by Ali House
Naydir knelt down so that Kit could get a closer look at him. “You don’t remember moving to Stanton from Briton? Or being called by the ISS to join the civilian team?”
“I don’t remember any of that because it never happened!”
“What about the time we were playing that stupid game Bryanna suggested. You said that when you received your Vision you screamed and blacked out and everyone thought you’d been attacked. We all looked at you strangely because we’d never gotten a Vision that intense, but you were the Six-Elemental, so of course your vision was different.”
“Of course, you never bothered telling us that you were the Six-Elemental,” Zenyth added. “We had to find out from Vaughn once you disappeared.”
Something about that story sounded familiar to Kit, but she didn’t know why. Her Vision had been the same as everyone else’s, just with six different elements – but some part of her remembered a Vision where the pictures kept coming faster and faster, repeating over and over.
“Vaughn found out you were the Six-Element the night that he was shot by Nathan, when that house burned down,” Naydir said, speaking quickly. He could tell that some of this was sticking with her and he wanted to finish before someone from Tecken came and ruined it all. “Remember? You were dating Nathan because we suspected him of being a Tecken soldier, but he found out that you were a spy so he tried to kill you.”
“Nathan wouldn’t…” Kit trailed off. It sounded so familiar. She could remember a dream where she was in an apartment with someone trying to kill her, but that was just a dream. Why was she even listening to these people? She should be trying to get back to Erikson, to the war.
It was as though the woman sitting on her could sense that she was planning an attack. Before Kit could do anything, she was hit again.
“Nathan pulled a gun on you,” Naydir continued. “And then Vaughn burst in and there was a fight and the house caught fire and Vaughn got shot. Don’t you remember any of this?”
“Vaughn?”
Zenyth let out an exasperated breath. “Tall with bright red hair! Formerly of the Cambrian army, currently a photographer!”
The image of a red-haired man sitting next to her flashed in her mind, followed by an image of the same man holding her, kissing her...
“Vaughn...” Kit repeated. Why did it all seem so familiar?
“Can you really not remember any of this?” Zenyth asked her, exasperated.
“I… I don’t... It can’t be true. You’re messing with my mind! I was born on Tecken!”
“No, you were born on Briton,” Naydir said. “You hated it there, so you came here. You worked at Skyline Architects and you worked with us for the ISS. You punched a girl in the mall because she was a Humanist and said really mean stuff to you.” He racked his brains, trying to think of something else to say to her.
“But... I...” Kit closed her eyes and tried to quiet the noise in her head. There was too much information.
Naydir sighed and put a hand to his head. “I wish Vaughn was here. He’d know what to say.”
The name hung in her mind and she pictured the same red-haired man. He was standing in her room, and they were fighting, and then he was kissing her and she was kissing him back, and all she wanted was his lips on hers and for him to hold her close and never let her go...
“Oh my god!” Her eyes flew open and she pulled her arms free, catching Zenyth by surprise. Before Zenyth or Naydir could react, Kit was on her feet, running away.
“Do you think she remembers?” Zenyth yelled to her brother as they raced after Kit. Kit was running towards the Cambrian side and not Tecken’s, which was good luck on their part.
“I think so,” Naydir replied. “It was the mention of Vaughn that did it. Bryanna’s crazy theory was right.”
They hurried down the street. Kit was almost a block ahead of them, but at least she was still in sight. Suddenly Kit stopped running and dropped to her knees near a building. When the two of them were closer, they saw what had made Kit stop.
“You have to help him!” Kit pleaded as tears ran down her face. “I didn’t know, I wasn’t myself, I thought he was… You’ve got to help him!”
Naydir put a hand over his mouth as he looked at Vaughn. His skin was pale and there was a pool of blood around his head.
“What happened?” Zenyth asked, dropping to one knee. She put a hand on Vaughn’s neck to find a pulse – something she thought was a vain effort. The pulse was faint, but it was there. She took off her coat and placed it under Vaughn’s head. The blood had started to thicken, but how much had he lost?
“I… I...” Kit put her hands on Vaughn’s face. His skin was cold. She looked up at the twins. “Help him, please!”
The two of them carefully picked Vaughn off the ground.
“We need to take him to triage,” Naydir said. “Right away.”
“I have to go with him!” Kit pleaded.
“That’s a really bad idea, especially when you consider how many people you’ve personally put in there,” Zenyth said. “We’ll be right back. Wait for us in that alley and stay out of sight!”
Kit could only watch as they carried him away. Tears streamed down her face. She couldn’t stop picturing what she had done to him. If she killed Vaughn, she didn’t know what she’d do.
Zenyth and Naydir rushed Vaughn to the nearest triage tent and left him with the medical team, before heading back to where they’d left Kit. They were both worried that she’d run away and the alley would be empty, but Kit was hidden in the back, tears drying on her face.
“Is he okay?” she asked when neared.
“We don’t know,” Naydir said. He didn’t want to distress her any more, but it was the truth.
Kit buried her head in her hands. How could she have done something so stupid? If Vaughn died because of her...
“Stop crying,” Zenyth said harshly. “You’ve got to get up and help us win this war.”
Naydir turned to his sister. “Don’t you think we should give her some time?” he asked in a low voice.
“Time? This is a war – she doesn’t have time to gather her bearings. She knows what side she’s on now.”
“But Tecken messed with her head and they did a damn good job of it. She needs to recover.”
“And for every minute she recovers, another ten of our soldiers fall.” Zenyth couldn’t keep the anger out of her voice. They didn’t have time to waste on this, on a woman who was acting more like a child then the powerful Six-Elemental.
“Does she look like she’s ready to fight?” Naydir asked. Kit was staring at the ground as if in a trance. How could they ask her to fight after everything she’d been through?
“It figures that the minute she’s back on our side, she falls apart,” Zenyth sneered. “She was never any help when she first joined the team and now that she’s back on our side, she’s useless again!”
Naydir glared at her and pulled her further into the alley, away from Kit. He warned his sister to lower her voice and be nice, but Zenyth refused.
“How is it that Tecken gets a super-soldier and we get a scared little girl?! Maybe she doesn’t want to help us!”
Kit didn’t want to listen to the two of them fight. Zenyth was right – she had been useless to the team. Why would anyone think that she could help them now? Look at what she had done to Vaughn.
“Just give her a few minutes, Z,” Naydir said. “Stop being so damn hard on her!”
“She needs someone to be hard on her!”
“And we need her to take out Erikson so that we can end this war! She’s not in the right state of mind for that.”
“She’s never in the right state of mind when it comes to helping us!”
“Just be patient for once!”
Their words made Kit miserable. They were talking about her, but they weren’t paying attention to her anymore. She hated that she was weak and insecure, and that everyone knew it. Naydir was trying to be nice, but he knew that sh
e was weak. Zenyth’s words were brutal but at least she was being honest.
“If she’s not going to help, then she’d better find a good place to hide until it’s all over,” Zenyth said firmly.
“You can be such a bitch sometimes!” Naydir shouted. “Can’t you act like a human being for once in your life?”
“And can’t you act like anything more than a soft-hearted idiot?!”
Naydir turned away from her and looked at Kit, but she was no longer there.
“Great,” Zenyth said. “Now she’s run off to god knows where.”
“If you hadn’t said those things-”
“She’d still be sobbing on the pavement!”
Naydir clenched his fists. “I’m going to look for her. Alone.”
“Fine with me.”
“Fine.”
The two of them left the alley and walked in opposite directions.
Zenyth hadn’t been expecting to find Kit, but when she turned the corner onto 5th Avenue, she saw the familiar blue-haired woman standing in the street. Kit was staring at a building – the bar she had visited with Bryanna on the night of her abduction. So many things had changed since that night.
Anger rose up inside of Zenyth. Why was Kit such a superwoman when she was with Tecken, but now that she’d remembered everything she was useless? Maybe she really was on Tecken’s side.
“If you’re not going to help, then you should leave Stanton,” Zenyth called out to her. “You should probably leave the entire Segment, because nobody’s going to want to look at you after this.”
“Did you know that my step-father used to tell me that I would never amount to anything?” Kit glanced at Zenyth before turning back to the building. “He used to say it all the time, over and over again, because I refused to give up my ‘Elemental ways’. There are only so many times a person can hear something like that before they start to believe that they’re worthless.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Kit spun around angrily. “Can you just shut up and listen for once!?” she yelled.
Zenyth was startled, but it didn’t stop her from yelling back. “I will not shut up! In case you didn’t notice, there’s a war going on, and the longer it lasts the more people die. You’re the only person who can put an end to this war, so why the hell won’t you?! If you put half of the energy into your efforts for our side that you did for Tecken, we’d win this war in a second!”
“And why should I help your side?!”
“Because helping the ISS is the right thing to do!” Zenyth exclaimed. “How could you even think that it’s okay to let Tecken take over the Segment? Magnus Erikson is a maniac who only thinks of war!”
“When I was in Tecken, he was nothing but nice to me! In fact, everyone in that compound treated me better than you ever did!”
“How the hell can you say that?!” Zenyth’s fists were clenched so hard that her fingernails were cutting into her palms.
“I can say it quite easily! You thought that I was weak and that I couldn’t handle anything. You don’t exactly hide your feelings, you know. You thought that I would screw everything up! I mean, were we ever actually friends?” Kit asked. “Was there a time when you didn’t hate me?”
“You lied to us about the most important thing it the world! You hid your power from us and handed it to Tecken on a silver platter!”
“Why do you always have to think the worst of me?” Kit cried out.
“Because you’re a selfish bitch who should never have been given the power of the Six-Elemental!”
Silence. Kit shook her head. “At least Erikson believed in me.”
“So why don’t you go back to Erikson if you love him that much?”
“Maybe I will!”
Zenyth’s mouth almost dropped to the ground. “You’d do that? You’d enslave the entire Segment under an egomaniac? The Council is trying to make the Segment safe.”
“Safe for who? For the Humanists who still persecute Elementals whenever they can? For those who preach that people who Accept are evil and should burn in hell?”
“How can you say that?” she gasped.
“I’ve been on both sides,” Kit answered. “I remember what it was like when I was with the Tecken army. It was inviting and safe and even though I was on the ‘wrong’ side, those people became my friends. And then there’s you. Why should I turn my back on my friends for someone like you?”
“Because I’m on the right side!”
Kit shook her head. “I’m the only person right now who can say which side is right and which is wrong. I know how the Council feels about letting hatred spread across the segment in the name of peace. They could have avoided this if they weren’t so scared of taking action. Tecken would never let a Humanist set foot on their island, let alone attack Elementals who’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve seen both administrations and I know the soldiers on both sides. I’m the only person who can make this decision.”
Zenyth felt her heart drop to her stomach. “You can’t go back to them! They’re the enemy!”
“The only enemy I see right now is you and I would rather die than fight next to you.”
“You’re going to regret this!” she yelled out.
Kit shook her head and turned away.
“Where are you going?!” Zenyth called out in vain.
“I’m going to free everyone.”
Zenyth didn’t know what to do to stop Kit from walking away. Was she actually going back to Tecken, even after remembering everything? How could she do something so horrible?
As Kit disappeared from sight, Zenyth felt her blood run cold. What had she just done?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Akola looked around the scene to see if Kit had returned to the fight, but she was nowhere in sight. The fight for the second blockade was going well, but having the Six-Elemental help them out would speed things up considerably. Akola hoped that Kit hadn’t gone and done something stupid, like look for Nathan.
Christian maneuvered through the fighting until he was next to Akola.
“I’ve heard something,” he yelled to her over the noise.
“So?” she asked, kicking a soldier before stabbing him in the stomach with one of her daggers.
“You’ll want to hear this,” Christian said, backing away from the fight.
Something in his voice made Akola follow him. When they were far enough away to avoid danger, Christian spoke.
“I’ve heard that the ISS managed to get a hold of Kit and that she remembers everything.”
“What? That’s impossible!”
“Apparently her friends got to her.”
Akola shook her head. “But the reassignment… You can’t break something like that in a few minutes.”
Christian shrugged. “That’s what I heard. Whether it’s true or not, I don’t know.”
He left to rejoin the fight, but Akola didn’t go back. She had to find out what was going on.
She had watched every second of the reassignment, how Wes had finally managed to drill into Kit’s head that she’d been born on Tecken and that her real life was nothing but a fabrication. Akola had seen the transformation in Kit once she finally accepted the truth they had given her. It had happened sooner than she’d expected, but Akola knew that if she’d been given a choice between a life with a Humanist bastard or a tolerant family, she’d choose the later.
They’d said that there was no guarantee that Kit would stay this way, but Wes was a genius and she had done such a great job with Kit. Suddenly Akola remembered Kit’s relationship with Nathan – if that bastard had done or said something to mess this up, Akola would kill him herself.
Or maybe the rumors were simply that – rumors put out by the enemy to make Tecken doubtful. Maybe everything was okay and there was a reasonable excuse for Kit’s lack of presence.
Akola’s hand came to rest on her dagger. This war was far from over.
The fighting in front of the second
barricade was getting ugly. Rumors had spread about the Six-Elemental but nobody knew which side she was on, so they were all fighting their hardest. The Forces were determined not to let another barricade go and Tecken was encouraged by their success over the first barricade.
Zenyth made her way to the front line, determined to help. She didn’t care if the Forces didn’t want her there, she couldn’t just sit back and watch.
On her way to the front she was stopped by Cale who was yelling to get her attention.
“Shouldn’t you be in triage?” she asked angrily.
Cale was breathless from running, but after a second he managed to speak.
“I got tired of missing all the action, so I bolted. Besides, I heard a rumor that Kit remembers everything. Is it true? Is she back on our side?”
Zenyth pretended that she hadn’t heard him and kept walking, but Cale wouldn’t go away.
“What do you know?” he asked. “Is Kit with us again?”
“Go back to triage. I’m heading to the front and you don’t want to be there.”
Cale could tell that Zenyth knew something. He continued to follow her, trying to keep up with her quick pace.
“Go back to triage,” Zenyth said more firmly. They were getting closer to the main battle. “You’re not a soldier – you’ll be killed if you go near the front.”
“I’m not leaving until you tell me what you know,” Cale insisted.
“You don’t want to know, trust me.”
The sky darkened and the two of them looked up as dark clouds obscured the sky. There was something sinister and unnatural about the sudden weather change. Suddenly a bolt of lightning came down from the sky, striking the ground. It didn’t hit anyone, but it came close enough.
Everyone stopped fighting – they knew who was behind this sudden change in weather. The armies broke apart, Tecken on one side and the Forces on the other.
Zenyth pushed forward to see what was going on, while Cale followed behind her.
“Oh no,” Zenyth said as she saw Kit walk into the empty space between the two armies.
Cale couldn’t understand why Zenyth would say something like that. Wasn’t it a good thing that Kit was here, especially since she remembered her past life? He could hear the soldiers whispering. Was Kit on their side? Had she remembered everything?