"Are you ok?" Adrian's gray-blue eyes were full of concern.
"Yeah. I just hate not knowing what's going on." I realized he was wearing a special black suit with some sort of a protective armor on his chest. He also had a gun tucked into his belt.
"Really?" He gave me a deadpan look.
"Right. I'm sorry I didn't tell you I changed my plans, but there was no way to contact you..."
Adrian put his finger across my lips, effectively shushing me. Someone's steps resonated down the hall and I gave Adrian a wide-eye look. Whoever that was, he or she was just around the corner and would stumble upon us any moment. Adrian stepped away from me, and the feel of a fire element hit me so hard that I staggered. Oh, great. My control was slipping to a dangerous level. I definitely shouldn't have let Adrian touch me.
"Intruders in the building! You have permission to shoot them on sight. I repeat, you have permission to shoot them on sight," a rough voice said through the walkie-talkie. The fact that we could hear him clearly meant that the guard was coming closer. I frantically looked at Adrian and he lifted his hand to tell me to stay still.
Adrian closed his eyes and the air around us got colder, making me shiver. Before I could react, he grabbed my hand and we started running down the hall.
"I froze him on the spot," Adrian said as we reached another office. Pushing the door, Adrian ushered me into the small room, which unfortunately for us wasn't empty. A woman shrieked, reaching for the phone, probably to call the guards.
"Hello, Valeria," Adrian said in a voice that was icy and sweet at the same time. "Missed me?" A thick layer of ice started to form over the woman's skin, covering her from head to toe in a matter of seconds. She ended up looking like a perfectly carved ice statue, her hazel eyes wide and mouth open. Something clattered to the ground, and I realized a gun had fallen out of her hand. Who the hell came armed to the office?
"Who is she?" I asked as Adrian locked the door, pulling his gun out of his belt.
"Someone I used to play with," he said bitterly, handing me the gun. "Take it."
The black gun weighed a ton in my hand, and I wasn't quite sure how to carry it or what to do with it. Sure, I'd learned how to shoot, but I was still queasy about shooting people. "Is she dead?"
"I hope so." There wasn't even a fraction of remorse in his voice. "You should stay here until it's safe to go out. I'll go to your father's office and make sure he doesn't escape. All of our men and women sent to this mission are carriers, so if you feel someone's element, follow that sensation and use fire on that person. If that doesn't work, you have the gun."
"No. I'm not going to sit here and wait." I glared at him, feeling unusually confident.
"You've been around elements too much..."
"Don't try to manipulate me, damn it!" Anger coursed through me, magnifying the feel of elements. "Who cares if I'm out of control now? You're too! Besides, we didn't agree to kill people unless they're trying to kill us first!"
"This woman..." he started to say, but I shook my head.
"We don't have time for this now!" I knew I had to get out of here and trap my father so he could call off his guards. Magic disease carriers always wanted elements and Oliver's and Lily's group might not be bloodthirsty, but everyone could change if the opportunity was given. "I'm coming with you. The only thing that can stop me is you freezing me to death, so how's it gonna be?"
Adrian tried to intimidate me with a cold stare, but to my credit, I didn't even flinch. Finally he sighed and opened the door. "Come then before I decide to knock you out and hide you in the closet."
"You're not funny." I strode to the door, which Adrian held open for me.
"I wasn't trying to be." He smirked, then his face turned serious. Gripping the gun tightly in my hand, I looked down the hall, but there wasn't anyone, just like my inner element detectors had told me.
"Let's get to the office so your father doesn't escape." Adrian stopped for a moment and took a deep breath. "We're clear. The nearest guard is on the other side of the building."
"Yes." I could feel the guy too, his water calling to me. Adrian's fingers tightened around my arm, breaking the element's sweet spell. I looked up at him in confusion, and realized I'd taken a few steps in the wrong direction, toward the guy with the element. Crap.
"I'm fine," I said, prying Adrian's fingers off my arm. The elements swarmed me the instant he let go, but I did my best to push them back. We started running for my father's office, Adrian following a few steps behind me just in case my disease chose a different path.
"Are you sure he's in the office?" Adrian asked, slowing down. We couldn't just burst into my father's office without looking where we were going. Oliver's device had disabled the alarms, but that didn't mean my father didn't have other protection.
"Yes." I raised an eyebrow at him. "Can't you feel his element?"
"No."
"Oh." That was weird. Adrian could usually feel and differentiate elements better than me. Was there some sort of protection around the office? But I could feel elements when I was inside, maybe not with the same intensity... The most likely conclusion was that my disease was getting worse.
"Here's the plan. You go around the corner and run to the office. I'll watch your back." Adrian pulled his own gun from underneath his vest, switching off the safety.
"Ok." Aiming the gun in front of me, I stepped around the corner and came face to face with three guards dressed completely in black. They pointed their rifles at me, ready to shoot. Stupid anti-magic-disease-carriers suits! I dove for the ground as the shots rang above my head, missing me for a couple of inches. Adrian ran out in front of me, shielding me with his body and shooting at the guards.
"Adrian!" I screamed as one guard fell to the ground, his finger still squeezing the trigger. A hot shot of pain went up my shoulder, stopping me from using fire on the guards. Frozen bullets dropped only a few inches from me, and it took me a moment to see Adrian was lying on the floor, unmoving. Fear gripped me so hard as I crawled over to him that I hadn't even noticed the guards weren't shooting at me.
"Get her!" my father's voice rang through the hall and I saw the two guards who were still alive racing toward me. My left shoulder was throbbing like hell as I pulled myself up, the gun in my hand. Glancing at Adrian, I realized there were holes in his vest, but there wasn't any blood. The force of the blows must have knocked him out, which meant he was alive.
My father stood in front of the door of his office, ready to bolt inside like a scared rabbit. The guards reached me, their weapons hanging on their shoulders, their masks no longer hiding their faces. They didn't mean to kill me, which told me my father had no idea about my involvement in the attack. Ignoring the pain that was spreading like fire through my arm, I gingerly rose to my feet, hiding the gun behind my back.
"I'm fine." I managed a small smile, and the guard on my right offered me his hand. Shaking my head, I started to walk toward my father, hoping the guards wouldn't look too closely at me. One of the guards towered over Adrian, pointing the rifle at him, while the other guard snatched Adrian's gun from the floor.
"What do we do with him?" the guard asked, hitting Adrian with his boot. My pulse raced so fast that I could hardly breathe, my mind going through the options I had to save Adrian.
"Check his pulse," my father said. "If he's alive, kill him, but not in front of my daughter."
"Yes, sir," the man said, crouching down. Fuck! I panicked, knowing full well that the guard would figure out Adrian was alive. But if I set the guards on fire in front of my father, he'd have time to do something, either to me or to Adrian. I doubted my father was unarmed. Besides, he could always use his element, even though he wouldn't be happy about wasting it. Oh God. What could I do?
"Come." My father gently placed his arm around me, careful of my bleeding shoulder, and steered me toward the office. I could try pointing the gun at my father and force the guards to step back from Adrian, but my father was standing too
close and blocking a clear path for me to move my arm and aim before he managed to subdue me.
Pushing me into the room, my father closed the door a second after I saw the guard crouching down to check Adrian's pulse.
Chapter 11
Taking a step back toward my father's desk, I gripped the gun in my hand, letting myself feel the elements of the two guards outside the door. One of them had fire and the other one water. Apparently, element-blocking suits worked only when a person was fully clothed, but the guards had taken off their mask for some reason, probably because they'd decided I wasn't a threat. Well, they were wrong.
Focusing on their elements like Adrian had done when we were in the hall, I let my fire envelop the two bodies I couldn't see. Screams echoed from outside, and a crease appeared between my father's brows, but he didn't open the door to check what was going on. My anxiety increased because I had no clue if my fire had caught Adrian too or if the water guy was too shocked to extinguish my fire. I could taste my father's element on the tip of my tongue and I took an involuntary step toward him.
"Honey, are you ok?" The worry in my father's dark eyes was almost comical. He really did care about me. "Your shoulder..."
"I'm fine." I lifted the gun, pointing it at my father's chest. His mouth opened in surprise and he lifted his hands up in the air. I hoped he hadn't lied when he told me he wouldn't kill me, or my elements' strength would be tested if he used his element on me.
"Ria, honey, what are you doing?" Incredulity was written all over his face.
"Open the door," I said through my teeth, willing my hand to be steady. Elements danced around me, inviting me to come and get them. I had to end this fast before my whole world unfolded and turned me into a monster. But I'd set two men on fire today. Didn't that make me a monster already? They would have killed Adrian if I hadn't done it, but still... I didn't want to go around killing people just because they were ordered to shoot magic disease carriers. We needed to change those orders as fast as we could, but I had to check on Adrian first.
"Ria..."
"Open the fucking door!" I yelled, my hand starting to tremble. My father turned the knob, opening the door wide, his eyes trained on my gun.
"You don't have to do this," he said. Relief flooded me when I saw Adrian sitting up, looking around him in a daze. The guards were lying on the floor, their clothes full of holes, revealing reddened and blackened flesh. My stomach lurched and I had to look away.
"Adrian, get in here!" I raised my voice, breaking through the shock he seemed to be in. Focusing back on my father, I waved the gun toward his chair. "Go sit there, keep your hands on the desk and don't fucking move. Try to use your element on Adrian or me, and we'll shoot you."
He reluctantly took a step in the direction of the chair, dragging his feet. "You betrayed your family for that boy. I tried everything to make you see reason, but you're gone so deep off the cliff..."
"Shut up!" Adrian said as he entered the office, checking the gun he had reclaimed from the dead guard. I closed the door behind him, sagging down to the floor, blood dripping freely from my shoulder. Adrian leaned on the wall behind the door so he could point the gun at my father and be ready if someone rushed into the office. The door could be locked only with a password and my father's element, but that would mean he'd have to walk to the door and maybe try to escape.
"Press something on that." Adrian's face darkened as he looked at my shoulder. I forced myself up and sat down in the chair opposite to my father, grabbing my coat and pressing its sleeve against my wound, although I doubted the material was good enough to stop the bleeding.
"Are you going to let this..." My father's lip curled in disgust. "...this murderer turn you into one of his kind? Will you let him kill your own father?"
"We need to stop this mess before anyone else dies." I gave Adrian a pleading look, and he nodded.
I turned to face my father. "You have a way to communicate a message to the whole building, right?"
"Yes, but what's the point? You want to announce that you captured me?" My father seemed clueless that Adrian and I weren't the only threat.
"Good. Then tell your guards to stand down and leave the building." I applied more pressure on my shoulder and nearly cried out. Adrian started toward me, but stopped himself at the last moment, concern filling his gray-blue eyes.
Some kind of a realization dawned on my father, and he looked at me as if he saw me for the first time. "You brought company, didn't you?"
"Yes, we did," Adrian said, a satisfied half-smile on his lips. "Call off your dogs and you won't have their lives on your conscience."
"Can I move or will you shoot me?" Beads of sweat appeared on my father's forehead, and I was sure he'd thought he'd easily deal with two kids, but now he was truly afraid.
"Yeah. Just do it nice and easy." I ran my hand through my hair, unsure how to distract myself from the constantly growing pain. The bullet had only grazed my shoulder, but it was enough to make the wound hurt like a bitch.
My father reached for the phone on his desk, eyeing Adrian, who tightened his grip on the gun. The door opened with a crash as someone slammed into it right at the moment when my father picked up the receiver, startling all of us. Adrian pointed his gun at the newcomer, and I fumbled with my gun and awkwardly aimed at my father. How in hell had Adrian and I gotten so distracted that we hadn't felt a person with an element rushing here?
A woman in a black business dress collapsed on the floor, her long blond hair streaked with blood. She'd obviously ran here to warn my father, but had gotten shot along the way. Breathing hard, she knelt on my father's dark blue carpet and lifted her left arm up.
"Please," she breathed. "Help me."
"Shit," I whispered, lowering my gun, my attention completely on the woman.
"Come on!" Adrian yelled at my father, training his gun back at the real threat and not at the poor woman who was going to bleed out on the floor.
"Please," the woman cried out, her eyes rolling back as she fell down, her head hitting the floor. Before I knew what I was doing, I slipped out of the chair and crouched next to her, my mouth so dry that I coughed. My father was saying something, but I couldn't comprehend it. An image of a clear, dark blue ocean formed in my mind, and it was reaching out for me until it spilled all over my hands.
Cool, refreshing water surrounded me completely as I waded my hands through it, splashing it everywhere. I nearly cried out from joy when the salty smell of the ocean hit my face. My hand collided with something solid and some sort of energy started drifting up my arm, tickling me as the ocean expanded around me.
"No, Ria! No!" Someone tackled me to the ground, breaking the current, which quickly nestled itself inside of me.
"Mine," I whispered, ready to protect the ocean that was now within me. No one could take it from me. No one.
"Ria, look at me! Damn it!" Someone was yelling in my face, but I could only see blurry outlines of his body. I laughed, suddenly feeling more tired than ever. Maybe I should just lie down here and go to sleep... Pain blasted to my shoulder so fast that I jumped, blinking rapidly to chase away the black spots in my vision.
"Ria?" Adrian gripped my injured shoulder, glancing back and forth between me and my father.
"What?" I swatted his hand away, glaring at him. "Hey, that fucking hurt! What were you thinking?"
"He infected you," my father spat, a look of utter horror on his face. Ok, what the hell had... My eyes fell on the woman lying on the floor, her chest immobile. Panic surged through me as I looked up at Adrian, willing him to confirm my suspicions.
"She's dead." Adrian licked his lips, his eyes clouded with regret. "I think you took her element."
"Oh my God!" I brought my hand to my mouth, trying to sort through the haze in my mind. What had I done?
"It's going to be fine," Adrian said. I shook my head, tears pushing their way out. My whole body started to shake and a whimper escaped my throat. No, not again! I couldn't hav
e taken another element. But no matter how much my mind wanted to deny it, the peace and quiet I felt instead of the usual swarm of elements confirmed I had a new element.
"You turned her into a murderer!" Veins popped out on my father's neck as his whole face went red from anger.
"You didn't kill that woman, Ria. She died from her wounds." Adrian sounded hundred percent sure of it, but I saw a flicker of doubt in his eyes.
If I wanted to get through this, I had to concentrate on the matter at hand. Now wasn't the right time to fall apart over what I'd done or hadn't done. "Did you send the guards away?"
"Yes," my father said, clenching his fists at his sides. I hadn't even noticed he'd gotten up, but I couldn't even remember half of the things.
"Good." Oliver should be here in a couple of minutes - if he hadn't been shot or something - so I didn't have much time. "Your son is coming and he isn't really fond of you." I gritted my teeth together, slowly settling myself back in the chair. The coat I had been pressing against my wound was discarded on the floor, so I had to put my hand over the bloodied gash in my skin.
"Oliver is here?" My father's eyebrows shot upward, but then he swore under his breath. "I should have known your crazy brother would be involved."
"Listen, Oliver wants the presidency and he'll do anything to take it from you." I leaned my elbow on the desk so my hand wouldn't slip off my shoulder and make things worse. "If you give the presidency to me and promise never to hunt magic disease carriers again, including Adrian and me, I'll let you escape before he comes."
Skepticism shadowed my father's face as he contemplated what to do. "The world won't accept a carrier as the president."
"That's not your concern. You only have to retire and never get involved in politics or carrier's business ever again." What I was asking of him had to be one of the hardest decision he'd ever make, but I was sure Oliver would kill him if he got a chance, and he had to know that too.
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