A Taste of Ice (The Elementals)

by Hanna Martine

She ripped off his T-shirt, meaning to throw it in the corner, but instead folded it neatly and placed it on the dresser, because that’s what she knew he’d like. She couldn’t find her underwear and stepped into the orange dress anyway. The sequins felt cold on her skin and she broke out in goose bumps. Hissing with pain, she slid her swollen feet back into the ridiculous shoes, trying not to remember how they’d looked at the ends of her legs, wrapped around Xavier’s head as he buried his tongue in her.

  No, she couldn’t give up on him. There was something there—in the air between them, in the way they connected and touched. The way they made each other smile, the way they could talk. Forget the fact she didn’t live in Colorado, that she was supposed to leave in a week. She wasn’t a coward. She didn’t run away. She ran toward problems, and she sure as hell tried to fix them before they grew into something out of control.

  It was very clear that he’d taken a chance on getting involved with her. She couldn’t call him a jerk and just walk out. One, that was what he expected, to be left alone again. And two, she wasn’t built that way. That was what a teenager would do. Not someone who cared for the other person.

  She went to the front hall closet where he’d hung her coat. There were only two other coats inside, and when she pulled hers down, the metal hangers rattled, awful and lonely.

  Standing in the middle of the living room, where he’d undressed her so carefully and, yes, so lovingly, she pulled on her coat over her dress. He hadn’t moved an inch. His hand still clutched the phone, his arm straight out from his body.

  “When you’re ready to talk,” she told him gently, “I’m here for you. Anytime.”

  His forehead dropped to his biceps. His eyes squeezed tightly shut.

  She left.

  EIGHTEEN

  Going on midnight, lonely as fuck. Xavier didn’t remember trudging home after work. Hell, he didn’t even remember working. If it weren’t for the preps and dishes he’d done a thousand times, he probably wouldn’t have survived.

  Now he slouched in the beige recliner in his living room. House completely dark. The streetlight on the corner outside cast pallid light through the picture window and draped him in weird shadows. He thought about Cat because he couldn’t not think about her. Not when she’d become the center of his world after mere days.

  Ofarian. If what he’d seen that morning was true, Cat was a fucking Ofarian.

  The easiest way to deal with this would be to go about his life until she left town. Then he’d never have to see her again. Except…he’d never see her again. And wasn’t it screwed up that that prospect sickened him more than the source of her blood?

  Three years ago he’d fled San Francisco, the hotbed of Ofarian culture, and he managed to run right back into their arms. He’d never get away.

  Elbows perched on the worn armrests, he buried his face in his hands. They smelled faintly of garlic, though he’d scrubbed them until they stung.

  For the first time ever, he hated the silence of this house he’d bought with Gwen Carroway’s money. The money she’d earned from the lives of his kinsmen and lovers and children. The money she’d given Xavier to clear her conscience. He didn’t like spending it, which is why his place was decked out like a time warp, but he’d always loved the refuge it provided.

  Now it felt like his cell in the Plant. Cold, dark, the loneliest place in the universe.

  When he took his hands away from his face, the Burned Man was perched on the arm of Xavier’s brown velour sofa, one boot propped up on the cushions. He wore the old blue Plant guard uniform, and the shadows from the streetlamp settled into the twisted webbing of his melted skin. The acrid odor of cigarettes filled the small room. Xavier had always found that disturbing, that the man covered in fire damage always smelled like smoke.

  Interesting turn of events.

  “Fuck you,” Xavier said aloud.

  No, thanks. Though I never knew you liked to fuck my kind. The Burned Man peered down the hall to the bedroom.

  “She’s not Ofarian. She can’t be.”

  Yes, she is. She’s messed with your head so much you don’t believe your own eyes.

  For once the Burned Man was right. Xavier had lost perspective.

  He shoved from the chair and stalked into the kitchen, flipping on the weak bulb over the stove, because it was all the light he could stand at the moment. He yanked out the junk drawer, found the tiny scrap of paper taped to the very back. He stared at the ten numbers for a long while, then picked up the phone and dialed.

  Love it, the Burned Man scoffed at his back. After all this time, all this effort trying to escape, and you just come running back to us. Say hi to Ms. Carroway for me.

  Xavier whipped around, but the Burned Man had vanished from the couch.

  The phone rang on the other end of the line. The waiting made him nauseous.

  Gwen answered, out of breath. “Hello?”

  Years since they’d talked. Even longer since she’d stood with him on the Lake Tahoe dock as he chose to stay behind on Earth. He’d been the one to use his glamour to help send every other Tedran safely and secretly back to the stars.

  “Uh, yeah.” He ground the heel of one palm into his eyelid. “I just realized it’s after one in Chicago.”

  “I don’t care, Xavier. It doesn’t matter. I’m just glad you’re there.”

  The relief in her voice was palpable and it terrified him. He sidled back to the stove, clicked off the light. Darkness drew around him again.

  “That Xavier?” came Reed’s groggy voice close to Gwen’s phone.

  “Yeah,” Gwen told her lover—husband? Had they ever gotten married? Then she asked Xavier, “Are you all right?”

  “You didn’t call just to check up on me. What’s going on.” He was fully aware of the flatness of his voice, and that Gwen’s concern was very real. She didn’t have a false bone in her body.

  “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for days.” Her voice shook. “Two Ofarians have gone missing.”

  He rubbed absently at his temple. “Sorry to hear that.” Not really. “What does that have to do with me?”

  “Because the first one vanished last month from Denver. The second one seven days ago. From Vail. That’s not far from you, is it?”

  “Less than an hour away.” Suddenly his mouth went sticky-dry. “Why are there Ofarians in Colorado? I thought you were the only one to leave California.” Please, please say that’s true.

  “When the Board was in control, they deliberately contained us there. Griffin stopped that. We can live anywhere we want now. We even work in the Primary world. You’re not going to believe this, but we hired Adine to help us transition in smoothly. Identities and paperwork, and the like.”

  But all Xavier heard was the part about them living anywhere. “Why did you call to tell me about this?”

  Gwen sighed. “I know you want to forget it, but you’re Secondary. I’ve been worried about you.”

  “Me? Why? Isn’t this an Ofarian problem?”

  He heard the rustling of bedcovers.

  “Others are gone, too,” she said.

  “Others?” He steadied himself on the counter edge.

  “Other Secondaries. Besides Ofarians. Besides…you.”

  The motor in the refrigerator kicked on, filling the small kitchen with an easy hum. “What are you saying? That there are other races here on Earth?”

  “Yes.”

  That changed so much. Too much. His head started to spin and ache. “I had no idea.”

  Gwen made a faint, exasperated sound. “Of course you didn’t. You made it perfectly clear you didn’t want to be a part of our world any longer. And I’ve respected that. But I hope you can forgive I had to break that wish to warn you that something bad is going on.”

  He wandered back into the dark living room, the phone cord stretching to the max, and stood before the picture window, one hand on his hip. “How do you know it’s something bad?”

  “Because th
e disappearances seem to be systematic. We haven’t been given access to all the information, but Reed’s analyzed the patterns. There are no…bodies. It’s like they’ve just disappeared. Or been taken.”

  “Yeah, well, he should know.”

  “He does know. It’s definitely foul play. And with Vail so close, I wanted to warn you, to tell you to keep an eye out for anything unusual.”

  “Turnkorner’s going on right now. There’s all sorts of unusual happenings.”

  “Xavier.” Her patience snapped. “I’ve been freaking out over here. Why didn’t you answer your phone the other day? Why don’t you have voice mail or a cell phone like everyone else? Why’d you hang up on me this morning?”

  He inhaled, and Cat’s phantom scent came to him. It buckled his knees and he fell back into the recliner. “I’ve been busy.”

  “I’ve been this close to getting on a plane to Colorado.”

  “Don’t do that.”

  She sighed again.

  “Tell me about these other Secondaries,” he said. “What are they?”

  “Hold on a sec.”

  “Where are you going?” Reed mumbled in the background.

  “Go back to sleep,” Gwen told him, and Xavier heard her give him a kiss. “Going to talk to Xavier in the living room.” There was the sound of bare feet on tile, then nothing, then Gwen’s voice again. “Okay, I’m here.”

  “The other Secondaries,” he prompted.

  “The Board, before we took them down, had apparently known about them. Not much information, just vague sightings and hearsay and chance encounters, that sort of thing. The Board was starting to research them, go after them, right around the time I was…well, you know. That project fell away once Griffin took over and we had to restructure, but soon it became his number-one priority: find others like us.”

  “And he did, I take it.”

  “Xavier, it’s incredible. It’s not like there are five or six random people scratching out a life in the backwoods. There are whole societies of other races who originated in the stars, who immigrated here over time. Huge enclaves all over the world. Thousands of each kind. And they all knew about each other—that’s what’s so crazy to us. They’d already banded together and they knew about us but they never came forward.”

  Xavier didn’t find that all too crazy. The Ofarians had once been pretty unapproachable. Probably still were.

  “There’s even a whole system of government between them,” Gwen went on. “It’s called the Senatus and it meets yearly. About three years ago Griffin appealed to the Senatus for the Ofarians’ inclusion, but there was this big, awful misunderstanding.”

  “Let me guess. They didn’t let you guys in.”

  Awkward silence. “It’s worse than that. Things are pretty strained right now between us and them. Hair-trigger, I might even say. But we were still able to get some basic information about their missing people—Adine’s amazing. That’s how we know something bad is happening on a big scale. What Griffin and I want is to find their missing people and bring them home. Maybe that will get the Senatus to see we’re not as selfish as they think.”

  Wow, so much had happened in the years since he’d hid in the kitchen. The Secondary world had expanded while his had contracted.

  “Who are they?” he asked. “What kind of Secondaries?”

  “Elementals, mostly. They can control air and earth and fire…it’s pretty amazing. We want to know them better. We want them to know us.” She sounded wistful and frustrated.

  He nudged his toe into the beam of fuzzy light striping his carpet. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Anything, Xavier. You know that.” Her goodness—her honesty and selflessness—had almost destroyed him once. Then it had saved him, and for that he owed Gwen more than he could ever repay.

  “You guys still keep pretty close tabs on all your people? You know where they are, who they mate with, that sort of thing?”

  “Yes. Even though we can live and work anywhere now, Griffin has insisted we stay closely knit, for safety’s sake. But he’s made everything transparent. Things are so different now.”

  He couldn’t believe he was about to ask this, but he had to know for sure. “What about records from twenty-five or so years ago?”

  She made a doubtful noise. “We’ve been trying to piece together everything that happened while the Board was in control, but data is splotchy. They hid a lot, destroyed more, encrypted others.” Her voice dipped low. “Why? What’s happened?”

  “Would it have been possible for an Ofarian to have been born outside of California? Is it still possible for one to not know who or what she is?”

  The silence on the other end dug deep into his brain.

  “There’s this girl,” he rushed on, “and I think she might be Ofarian. She was abandoned as a baby, doesn’t know anything about Secondaries, but she’s obsessed with water. And today I thought I saw—”

  “What?” Gwen went breathless. “What did you see?”

  He looked over his shoulder at the kitchen table. “She was, ah, spinning the water in her glass with a finger. And when she pulled it out, the water stayed connected to her hand. The water came out of the glass, Gwen. Rose straight up and stayed there, defying gravity. I’d swear it on anything.”

  “Did she say anything? Words that sounded Ofarian?”

  “No. Nothing. It just happened.”

  “If she was raised by Primaries,” Gwen said slowly, “the water’s been trying to communicate with her. She’s probably like a magnet to it. It wants to be part of her, so when she pulls away without touching it, it follows.”

  Xavier swore under his breath.

  “How well do you know her?” Gwen padded the question in a casual tone, but there was a layer of sympathy underneath, as if she knew exactly what was going on between Xavier and Cat.

  “Well enough,” Xavier said, closing his eyes.

  “Is she there with you?”

  The emptiness sat hard on his chest. “No. Not anymore. I don’t know…Gwen, I don’t know if I can face her again.”

  “Have you heard nothing of what I just told you? If she’s Ofarian and two others have gone missing nearby, she could be in danger. You know that, right?”

  He waved a hand at no one. “You’re making assumptions.”

  “About the disappearances, yes. But it’s better to be cautious, don’t you think?”

  He pressed his lips together, bowed his head.

  “There’s another danger, Xavier. If she doesn’t learn to communicate with water in the way her body is meant to, her mind could revolt. In fact I’m a little surprised it hasn’t already. It wants her to do one thing and her body simply can’t. There’s a risk of mental instability.”

  He recalled how Cat had spoken of her confusing inspiration, how painting was the only way to express how water made her feel. He could still see each of her paintings—the agitation and mystery and devotion behind each one. Perhaps that instability had already manifested.

  “I don’t want to be the one to tell her,” he said.

  Gwen made a frustrated sound. “You were always good at convincing yourself of things that would make your own existence easier. But this is someone else’s life. Someone you clearly care about. Ofarians have disappeared near you. There’s no more time. Are you willing to gamble her safety?”

  His gums hurt as he ground his teeth together.

  “I’m not,” she said. “If she’s one of ours, she needs to be protected. She needs to be told.”

  He pushed up from the recliner, started to pace across the matted carpet. “You want me to do it.”

  “I’m in Chicago. You’re there. Tell her. Keep an eye on her.”

  “Fuck.” He stopped and braced one arm on the wall. “Fuck.”

  “Tell me you get it.” He recognized her tone of voice. The one that said she’d set her mind to something and if she didn’t get the help she was looking for, she’d come in and do it herself, and to
hell with anyone who got in her way. “Tell me you understand why she has to be told and what I’m asking you to do.”

  “You’re not ordering me?”

  “I would never do that.”

  He exhaled. “I know you wouldn’t.”

  That made it all the more difficult, because Gwen was so reasonable and so right. She would never, ever bring up all she’d done for Xavier and his people, but she didn’t have to. He’d never forget all that he owed her.

  But he wouldn’t do this solely for Gwen. He realized that he wanted to protect Cat. “I freaked out, Gwen. I shut down. I shut her out. When she left, things were bad.”

  “What was the last thing she said to you?”

  He drew a breath and it rattled in his chest. When he spoke the sound was thin. “That she’d be there to talk, if I wanted.”

  “See, that’s woman code for: I’m not giving up on you.”

  “She’s Ofarian.”

  Gwen paused. “It’s hard, Xavier, to fall for someone against your better judgment. You don’t think I know that?” Five years ago Gwen and Reed, a Primary, had valiantly fought their attraction, but love had always come back to them, no matter how hard they flung it away. “And this is more than your relationship with her. This could mean her safety. Her life. Please. Go to her. Tell her.”

  “What if she doesn’t believe me?”

  “Tell her to put her finger back in that water and say this.” She gave him an Ofarian phrase, made him repeat it until he got the inflection just right. It was the first time he’d ever said anything in that language and it made his skin crawl.

  “Good,” said Gwen. “Now give me everything you know about her and I’ll get on research.”

  He related all Cat had told him about growing up in Indiana, and what he’d guessed to be her birth year based on that story. He could hear Gwen’s fingers typing as he talked.

  “Will you give her my phone number? Tell her to call me?”

  The prospect of telling Cat actually started to appeal to his baser male instincts. Stand guard over a woman. He’d never been able to do that before; they’d always been snatched from him in the Plant. And Cat was so very worth saving.