“Hansel!” Adrian yelled and the woman’s steps faltered. She gave us one last glance before she burst through the door that led to the stairway.
“Are you alright?” I ran toward Adrian, who was panting and leaning on the wall, but didn’t look injured.
“I’m fine. You?” His eyes traveled up and down my body.
“Yeah.” I took a closer look at the guy on the ground and realized he wouldn’t be getting up. “Did you see how she flinched when you yelled Carly’s last name?”
He nodded. “That’s why I did it. I think it’s safe to say she recognized the name, even if it isn’t hers.”
“We have to get out of here before the police comes. I don’t think they’ll listen to our explanation with two dead guys on the floor, especially since we’re carriers.” I ran back for my bag and Adrian pushed himself off the wall. A couple of moments later, we were running down the stairs, hoping no one would come our way. Adrian pulled me through the door on the first floor right before a group of armed guys stormed up the stairs. He must have sensed their elements.
“I can’t believe she found us!” I said as we emerged from the hotel through the back door.
“She must have been following us ever since we left...” Adrian and I looked at each other.
“Shit!” If the assassin had been following us all this time, then she knew where my mother was. Maybe she couldn’t get through the security, but if my mom left work... No, no, no!
“We don’t know if she’s after your whole family or only you,” Adrian said as we dashed across the parking lot to our car.
“We have to find out.” I prayed that my mother was fine. Adrian and I were lucky that the assassin had gotten injured and for some reason didn’t want me dead or she’d have blown up the whole room, not just the door. She needed me alive, or maybe alive for a while so she could take my element. But she already had air, so maybe she had to wait until that one expired. I didn’t know and I couldn’t think about it. All I needed was to make sure the assassin hadn’t sent someone to kidnap or kill my mother.
Chapter 13
I frantically dialed my mom’s number, but she wasn’t answering. My stomach did a nervous flip when the secretary told me my mother had left work hours ago. There was a chance that she was resting at home, safe and sound, but I wished she’d just pick up the damn phone.
“I can’t do this.” I nearly threw the phone through the window. “Even if the assassin has my mom, there’s nothing I can do! She can choke me to death before I even reach her!”
“Ria, hey,” Adrian said as he pulled the car to a stop. “Look at me.”
I met his gray-blue eyes.
“You’ll be fine. Even without your elements, you wounded the assassin and sent her running,” he said, his voice serious. “We should get some element-blocking jewelry or something we can throw at her to at least temporarily block her element.”
I cocked my head at him. “That’s not a bad idea.”
“I’m glad you think that.” He flashed me a smile. “Now try again to call your mom.”
“Alright.” I dialed my mom’s number again. The emptiness inside of me kept trying to pull me into its cold embrace, but I clung to Adrian’s words. I wasn’t completely useless without my elements. I was still me. Only a shell. An empty shell.
“Hello?” an unfamiliar voice said on the other end of the line, chasing away my dark thoughts.
“Who is this? Where is my mother?” My heart was thudding so loudly that I could barely hear anything else.
“I don’t know where your mother is. I found this phone on the ground. I live across the street and I heard a noise, so...” the man said.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. This could not be happening! “Did you see her? Did you see who took her?”
“A woman was with her... She had long dark hair...”
“Did you see where she took my mom?” I had no doubts whatsoever that the assassin had taken my mother. Who else would it be? When she couldn’t get me, she went after my mother.
“Umm, the woman had a car. Black Audi, I believe, with tinted windows.”
“Anything else you can tell me?” I waved at Adrian to start the car. We had to catch up with the woman before she hurt my mom.
“I believe they were heading out of town.”
“Thanks!” I ended the call, my head reeling. “The man who saw the assassin thinks she’s taking my mom out of the city. We should get to the highway.”
“We can’t do this alone. We’ll never find the right car. Do you know how many cars are on the streets at this hour?” Adrian’s face was troubled.
“What do you suggest?” I ran my hand through my hair.
“Call Lily. Her techs can help us with this. We need someone who can gain access to the street cameras, track cars and maybe tell us where the assassin is headed.” His calm and reasonable tone was infuriating. “We can tell her to investigate Carly Hansel too.”
“And what about the part where she decides to kill us because we stole her car and basically ran away?” Lily had no reason to help us. Why would she care whether my mom lived or died?
“It’s worth a try.” Adrian glared at me. “Just call her. We don’t have much time.”
With shaky fingers, I dialed Lily’s number and hoped she’d be willing to listen to me.
It turned out Lily was happy to hear from us rather than mad at us for running away. She’d been worried something had happened to us or that Ethan’s cousin had found us.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said after I finished retelling what had happened with my mom and the assassin. “My techs are working on it as we speak. Oh, and Paula would like to talk to you.”
I cringed at the mention of Paula’s name. She must be furious at me. I’d simply sent her a message that everything was fine and that I’d be gone for a while, but I didn’t explain much or called her like she wanted me to do.
“Ria! Thank God you’re okay! Why didn’t you call me or answered when I called?” Paula’s voice was full of panic and annoyance. “How can you just leave and not tell me what you’re planning? You could have died. I could have lost you! I...”
“Paula, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to upset you.” I should have known she’d be more upset at me for not telling her than she would have been if I’d told her everything immediately. “But things didn’t exactly go as planned. Adrian and I wanted to leave for a while, but not like this. I didn’t plan on seeing Sebastian Marlau. Do you have any news about him? I don’t want him anywhere near you.”
Paula took a shaky breath. “No, we don’t know where he is or how he even got in the building in the first place. Lily took me and some of the others to another one of her compounds, but I can’t tell you over the phone where we are. Don’t want anyone to overhear. She’s still looking for the mole.”
“Should I hang up then? I mean, someone could track our signal.”
“No, Lily said the line was untraceable,” Paula said. “But someone could still be recording or listening in.”
“I don’t care. All I want is to find my mom before it’s too late.” Tears welled up in my eyes, but I pushed them back. My mom was going to be fine. The thought of losing her terrified me, and I hadn’t even known this until the real danger appeared. How could I have ever thought that I wouldn’t miss my mom? Even if she never accepted me for who I was or never accepted my boyfriend.
“We’ve got a lead,” Lily said, breaking through my hazy thoughts. “Carly Hansel lived in Firefalls and her element was fire. There are no mentions that she ever had the disease, but that’s not surprising. Your great-grandpa hid that information too.”
“What about her children or grandchildren?” I asked.
“She had two daughters, three grandsons, one granddaughter and two great-granddaughters. I’ll send you the school photos of the great-granddaughters so you can see if one of them looks like the woman who took your mom.”
I waited for the
pictures to load onto my phone and carefully examined them. “I’m not sure.” I handed the phone to Adrian, who quickly glanced at the screen.
“The one to the right,” he said without hesitation.
I frowned at him. “Are you sure?” The girls on the picture looked nearly identical and I couldn’t match any of the faces with the face of the assassin.
“Yeah. The girl to the right has a birthmark under her left eye, just like the woman.”
“Okay.” Adrian must have seen her better because he’d been face to face with her while they were fighting. “Lily, listen. Adrian says it’s the girl to the right. What can you tell me about her?”
“Her name is Margaret Hansel. She’s 25. Her family pulled her out of school when she was 13, I suppose because she had the symptoms of the disease. I can’t find any important info about her. She doesn’t own a car and, apparently, she lives in her great-grandma’s old house, but I don’t think that info’s correct.” A distinct sound of typing could be heard from Lily’s end of the line. “She’s like any other carrier. Mostly in hiding.”
“So there’s no way to find out where she could be taking my mom?”
“Not yet, but we’ll find something,” Lily said determinedly. “You believe Carly Hansel was your great-grandfather’s lover Rosalia, right?”
“Yes.” Carly had been a magic disease carrier, had known my great-grandpa and her great-grandchildren were alive and hunting down my family. That couldn’t be a coincidence. “Wait.” I took a sharp breath. “I think I know where she’s taking my mom! She’s taking her to a bank in Las Vegas.”
“If she wants to open one of the safes, she only needs your mom’s element. She doesn’t have to take her there,” Adrian said.
“I know, but she already has an element!” Hope surged through me. My mom was still alive. “If she wants to get the money, she’ll have to force my mom to open the safe for her. Or open all the safes, but that would mean she’ll need to take my mom there every week.” I shook my head. “I don’t even know how this works now that there’s no one to control the terms of the deal. But she’ll need my mom alive and she’ll wait until her air expires to collect my mother’s element or until all the safes are open.”
“She could still take your mother somewhere first and wait until the element expires,” Lily said. “We can monitor the bank, but we have better chances of finding them if we can track the car.”
“Yeah, sure, but this means my mom is still alive and we have time to find her.” I only hoped Margaret was a regular carrier like she appeared to be and not some mutated carrier who could take more than one element. There was no indication that she was an element preserver.
“Where do I go?” Adrian said. “We can either go to Vegas or to Firefalls. You choose.”
I looked at the highway in front of me and closed my eyes. What did my gut tell me? Where would my mom be? “Las Vegas,” I said and prayed to God of Magic that my hunch wasn’t wrong.
Chapter 14
Adrian and I had been sitting in the car for hours and observing the bank, but nothing suspicious happened. I chewed on my nails, scanning the street for any movement.
“The bank will close soon. Do you think Margaret will try to break in?” I looked at Adrian, who was taking a sip of his coffee.
“I don’t know. Depends on how much of a fight your mom puts up. If Margaret can’t walk into a bank with her without your mom making a fuss and drawing attention, she’ll have to try to break in.” He set the plastic cup in the cup holder.
“You know, I’ve been thinking about this. What if Margaret only needs money and she found out about the deal by accident?”
Adrian shook his head. “The deal seems to be a family thing, so it would be weird that she didn’t know about it from the beginning.”
“But maybe she doesn’t care about the deal like the rest of her family did. Maybe she only wants money and she’ll try to contact me or someone from my family to ask for ransom. Everyone knows my family has money.” And here I was, trying to come up with as many options to convince myself that Margaret had plenty of reasons to keep my mother alive.
“Ria...” Adrian started to say, then froze. I followed his gaze and saw two figures striding across the parking lot. Adrian’s hand was on my arm before I could open the door.
“Wait,” he said. “We don’t know if it’s them and we don’t want to startle them.”
I nodded and settled back into my seat, even though I wanted to jump out of my skin. “Can’t you feel their elements?”
“I’m trying, but I’m not sensing anything.” He licked his lips, a frown line creasing his forehead. “They are either both carriers or have protection.”
“Which means Margaret gave my mother a bracelet or something so she wouldn’t be tempted to kill her. Come on! We have to get them!” I was about to open the door when Adrian pressed a button to lock us in. “What are you doing? They’re getting away!”
“Wait!” he said through his teeth. “We can’t just go after them unprepared. Your mom could get hurt if we attack now. Besides, Margaret could run away with her and then we’d never find them.”
“They’re almost inside.” I stared at the figures, unable to tell which one of them could be my mother. I didn’t even know whether Adrian was lying to me about not being able to feel the element because he wanted to protect me.
“Let’s go now. But be careful.” Adrian handed me the gun and unlocked the car. I was outside in a second, making my way across the street as if a hundred of wild dogs were hunting me.
“For the love of God, Ria, at least hide the gun. We don’t want the security to think we’re robbing the bank!” Adrian hissed.
“Right.” I tucked the gun under my jacket and waited for Adrian to catch up with me. No matter how much I wanted to save my mom, I couldn’t just heedlessly run in after her with my gun raised.
Adrian pushed the door open for me and I stepped inside, my face expressionless. The guard glanced at me and I did my best to ignore him. Instead of a weapons detector, the element collectors were installed at the entrance and I wondered if Adrian and I could set off an alarm because they couldn’t take a small amount of our elemental energy. Probably not. The element collectors could only collect pure elements and I hoped that hadn’t changed.
The bank was full of people and I didn’t know what to do with myself. My eyes searched the room for a familiar face, but I could see neither Margaret nor my mom. Adrian pulled me to one side so we could pretend we were waiting in the biggest line.
“Your mom’s at the back,” Adrian whispered into my ear, his hold on my shoulders firm. “There are cameras everywhere and I don’t think they’ll let us go there for no good reason.”
If Adrian could sense my mom, that meant she’d taken off the element-blocking jewelry so she could open the safe for Margaret. I looked around, trying to come up with a plan that didn’t include taking hostages and pretending to be bank robbers.
“If we move quickly, I can freeze the cameras,” Adrian said, his voice low, his arms around me, caressing me as if we were merely one of those annoying couples who showed their affection in public too much. “I don’t think anyone would stop us.”
“Do it.” There was still a possibility that the area with safes was locked, but maybe the door was open if my mom and Margaret were there. It wasn’t like they could open any safes that weren’t theirs. Technically, Margaret could open another safe if she had taken an element from the rightful owner, but I doubted anyone in the bank would think about that.
“Let’s go,” Adrian said. “We don’t have much time before they notice the ice.”
No one spared us a second look when we crossed to the other part of the room. Adrian held my hand, a big grin on his lips. I grinned back, feeling like a silly high school girl. We needed everyone to believe we were simply bored of waiting and decided to find some more private space to make out.
My smile faded when we got to the area wi
th the safes. A woman stood in front of the door, probably to guard it while Margaret and my mom were inside.
“Hey, you’re not supposed to be here,” she said, raising her voice.
“Isn’t the restroom around here somewhere?” I pouted. “I really have to go.”
“No, it’s not. You should go back,” she said, her gray eyes cold and unyielding.
“Actually, my mom’s inside, so...” I tried to elbow my way past her.
“You can’t go inside! Security!” she yelled, but Adrian clamped his hand over her mouth.
“Sorry, love,” he said and hit her with the back of his gun. She fell to the ground, her eyes closed. The security was nowhere in sight. They were most likely busy trying to figure out why their cameras weren’t working properly. Pushing the door wide open, Adrian entered the room first, gun ready. I took my own gun and followed him inside.
“If you don’t open this safe, I will blow out your brains!” Margaret yelled, but I couldn’t tell where she was. High rows of safes were everywhere around us, creating a maze. Adrian ran forward, and I was glad he could sense my mom’s element.
“If you do that, you’ll never open the safe,” my mom said. “You need my element.”
“I can kill you right here and hunt down another member of your family.” Margaret laughed, but it was a nervous laugh.
“You can try, but you might be surprised at what you find.”
Adrian and I burst into another, smaller room just in time to see the smug expression on my mom’s face.
“What does that mea...” Margaret’s head whipped in our direction and she fired. I gasped, but Adrian caught the bullet with his ice before it could reach him. Before any of us could shoot, Margaret grabbed my mom and pressed the gun against her forehead.
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