“Yeah.” Jaiden turned invisible, so I did the same, and we carefully crossed the street. People might not be able to see us, but they could certainly run us over if we weren’t careful, and I didn’t want to risk having to squeeze myself under a speeding car, and flying too high might catch the attention of other tainteds, which we didn’t want.
As we were nearing the hoodie guy, he nodded at the man at the door and slipped inside. Jaiden and I followed. I was glad the door was still slightly ajar, so we could drift inside without having to wait for someone to push the door open.
Sure, we could turn visible or use our air on the door, but if we did the former, the guard wouldn’t let us in, unless we mind-controlled him. And if we did the latter, the guy would think we were ghosts. Well, maybe not, but it would certainly catch his attention and we couldn’t afford that.
We entered the lobby. There was a red carpet on the floor, and a few black sofas and tables on one side. Behind them was a stairway and an elevator. The hoodie guy went to the elevator, but it closed before we could reach him, so we waited until we could see which floor he stopped on.
Once we were sure he would be somewhere on the sixth floor, Jaiden and I hastened toward the stairway and did a dizzying flight until we reached the right floor. My blood spiking with adrenaline, I slowed my air and looked up and down the hallway. A rich gray carpet covered the floor, and there were four doors, all identical. Jaiden went toward the closest one, probably inspecting the number on it. His shimmery hand waved at me, and I floated closer.
“He’s here,” Jaiden said. “Looks like we can squeeze through the door.”
“Great,” I mumbled as his air sort of melted under the door. I wasn’t thrilled about having to jumble my whole body so I could push myself through the opening, but I gritted my invisible teeth and slipped through the small crack, feeling as if my whole body was being reassembled.
Fighting the urge to sigh in relief when I spread out my air again, I looked up and saw Jaiden’s cloud shimmering not far from the guy, who was now taking off his hoodie, revealing a black t-shirt. We had to stop him before he started to take off anything else.
“Hello, Warren,” Jaiden said, materializing behind the guy, who immediately gasped. His hand went for the back of his pants and he drew a gun. Warren’s green eyes were wide, his chest heaving as he pointed the weapon at Jaiden, who only smirked at him. For some reason, I’d assumed Warren would be older, maybe in his forties or closer to Jack’s age, but now I could see that he was in his thirties.
“Oh, come on. Move that little thingy out of my face,” Jaiden said in a bored voice.
“What are you doing here?” Warren asked, but didn’t lower the gun.
“We have some questions for you,” I said, becoming visible. Warren turned the gun toward me, then back at Jaiden, unsure of where to aim.
“Drop the gun. We’re not going to hurt you.” Jaiden crossed his arms.
“Yeah, am I really supposed to trust you two?” Warren’s lip curled, but he finally lowered the gun, probably realizing that he’d only get tired if he kept it up. We could take the gun from him in under a second. “Everyone is looking for you. In fact, I should call the chief and alert him...”
“But you’re not going to do that, are you?” Jaiden snickered. “Not unless you want us to get mad, and then your coworkers could find out interesting things about your dedication to your job or... the lack of it.”
“What do you want?” Warren kept eyeing Jaiden and me, slowly backing against the wall so he could keep us both in sight.
“Sophia Mornell,” I said. “What do you know about her?”
“She’s that woman who exposed who you truly are to the world,” he said, and looked pretty satisfied about it. “Why do you think I know anything about her?”
“You have access to certain files,” Jaiden said, taking a menacing step forward. “So tell me, what do the cops have on her?”
“Nothing.” He gritted his teeth, throwing the gun onto the table and clenching his fingers.
“Don’t lie to me. There has to be something.” Jaiden’s hand flickered in and out of visibility.
“There was,” Warren said. “But it was deleted. Someone with a very high clearance did it, because there’s absolutely no trace of any data about her, not even her basic info.”
“Don’t you have any backups or anything she couldn’t have deleted?” I asked. It didn’t look like he was lying, and if Sophia could break into Lily’s systems and avoid her protection, then she could do the same to the cops.
“No. Well, she doesn’t seem to have any criminal record, so there aren’t any physical files about her.” He ran a hand through his short light brown hair.
“What about other files? Surely she went to a doctor or to school or something,” I said. Someone had to know something, unless she had drastically changed her appearance and her name.
“We’re looking, but so far we haven’t got anything.” Warren’s shoulders slumped. “It’s possible she’s using a fake name or has made sure no one can recognize her.”
“Great.” I shook my head. “Did you get any other footage of her? Run her face for any matches on surveillance cameras?”
“Yeah, but we got no results. Either she’s moving where no one can see her or she’s getting help from one of your kind.” He sneered. “You really think you’re ruling the world, don’t you? Invisibility and all?”
“What about my father?” Jaiden asked. “Seen him lately?”
Warren went perfectly still, his face expressionless. “Not really. Why? Can’t you find your own father? Why don’t you just call him? Ah, wait.” A smile spread across Warren’s lips. “Is he not taking your calls?”
Jaiden turned invisible and materialized with his hand around Warren’s throat, shoving him against the wall. Warren’s eyes bulged, and he spluttered as he tried to pry Jaiden’s fingers off. I was thinking about intervening when Jaiden dropped Warren and took a step back.
“Don’t push my patience,” Jaiden said coldly. “You know what I’m capable of.”
“I do.” A shadow crossed Warren’s face.
“I’m not going to ask again,” Jaiden said as Warren straightened his back and massaged his neck.
“All I know is that your father is still in the city. One of the surveillance cameras caught him near the bridge, but we lost him later,” he said, glaring at Jaiden. “You can check my mind if you want. I’m telling the truth.”
“Thank you for your cooperation,” Jaiden said with a smile. “I’m sure you’ll be smart enough to keep your mouth shut about our little chat.”
“I won’t say anything.” Warren looked at me. “But if I see you when I’m on duty, I won’t let you go.”
“As if you could ever catch us.” Jaiden snorted.
“Oh, believe that as much as you want,” Warren said. “By running away from the cops, who, by the way, only want to question you and get your side of the story for their investigation, you’re only confirming Sophia’s words. But I guess two criminals like you know that you’re guilty, so that’s why you can’t let anyone catch you.”
“That’s none of your business,” I said, then met Jaiden’s eyes. We should be getting out of here. The longer we stayed, the bigger the chances Warren had something on him that could alert the cops to come after us. Sure, maybe he wasn’t stupid enough to risk our wrath but if he knew he could get away with it... “Jaiden.”
“Let’s go.” Jaiden turned into a shimmering cloud, and I did the same. As we disappeared through the hole under the door, a strange feeling of dread filled my stomach. This was all wrong. We should be trying to discredit Sophia’s story and not helping her, but first we had to find her and stop her from doing more damage.
“This is so not helping,” I said. “Sophia has too many connections in high places if she could get all the info scrubbed as if it never existed.”
“Maybe there’s another way to stop her,” Jaiden said as we fle
w toward the roof. Going out this way seemed like a better idea than going back through the main door. Another tainted elemental could spot us if we emerged onto the street, and if Warren’s suspicion that Sophia was working with one of us was true, then we had even more problems. But why would one of us be helping her? Unless she threatened them somehow or promised them protection of some kind.
“Do you have any ideas?” I whizzed past the stairway.
“I could turn myself in and explain that you were acting against your will,” he said.
“What?” I nearly slammed into the wall. “Absolutely not. Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“I killed those people, Moira. You... you killed in self-defense, to protect the others, and when you couldn’t control yourself. And I...”
“No. You were acting on your father’s orders.”
“Yeah, but I had a choice. I didn’t have to do it.” He materialized and stopped in the middle of the roof.
“And what would he have done if you hadn’t? He’d find another way to kill them and hurt you.” I turned visible and placed my hand on his cheek. His dark eyes were restless as he looked at me, his shoulders curling. “You told me they weren’t all innocent people.”
He bent his head. “Yeah, but... I shouldn’t have... I shouldn’t have done it.” He pulled away from my touch and turned his back to me.
“Turning yourself in to the cops won’t change the past.” I raised my voice. “We did what we did. We can’t go back and do differently, but we can do something good with our powers. We’re some of the most powerful tainteds out there, and if someone can find and stop Sophia, it’s us. She’s not only accusing us of being murderers. If she were, things would be simple, but she’s blaming everyone and claiming we’re all the same, and if one of us gets arrested, I’m sure she’ll come out with some proof or use something against us. We can’t win this until we know who we’re dealing with. If her connections are that good, many people will be in danger.”
He faced me, a frown creasing his brow. “Maybe you’re right. I just... I’ve been feeling strange lately. Like my head is going to explode or something.”
I took a step toward him. “It’s your elements, isn’t it? You know they’re expiring and it’s making you anxious.”
“I guess.” He licked his lips. “I don’t know. With Sophia and my father missing, and that footage... it brings back bad memories.”
“What happens when your elements weaken? Would you just lose them forever or something?” I wasn’t sure how the serum worked exactly.
“I... I lose my ability to use them. I’ve never had to go without the serum long enough for them to completely drain, so I don’t know what happens.” He took a deep breath and placed his arms around my waist, tugging me toward him so our noses almost touched. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s hope Lily has better luck. She’s resourceful.”
“Yeah.” My lips parted and I looked up at him, then pressed my mouth against his. Slipping my fingers through his dark brown hair, I deepened the kiss. When we broke apart, a smile spread across my face. “I have an idea. Let’s forget all this drama for a moment.”
Jaiden’s eyebrows rose up.
“Come on.” I grabbed his hand and turned us both into air. We flew to the other side of the city, and I didn’t stop until we were at the top of a clock tower. Materializing right under the clock, we settled on a stone windowsill. I dangled my feet over the edge and watched the city as it sank into the darkness, the flashy lights blinking everywhere. A small smile appeared on Jaiden’s lips and I leaned my head against his shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around me.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I asked, glad that we didn’t have to be afraid we’d lose our balance and fall to our deaths. At least that was a nice, useful, non-dangerous perk of our abilities.
“Yeah,” he said, planting a soft kiss onto my hair. We sat there watching the sky and forgetting our worries for a couple of hours.
Chapter 5
The next morning my phone rang, rousing me from my sleep. I felt across my nightstand for the phone and nearly shoved the lamp and glass of water off it. Blindly pressing the answer button, I put the phone against my ear. “Yeah?”
“Moira, hey, it’s me,” Marissa said. “Are you up?”
“I’m still in bed. Why?” I pushed myself up on my elbows, glancing at Jaiden, who stirred next to me. We’d found an empty hotel room last night and fallen asleep almost immediately. Flying around like a crazy person could be exhausting.
“Turn on the TV. There’s a debate going on,” she said. “Something like a pro- and anti-tainteds campaign. You wanted to know how people would react, and I think that’s the closest we’ve got.”
“Okay, thanks.” I looked around the room for a remote, glad that we’d picked a decent hotel that had a functioning television.
“Talk to you later,” Marissa said and ended the call. Placing the phone back on the nightstand, I spotted the remote across the room and used my air to toss it onto the bed.
“What are you doing?” Jaiden asked, stretching out, his hair disheveled. “Want to watch morning cartoons?”
“No matter how much I’d like to watch cartoons, that’s not it. Marissa told me they were discussing tainteds on one of the channels.” I turned on the TV, realizing Marissa hadn’t told me which channel, but I assumed I’d find it easily enough. If the topic was so important, it wouldn’t be on some random entertainment channel.
Jaiden sat up, running both of his hands through his hair, a frown creasing his brow. “This should be interesting.”
“Yeah.” I flipped through the channels until I found the right one. Two women were sitting in a small, light blue studio. The blonde had her arms clasped in her lap, her face serious, her hazel eyes intent on her interviewer, who had long curly dark hair and big dark brown eyes rimmed with kohl.
“So you’re saying it’s our fault we manipulated our children’s genes in hopes they wouldn’t inherit the disease or weak elements?” the dark-haired woman asked.
“No, Ella, that’s not even close to what I’m saying.” The blonde pressed her red lips into a tight line. “The genetic manipulation is responsible for creating this new type of elemental, but I’m not saying it’s necessarily a bad thing. We wanted to eradicate magic disease and have stronger elements, like you said, and look, we have that. These tainted elementals have very strong elements and they don’t have the disease. And apparently carriers can’t feel their elements either.”
“But there was a case of one tainted elemental who had the disease, or at least that’s what the latest reports are claiming.”
“It could be true, but it appears that the elemental was infected later and not born with the disease.”
Someone must have leaked that info about Blake, because I couldn’t imagine Lily doing that, or maybe she’d had no choice since someone had gotten the footage of Blake displaying abilities that didn’t belong to carriers or element preservers.
“I’m still not convinced that’s a good thing.” Ella shook her head. “The abilities they have are... too much. I mean, anyone can mind-control you or kill you... That’s... I’m sorry, but that’s terrifying. Aren’t you afraid for your life?”
“I know there’s some footage about special abilities that could pose a threat to people, but we’ve been living with tainted elementals without knowing it and didn’t notice any problems or drastic increase in crime. They’re just powerful teenagers. Just because they have these abilities doesn’t mean they’re going to use them to hurt anyone or do bad things,” the blonde said. “How many elementals have strong abilities and could use them for nefarious deeds? But they don’t do it, because they’re good, decent people. Magic disease carriers were once considered such a threat, but look at them now. Most of them can lead normal and happy lives in a way that is safe for everyone. We shouldn’t persecute or marginalize those children just because their elements are stronger than ours.”
“B
ut how can you know you weren’t mind-controlled to think this? And why wouldn’t they use those abilities if they could? I can imagine myself mind-controlling my way out of trouble or to get what I want.” A ghost of a smile traced Ella’s lips. “In fact, I saw a perfect pair of shoes yesterday. Really expensive. Imagine if I had the ability to fly inside and take them without being seen. Why wouldn’t I do that? Tell me, Miranda. Wouldn’t you at least be tempted?”
“Actually,” Miranda said. “You could walk into that shop in a mask and threaten the sales lady with your element, rip out the camera, and run away. Or you could take a gun. Why not? Then you can protect yourself with the help of carriers, who can sense if the cops with elements are coming.”
Ella frowned, looking uncertain for a moment.
“Bad people will always find a way to do bad things, but that doesn’t mean every kid with powerful elements will use them to commit crimes. Imagine what we could do with the help of tainted elementals. We could save people’s lives if those elementals who can fly decide to help. What we should be doing is showing those kids how to be decent people, and not reject them and force them to act against us,” Miranda said. “We can’t treat them as if they were some abominations that shouldn’t have been created. They don’t have any fault in what’s going on, and many of them only have more than one element and their abilities aren’t different from those of element preservers or regular elementals. If we judge everyone for crimes of one person, then we might as well condemn ourselves because there are killers among us too.”
“What about Moira Arnolds and Jaiden Maiers?” Ella suddenly asked, and I flinched. “Are we supposed to accept that they couldn’t help who they are, so they ended up killing people with their minds?”
“It hasn’t been confirmed yet that they can do that.”
“But if they can? Those videos look very real to me.”
“If it’s all real, then there should be an investigation, and they should be tried like any other person in such a situation.”
Hunted (Tainted Elements, #5) Page 3