Resilient (Tainted Elements, #6)

by Alycia Linwood

  “I don’t know, but we have to do something. It’s been a quiet couple of weeks, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t planning something,” I said.

  “What does this one want?” Sam asked, crossing his arms, strands of his black hair falling over his dark eyes. “Or is every powerful tainted so full of themselves that they think the world should be theirs?”

  “We don’t know yet, but it seems like he wants a bunch of water elementals, or maybe just a bunch of water elements.” I shrugged.

  “Great. Is he going to flood the planet? Because that would be fun,” Kenna said dryly.

  “Let’s hope we can catch him and find out.”

  “We better,” Noah said. “What do you need us to do?”

  “Lily will explain everything,” I said. “One of my mom’s friends will announce that she created a superserum, but she’ll say that it’ll need more testing so they can be sure it works, because we don’t actually want people to believe that what we’re saying is true.”

  “Won’t our guy see right through it?” Noah asked, his jaw set. “I mean, if he notices agents all around...”

  “Lily’s men are pretending to be regular security, and we’ll pose as guests and reporters. He doesn’t really know us,” I said. “And I don’t think he’d believe we left Russia and came all the way here to Germany just to prepare a trap for him.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right. Do we have any element blockers installed?” Noah asked. “You know, just in case we’re not strong enough and we need to stop all the elemental activity that’s going on.”

  “We do. Lily will activate them if necessary. And there are cameras all over the place. We should at least be able to find out who he is or figure out if he sent someone to come instead of him.” I still wasn’t sure why the video from Asya’s camera hadn’t worked, but hopefully it wouldn’t happen this time. There was a lot of us who could fight with elements. Surely, whoever the guy was, he couldn’t go through all of us.

  “We have to go,” Jaiden said from behind me, placing his arm around my waist. “The press conference is about to start.”

  “We’ll go talk to Lily,” Noah said, and everyone trailed after him to one of the rooms down the hallway.

  I turned around in Jaiden’s embrace and adjusted his tie. “You look handsome in that black suit.” A smile quirked my lips. His eyes were now hazel, thanks to the contacts he was wearing, and his hair was differently combed.

  “And you look gorgeous in this dress.” He bit down on his lip, his gaze traveling up and down my body. “It’s such a shame we have work to do. Although, I can’t get used to your blue eyes.”

  “Yeah.” I pressed my lips against his, then let go of him. We had to catch the mystery guy no matter what. I straightened my knee-length black dress and grabbed the blonde wig I had to wear so that the guy wouldn’t recognize me. “There’s a chance he might recognize our elements, you know. Since we fought him and all.”

  “If he can do that, then this might help.” Jaiden handed me an element-blocking bracelet. “Just remember to take it off when the time is right.”

  I slipped the bracelet onto my wrist. “What if the guy has magic disease? We saw with Blake that it can happen to tainteds too. Or what if an element preserver somehow sucked in an element of a tainted? Maybe he stole a lot of elements, so that’s why he could defeat us so easily.”

  “I don’t know. He only used one element... I think.” Jaiden shook his head. “We can’t know for sure.”

  “Okay, let’s go.” I swayed slightly on my high heels and pulled my arm through Jaiden’s. We went down the hallway and into a room full of people. My mom’s friend was standing on the stage, a vial with a serum resting in a special box next to her. Jaiden and I pushed our way through the crowd and stopped near the wall. From this spot, we could see both the entrance and the stage.

  The room was lit up with hundreds of lights. Lily had picked this place because it was underground, so it had no windows of any kind. Lily didn’t want to risk anyone flying in or shooting through the windows. Energy level detectors were up too, and if they detected something, Jaiden’s phone would start vibrating and let us know. Slightly elevated energy levels were expected, because there were many excited people in the crowd. We couldn’t really hire actors for this, so there were some who believed this was the real deal.

  “Do you see anything interesting?” Jaiden asked when the room went quiet and everyone turned their cameras toward the woman on the stage as she started explaining something about the serum.

  “Not yet.” I scanned the crowd, but I wasn’t sure if we’d even recognize the guy we were looking for. He’d made sure we couldn’t remember his face, so any man who came in was suspicious. I spotted Noah right across the room, and he gave me a quick smile. The flashes of cameras and excited questions from the crowd were the only thing that was happening, so I leaned against the wall. I glanced at Jaiden, who shook his head.

  Just as the press conference was about to end, the lights suddenly went off and gasps broke out in the room. I immediately took off my element-blocking bracelet and threw it to the floor. When the backup lights made out of elemental magic came on, I could see people running around in panic, but a few moments later, everyone froze in spot. What was going on? I tried to take a step forward, but I could no longer feel my arms or legs. All I could do was stare in front of me.

  Calling to my elements, I tried to push them out, but they were dormant inside me. Suddenly my legs gave out, and I collapsed to the floor. A man carrying the box with the vial caught my eye, but he disappeared in the crowd. A few moments later, a woman emerged carrying the same box. My eyelids fluttered closed, and I couldn’t see anything anymore.

  “Moira!” Jaiden’s voice broke through the haze in my mind, and I blinked at him.

  “What happened?” Lily was at our side immediately, while people around her ran and yelled. With Jaiden’s help, I got to my feet. The whole room was in chaos, and the box with the serum was missing. “All of our systems went down, including the cameras and element detectors. Please tell me you saw something! I tried to use the element blocker, but it didn’t seem to be working at all.” Lily’s dark eyes were wide, her hair disheveled, her face pale.

  “There was a woman...” I said. “She was carrying the box, but before her, some man had it. I think the mystery guy sent someone to pick up the box for him.”

  “Or he can change shape like Sophia can.” Lily took a phone out of her pocket and swore. “It’s still not working, and even if something got recorded when the box was being stolen, it’s gone. Whatever this guy can do, it renders technology useless. And how did he immobilize the crowd?”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t move a muscle or use my elements.” Lily had said her blocker hadn’t been working, so how had the man blocked our elements? Had he even been here himself? I shuddered at the thought that there could be more people like him.

  “Me neither. It was as if someone was using their element on us,” Jaiden said. “But that’s weird. How could one person do that?”

  Marissa ran toward us, her gray eyes filled with concern, her red hair flying around her. “Is everyone okay?”

  “Yeah, more or less. Did any of you see anything?” Lily asked.

  “Nope, nothing. Someone must have grabbed the box while the lights were out,” Marissa said.

  “But our backup lights worked.”

  “Those were more magic than technology,” I said. “And they were high enough so any blockers or other magic couldn’t reach them.”

  “I know, but still... This whole thing is so strange. And we’ve still got nothing.” Lily ran a hand through her hair. “How are we going to find this guy?”

  “We can go check outside. Maybe we spot some shimmering or something. If he’s doing this all by himself, he must have used up a lot of energy to do this,” Jaiden said.

  “Do it. I’ll stay here and see if anyone can remember who was standing in the front rows
and who could’ve taken the box. Oh, and I’ll see if any footage of the press conference has survived.” A tremble of some sort went through Lily’s body, and she rubbed her arms. “I really hope that person, whoever he is, doesn’t have the ability to kill too. Because if he does... and if he can shapeshift, we’re facing the biggest threat our world has ever seen.”

  “Let’s go,” Jaiden said, taking me by the arm, and we both turned into air and whizzed through the door. I was glad our elements were still working properly after what had happened. When we flew out onto the street, we rose up until we could see the whole city.

  “If the guy can really shapeshift, he wouldn’t have to erase himself from our minds, right?” Jaiden said.

  “Yeah, I guess, and he wouldn’t have to use other people to carry the box for him, unless that was him somehow, but why not just use his other abilities? Why didn’t he just fly inside and grab the box?”

  “Maybe he knew we’d have protection, so he wasn’t sure if he’d be strong enough.”

  “But he still had to be somewhere close to control us, because I really don’t think a device is doing that.” I flew toward one of the rooftops as I gazed at the street. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, but I doubted the guy would be marching down the street with the box in his hand. “Maybe he actually mind-controlled us not to move or use our elements, and then made sure any trace of it disappeared so we wouldn’t know, but then he’d have to ensure we wouldn’t feel the pain either.”

  “All that power...” Jaiden said. “We should be able to detect so much energy.”

  “Yeah, but I guess the guy’s good at hiding, and he kills our devices.” I rushed down, zooming past the buildings and searching for a corner where the guy might have been hiding, but there weren’t any clues that could lead us to him.

  “I don’t think we’ll find anything,” Jaiden said, and we landed on one of the rooftops and turned visible.

  “He could be out of town by now.” I stared at the sky.

  “We’ll find him eventually. He’ll make a mistake.” Jaiden pulled me into his embrace, kissing the top of my head. His warmth chased the chill out of my skin, and I sighed.

  “I hope that’ll happen sooner rather than later. If he goes on a killing spree...” Something landed not far from us, and as I turned my head, my breath got caught in my chest. Jaiden’s hold on me tightened. A man was standing not far from us, a gun in his hand. Jaiden let go of me and I readied myself for an attack, but then the man raised the gun and pointed it at his head.

  “You’ll never stop me. This is your punishment for trying to trick me. Don’t make the same mistake again,” the man said in an emotionless voice and tossed an empty vial to the ground. Then he pulled the trigger.

  A scream got stuck in my throat and I covered my mouth with my hand. The broken vial on the ground was the one in which the fake serum had been. Jaiden immediately turned into air, soaring up, but I was sure he wouldn’t see anything. The dead man was much older than us, and I was sure he wasn’t a tainted, so whoever had brought him here was probably our guy. He’d been here with us, so close, and we weren’t able to spot him or any shimmering. I pushed back the tears. How could we stop the unstoppable?

  Chapter 15

  A few days later we were still unable to locate the man or find out anything about him. Lily had tried every possible resource she had, but we weren’t any closer to figuring this out. The only thing she could do was alert everyone and tell them to keep their eyes open for any unusual activity. Of course, people kept reporting silly things and falsely accusing their neighbors or enemies of acting strangely or possibly being under mind control. Lily had gone through all the reports and weeded out the fake ones, but apparently one incident had caught her attention because she had called us all to the conference room of the hotel where we were staying.

  “Thanks everyone for coming,” Lily said.

  “Are we finally going to get to do something or can we join the tourists and take a tour of the city?” Noah’s lips quirked up, but his eyes remained serious. We were all too worried to relax or do anything fun these days.

  “I think our guy is in Monte Carlo,” Lily said. “A casino reported strange activity. Their machines stopping working and their cameras turned off, and the guests apparently can’t remember any of that.”

  “So the guy has a gambling problem?” Nick asked, scratching his head. “Is any money missing? Why would he go play if he can just take whatever he wants? Does he even need money? God, I’m going to give myself a headache with all these questions.”

  “Shut up.” Kenna rolled her hazel eyes and punched her brother lightly on the shoulder.

  “I don’t know why he was there, if it actually was him, “Lily said. “But we had no other news from anywhere, and that guy is still out there doing God knows what. And if we don’t come up with a good reason for being here, we’re going to get sent back home.”

  “Can they send my group home too?” Noah asked. “I mean, we could say we’re on a vacation. It’s not like they can know what we’re doing.”

  Lily shook her head. “You can’t do that. They know you came because you were helping me, so if they catch you trying to use your elements on others or if it seems like you’re spying on people, they’ll arrest you, and I’d really like to avoid such situations if possible.”

  “Okay, fine.” Noah folded his arms across his chest.

  “Wait, does this mean we get to go to that casino?” Nick’s green eyes brightened, a half smile on his face.

  “Yeah,” Lily said. “We’re going to investigate. If you don’t want to come with me, you can go home. Although, if we do find the guy, we’re going to need you.”

  “I guess we should go pack our things, then,” Marissa said, and everyone nodded.

  “I’ll send you more info about the mission later,” Lily said and turned toward Jaiden and me. “You two should come with me.”

  Jaiden and I looked at each other, then trailed after Lily down the hallway and into one of the rooms, probably Lily’s. When we got there, my mom and dad looked up at us, and Jack grinned at me from the chair in the corner.

  “Your parents will stay here and work on their serum like Jack proposed. They have all the necessary equipment here, and one of my friends graciously allowed us to use her lab,” Lily said. “This is easier than going back home right now and figuring out how to explain the deal to the government. I’m sure they’d want to arrest Jack the first chance they get, so...”

  “Maybe you could stay too,” my mom said, her eyes pleading. “That guy you’re after... he knows you. If he sees you again, he might hurt you.” Her voice broke a little, and I sat on the bed next to her.

  “Mom... I know you’re worried, but I’ll be fine. I’m one of the strongest tainteds on Lily’s team, so I can’t just sit back and let my friends risk their lives.” I placed my hand over hers.

  “Maybe you two staying behind isn’t such a bad idea,” Lily said. “Your mom’s right, Moira. Our enemy knows you because he somehow managed to find you and make sure you saw that guy. If he can recognize you, then it’s better you’re not with us.”

  My shoulders stiffened. “Yeah, that’s a possibility, but you’re forgetting the guy can enter anyone’s mind, and he controlled everyone in the room, so even though he didn’t see everyone, he touched their minds, and if he does that again, I bet he’ll be able to tell who was there and who wasn’t, and maybe he won’t even have to use mind control to find that out if he can just somehow sense the elements.”

  “Fuck.” Lily curled her hands into fists. “We should come up with some sort of protection.” She glanced over her shoulder as she strode through the door. “Change of plans. You two are coming.”

  I sighed in relief, but something like a current shot up my arm. My whole body felt as if it were on fire, and my lungs constricted, barely letting any air pass.

  “Honey, are you okay?” my mom asked, grabbing my hands. I felt as if I were
falling, my stomach turning upside down. A second later, my air surged out, wrapping itself around me until my whole body started to shimmer.

  “Honey?” my mom cried out.

  “She’s here,” Jaiden said. “Just invisible.”

  That did nothing to chase the fear and panic out of my mom’s eyes. My shimmering body convulsed, squeezing every part of me until I was a tiny ball. Dark spots danced at the edge of my vision, and then my body expended in one violent spasm, turning me back visible. I fell off the bed, and as I rolled over, trying to push myself up, my mom screamed. When I looked up at her, her face was aghast, her mouth hanging open. My dad was staring at me with wide eyes.

  “Oh my God,” my mom said. “What is this? What just happened?”

  “Mom, what’s wrong?” I didn’t feel any different from usual, so what was going on? Was I on fire? Was half of my face invisible or something? But when my dad handed me the mirror he’d found on the nightstand, I nearly shrieked too. The eyes that were looking back at me weren’t brown but blue. And my face... my face looked exactly like my mom’s. Even her blonde curls fell around my shoulders.

  “Finally,” Jack said, and we all looked up at him. “I told you it would work.”

  “What did you do?” Jaiden rushed toward him, turning into air and flashing himself in front of his father.

  “Mind your tone, boy,” Jack said. “I can’t believe your girlfriend bested you. So sad, and so predictable.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, getting to my feet.

  “Remember the serum I gave you? It made your elements stronger. I expected your new abilities to show earlier, but apparently I was wrong,” Jack said calmly.

  “My new abilities? You mean shapeshifting.” I dropped the mirror onto the bed and faced Jack.

  “Yeah, looks like that’s the ability you got.” A satisfied smile played on Jack’s lips, but it disappeared when he looked at Jaiden. “You should be able to do that too, so try it out. Although, I’ll prepare myself for another disappointment.”