The Essential Elements: Boxed Set

by Elle Middaugh

  What on earth made me qualified to deal with such things? I was no medic. I wasn’t immune to the sight and smell of trauma. I was simply an Elemental with a desire to do good. Were good intentions enough? Helping these people survive this terrible thing Nicholai had done…was it enough? All I knew was that I had to try. I didn’t think I could live with myself otherwise.

  I licked my lips and turned back.

  “I have to get these metal shards out before I can stem the bleeding…” But I was talking to myself—she’d passed out cold.

  There was no real grace to my removal. Though I tried to be as gentle as possible, my main goal was to get rid of them quickly. Sealing off the blood flow with laser-hot heat was really the only thing I had going for me.

  From the corner of my eye, I noticed Cade sprinting toward me. Before I could even blink, his face was right in front of mine.

  “Come on, Val! We gotta go! The building’s secure, but I found a trail. We need to follow it before it goes cold.”

  I shook my head. “Are you crazy? There are people here who need our help.”

  “Val…” He hesitated, lips twisting. Eyes grazing over our surroundings. So hell-bent on playing vigilante, but also so receptive to compassion.

  I took it upon myself to tip his scales.

  “Grab your salve and start healing the wounds that have already been singed. I don’t have many left. Kale has been helping, too.”

  He gave me a tiny smile. “You’re amazing.”

  Then he bent down and spread his palm over the poor girl’s back. At his command, the metal pieces swayed back and forth, dislodging almost painlessly; I could tell from the way her body suddenly relaxed. He collected them all in his hand.

  “Metal is an ore of the earth,” he said with a sigh. “I wish I’d been here sooner.”

  I leaned in and thought about kissing him. “You’re amazing, too.”

  Then I swallowed, refocused, and shooed him off.

  I quickly got back to work on the girl, who was slowly stirring back into consciousness. My hot fingers dug in again and again, boiling her blood until it was coagulated. It wasn’t nearly as pleasant for her as ditching the metal had been. She grit her teeth against the pain, but high-pitched squeals slipped through.

  I glanced up.

  Most able-bodied people had escaped by then. There was no sign of my friends, and I could only assume they’d gotten lost in the disarray. Maybe they were outside directing people to safety?

  Cade was rushing around, slathering his herbal medicine on the helpless victims scattered across the floor. Kale was treating more wounds; some sort of bodily steam permeated the air above his current patient.

  Fear of doing more harm than good suddenly swam through my mind. Like a shark, it circled around and drew nearer, raising my panic levels. What if I burned something important? What if I sealed off a major vein or artery? These people would die. I tried to soothe myself with the knowledge that they definitely would’ve bled out if I hadn’t done something.

  It was of little consolation.

  Sirens wailed outside. My head fell back and my eyes dropped closed.

  Thank God.

  “Time to go, Kale,” Cade said. “We’ve done all we can. The professionals can take it from here.”

  Kale nodded and disappeared through a side door.

  Cade looked at me. “You ready to find that trail?”

  I nodded then glanced around the room one last time.

  Bloodied people lay strewn about in contorted positions. Glass, wood, and concrete littered the floor. Dust and smoke hung heavy at the bottom of the room. Everything we’d worked so hard to prevent stared back at us with hollow eyes.

  More guilt welled inside of me.

  Cade grabbed my hand and jerked me forward, pulling me out of my thoughts. He led us into a stairwell and down a floor. From there, we took a back door into the cold night air. As he bent down to assess the earth, I pulled my elbows in tight and looked around.

  Flashing red and blue lights lit up the sky in a dull glow. The sense of emergency I’d expected to feel was strangely absent. Everything seemed slow and surreal. Maybe I was experiencing some sort of shock?

  Cade shook his head and glanced ahead. “I can’t feel it now, but the person was going that way. Maybe we can catch it farther up the path?”

  He started running. I kicked my red heels off and followed.

  There was no ‘path’, just State Street and stop lights until they disappeared into the darkness. The suspected bomber could’ve been miles away by then. Did it really even matter who’d carried out the deed? We knew damn well who was behind it.

  I stared out into the pitch black, wishing there was something I could do. It would’ve been so convenient to use my own tracking abilities. I glanced at the river…then at the sky…then to the ground. An idea rippled through my head.

  I threw all my concentration into calling a storm. My bracelet stirred into a soft glow as clouds moved in and covered the moon. Thunder rolled from somewhere in the distance. My necklace shimmered. The temperature rose. The air dampened and droplets started falling.

  It was more like a late spring rain than a January sleet.

  The drops picked up speed, falling like straight lines to the asphalt. Water quickly puddled on the streets, and the raindrops hammered down like a thousand nails. It would’ve been difficult for a non-Water to see through.

  Cade slowed to a stop, and I knelt down to palm the choppy puddles. Power surged out all around me. It rushed farther than I could see.

  This was nothing like feeling the patchy forest snow. This was vibrant and chaotic and energizing. I could feel cars moving, people walking, creatures skittering, all with precise distances and directions. I knew which cars were speeding, which people were running, which animals were hopping. It was like the water had unlocked a part of my brain I never even knew existed.

  “Way up ahead,” I said, concentrating. “Almost to the woods. I can’t read who it is, so the person’s not a Water, but they’re running too fast to be out for a jog.”

  We immediately tore into a sprint.

  The woods in question were neither the West Woods nor the ones near East End. They were in between, to the north. Our suspect was heading to Northland, and it made my stomach crawl. Nothing good ever seemed to come out of that town.

  We were gaining on them; I didn’t think they realized they were being followed. That pretty much ruled out the possibility of them being an Earth, which meant we were dealing with a Fire or a Wind. A list of each rolled out in my mind. I didn’t even want to contemplate the possibilities.

  Then the trail died.

  As we neared the woods, I realized why. When the pavement ended and the tree line began, there were no longer any pools of water. The soil had sucked it up like a sponge.

  I faltered, but Cade picked up the slack.

  “Come on,” he said. “I’ll take it from here. I can feel the trail again.”

  We rushed through the woods. Branches and fallen debris moved carefully out of the way as we passed. The ground smoothed out and we picked up the pace.

  Suddenly, the whole forest lit up in a wave of heat. An explosion had gone off barely ten feet in front of us.

  It was too late to stop running, our momentum too strong, but I doubted Cade would’ve stopped anyway. He jumped, preparing to launch through the fire, but I snuffed it out before his toes had a chance to touch it.

  When he landed, he pinned our suspect right to the ground.

  I knew that Fire.

  “Chase?” I said, shocked.

  “Valerie?” His eyes went wide. “What are you doing here?”

  “No, what are you doing here?” I demanded. “I told you to leave.”

  He turned to Cade. “What’s the matter, pretty boy? Can’t fight your own battles anymore?”

  The earth opened up, and for the second time in my strange life, I watched Chase get swallowed up to the neck in dirt.


  Cade smirked. “Come at me, then.”

  Chase glared daggers at him.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I said, angrily repeating myself.

  He diverted his eyes to me. They softened, and he started laughing, slowly at first, but it quickly crescendoed into a maniacal sort of thing.

  Who’s the psycho now? I wondered, thinking of Elise’s freak-out. He was nothing more than a cackling, disembodied head in the ground.

  “Oh Valerie,” he said, sighing as the laughter died down. “You burst into this world and immediately thought you had it all figured out, but you are so fucking clueless.”

  I felt like I’d been slapped in the face.

  “You work for Nicholai, don’t you?” I asked.

  He raised a brow but said nothing.

  I shook my head. “I trusted you…Holden trusted you. We all did!”

  His responding smile was feral. “Some of your supposed ‘friends’ are decades old! They’ve had agendas since before you were born! Who the hell do you think you can trust?”

  My face went pale. How could I not have entertained that thought before? Everyone knew how old I was; most of them had literally watched as I came into power, but them? How could I know for sure?

  I glanced at Cade uncertainly, reluctant to accuse him. “How old are you?”

  Chase laughed out loud again. “Him?” Then he laughed some more. “His fledgling powers are just as unruly as yours! Who creates a damn earthquake over a girl?”

  Cade smacked him in the head. “Whose ‘unruly’ powers have you trapped underground, huh?”

  Chase jerked his head and cracked his neck. “I suppose it’s your emotional immaturity that gives you away, then.”

  “Emotional immaturity?” I said, shouting. “You just tried to blow up a building full of innocent people! How mature is that?”

  His face scrunched. “Maturity isn’t the issue there, morality is, and I’ve been alive for too long to buy into that bullshit anymore.”

  “Unbelievable…” I said, shaking my head.

  “Besides,” Chase continued. “Who’s to say they were all innocent?”

  “A hell of a lot more innocent than you,” Cade decided.

  Chase looked like he’d have shrugged if he could. “Probably so. Who’s gonna serve me my justice then? You?” Then he looked at me. “You?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m more moral than that.”

  He chuckled. “Wait a few centuries then let me know how that works out for you.”

  “Maybe you’ll be dead by then,” Cade said nonchalantly.

  “Then call me in the afterlife, asshole.”

  “What?” I said, mind suddenly reeling. “Is that even possible?”

  Chase’s brows furrowed. “What? Calling the dead? Of course. It just depends on how far you’re willing to travel down the dark path.”

  I shook my head. “Not at all.”

  “I don’t know, Val…” he said, hinting. “I hear you’ve already gotten some blood on your hands.”

  I glanced at them disconcertedly, like the evidence was somehow physically visible.

  “Those were…accidents,” I said quietly.

  “That’s how they all start out. Most people don’t develop intent until they’re more used to the idea. If you kill once, you can kill a thousand times. It only gets easier.”

  Was this even real? Was this actually Chase Theron? The guy who helped me control my fire around almost every turn? The guy I’d once had a crush on?

  I stared into his electric blue eyes but came up wanting. Whatever I was hoping to find, I didn’t see it there.

  Cade sighed and changed the subject. “Which of our friends have been playing us?”

  “No data.”

  “Bullshit. Is it Holden? Sienna, Jay, Elise? Loren?”

  Chase scrutinized him. “I never did understand what she saw in you.”

  Cade scoffed. “Me either.”

  “A Skyden girl…” he continued. “The most elite of the Elite. You’re insane for not capitalizing on that.”

  This time I smacked his head. “What’s Nicholai’s next move?”

  “Ow! You’re right, Val, geez—you’re an Elitist catch, too, probably even higher on the totem pole than Loren nowadays, thanks to your grandfather.”

  “Chase!” I said, shouting because I was frustrated again. “What’s his next move?”

  “No idea.”

  Cade glared at him. “If you have no answers, what good are you?”

  “Good question.”

  I rolled my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. We were getting things out of him, just not answers. He was teasing us; I didn’t think he had any intention whatsoever of answering our questions.

  “What will you do,” I asked, “if we let you go?”

  He smiled, eyes lighting up slightly. “The same thing I’ve been doing for centuries.”

  “Which is?”

  “Anything in my power to further the Elitist agenda.”

  My shoulders slumped. “Why? Why are so many people on board with this?”

  Chase shook his head. “It’s a matter of experience, Valerie. The more you experience, the more it desensitizes you. Some people experience a lot of awful shit early on—they’re the cynics, the ones who learn right away that the world is evil and people are too. Others experience it over time. Most humans don’t have enough time to draw these conclusions, but Elementals do.”

  He licked his lips.

  “Humans are inherently evil. We’ve watched them wipe each other out every other century. We’ve seen them exploit their own people. Their inability to learn from their mistakes makes them no better than cattle, a herd of idiots in desperate need of a shepherd. That’s where we come in.”

  I almost laughed out loud. “Elitists? Kindhearted human shepherds? Give me a break.”

  “Think what you will,” he said.

  “I will. In fact, I think you just essentially described yourselves. Wiping out your own kind, exploiting them, using them, deceiving them—you’re the ones who need to be herded up and contained.”

  He nodded, contemplating my words. “Sure. So if humans and Elitists are nothing more than savage animals, Modernists and Traditionalists must be the only salvageable people on earth.”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “It was inadvertently implied.” He cocked his head. “Or are we all just equally damned? Is there no point in any of us being alive? Who gets to make that call? And if none of us are worthy of the lives we’ve been given, then maybe we have to acknowledge the idea that it’s not actually about salvation or damnation, that this life isn’t about good versus evil. Maybe it’s about the freedom to live how you choose? Maybe the real test is breaking down any barrier that keeps you from succeeding? Maybe—”

  Cade growled and buried Chase up to his nose. There was enough room for him to breathe, but not to speak.

  “I don’t like hearing shit like that,” he muttered.

  I agreed. Evil words off a cunning tongue wouldn’t do us any favors. People could talk themselves into anything, and I didn’t need him confusing me, nudging me even the slightest degree off the straight and narrow.

  “What should we do?” I asked.

  Cade shook his head. “You let him go once already. He came right back and blew up a building full of people. Imagine what he’ll do next.”

  “What are you saying?” My brows were seriously drawn. “That we keep him hostage? That we kill him?”

  Cade looked at the ground, fingers trembling slightly. “I don’t know, Val.”

  I could hardly breathe.

  Was the life of one worth the lives of countless others? Or was murder simply murder?

  I thought of my dad, and the navy, and all the other military personnel across the world. To them, the question was obvious; I supposed it was obvious to me too. Chase just wasn’t the answer. Nicholai was the one I’d be willing to sacrifice.

 
I shook my head, swallowing hard. “We can’t kill him, Cade.”

  He nodded his agreement. “I know, I just don’t know what else to do.”

  During our moment of distraction, Chase decided to make a move. All at once, the ground surrounding him turned to dust. Apparently he’d used his fire to heat the earth and evaporate any water in the nearby soil.

  He leapt from the ground and flipped over into a crouch. Wildness swirled in his eyes as adrenaline gave him the sort of vibrancy that drugs give a junkie.

  “You should’ve just killed me,” he said with an arrogant smile.

  Then he launched at us.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  He hit me first.

  His fist pounded into my cheekbone so hard I heard it crunch, and the pain was so all-encompassing that it almost felt numb. When I hit the ground, it knocked the wind right out of me.

  Chase swung at Cade next, but having just witnessed me fall, he was better prepared. He ducked out of the way and landed a right hook into Chase’s stomach. It dropped him down to a knee.

  While he was halfway down, I took a few gulps of air and got back up. I was dizzy and my head was throbbing. From the look in Cade’s eyes, my face must’ve looked pretty bad. I brought a gentle finger to my cheek. My skin was tight and puffy. My fingertip was smeared with blood.

  Great.

  Chase rolled to the side and righted himself, preparing for round two.

  We formed the three points of a triangle, neither of us daring to expose our backs.

  He threw a fireball at Cade, but I made it disappear. He tried again, faster this time, but still I snuffed it out. He realized he needed to change tactics.

  With an irritated growl, he rushed at me, slamming me into the ground with enough force to crack a rib. I reached back and threw as much strength as I could into punching him in the face. His nose immediately started bleeding, and he withdrew.

  Cade charged at him, but Chase ducked and flipped him over his back like a ragdoll. As Cade picked himself up off the ground, I scrambled to my feet and took Chase’s legs out.

  When he fell, he dragged me down with him. I was in a headlock the next second.

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked, pleading as I tried to squeeze out of his grasp.