the guard to give you the code?”

  “I’m going to need it later.” The corners of my lips quirked up.

  “You do realize I might have memorized the code when I saw them use it to open the cell, and I could let myself out if the guard doesn’t come back,” he said jokingly, and I noticed a dark bruise on his cheekbone.

  “Well, you already had one failed attempt to escape, so you know getting out of the cell won’t do you any good,” I said. “Especially after you just told me this.”

  “Ah, you think that wasn’t just to survey your security system? Maybe I’ll have a better plan this time.”

  I shrugged. “We’ll see.” I wanted to talk to him about the bracelets, but I couldn’t tell him now because then he’d escape for sure. I was surprised he hadn’t broken through the bracelet already, but maybe that had something to do with the fact that Elemontera had much more time to tailor it for him. That could actually be a problem for my plan.

  “What game are you playing?” he asked. “You’d be stupid to trust me.”

  “I need you to do me a favor,” I said. “I want to get into Lily’s office and I can’t do that on my own. The guards need to be distracted.” Actually, I planned that Jaiden and I would have enough energy to break through the bracelets and mind-control the guards. I could try mind-controlling the guards on my own, but I doubted I could control them both at the same time. It would be too risky, and if I tried to mind-control one and then the other, that could raise suspicion. Besides, if my element faltered and the blocking system kicked in, I could be left in the middle of the mind control, which would be unpleasant for both the guard and me.

  He sighed. “You’re going to use me to distract the guards and blame me for everything later. Got it.” Leaning his head on the bars, he gave me a sad look.

  “Umm, not really, but...” I toyed with a curl of my hair. I couldn’t tell him the whole plan just yet.

  “I’ll do it, but under one condition.”

  I looked at him in surprise. “Let me guess. You want me to let you go or help you escape. I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. Lily would know it was me who helped you.”

  “Okay, then,” he said. “I want you to spend a night with me.”

  “What?” I gaped at him.

  “I mean, I want you to stay with me one night. Just that. You can betray me later or whatever. I did it to you anyway, but I don’t want to be alone all the time in this tiny cell,” he said quietly, his dark eyes boring into mine.

  “Okay,” I said. “We have a deal. I’ll be back later tonight when there are fewer guards around. Don’t go anywhere.”

  “I won’t.”

  I smiled to myself as I walked down the hall. I had no idea if I’d discover anything in Lily’s office, but I hoped I would. The only problem with my plan would be if it turned out Jaiden couldn’t break through the bracelet, because then I’d really have to use him as a distraction, which would only get him in trouble; something I didn’t want to happen. But if we managed this and Jaiden escaped later because of what I showed him, maybe I wouldn’t have to spend the night with him. Huh, maybe my plan wasn’t that bad after all.

  Chapter 27

  Everyone but the guards on duty was asleep when I sneaked out of my room and prowled the halls. A guard stood in front of Jaiden’s cell, but a different one this time. He didn’t look particularly alert; his shoulders were slumped and he was dozing. I pushed my element through my bracelet once again and padded closer, the guard not even twitching. Just as he looked up at me, I caught his brain signals with my air.

  “You haven’t seen anyone,” I said. “Go take a bathroom break and then get something to eat. The other guard has come to take over. The prisoner is secured. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  The guard nodded, hopped off the chair he’d been sitting on, and strode off. I quickly typed in the code and the cell door opened. Jaiden was sitting on the bed, his arms crossed.

  “So what’s the plan?” he asked.

  “I have a question first. How do you think I mind-controlled that guy when I still have the bracelet?”

  “I assume Lily’s techs figured out how to disable the bracelet for you since they think you’re one of them,” he said in a bored tone. “Why?”

  “Because that’s not quite true. They’re still working on the bracelet, but my elements can actually break through the blocking system if I try hard enough. Is that normal?”

  Jaiden frowned, getting up and inspecting his bracelet. “No, that can’t be right. If the bracelet is still fully active, it shouldn’t allow you to use your elements at all, no matter how much energy you put into them.”

  “So you never broke through it? Maybe before Elemontera understood the full extent of your abilities?”

  “Never.” He slowly shook his head. “God knows I tried.”

  “Can you try it now?” I asked, glancing down the hall to check if we were still alone.

  “Yeah.”

  For a few moments, nothing happened. He just intently stared at the bracelet, and suddenly a fireball flew through the bars, disappearing before it could hit the wall. “Whoa, this is new,” he said, his eyes wide.

  “It doesn’t always work, and sometimes my element gets cut off, so I’m a bit scared of the consequences if that happens when I’m in the middle of mind control.”

  “Wait, so you actually want me to mind control someone?” He raised an eyebrow at me.

  “Yeah. We need to mind control the guards who see us and those that guard Lily’s office so no one sounds an alert or realizes something suspicious is going on. We can’t let anyone find out that we can break through the bracelet.” Unless Lily’s team already knew. But wouldn’t they have told me something or upped the security? Or were they counting on the fact that I wouldn’t use my elements because I assumed they were blocked all the time? “If I go by myself, I’m afraid I won’t manage to mind control two guards at once while breaking through the bracelet. Is it even possible to mind control more than one person at the same time?”

  “Sure it is,” he said. “You just have to give them all the same order and you need a whole lot of energy.”

  “Right, but probably not with the bracelet on.”

  “Yeah, probably not.” He shrugged. “We should try mind control at a distance, though. It’s easier if the guards don’t panic when they see me.”

  “I’m not really sure how that works. I’m usually near, or very near to the person I’m mind-controlling.”

  “It’s not easy, but once you get it, it’s not a problem, even with lower energy levels. You just have to reach for the mind and picture your order clearly in your own mind,
as if you were saying it out loud. It’s easier when you do speak, though, because your mind might jump to another thought and mess up the whole thing, but if the person can’t hear you, you have to rely on your mind completely.”

  “Okay, then. We should hurry. Lily isn’t here at the moment, and I don’t want her to get back and find us in her office,” I said, and we rushed down the hall. Too bad turning into air wasn’t an option this time. It would be so easy to fly past everyone, but it would be hard to use enough energy and not fall out of the air because of the bracelet.

  “Wouldn’t it be better to just mind control the information you need out of some people?” he asked. “Are you sure we’re not doing this for nothing?”

  “Yeah, it would be better. If I actually knew who to ask,” I said. “I guess Lily would be that person, but mind-controlling her sounds a bit risky. She might realize something was off.”

  “Well, they’re all regular elementals or element preservers here. They can’t feel what we do.”

  “Yeah, but they might be able to remember they told us something they’d never even dream of telling us.”

  “That’s what ordering someone to forget something is for. You used it today or did you forget?”

  “I know, but Lily might have some kind of protection that we don’t know about. She is the leader of the important organization. I doubt she’d be unprotected because everyone would be aiming for her mind, maybe even Elemontera and the government. And I wouldn’t even know what questions to ask her.” I looked at him as we reached the end of the hall. “Did Elemontera use you to get info out of the minds of politicians and people in power? Oh, did you ever get to mind control the president?”

  “That’s classified,” he said, his lips quirking up.

  “Great.” I rolled my eyes. But as we rounded the corner, a guard came into view, his eyes going wide when he saw Jaiden. The shimmering thread shot out of Jaiden in a blink of an eye.

  “You didn’t see anyone in the hall. Go on with your business,” Jaiden said, and the guard strode past us as if he couldn’t see us. We stopped as we reached the main room. Some people were still at their computers, their faces glued to the screen. Jaiden and I looked at each other and called to our elements. I blindly reached out with my element until it grasped a mind, and repeated the process twice.