Eternal: Chapter Two, Part 2

The next night, Drei went out to some meeting or another. He wouldn’t look at me as he left; Valetta’s words still rang in his head, filling him with undue guilt. Mitchell and Valetta were going out in search of entertainment and invited me along, but I didn’t feel much like spending time with them currently. I couldn’t figure out if it was because I blamed them, or if I was shamed and embarrassed. Either way, I wouldn’t have been much of an asset to their plans as I didn’t feel like smiling.

I sat, staring into space for the longest time. Eventually I stood and went to the window. There was still one experiment I had never tried, and now was as good a time as any. Besides, I hoped it would take my mind off of everything else.

Opening the window, I slid out onto the narrow ledge, concentrating on how I wanted to do this. It was similar to some things I had done in the past—like sending messages to people on a breeze. I just hadn’t done anything like this with a person. I had made the air into shapes and used those to move people, but never on a breeze. In my mind, it would be something like flying if I could pull it off.

I started pulling a gentle stream of air below my feet, part of my brain wondering if I should maybe start this closer to the ground instead of five stories up. Ignoring that questioning part of my mind, I jumped onto the breeze, pulling more air into it to accommodate my weight. Slowly going in circles, I practiced balancing myself; unlike before when it was more like standing on a solid object, this was akin to standing on a collection of strings. I could see the wispy strands beneath my feet and tried centering myself on enough of them I found some stability.

After circling for a while, I directed my breeze upwards over the rooftops of the apartment buildings and worked on balance while moving faster, turning, swerving, and even while changing position on my strands of air. I tried to keep over the rooftops, not too far off in case I fell. I did fall, quite a lot. But it seemed all too soon I heard Valetta and Mitchell on the street heading back to the building, so I followed suit and slipped through the window.

Taking a quick shower, I exited the bathroom to find them sitting on the couch, Valetta’s head resting on Mitchell’s shoulder, her eyes studying their linked hands. He was whispering something to her, though I doubted she heard a word of what he said. She just had that look about her suggesting her thoughts were elsewhere.

As I walked past them, she glanced up and asked. “What have you been up to all night?”

“Nothing much,” I said, forcing myself to come up with something more solid than that. “Thinking mostly.” I really wasn’t good at this.

She nodded, though, turning her dark eyes from me again. Mitchell smiled hopefully, obviously unsure what was wrong with her. Reading her thoughts, I found she still fought with herself over what was the best thing to do: reward Drei to my benefit or punish us both. She also struggled to find something for Drei to do to prove he deserved the former.

I shrugged to Mitchell. He didn’t really need to know if he didn’t already; it was one of those things she had to figure out for herself, despite how difficult it might be.

The next few nights followed a similar pattern: Mitchell and Valetta went out after I declined the offer to join them, Drei went out somewhere—I wasn’t sure where or what for, but he kept his distance from me, much to my dismay—and I would take my breeze and improve with what I would call flying.

My mom named every trick she learned and discovered, and I had picked up the habit over the brief time I had spent with her. Shortly after I was born, the government had taken her to one of their testing facilities, and she’d been there ever since. While working under Caroline, I had taken one for the team and been temporarily reunited with her and Nick. Then Drei came and took me away from that dreadful place and the crazy specialists, but she had opted to stay behind. I couldn’t begin to understand her logic; her mind wasn’t in the best of conditions, but that wouldn’t stop me being grateful for the time I had been given with her.

Vampiric: Chapter Nine, Part 7

“Ian,” Caroline called in her smooth voice, still further down the beach.

His arms still wrapped around me, he craned his neck over his shoulder to see her. I turned to face him, grateful the threat of tears was past and he had been gracious enough not to make it worse. There was almost more comfort in his embrace than in knowing he wouldn’t tell.

Rubbing my arms he asked, “Are you going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” I assured him, the feeling of betrayal still tossing uncomfortably in my stomach but my emotions in check. I even tossed in a genuine smile so he’d believe me.

“No worries, love,” he said with a hint of Irish accent. He tipped my chin up with a hooked finger. “Your secret’s safe with me.” He winked at me just before Caroline was upon us.

“What are my favorite people up to?” she asked, throwing her arms around us.

“Just walking.”

“And talking,” Ian added, smiling. “And you obviously want something.”

She gasped, her features indignant. “Not me, Ian. Haven’t you learned by now? When we’re with my parents, they’re the ones who want. You know, answers, questions, updates, lies, empty promises, a touch of truth to abide by the idiot rules.”

“It’s been so long I nearly forgot,” he said, shaking his head.

“Best be off. They don’t much like waiting, if you remember,” she warned.

“Right, then. We’ll all have to talk later;” He headed back toward the house.

My eyes followed him as my mind tried to convince the rest of me telling him wasn’t a betrayal. It was healthy to have more than one close relationship.

“Aren’t your feet cold?” Caroline asked, jarring my attention away from my inner turmoil.

“I’m used to it by now. It actually feels refreshing.”

Shrugging, she slipped out of her flats and let them dangle from two fingers at her side. “Let’s walk.” Neither of us said anything for a while, though she did curse the first few times the ocean washed over her feet. I was about to suggest she warm her feet if she didn’t like the cold, but the next time a swell broke over the sand, steam rose from where she walked and there were no more complaints.

“How are you holding up?” she asked. Until then, I had been watching a couple of seagulls soar over the ocean, reminding me of what I still wanted to try.

“It’s been over three months,” I said, not wanting to go more in depth.

“That’s not an answer.”

For a while I ignored her, not wanting to open that can of worms, but knowing she’d insist until I did. I wasn’t hiding it to spite her, though I knew that’s what she believed. It was just too hard to go there still. Everything was better when I left it alone; everything except the hole in my still fragile heart that seemed to rule my dreams and nightmares. But I was fine not fully dealing with it otherwise.

“I’m holding it together,” I said at last, knowing it would come nowhere close to satiating her want.

“More can be expected, Abs.”

I wanted to argue against her claim, fighting that more couldn’t be expected when it was Drei. That someone like him took more time because he’d been around longer. He’d seen more; he’d cared. And in return I would have done anything. I did everything. But that couldn’t change what had happened.

“Not thinking about it helps more than anything else.”

“Not for long,” she said, saying what I already knew to be true.

Shaking away her words and the emotions that could crush me given the chance, I quickened my pace enough so we weren’t next to each other. I still hadn’t told her it was partially her fault. Between calling all the time and that surprising kiss, there was no way she wasn’t responsible for some part in my pain.

And yet she had been there when I needed someone. It was enough to keep her from knowing, for the time being.

“Abs, how are you doing?” she pleaded. “Talk to me.”

Blocking her words, I looked out to the clam serenity of the ocean, thinking if I could be out there, this conversation would just fade away. It wouldn’t happen, and it wouldn’t change anything.

Pulling the air into little cloud-like blocks to walk across, I made my way out over the ocean, Caroline’s cries of concern falling away in the breeze. I stopped, not wanting to go too far. Escape didn’t matter if you didn’t survive it.

Standing over the ocean, the water rolled gently below me; it was far enough away not to threaten to weaken me. Although the air was heavier, it was also sweeter. The breeze brought calm with it, wrapping me in blankets of control and peace. It almost seemed to work at healing me, making me strong again. Confident, again. Inhaling the moist wind, I could feel it swirl inside me until it was dangerously close to lulling me into a deep relaxation where I forget even the air holding me up. There, I could pull out my thoughts, one by one, sorting through what made sense without the teary mess.

When I was ready, I thanked the ocean breeze, feeling better than before, though I knew I still had a ways to go. I felt, now, at least, I could answer Caroline and work towards being better than “holding it together.”

She waited on the beach, knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapping her sweater tight around her in the growing darkness.

“After three months,” I started, stepping down into the wet sand before her, “I still miss him. But I can live without him. I can laugh again, smile without feeling it’s wrong. It doesn’t hurt as much. It still does hurt, though. The little reminders every day make it hard not to think about.”

“Is that all?” she asked, standing and dusting her skinny jeans clean.

“There has to be more?” I hoped she didn’t expect waterworks. It wasn’t what I wanted for myself, anyway.

“I half expected you to cry,” she said. “What happened out there?”

For a moment, I thought about giving her the long version, the slow way my element worked to bring me to a good place, a place I could be in and not fall to pieces easily. But I wasn’t sure she could understand. Her element was different from mine, and I wasn’t sure she had ever experienced anything like it. “I found peace,” I said instead.

“Really?” Caroline cocked an eyebrow at me and turned her head slightly. Why did she not believe me on things like this?

“A semblance of it;” I smiled, knowing it sounded weird without the full explanation.

“If you insist,” she said, shrugging. She started to walk back to the house.

Following her, I said, “I do.”

Walking back, I felt like I could do anything. Like that may have been the last time I would come near to crying over him. Caroline told me we were staying only for a few days past Christmas and then heading back to the city to party for New Years. The thought of going dancing without him didn’t wring my stomach in knots as it would have earlier that day. In fact, I found the prospect rather exhilarating.

Vampiric: Chapter Eight, Part 5

Despite Ian sleeping in the living room, and my promise to Caroline to stay healthy, I still couldn’t sleep. I honestly did try. The first couple of days after our conversation, I would lie down and close my eyes, wanting sleep to come. But it didn’t. At least not without Drei. And though I didn’t mind seeing him in my thoughts—not dreams since I wasn’t sleeping—I couldn’t stand to see him the way he appeared: furious and uninterested. I always opened my eyes before he started shouting at me about lying.

Instead, I used Ian’s presence as an excuse to experiment more. The first was a staircase of air down to the rooftop garden. I had used air to move objects, and even force people away, so solidity wasn’t a problem. What I wanted to see is if I was capable of concentrating while moving. The only problem I really had was that the staircase had to wrap around the enclosure to be tall enough to reach from my window to the garden three stories down. Though this did take a lot more concentration to hold it together, I worked with it for a few nights until I almost completely lost focus and fell a story.

In an attempt to make the trip shorter, I tried an elevator like form. Walking onto a platform of air, I would move it downward until I could step off. I used that mostly, though there was something else I was curious to try. Part of me was certain it wouldn’t work, though that didn’t stop me from wanting to try sometime. It just wouldn’t be soon.

Once in the garden, I would sit there, noticing how it didn’t quite smell like him. There weren’t enough kinds of flowers, nor were they in the right proportions. Nothing could compare to that scent. It was strange how he hadn’t been near his garden in years, but the odor was stained into his skin; it defined him. I wondered if I was the only one who smelled it or not, and if that was just memory or if he really did still radiate that luscious scent.

When I worked up the courage, I would also go down to the park and walk around, occasionally finding a grove or some enclosure to lie down in. Often times I would close my eyes and imagine he was beside me. That he wasn’t angry and he still loved me. It was those times I fell asleep and finally dreamed that something was right in my life. I would dream when I woke up, I was really just falling asleep to a nightmare.

The nights when I did sleep, I would wake sometime after sunrise and return to the apartment. Both Caroline and Ian were gone by then, so I would change and take a cab to work.

“What were you doing?” Caroline asked the first time it had happened.

“Sleeping.”

“Seriously?” She leveled her gaze at me, a slight threat behind her bronze eyes.

“Really.” She left it at that and didn’t ask again, content I was at least trying to comply with her request.

It wasn’t long until I finished re-filing everything in her office. I quickly became accustomed to her calling me in to explain where something was. We were all three extremely busy over those two weeks prepping for the next broadcast. Usually we had a month or so in between, but to set one up in half the time ended up being a lot more work than expected. Caroline even hired more help for between the broadcasts—granted it was only two more people who only knew their job.

She had me helping her research more information for her next speech. It was a pleasant distraction from the nightmare. We would sit up in her office sharing strange and bizarre bits of information that wound its way into our research. Occasionally, we even shared a laugh and would then pull Ian upstairs to join us.

It was weird to laugh again. There was still a hole where my heart had been, and I was still hurting, but by some miracle, I could laugh. Maybe it was a sign that I was reaching that point where it would stop hurting as much. I could hope, right?

Vampiric: Chapter Six, Part 3

“You want to learn a new trick?” my mom asked as she twirled in the middle of the room. It was the first coherent sound she'd made for what seemed like hours. She had just been spinning and giggling to herself, occasionally muttering something under her breath in a high pitched voice so it came out like series of squeaks.

That she had said anything sensible took so long for me to register after the string of nonsense I had been ignoring, she stopped her spinning to watch where I had spread out under the window in what was surely fake sunlight—it didn’t even feel warm.

“What trick?” I replied, sitting up on my elbows.

As was characteristically her, she raced, light-footed, to plop down beside me, her eyes wide and excited. She leaned close and whispered in my ear, “Reading.”

“What?” My first thought being she was kidding. I mean, reading? I must have misheard.

“Reading,” she repeated softly, the energy inside her causing her to start bouncing on her haunches. “It's really fun, but you can't tell anyone about it because it's top secret.”

Top secret? If she hadn't sounded as lucid as she did, I would have thought she was pulling my leg. The way she made it sound, it seemed more like something for a spy. Not for air elementals.

“Why is it so secret?” I asked, for lack of any other question or comment.

“Because you're reading thoughts,” she said vaguely as I sat up. “They're immediate thoughts, other thoughts are trickier to find and I haven't heard of anyone who figured out how to get that deep. But it's still really useful. You can find out if what someone is saying is really what they mean. It also tells you what kind of mood they're in.”

“What about seeing memories?”

“That's viewing, silly. Don't you know that one?” She waved it off. “That's as simple as pulling. If you can't do those, you definitely can't do reading.”

“I can; I learned viewing by accident;” I left out it was while I was hoping I could be more like her. “And pulling I learned by necessity.” If eavesdropping could be considered necessity. And I believed one could make a strong argument that satisfying curiosity was a necessity.

“Good,” she said, nodding, “you'll need the combination of the two to learn reading.”

“How so?”

“Well, if you stop rushing me, I'll explain it to you,” she sassed, crossing her arms and puffing her lips out.

“I'll shush,” I promised, zipping closed my lips.

“Okay.” She sat there, still. I watched her, waiting for her to say something more. All she did was look around, occasionally making a face at me for no apparent reason.

“Well?” I inquired, jarring her to attention.

“Sorry,” she squeaked, her eyes growing large and a hand flying to her lips. “I forgot, so sorry. How can I make it up to you, Sweetie?”

“By teaching me reading,” I said slowly, wondering if she was serious. She had just told me to shush so she could explain it. I told myself I wouldn’t be upset with her; I didn’t know how serious her mental damage might be and I was lucky she was lucid enough at times to teach me anything.

“I am serious,” she stated suddenly. “And I thank you for not being upset with me.”

“I never said you weren't serious. Nor did I ever say anything about being upset with you.”

“You didn't say it, but you thought it,” she said smugly. “That's reading.”

Reminding myself not to think anything negative, I questioned, “Are you going to explain how?”

“Like I said, it's a mix of viewing and pulling;” she shrugged, as if it were the simplest concept in the world. “You grab what they aren't saying, but instead of watching it, you just pull it to you. Even when they aren't offering it to you,” Mom explained, nodding in a very matter-of-fact way. “So I'm going to think something about you—something I haven't told you. You tell me what I'm thinking.”

I watched her face, concentrating on seeing what she was thinking. Something shimmered over her head. Before it changed or dispersed, I pulled it toward me, hearing her voice inside my head. It scared me at first how clear it was. I took a moment to wonder if my own voice sounded as loudly in her mind as her voice sounded in mine. Tuning back in, I realized her thought was ending and I had missed a huge chunk of it. Replaying it, I didn't know if I would be able to contain myself. It touched me. More so than I thought was possible.

“You mean it?” I asked her.

“What did I think?” she insisted, calm though there was a nervous edge to her voice.

Wiping away a tear that had escaped my eye, I answered, “That leaving Dad and I was the hardest thing you ever had to do, and you're sorry you can't be better all of the time now. That you always wanted to see me, but you never wanted me to see you like—” The words were stuck in my throat before I could finish.

Her thin arms wound around me, pulling me closer to her. She rubbed my back and I knew she meant it, every word. Though the last words were stuck in my throat, her thoughts kept replaying in my mind:

Leaving you and your father was the hardest thing I ever had to do. I'm sorry I can't be well all the time, but I try. I have always wanted to see you grown up, but I never wanted you to see me like this. I must say, though, that I'm proud of you. You've learned a lot, and you've taken care of me. You have exceeded my every hope for you, and I know you'll make a lasting impression on the world, just as you are meant to.

Had anyone else told me that, I doubt it would have moved me so. But, coming from her, my mom, it meant the world.

Vampiric: Chapter Six, Part 2

“Why is it all bluish?” I questioned before realizing I had a different question I wanted an answer to more. “How can I even see it?”

“Well, we’re both connected directly to the air. To you, air appears bluish. I always saw it purplish, though lately it’s been more pinkish, but yeah,” she stopped herself from rambling on. “When you open your mind to it, the air will show you everything that pushes it aside. Of course, whatever color you see the air as is what everything else looks like, so don’t take any bets on what colors the person in the next room is wearing. Unless you get really good. When I was younger, I heard rumors of elementals who could eliminate the bias in their minds and have the air show them whatever color was disrupting them. But that’s just rumor. Never met anyone who could. I tried, though. I think if I keep trying I’ll be able to do it one of these days. Wouldn’t that just be great? To tell what the colors around the world are?”

I laughed. “Around the world is a little ambitious, don’t you think?”

“Nothing is ambitious. Once, when I was really bored, I mapped a cocktail party where they spoke a funny language; they all wore beautiful clothing, even though they were all purplish and everything; and they sounded like chipmunks kind of. It was really entertaining to watch. The better you get the more you can learn, like sounds. Sounds don’t come for a long time, though. When they do, you can hear everything said wherever you’re mapping.”

“What about sending? How does that work?” I pressed, genuinely interested.

“Oh, that’s tricky,” she said, her eyes wide but a note of seriousness still visible. “Both people have to be open, one to send it and the other to receive it. Once they’re both open, the person sending has to convince the air to share in the first place. It takes more time to learn. There’s a lot of sweet talking and even some promises not to abuse it for a while—air is very picky and needs lots of flattering. One day it wouldn't let me at all because the person I was sending to had hurt it really badly recently, so yeah. Okay, I'll get back to it,” she said slightly exasperated. “Anyway, so after you convince the air to allow that kind of transfer of information, all you have to do is will the information or image or whatever it is over to the other person. Of course if you're showing them something at the same time then you have to know how to split your focus so you can do what you want and still send, but that goes without saying.”

“Are you going to teach me that too?”

“Well,” she mused, looking off to the side. “It isn't so easy to teach. For everyone it's different, and it heavily depends on your relationship with the air. I would think the air really likes you; it didn't give me much fuss at all. But you know how now; you'll have to figure the rest out on your own.”

There were more questions, but I could tell her concentration was wearing thin the more she forced herself to stay focused. My questions could wait until later, when she wasn't as worn.

“How many people are in the cell next to ours?” she inquired, her eyes lighting up as though it was a game to her, making it more apparent how quickly I was losing her.

“Which direction?” I asked; I nodded as she pointed to the wall adjacent to the cushioned corner.

Doing as she had shown me, I draped a thin layer of air over the room and then tucked it around the bluish bumps to give them more shape. The room was as bare as ours. A cushioned corner, a barred window, a toilet like thing, and a door. There were three people in the room, one smaller than the others and curled on the cushions in the corner. From all that I could tell, it was a girl and she was asleep, but it might have also been a guy. I didn't want to tuck too close. The other two were adults, a skinny person and the other was heavyset, both may have been either man or woman from my tucking.

“Three people,” I replied.

“Confident enough to figure out their sexes?”

Opening my eyes, I told her honestly, “No. I don't want to be intrusive.”

She enveloped me in her arms. “At least you know how if you need to.”

“If I tucked the air closer, would they be able to tell?” I queried, curious.

“Yes, Sweetie. While mapping itself isn't harmful, it leads to one way you can kill people from a distance. You tuck too close around the head and they choke on the air; there's too much going in and not enough coming out—don't use it to kill, Abriel. Promise me.”

“I promise,” I said, thinking I would never need to. I had no interest in hurting other people, especially not to that extreme. But it didn't matter this advice may never apply to me. It only mattered that for the first time, she was sane enough to give advice. She was okay. Sort of.

“Air gives life and takes it away—like people kind of—but once you abuse your gift to choose for yourself which it is, air never works the same for you again. It holds it against you until you either die or you completely forsake your gifts; don't let it come to that, Abriel, sweetie.”

“I won't, Mom. I promise,” I assured her.

She pulled away from me then, jumping to her feet and skipping around the room, her goofy smile and wide cerulean eyes back. A song dripped from her lips, joyous and childish.

The sudden change left me feeling numb. We had been closer than ever before—reminiscent of a real mother and daughter—and now she was back to how she had been. If anything, I was more upset with myself for forgetting it would end.

Vampiric: Chapter Six, Part 1

Chapter Six: Saving Grace

“How many people are out there?”

I closed my eyes tighter, trying to determine which of the bumpy things were people. “I don’t know,” I replied, sighing heavily, opening my eyes again.

“You do; you’re over thinking it,” Mom insisted. “It’s like someone asking you if you want coffee or tea and you’re trying to figure out what kind of either they’ll give you if you say it.”

“That’s exactly what it’s like,” I mumbled, rolling my eyes. “You ask which are people and not just furniture or whatever. You’re asking me to determine from a bunch of lumps which are living.” I might have snapped a little, which would explain why she was crouching in the corner with her head cradled in her arms. It wasn’t entirely my fault; I was frustrated, and her happy-go-lucky attitude wasn’t helping.

I sighed. “I’m sorry.” It wasn’t like I didn’t want to learn; I did. I just wished I had a more consistently lucid teacher. “Explain it to me again.”

“Okay,” she said, jumping up and springing towards me. Her goofy smile and big eyes were back before she caught herself. Settling before me, she announced, “We’re going to try this another way. I’m going to do it, and try to send, at the same time.”

She reached her hands out, staring at me insistently. I took her hands, deciding to give up trying to understand what we were doing. Maybe she’d be able to teach me how to send later on as well—whatever that was.

“Close your eyes, you need to for now. I don’t have to of course but I’ve been doing it since before you were born, which is what surprised me so much. You hadn’t figured it out and I thought everyone would have known how to—” Mom stopped babbling, her eyes wide in shock at herself. “I’ve gotten really bad at that. I’ll try harder,” she promised, shaking herself. “I haven’t done sending in a while. Mapping is easy, though. That’s how I know when Nick is here. He really is nice. Don’t look at me that way, I was just saying.”

“I’m relaxed, my eyes are closed, and I’m open. What next?” I queried, trying to sound calmer than I felt.

“Give me a moment. I have to remember how to send.”

“Do you have names for all the tricks?”

“Of course. It’s how I tell them apart, silly;” she giggled. “Now I have to concentrate. Shush a moment.”

It was awkward while I waited. I couldn’t recall it ever being quiet when the lights were on. One of us was always talking—me to shush her or her just to be talking. Sitting there in the silence, holding hands, was the strangest and most exhilarating feeling. It had been so long since I had experimented, and even longer since I had learned anything new.

These thoughts of everything weird in the moment were shoved aside as what she was working filled my mind. I watched her drape a thin layer of air over the next room like a picnic blanket. Then she tucked it around the objects in the room, gently, until everything took a bluish shape in my mind. Everything was distinguishable, too—there were two desks complete with chairs, a lamp on one and pictures on another, a coat rack on one wall next to a key rack, and one ceiling light. The light was flickering; I could tell from the way the shade of blue over it changed rapidly. There were two people in the room, I could see that clearly now. One kicked back in a chair reading a periodical, the other treading slowly toward the key rack, saying something I couldn’t make out.

“Two people,” I said aloud, opening my eyes to her sparkling ones.

“Good job.”

Vampiric: Chapter Four, Part 1

Chapter Four: A Mother’s Love

I didn’t know where I was or how long I had been there. There was a bright light beyond my eyelids, but that wasn’t often. Sometimes there would be voices, but nothing they said was comprehensible. Not to me, at least, and definitely not in my current state.

At some point during a period of receding blackness, I thought to move my arm, convincing myself it was to prove I was still alive to the voices. My arm was too heavy, though. No matter how I tried to shift and lever my weight, I couldn’t. I came out of the blackness again later and realized the exertion had sent me back; I noted not to try that again.

I didn’t seem able to just wake up, and that terrified me. Who knew how long I had been here, or where I even was. The voices obviously, but they were just voices and I could have been hallucinating.

Then I finally started coming out of the haziness. The blur of voices surrounding me started making sense and the bright light became more distinct. I opened my eyes to a white room, filled with dark figures and the discussion of shots. Someone was saying I needed another one until they found out more about me. Another person argued they’d never know if they kept knocking me out. A third party voted in favor of another shot and performing more tests. What tests had I already been subjected to?

The figure who had suggested another shot moved toward me, a syringe glinting in the bright light.

Without thinking about the consequences, I pulled the air into a boulder shape and rammed it into the person, the syringe twinkling before it shattered somewhere far off. The tinkling sound of glass scattering was the last thing I remembered before the blackness closed in once more.

Elemental: Chapter Ten, Part 3

It stopped raining. I had spent the sleepless night trying to pinpoint the exact moment in time where everything began to change from so blissfully wonderful to extraordinarily turbulent.

The air of my cabin was spoiled with hopelessness, the walls closing in on my depression. Without another thought, I ran through the forest to where the brook babbled and the gray sky clearly threatened another cloudburst. My sneakers were soggy with mud and the brook looked more like a river that had outgrown its bed. My eyes caught something brightly colored further down the overflowing brook, and my feet marched toward it, uncaring of the water sloshing into my shoes or the suctioning mud.

A bright red footbridge had been set up, rather recently from the unused look of it. I wondered who had placed it here, and in the same moment thought I knew the answer. I used the sleeve of my college sweater to clean up some of the water and sat down, removing my sneakers. Dropping the damp shoes beside me, I dangled my feet in the clear rainwater; I followed the created ripples, watching them collide and spread, wondering if I might ever affect people in such a manner—without the drama and broken hearts.

“What are you thinking about?” Nick questioned; he plopped down beside me, my shoes separating us.

“I’m thinking about if any of this was worth coming, and if everything might have turned out okay if I had just stayed instead of running away. If any of this changes anything.”

I refused to look up at him, I knew what was coming, and I realized it was time he knew. If he hated me because of it, perhaps it was better that way. If he loved me all the more, would it change anything? Would I love him more and be willing to prove it the way he wanted me to? Now I didn’t know, but in a moment it would be clear.

“I’m glad you came,” he said, putting off the inevitable. “I never would have fallen in love if you had never come.”

“Stop,” I pleaded, tired of him beating around the bush. He had no problem asking before; was he afraid of what I would say as much as I was? It was the only logic I could find in his actions.

He took a long while building up his courage to ask. In the silence I regretted never telling him before. There were millions of opportunities, the only thing stopping me being the fact I didn’t want him to look at me like a diseased girl who cared more about new purses for every occasion than world hunger.

“Why are you here?” he finally asked. “How did Drei save you?”

I took a huge breath in before saying, “On my seventeenth birthday, I came into my…gifts.”

He sat, watching me as I kept my eyes locked on the new ripples in the water. I told him everything, from Drei explaining elementals and the history and future, the bounty hunter at school, my public freak out, and how Drei gave me an out. The easy out that I was too numb to pass up. I left out my conversation with my father, but included how Drei helped me begin rebuilding, and then the children, and, lastly, him and Valetta.

“I owe Drei more than I want to admit,” I finished softly, my pride hurting as I shared this truth. “He saved me from—from everyone.”

“Even yourself?”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “I wish he hadn’t have had a need to save me; I wish bounty hunters didn’t exist, the government didn’t see us as some abomination. We were just seen as people who can make things better. What makes us so different we can’t be left alone? We always have to look over our shoulders wondering when we have to uproot next. It isn’t fair,” I asserted, holding his jade eyes, searching for answers, afraid of what I might find.

“It’s not their fault,” Nick said quietly, slipping from the footbridge and standing in the water. He didn’t look at me as he said, “Bounty hunters are in a similar boat.”

“It is their fault, Nick,” I cried, not holding anything back. He couldn’t take their side; I wouldn’t allow him to. “After that hunter left, I was terrified of who was watching. It killed me inside not being able to be who I was—who I am. I didn’t know when another might show up, or if he would be so obviously a bounty hunter. You have no idea what it’s like running all the time from someone you can’t be sure is even there. It’s terrifying and nerve-wracking and a thousand other things—constantly; it’s so consummately exhausting trying to figure out who’s a step ahead and who’s still back in square one.”

“I know!” Nick shouted, turning around and grabbing my shoulders. “You don’t know what it’s like to have the government breathing down your neck all because they think you’re one smart cookie and a possible asset.”

Nick stopped suddenly, breathing heavily, but terror obvious on his face. He let go of me and turned away again, running a hand through his hair. It took a couple of cycles to comprehend exactly what he had just said. Pain and anger flooded me. I really had ruined everything. And Nick—the person I thought was on my side—had let me believe a lie.

“Why,” I began, my voice trembling, “if you love me, did you never tell me before you were a bounty hunter?”

He whipped around and reached out to me, trying to comfort me or assure himself it wasn’t as bad as I made it sound.

“Get away from me!” I shouted, leaving him and my shoes behind, afraid I might do something I would regret while the ferocity was still fresh. And to think I had been afraid of what he might think of me.

Elemental: Chapter Nine, Part 4

Halloween sprang upon us like a black cat possessed. The kids were ecstatic with the annual party the vampires threw for them: costumes, candy, apples, and haunted house included. I reveled in watching Nick jump at a murderer popping from behind a wall or Freddie laughing eerily through a cardboard boiler room. He complained it wasn’t fair I knew what was coming and didn’t share. I thought it was plenty fair, telling him so before he’d kiss me to stop the words. I wonder if he realized that was just more incentive.

After the children slipped into whatever dreams awaited them, Nick and I slipped away into the forest, determined to explore new, unoccupied haunts.

“Nick?” I called out, losing sight of him among the trees. He had been there one moment and not the next.

When he didn’t reappear, smiling to assure me he wasn’t far off, I continued on in the direction in which I last saw him go. The branches bounced harmlessly away from me, almost as though they were leading me. To what, I wasn’t sure.

Opening up my senses—easy now as I had been practicing—I could hear someone just ahead. I froze when voices drifted through the greenery.

“—have tried, Valetta,” Drei’s voice sang out, distressed. “Every day and there is no chance.”

“Stop trying so hard, Drei,” Valetta scolded, and I wondered what exactly was so taxing.

“It is not as easy as you make it out to be. There are times and places for these things,” Drei asserted, and I realized he was losing this disagreement. Already his voice had a defensive edge to it.

“Do yourself a favor, Drei, and stop thinking through every little thing,” she whispered harshly. I couldn’t remember a time she had ever been so angry, especially with Drei. “Just say it already.”

“I—”

“If he asked her to leave tonight, she would be gone forever and you would be more miserable than you are now. Is that what you want?”

“Leave, Valetta,” Drei sneered. “You have no right to bother me here.”

“Oh, right; it is your garden. Your secret place that was supposed to help you remove the hate and fear in your—”

“Go!” Drei barked, his voice cracking.

I ran, terrified and curious and ashamed. Valetta had said no one stood up to Drei, but there she was doing just that. And what was wrong with Drei? On top of that, why hadn’t I thought about whose garden it was? I mean, it should have been obvious as it smelled just like him. No wonder he was so livid that night. We had disturbed him where he was supposed to have peace, or semblance of it.

“Hey,” Nick said as I plowed into him, both of us tumbling to the ground. “Where are you going so fast?”

“Trying to find you,” I lied, but feeling somewhat better now that he was by me. “Don’t lose me again.” I hit his chest lightly with the back of my fingers.

“Not a chance.” He helped me up but didn’t let go of my hand. “Come on. I’ve found a place even better than the garden.”

A few minutes later he turned to me. “It’s right past those pine trees.”

“You want me to go first?”

“Not afraid are you?” His eyes gleamed in the dark.

“It’s not some steep cliff you want me to step off of, is it?”

“You aren’t that lucky.”

“I guess I’ll just have to trust you,” I said, starting away cautiously. Just beyond I could hear running water and the excited buzz of lightening bugs.

“Go on,” he encouraged, a pace behind me. “If a cliff has managed to appear, I’ll catch you.”

Pushing aside the tree limbs, I saw what he had meant. Though I wasn’t so tickled about the babbling brook—now that I knew what water meant for me—it fit gorgeously in with the open field. I imagined deer running through with their fawns during summer and perhaps cubs frolicking in springtime. I doubted there were any bears or deer around though. I hadn’t seen any in the year I had been there, but you never know.

“Knew it,” Nick said, standing beside me again. “You watch too many chick flicks and now you can’t help but love scenery like this.”

“What’s wrong with that? You are the one who keeps bringing me to these places.”

“If I had known…” He shook his head, wearing that crooked smile of his.

“But see, you did,” I teased, smiling and tapping a finger against the center of his chest.

“There’s an amazing view tonight,” Nick said, changing the subject as he pulled me closer to the brook. “The moon is beautiful;” he stopped and wrapped his arms around me.

“It is;” my arms wound their way around Nick, my head resting on his shoulder. I wondered if Drei was also watching the moon. “A shooting star,” I whispered, following the streak through the sky.

“Make a wish.”

Closing my eyes, I made my wish, praying it would come true.

“What did you wish for?” I questioned without thinking.

“Even I know not to ask that,” Nick said, laughing. His jade eyes glowed as he looked down at me. “You’re beautiful.”

“You always tell me that;” I rested my head on his shoulder again, not wanting to kiss him. I couldn’t explain why, but I didn’t feel like we needed to.

“Abriel,” he gasped, my name barely even a breath.

“Yes?”

“I thought I saw a witch fly by the moon,” he said slowly, as if he was unsure of what he had seen and second guessed himself as he spoke.

“Do you really believe in those tales?”

He smiled down at me, a secret in his eyes. I knew he did, and I half-heartedly believed it as well. It was hard not to believe in a bit of all of that after so much had happened. But lesson one with Nick: never pass up an opportunity to tease. It always kept things interesting and humorous.

“Maybe one day you’ll fly across the moon and blow a kiss down to me,” he suggested, breezing past my remark. “Or you could take me with you.”

“I’ll never fly,” I told him, shaking my head. If only he knew…but I couldn’t just tell him. I didn’t know if he would tell someone else, or even how he would react. “You have to have a light heart to fly,” I reasoned, ignoring his questions as to what I meant. That answer was just too complex.

Elemental: Chapter Nine, Part 3

Drei seemed to disappear again. Every time I thought I felt his presence, it vanished in the next instant. He avoided me completely; it was horrible to think it was my own fault, despite having wanted it. I just hadn’t wanted it like this.

As the cool days of October closed in, everyone spent more time at the lake, the water elementals showing off as much as possible when Nick wasn’t around. After he caught them creating fountains, I had to tell him something. I gave him the vaguest explanation I could that ended up being more circuitous than anything else. After a while, he just stopped asking about it. The kids became stealthier and almost more untrusting of him. They started setting a watch for when he had left so they knew when to act like normal kids playing in the water again.

Around that time, I also worked out a new idea to try: manipulate the air to help me stay underwater longer. Not such a good idea. The moment I breathed in, my nose was flooded with water. Nick helped me to the shore, teasing that I should know how to swim after a summer of such activity.

I laughed and coughed, playing it off as a mistake from being momentarily distracted. It took a while to reassure him I was fine. Once I had, he went back into the lake and I strolled over to where Valetta watched, disinterested, as always.

“Why can’t I use my element in water?” I questioned, leaving no room for pretense.

Valetta smiled, as if she had expected me to figure it out sooner. To be honest, I was angry with myself for not figuring it out—or at least trying it—sooner.

“Air is less responsive in water. Because it is a liquid, the air is heavier and lazier,” she said, the teasing smile not leaving her lips. “Have you ever noticed you tend to be unhappy when it rains?”

I thought about it; when it had rained last week, I had been depressed, not in the mood to try running between the drops to spend the day with Nick. That is, until Nick came over to spend the day playing a board game he had coaxed Lily into finding for him. It felt like being a little kid again: wet, gray skies, a smiling face, and something to do.

“Well, if I have someone to spend it with, I’m not so sad.”

“When the air is heavy, so are you—emotionally, of course.”

I thought a moment on this, taking it in and comparing my experiences with this new nugget of information. “That makes sense, kind of.”

“Try not to drown yourself,” Valetta teased.

“You saw that?” I scrunched my face and vainly hoped she hadn’t.

Her eyes glinted with laughter. “I see everything.”

Elemental: Chapter Eight, Part 5

Nick and Drei argued daily now, sometimes twice. Most days Nick started it, especially when I wouldn’t answer the door and pretended not to hear his knock on my window in the morning. Then Drei pounded on the door a couple of times. I hid in my room, talking myself out of seeing either of them.

I avoided witnessing their arguments, and spent most of the week experimenting, hoping some clarity would be found in the ancient pastime.

Valetta stopped by after the first day, reassuring me she would keep the two from killing each other while I worked out for myself what was needed. She also left some old CDs and a disc player. Old as in music I’d listened to in middle school and had pretended I didn’t like by the time I reached high school.

Her gift became my first experiment. I knew the songs and, never having had the lungs to sing, maybe there was a way to fix that.

The first attempts were a mess of coughs and either not enough air or too much. As I found the right balance of input to match my output, the problem I had was concentrating. Often, just as I was reaching the climax, I would forget to pull more air into my lungs and my voice fizzled out, leaving a drowned moose sound hanging in the air. If anyone had been around to hear, I would have been humiliated and embarrassed.

By the third day of my break, I had mastered it. It surprised me I actually had a decent voice, but it wasn’t like I would be selling records the next week.

After the satisfaction had worn away, I was bored with singing. There was still a challenge in concentrating, but I found my peace to be temporary in that. The moment the song ended, every thought came rushing back. I was to the point that images would flash through my mind as I sang. It was no longer helping. If anything, it made me feel worse for procrastinating.

Abandoning singing, I recalled meditating when I was younger. My mother had insisted it was to aid me in balancing my life as it became busier. More than likely, she just wanted company when she was experimenting with new relaxation methods—like the time she thought it would be entertaining to try a contortionism class. That, by the way, landed her in a chiropractor’s office for two months.

Settling at the foot of my bed—legs crossed, muscles loose, eyes closed—I focused on a blank sheet of paper in my mind’s eye, just as I had been instructed to do years before. My breathing slowed, setting the backbeat for the sounds filling me.

How was I to know my element wouldn’t allow me to meditate?

The blank page was splashed with color and brief sketches of birds, squirrels, and children laughing. Everything flooded into my open mind. It didn’t bother me; it was rather refreshing. There is nothing like being filled with something other than yourself. It didn’t give me an answer, but it revived my will to find one. Unfortunately, Mother would never realize how much those meditation classes really worked.

The second to last night of my isolation, a small troupe of the children visited bearing gifts.

“We’re sorry, Abriel,” Danny, and Derek said when I opened the door.

“We brought you a gift,” Bethanie added as Michelle held forth an ice sculpture of a young woman cradling forget-me-nots. The roots of the flowers laced through her chest, curling into a heart-shape.

“Come in,” I said, surprised at the chill outside.

After settling on the wooden floor of the front room, the sculpture resting on a windowsill, I asked, “What are you sorry for?”

“Aren’t you mad at us?” Mikael responded.

“What would give you that crazy idea?”

“Well you aren’t around anymore,” Xenia added, glancing briefly up at me.

“I’m not mad at you guys,” I insisted.

“Is it Nick?” Bethanie questioned eagerly.

“Or Drei?” Kora added, eyes wide in curiosity.

I was silent a moment. It wasn’t really their fault; it was mine. “No,” I replied. “I just needed some time off.” When Jake looked to ask another question, I added, “Have I missed anything interesting?”

Kora rolled her eyes. “Only Michelle making gaga eyes at Mitchell.”

“Am not!”

“Is that why you’re always showing off super hard when he comes by?” Mikael questioned. Michelle’s cheeks flamed.

“Anthony and Amy almost got caught playing a prank on Nick yesterday,” Derek offered quickly.

Danny added, “Yeah, they were going to make him slip from the lunch station down the hill into a mud puddle and he almost saw them setting it up.”

“Yeah,” Xenia said, “Valetta practically bore holes in them. I’m not sure Nick would have noticed though.”

“He has been really distracted lately,” Bethanie said and all of their smiles began to fade. “He’s not as much fun anymore. And he’s being a stupid jerk whenever Drei comes around.”

“Ugh, you’re telling me,” Michelle huffed. “I used to think he was kind of cute until he became little Mr. Fireball all the time.”

Derek said, “He has been rather stupid about the whole thing.”

“Both of them have been,” Danny amended.

Mikael said, “To be fair, I think taking on a vampire when you’re just a normal person is the more foolhardy.”

“Well I’ll be back in a couple of days,” I said, hoping to lighten the mood again. I hadn’t intended for them to suffer for my imprudence. “Then you can show me a new game.”

Jake, who had been quiet after I’d preempted his question, gave me a skeptical look but didn’t say anything; the others jumped excitedly, promising they’d have a really great game by then. As they walked away from my cabin, Jake turned back. It was strange how subdued he was compared to the others. For a moment, I feared he would return to my door with some other question to which I didn’t have an answer. Then he caught back up with the others, smiling and nodding as they discussed what new game they might create.

Elemental: Chapter Six, Part 1

Chapter Six: Something Unexpected

The following months flew past in an uneventful blur. Though Drei always seemed just a breath away, I had separated us further; I kept conversations brief with him, and all frivolous chatter to myself.  Despite this, he stopped by every night to lull me to sleep. The one night he didn’t, I couldn’t sleep at all. It wasn’t easy to keep him at arm’s length, but I knew it wasn’t supposed to be.

Nearly every day my charges desired a new game. It wasn’t long before they seemed to forget they had ever fought. When this realization struck me, I decided it was time to develop games they could conduct without me. I spent the winter days sitting on the hillside, gazing out over their play and stranded in thought. Of my former friend group, I had been the one to think the most; that paled in comparison to my current preoccupations. I avoided unpleasant thoughts of the past and the circumstances leading me to this point, but I rather enjoyed the random philosophical questions that came to mind.

Occasionally, one of the children require my assistance with an injury or a problem. I would find bandages and disinfectant or listen attentively as the situation was revealed, offering what advice or mediation I could. Then, usually feeling better, he or she would run off to join back in the games.

There was a day, some weeks after my arrival, when I met the other vampires controlling my fate. I remembered a few—such as Lily with her pale locks and piercing blue eyes and Mitchell with his bald head, ebony skin, and gorgeous black eyes—but most I couldn’t recall even if someone whispered their names in my ear again. They were all too similar and equally quiet—at least in my presence. The meeting was largely a formal introduction; the entire time Drei spoke, I endured the feelings of animosity, annoyance, and doubt hanging in the room. Perhaps the real reason so many were forgettable to me was that my concentration had been spent more on trying to shield myself from their emotions instead of learning their names.

The one event managing to stay vivid in my memory was Christmas.

I knew the vampires were busy scavenging for presents; with only 12 of them and roughly 40 children, they had quite the workload. The only reason I knew, however, was because I noticed there were considerably fewer of them hanging around during any part of the day—I was fortunate enough to see Valetta only a few days a week, a vast improvement on three times a day.

On Christmas morning, we were all treated to a feast of sorts: bacon; eggs made sunny side up, scrambled, and pouring through the center of toast; sausage; milk; a variety of juices; and a wide selection of fresh fruits.

Then came the presents, brought out in heaping, velvet red sacks. Several of the children had also received gifts from their parents—I guessed from a P.O. Box in some nearby town. Personally, I wasn’t expecting anything. Christmas was more of a child’s and lover’s holiday in my opinion. Besides, I really didn’t need anything. Or so I told myself.

To my great surprise and delight, Mitchell approached me from the brightly littered slope of lawn and handed me a rectangular box.

“Here,” he said as I inspected the snowflake design for some telltale sign.

“Who’s it from?” I questioned after a moment.

His lips upturned into something more mischievous than jolly. “I would say Santa Claus, but something tells me you are too old to buy it.”

I steadied my gaze on him, a playful twist to my lips. “So what will you say?”

“It is a secret persona to whom I am supposed to report your reaction at a later time.”

After a moment more of staring—a vain hope I might wear him down—I slowly peeled back a corner of the paper.

“It is not surgery,” Mitchell teased.

Though the remark was rhetorical, I found myself saying, “I’m not four either.”

Beneath the cheap snowflake paper was a velvet box, the kind jewelry usually comes in. Popping open the lid, Mitchell craned his neck to sneak a peek as my free hand flew to my lips.

On the silk bed lay a minuscule gold chain—at least 14 karat gold if Mother dearest had taught me anything at all—supporting an angel constructed of different gems. Her head was a diamond with a golden halo, iolite wings, and an amethyst gown.

“Who gave this to me?” I repeated, my heart pounding.

Mitchell merely grinned secretively and loped away.