Lost Causes

by Mia Marshall

  “I can’t hear you. Which is good, cause if I can’t hear you offering some weak-ass excuse, I’ll be less tempted to dump you overboard. You’re tilting the whole damn boat.”

  I offered my winning smile. She scowled with no humor, and I looked closer. There were dark circles under Sera’s eyes, her bronze skin was ashen, and she’d lost weight in the last few days.

  She wasn’t accessing fire to heal herself. Not when I was so close.

  I pulled against the restraints, then glanced pointedly around my watery cage. If she wanted to hear me, I needed to dispel the water I’d created while I slept.

  “Nope. No magic, not when we’re so close. And let’s face it, you aren’t saying anything that important.”

  I struggled, mouthing words at her. Considering that my most mature comment was “You’re not the boss of me,” it was for the best she couldn’t hear.

  Her smile wasn’t the mocking one I might have expected. It was relieved. “You’re still there.”

  With that, I stopped fighting and let her see me. Scared and uncertain, but me.

  “Good. Don’t ever do that again.”

  I nodded, though we both knew it wasn’t a promise I could keep.

  Heavy steps moved toward us, Mac joining Sera in the doorway. His jaw tightened when he saw the pool I’d created, and he was no more moved by my smile than Sera was. Unlike Sera, he stepped into the water, and with a surprisingly graceful combination of swimming and walking, he reached the restraints and untied them. We floated upwards, facing each other. When he stood on the bed, Mac’s head rose just above the water line.

  His white t-shirt clung to his body, and the water increased his hair’s natural wave. Even staring at me with a mix of concern and fear, he was damn hot.

  “Hi,” I said.

  He said nothing.

  “Sorry I tried to kill everyone?”

  He closed his eyes. His sharp exhale stirred the water. “Sera, can you give us a minute?”

  I heard her leave, but all my attention was on Mac. I waited for either anger or forgiveness. I wasn’t even sure which I’d prefer.

  He gave me neither. “We’re here.”

  “That’s good, right?”

  “I don’t know about good, but it’s necessary. After…” He swallowed and didn’t finish. “It’s our last chance, and we’re going to make it work. That’s the only option.”

  “I want this, too. I’ll do anything.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “It isn’t! I messed up on the boat, but I was trying. You have to know that’s true.” The surface of the water churned, doing its best to contradict my words.

  “That’s not what I’m talking about, though that was a disaster. Luke pushed you too fast.”

  “We had to try,” I insisted.

  “Maybe.” He grimaced. “My point is, you say you’ll do anything to save yourself, but you keep trying to save the rest of us. Sera talked to you about this already. You act like your life is secondary to ours. If one of us is in danger, you don’t even hesitate. You grab your magic without considering other options. The drug’s gone, Aidan. You don’t get another chance, so you’ve got to stop doing that.”

  He was right, but not entirely. “My life doesn’t matter more than yours. More than any of yours. I’m stronger than you and Sera. If it takes my power to save you, then I’m going to use it, and I’ll pay the cost, no matter what it is.”

  His fingers gripped my upper arms, squeezing a little too hard. “It’s not that simple. If I die, that’s it. It’s one death, and it’s okay. But if you lose this battle against yourself, there’s no telling what damage you’ll cause. Remember the stories about out-of-control duals raining death and destruction? This isn’t about us anymore.”

  I shook my head so fast wet hair slapped my cheeks. “No. It’s definitely not okay if you die. I deserve to have some say in this, and I say no. I’m the reason we’re all here, and I will not have a single one of you dying on my account. If I do cross over, one of you needs to kill me. That’s my choice.”

  The warmth seeped from his brown eyes. “Even if Sera could do it, she’ll be distracted learning what she can about her mother. Vivian’s not going. Luke’s an unknown. We can’t count on him.”

  “Mac…”

  “What would you do if I gave you a gun and told you to shoot me?”

  My shudder shook the water.

  “Exactly. I would drown myself a thousand times before I hurt you, Aidan. Any version of you. Don’t ask me to do the one thing in this world I’ll never be able to do.”

  I threaded the fingers of my left hand through his thick hair and tugged him toward me. His forehead met mine and our breath mingled. “Then don’t ask me to do the same. You and Sera, you’ve been hovering over me for months now. Telling me where I can go, what I can do. It drives me insane—okay, bad choice of words, but there’s some irony here. Your need to keep me safe and calm pisses me off. I’ve let it slide because I understand it comes from fear and I’ve given you plenty of reason to be afraid, but I’m not letting this slide. You don’t get to tell me that I should let you die.”

  We remained like that for quite a while, neither of us willing to bend.

  Finally he pulled back. His eyes were dark and full of unexpressed emotion. “Then you better stay in control for a few more days.” It wasn’t a request. It was a proclamation made by an enormous bear who would destroy anything that dared cross him. He was growling to the universe, daring it to interfere with his plans.

  “I will.” My words carried the same determination.

  I pulled him to me, demanding more. He nipped my lower lip once, then slid his mouth across mine. I climbed his body and twined my legs around his waist. The water rose with me.

  We separated only when I pulled the water too high. Mac sputtered and scowled at the offending pool.

  “Yes,” he said. “You damn well better stay in control.”

  He wrapped my hand in his and squeezed.

  “What are we going to do with this?” I gestured behind me as we left the room.

  “You controlling it?”

  “Nope.”

  He shrugged. “Then apparently you created a square pool that doesn’t need any walls. We’ll deal with it later.”

  The others were already gathered on the deck. Luke and Sera held four bags total. Vivian stood at the railing, gazing longingly toward land. Her laptop remained in her bag. I felt like she was missing an appendage.

  “Why don’t the rest of you remain with Vivian? Keep her company until we discover how dangerous it is?”

  I had to try.

  Sera rolled her eyes. “Because my mother might be on that island. Luke knows a bit about these firsts, and he’s actually feeling brave enough to come with us. You could lock Mac in a trunk and drop it in the ocean and he’d find a way to get to you. Viv will be here in case there are any problems, but that’s it.”

  I read between the lines. Vivian was staying on the boat because, if we didn’t return, there needed to be someone alive to tell the others what happened.

  We approached the island from the south. It was a little more than half a mile wide. It was impossible to guess the length, but a small mountain jutted toward the cloudless sky about a mile from the boat. The island was large enough that, by now, it should have been discovered. The first would need to shoot down satellites, bribe cartographers, and hire advanced hackers to keep it hidden. It made no sense.

  The boat inched toward a short strip of sand. Beyond the narrow beach, there was nothing but wilderness. Tangled vines and palm trees and rich ground cover obscured any possible paths. It would probably take an hour to force our way from one end of the island to the other.

  Somewhere within that impenetrable vegetation, we’d find answers. “Let’s go,” I said.

  Our goodbyes to Vivian were perfunctory. We pretended like we’d see each other that evening. You know, take a tour of the island, meet the first for tea, ge
t cured, and come right back. That sort of thing.

  Sera chucked the bags into a small rowboat and climbed down.

  I followed, balancing out her weight. “Where did you find this boat?”

  “I stole it. We didn’t have time to get to my family’s slips. It’s okay. Vivian made me leave an IOU.”

  Luke followed us. The rowboat dipped when Mac took his seat at the oars, but it held.

  We moved toward land.

  “I agree with him.”

  I stared at her, hoping she didn’t mean what I thought she did.

  “Your sanity matters more than our lives. That’s a fact. So before you do anything stupid for the gazillionth time, try to remember that the rest of us aren’t wimps.”

  “I will, if you can remember that I’m still a fucking grownup.”

  “Still? You were before?”

  With great effort, I did not soak her. “My cure matters, but so does finding your mom, or at least finding answers. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

  “You don’t have to. That’s my point. I’m an incredibly strong elemental. Luke is a dual who’s actually in control of his powers. Mac turns into a seven-foot bear who can break people by waving his paws about. We can handle ourselves, and you’re going to let us.”

  “You’re the supernatural Avengers?” I had to ask.

  “With less spandex.” She studied the island as we drew closer. “Let’s save the world, H2O. Or at least save you, which is kind of the same thing to me.”

  The four of us stepped onto the empty beach barefoot, holding our shoes. I wore cut-offs, but the others were in jeans soaked from the knees down. They weren’t exactly the type to wear board shorts, regardless of the weather.

  I chucked my Converse several feet ahead of me and dug my toes into the sand.

  It was hot, but nothing like the raging temperatures of the desert. Where that was a dry heat, this was humid, the air so thick and heavy it settled across my skin like a blanket. None of us complained. Luke, Sera, and I were all part fire, and we welcomed any heat. Mac probably wouldn’t complain if someone held a match to his skin.

  I wasn’t allowed to touch my magic, but I didn’t need to. It rose up, more exuberant than ever before. Energy flowed through me, every nerve ending waking up.

  “Do you feel that?” My eyes widened and my mouth formed a small, surprised O. “Is that energy put out by a first? When they’re not trying to consume you, I mean?”

  Luke looked as amazed as I felt. “It’s new to me.”

  Sera scanned the vegetation for any threats, but she found time to laugh at us. “You guys are crap fires. It’s the volcano.”

  Mac, Luke and I looked up, seeing nothing but treetops, blue sky, and a green, unvolcanic mountain.

  “I take it back. You’re really crap fires. It’s a seamount, an underwater volcano. Someday it’ll rise above the water, but for now it’s hanging out below the ocean floor. They’re all over Hawaii. How do you not know this?”

  “I was an English major.”

  “I skipped college.”

  Luke and I nodded, more than willing to support each other’s ignorance.

  I inhaled, sensing a force as majestic as the ocean at my back. I was pretty much in dual heaven—if I’d been allowed to access both my magics.

  There was something else. A power I’d never felt before, but it was warm and giving, and it soothed me in a way I hadn’t felt in months. The blackness receded, just a tiny bit.

  I’d expected to find the same desolate silence that we discovered on the Utah hilltop, but instead the island was filled with sound. The lap of the waves behind us, the calls of birds, the rustle of palm trees as the wind passed through their fronds, the exuberant leaves of the hala trees whispered to each other. The hilltop had been death. This place teemed with life.

  Hope stirred. It was so vibrant, so very alive, that I couldn’t believe cruelty or evil waited for us beyond the tree line.

  A dart shot past my shoulder.

  You’d think, after all this time, I’d get used to being wrong.

  “Get down!” I shouted.

  We flung ourselves onto the sand, raising our heads an inch to search for the threat.

  The dart had flown past us and landed in the rowboat. Another soon joined it. At least whoever was aiming was a crap shot.

  “Where’s it coming from?” I kept my voice low.

  Mac studied the angle of the trees, measuring them against the darts’ position in the boat. He raised a finger to test the wind, calculating their likely trajectory. His gaze moved from one spot to another as he performed mental geometry. At last, he nodded toward a thick hala tree a hundred feet away that marked where the beach ended and the vegetation began.

  A second later, Sera was up and running in a crouch. I tried joining her, instincts kicking in before I remembered everyone’s insistence that I do nothing. A large hand hauled me to the ground with more force than necessary.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Mac warned.

  “Still a grownup,” I reminded him. A foolish grownup, sure, but one who was sick of being ordered around.

  A second later, a tree burst into flames.

  It didn’t take long for Sera to cut off all escape routes. As one tree after another lit up, figures emerged from the tropical forest, coughing and swatting at the small sparks on their clothes and hair. As soon as the forest was clear, Sera extinguished the fire, limiting the damage as best she could.

  Water magic stretched toward the ocean behind me, absorbing its healing power.

  My fear receded. This wasn’t an ambush by the invisible first. No, this was the devil we already knew.

  I leapt to my feet and strode toward Deborah, who managed to maintain her dignity despite her singed clothes and sweating face.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  Michael stood next to her, his shaking hands holding an enormous device I’d only seen on nature shows when zoologists tranquilized elephants. It still contained several darts.

  “Thirty days. Thirty days in which you weren’t supposed to track, ambush, and/or drug me.” I eyed the darts, hoping they didn’t hold anything more permanent than the anti-magic serum. “You couldn’t even do that. How the hell did you find us?”

  I blinked as a spear of light hit my eyes, then vanished. A small woman attempted to hide behind the trunk of a palm tree. She’d wrapped her fingers around the metal necklace that had given away her presence. She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin, trying to hide her fear.

  She appeared to be in her late twenties, and she was small. Barefoot, she’d be lucky to reach five feet, and her weight might not cross into triple digits. Though her hair and eyes were both black, I picked up no hint of fire magic. I did, however, spot a rectangular bag resting on her hip—the kind Vivian always carried with her. Unlike Vivian’s bag, hers was decorated with a large Hello Kitty patch. She wore purple instead of blue, but I had no doubt it was the same person I’d spotted in the SUV outside Luke’s hut.

  “Josiah’s files. You’re the one who took them.”

  She managed a weak smile.

  Sera closed the distance between them. She didn’t often get to look down on people, and she took full advantage of the intimidating position. “Considering that you’re helping them find us so they can execute my sister, you should stop smiling.”

  The woman hurried to obey.

  The stranger wasn’t important. She’d already done all the damage she could. The real threat stood before me.

  “What was the plan? Knock me out or kill me?”

  Deborah didn’t answer. Michael looked more than moderately terrified when Mac moved closer.

  “Not kill,” Michael turned the gun so we could view the darts in greater detail. “We wouldn’t do that, not with…” His eyes jumped from Mac to Sera to Luke. They wouldn’t harm me, not with my powerful friends watching.

  “How much of that stuff do you have?” I asked.

>   Deborah’s expression never changed. “We constructed a laboratory to produce large batches of the drug. It ensured we had enough for Trent Pond’s daily dose.”

  “You drug him every day?” It was a horrifying thought. If my power felt dull after three months of semi-regular doses, his must seem like it had been ground to dust.

  The sides of Deborah’s mouth quirked upwards, her version of a grin. “A single drop. That’s all.”

  “And?” I asked.

  Behind Deborah, the ferns twitched. Sera’s eyes followed mine, her muscles tensing.

  “The results are promising,” Deborah said.

  My attention snapped back to the council leader. We’d never tried such a tiny dose. I struggled to control my voice. “What does promising mean? Could it really work, in the right formula and the right dosage? Deborah, if there’s a real chance, this can end right here.”

  Her lips tightened, a red slash across her face. “Trent Pond never murdered anyone. You have. The punishment for killing another elemental, regardless of the circumstances, is well known. Besides, we already offered you the opportunity to live as Trent does. You rejected it.”

  I took a deep breath and prepared to deliver an argument worthy of Perry Mason, though likely with more babbling. Something about how I couldn’t be responsible for the murder if I wasn’t sane, and I couldn’t be destroyed for being a dual if there was any hope of a cure, and even humans were merciful enough to allow an insanity defense. Sure, the argument had a few holes, but it was all I had.

  Before I could speak the first word, Deborah’s knees buckled and she stumbled to the ground. Michael followed, whimpering as a brown rock smacked against the back of his skull.

  I was shoved behind a Mac-shaped wall. I peered around him to see who was attacking, and more to the point, how we could convince them to stop throwing rocks.

  Except they weren’t rocks. Whoever was hidden in the trees was throwing coconuts at us.

  Mac grunted as one of the projectiles hit him in his left shoulder, but that was the only sign he felt pain.

  The others weren’t doing so well. Deborah and Michael were crawling to the safety of the ocean. Most of the coconuts missed them, but more than a few made contact. Michael abandoned the tranquilizer gun in favor of speed.