Resilient (Tainted Elements, #6)

by Alycia Linwood

  Heal. That was it. I had to heal my mind. Focusing on my air, I guided it toward my head, and when it slipped inside, I could see darkened brain signals. But when I tried to feed my air into them to heal them, my air only collided with them and didn’t affect them in any way. I wasn’t strong enough. My mouth went dry and I clenched my hands in my lap. Now what? Maiers’s words came back to me.

  “Stronger? Are you sure you can do that? I mean, I don’t want to lose my elements if something goes wrong,” I said. If whatever was in that vial would increase the strength of my elements, then maybe it was a good thing.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” Maiers said. “This serum was already used on you, so I know it works, and don’t worry, my dear. It doesn’t have any unwanted side effects.”

  “Oh, okay then.” I forced myself to smile.

  “Just go sit over there.” He nodded toward the chair that was the same as the one I’d been in when they’d taken my elemental energy. Was that what they were planning to do now? If so, then I had to act quickly. Getting to my feet, I dragged myself over to the chair and sat down. Maiers made no move to strap me in, so I watched him as he approached me, a syringe in his hand.

  “So what happens once you inject me with it? How long until it starts working? And what are you going to do next?” I blurted out, and a smile tugged on Maiers’s lips.

  “So many questions.” He took hold of my arm, the syringe only an inch away from me. “This will sting a little. The serum will start working in fifteen minutes or sooner, but you’ll know when it happens. Once that happens, you’ll have a lot of energy and we’ll harness it with that device.” He bobbed his head toward the machine next to the chair. “I’m sure you’re familiar with it.”

  “Yeah, I am.” The syringe pierced my skin, and when Maiers let go of me, I leaned back in the chair, waiting for the serum to take effect. Maiers busied himself with something on the table, and I wondered if I knew him. There was something familiar about his face, but I couldn’t quite remember him, just like I couldn’t with anything else.

  As soon as the energy surged through me, I focused on my air again, letting it seep out behind my back and jump into my head. This time when I captured the signals and breathed my element into them, they turned white again. A scream tore its way out of my throat and I gripped the chair arms with all of my strength. My memories flooded back in, rushing one after another in front of my eyes. I remembered everything. Everything.

  “Now, now, don’t scream just yet,” Jaiden’s father said, as he came forward and started strapping me to the chair. “Your energy shouldn’t be wasted.”

  He turned on the machine, and my elements rose inside me, twirling like a tornado that threatened to burst through my skin. But when the machine sucked them out through the pads attached to my arms, my head was swimming and my energy left me in a big whoosh. I was more lying than sitting, unable to move, and even breathing seemed like a difficult thing to do.

  “This’ll do.” Jack turned off the machine and patted my hand. The door burst open and Kira dashed inside.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked, eyeing me from across the room, her mouth pinched.

  “Yes. The serum worked, and the energy is safely stored.” Jack handed her a tablet and she immediately grabbed it, her brow wrinkling.

  “That’s much less than expected. What happened?” She didn’t sound pleased.

  “Nothing. I must have spilled some of the serum before administering it. She’s a bit squeamish when it comes to needles. You should’ve told me that.” The corners of Jack’s lips quirked up.

  Kira’s jaw clenched. “Next time be more careful. We can’t afford any mistakes. Not now. How’s our other project going?”

  “Fine, but I’ll need more time.” Jack’s smile faded, his body stiffening.

  “We don’t have time. The clock is ticking. Remember that.” She tossed the tablet to him and stormed out of the room. When Jack came closer, I had to force my heavy eyelids to stay open.

  “What...” I tried to say, but Jack placed a finger over my lips.

  “Shh. You should get some sleep. I’ll have someone take you to your room.” He untied the straps, and then picked up something that looked like a phone and pressed a few buttons. No matter how much I tried to keep my eyes open and not fall asleep, I couldn’t fight it. When two men dressed in black came in, pushing a gurney in front of them, I gave up and just let myself sink into the embrace of darkness.

  Chapter 6

  Two weeks earlier

  “We need your help,” Lily said as soon as Jaiden and I entered the room.

  “Don’t tell me you have an emergency already,” Jaiden said. “We just solved one crisis. Can’t we have some time off?”

  “No, this is important.” Lily’s dark eyes were serious, her arms crossed. “In fact, if you refuse to help me with this, you might be sent to jail.”

  “What?” I gaped at her. “That’s not what we agreed on!”

  “I know.” She ran a hand through her long black hair. “That’s why I hope you’ll understand that we don’t have a choice.”

  “Fine.” I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “What’s up now?” We’d just defeated Sophia, and I really didn’t feel like fighting or using my abilities on someone so soon. In fact, Jaiden and I had been planning to go on a vacation and visit some nice place, have fun, and enjoy ourselves.

  “My agents talked to Sophia and investigated some of her connections, and we’ve come to the conclusion that this threat isn’t over,” Lily said.

  “But she’s imprisoned and won’t be going anywhere.” Jaiden frowned. “Unless you think the prison won’t be able to hold her.”

  “Sophia isn’t going anywhere. It’s her friends I’m worried about.” Lily pressed a button on her computer and a map of the world came up on the screen. Yellow dots were all over it.

  “All of those dots... you think she has connections there?” Jaiden’s eyes widened, his lips parting slightly as he stared at the screen.

  “It’s possible. The problem is we don’t know. All my men could figure out is that Sophia is a part of a bigger plan, and we have reasons to believe those people who share her ideas have a facility somewhere in another country and they’re taking tainteds there.” Lily leaned on the desk, her shoulders tense.

  “Um, okay,” Jaiden said. “What does that have to do with us? Just contact that country’s government and let them deal with it. I don’t think we’d even be allowed to go there ourselves to investigate... unless you want us to pretend we’re doing it on our own...” His eyes narrowed. “Which would probably get us in serious trouble, and this time we’d really end up in jail, so...”

  “No, I’m definitely not planning to get you in trouble,” Lily said. “But you’re right about one thing. I can’t just send my men over there to investigate, and the local authorities won’t be of much help.”

  “Then what do you want us to do?” I tilted my head. “To interrogate Sophia and see if she knows something she isn’t saying?”

  “No. We have reasons to believe that Sophia’s friends are here and that they’re planning to take the most powerful tainteds from our city. By now, everyone knows there are some super powerful elementals here, especially if they got intel from Sophia. And if they’re here now, they probably heard about the two of you, because a lot of people know about your abilities.”

  “Okay, let me get this straight. You think Sophia’s friends are somewhere in the city and that they want to kidnap the strongest elementals and take them God knows where, so you want us to be those elementals... You want them to kidnap us.”

  Lily grimaced. “Yeah, I know that sounds... a bit scary, but you two are the only ones who can do this. And once you’re there, I’ll have the right to take my agents to the country where they’re holding you to get you back.”

  “Great.” I groaned. “And what do you think they plan to do to us there? Because by the time you come to save us, we might already be de
ad.”

  “They’re kidnapping tainteds so they can collect their energy. That’s why I’m sure they won’t kill you immediately. They need your energy.”

  “But Jaiden’s elements are going to fade faster than mine, especially since we can’t find his father, who could give him the rest of the serum to make them permanent. It’s as if Jack vanished.” I shook my head. “No, we can’t do this. It’s too risky.”

  “Jaiden’s father is probably working for them,” Lily said, and Jaiden’s gaze snapped to her.

  “What? How do you know? Are you sure?” he asked.

  “No, I’m not sure, but there’s no trace of him anywhere, and we think he might have slipped away thanks to them, or maybe they captured him when he tried to run away. If they knew he was the one who gave Sophia and Terry their abilities, then they would certainly try to get him to increase the strength of elements that they want to harvest,” Lily said.

  “Don’t you have friends who are agents in those countries? Send them to investigate. It can’t hurt,” Jaiden said.

  “Unfortunately, that isn’t working. I contacted some people, but they didn’t learn anything new, except that some tainteds have gone missing, but no one can find them anywhere, and not enough have disappeared to cause panic. People disappear all the time, and the cops seem to think it’s just a coincidence.” Lily sighed.

  “What about the abilities of those kidnappers? How exactly do they take strong elementals? Please tell me there aren’t more people with Sophia’s abilities,” I said.

  “I don’t know, but probably not. It’s unlikely they somehow recreated what Jack was doing with Sophia and Terry, so they probably just have a good tactic. Maybe they catch them off guard or use powerful sedatives. I don’t know. Those people aren’t exactly easy to find, and I don’t have access to all the information.” She pressed her lips into a tight line.

  “Okay, so they probably have a few tainted elementals who can tell them who is like them and who isn’t, right? And maybe they have some kind of element-blocking device, or they keep the tainteds sedated the whole time.” I bit my lip. “Wait, if they get us and keep us sedated, we won’t be able to defend ourselves or do anything to let you know where we are. And if you put a tracker on us, they’ll probably notice it.”

  “I talked to every scientist I could find, and they all told me an elemental has to be conscious when the energy is taken, because if not, the elements will be asleep too.”

  “Right,” I said. “That means we’d have to be awake if they want to take our energy, but how do they keep tainteds, especially powerful ones, trapped in their facility? Surely someone would’ve already attacked them or burned the place to the ground to get free or something.”

  “I assume they have another powerful mind controller working for them.” Lily sorted through some photos on her computer. “There’s not much footage that I could find, but look at this.”

  Two images popped up on the screen. One showed a girl walking with two people who were wearing hoodies, and the other showed someone’s feet, as if someone was lying on the ground, but we couldn’t see the rest because the body was hidden behind a wall.

  “The first one shows one of the girls just before she disappeared. The cops are treating it as a runaway case, since it looks like she’s going willingly with the guys. I suggested mind control to them, but they waved me off saying the girl was a troublesome teen. I guess they don’t want people to start panicking even more about mind control. In the second photo, we can just see a limp body being dragged away, or well, just the person’s feet, because there’s no camera around the corner, but I’m sure this wasn’t just some drunk who passed out and was taken somewhere. I think that whoever is doing this has a mind controller with them, but sometimes it seems they first use the tranquilizer, and then the mind controller does their job later while their victim is unconscious and can’t fight it.” Lily said. “These people have been missing for weeks now, and no one is really even looking for them, not even their families. The only reason these cases were reported was because the neighbors or someone else who doesn’t live nearby asked about those people and they couldn’t reach them, so they called the cops.”

  “So the people closest to the captives have been mind-controlled too.”

  “Probably.”

  “Great.” I scratched my head. “So you want us to use mind control on ourselves and everyone else close to us so that our enemy’s mind control won’t work on us? And you want me to put my parents and my friends at risk.” I wasn’t really thrilled by the idea, especially when the plan didn’t sound like it was even going to work. Sure, we could protect our minds somehow and make sure the damage reverses itself, but still...

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what I want. Put some sort of mind protection on everyone and on yourselves, and help us take those bastards down.” Lily’s fingers curled into fists. “Do you think you can do that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Jaiden and I need to talk about this first. Can you give us a minute?”

  “Sure.” Lily nodded, offering us a small smile, and headed for the door. When she was out, I turned to Jaiden.

  “I don’t like this,” I said. “There’s too much info missing.”

  “Do you think someone messed with Lily’s mind and prepared a trap for us? Could those people be strong enough to mind-control us while we’re unconscious and to go through all the blockers and protection?”

  “I don’t know if someone tampered with her mind, but we could check before we agree to anything.” I shrugged. “But if someone can mind-control us while we’re knocked out, then we need a better plan. There’s always a chance that they’re strong enough to override our mind control too. Lily thinks we can do this, but what if we can’t? And my mom hasn’t even had an opportunity to look at that serum and see if she can recreate it. If your elements are drained... We can’t risk that.”

  “I know, but if they have my father...” Jaiden closed his eyes for a moment. “He could help us. If that blocker in his head still works...”

  “We don’t even know if they have him or if he’d even be in the same facility as us. And you can’t know how strong his blocker is...”

  “Then what are we going to do? Let those people kidnap us or our friends when we least expect it? And then how are we going to get them back or figure out what’s going on before it’s too late?” Jaiden’s eyes bored into mine. “We don’t even know how much time we have or who we’re looking for. We just know the threat is out there... and you saw how easily Sophia and Terry took our people. If one of us is transported to another country...”

  “Okay, we’ll do it,” I said through my teeth. I hated doing this, but we didn’t have a choice. If we stayed here and waited to gather more intel first, we were all at risk. And if the tainteds working for those people were weaker than us, then we’d defeat them one way or another.

  “But we need to be careful.” He placed his hand on my cheek.

  “I know.” I covered his hand with mine and sighed. “That’s why we should make sure no one finds out about this.”

  Jaiden cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

  “We’ll convince Lily that we’ll do this only if she lets us mind-control her so that no one finds out what we’re doing. I don’t want someone mind-controlling one of our friends and figuring out our plan. We’ll make sure that everyone we know is protected, so if someone tries to mind-control them, it’ll seem like it worked, but it won’t, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “And we’ll mind-control each other too so that we forget that we’re on this mission. If our enemy is strong enough, they might breach our minds, and I don’t want them to know anything. Once we’re caught, we should remember everything... and if our enemy figures out something is wrong and messes with our minds, we have to find another way to make sure we remember our mission.”

  “How are we going to do that?” Jaiden touched the base of his neck.

 
; “Tattoos. We’re going to get tattoos. Something that seems silly but will give us clues in case things go very wrong. There’s still a chance none of this’ll work, but let’s hope we’re not dealing with too strong of a mind controller, or he would’ve taken control of hundreds of tainteds by now. The good thing is they can’t really wipe our minds, so the memories will still be in there, just blocked. I’m sure we can figure this out, and once we do, we’ll finish off the bastards and then we’re going on a vacation.” A smile crossed my lips and I leaned forward, pressing my mouth against Jaiden’s in a gentle kiss.

  “Okay, let’s do this.” Jaiden said, and I squeezed his hand. This better work or we were screwed.

  Chapter 7

  Another mission. Of course. I should’ve known. I banged my head lightly against the wall in my room, wondering what to do next. First I had to find a way to get to Jaiden and make sure he remembered everything, and then we’d have to come up with a plan to alert Lily and tell her to bring her men here... wherever we were. I’d been mind-controlled not to use my elements, and someone had successfully breached Jaiden’s and my protections, which meant the mind controller was quite powerful.

  Still, I didn’t know who it was, because all I could remember was some woman named Tamara and her little group using some tranquilizers on Jaiden and me after their devices rendered our elements useless and inhibited our movements. Did they have such devices here? Probably. I hadn’t seen Tamara here, or anyone else who had been with her when they took us. Where were they? Or were they just hired to bring tainteds in?

  The door swung open and Kira smiled at me. “It’s time for your energy donation.”

  “Okay.” I jumped to my feet and followed her down the hallway to the lab. Jaiden’s father was there again, and I wondered how much he knew.

  “Just make sure you do it right this time,” Kira snapped, glaring at him.

  “Oh, I will.” He snorted. “I’m not incompetent.”