Elemental Odds

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Thalia

“How do you know that?” I ask incredulously.

He shrugs. “Blood is warm. The heart pumps the blood. When someone is unconscious or asleep, their heart slows down. As soon as they’re awake their heart speeds up. Logic, dude.”

I stare at him for a while and come to the conclusion that Zack is not as dumb as he looks.

I run to Grace’s side.

“Grace, how are you?” I question cautiously. As soon as I say it, I realize what a stupid question it was. She just lost half of her arm, with no drugs to stop the pain.

She looks down at her ‘arm’ and sighs. “What do you think?” She says with bitterness.

“Grace,” Willow starts. “I’m sorry about what happened, really, and I don’t mean to push you, but how long do you think you’ll need until we can keep moving?”

Grace shakes her head slowly. “I don’t, I can’t, I—,” suddenly Grace breaks into tears.

“Grace it’s okay,” I say soothingly. “Take all the time you need, but maybe not too long, you know, not long enough for Omnia to find us and, you know.”

She nods, wiping her tears away. “We’ll see. When I can, I will tell you, but I don’t know exactly how long. I’m sorry.”

We decide to set up camp. We brought some blankets, one for each of us.  We each grab one, and Zack ends up with the Tinkerbelle blanket. I suppress a smile. Dylan’s lips too, are curving to a smile, his blonde hair shining in the sunlight.

“Zack, what you did back there,” Willow starts, “Exploding Dylan’s mountain; that could come in handy. Working together can do stuff like that, so I was thinking about Thalia breathing underwater—”

“Doing what now?” Grace asks with a surprised look on her face.

“Oh, yeah. I breath underwater.” I say casually.

“—anyways,” Willow continues. “I was thinking since you can breathe underwater, maybe since I influence air, and you, water, we could make some kind of air bubble so we can all breath under the water. We could use it as a hiding place or if the island explodes we could get to the water.”

“Do you think that’d work?” Zack questions.

“No.” Willow replies sarcastically. “That’s why I just said the idea; to propose a plan that won’t work.”

Zack rolls his eyes. “Well I guess we’re both airheads.”

Willow glares at him. “Well at least I’m not filled with hot-air!”

I gasp. This isn’t like them.

“Burn!” Dylan laughs. But Zack just glowers at Willow.

“Dylan!” I snap.

“What?” he counters defensively.

“You know what!” I scold.

“Enlighten me.”

I give him a ‘shut up or I’ll kill you’ look, but he doesn’t get the message.

“What?” he asks again.

I roll my eyes.

“Oh, great now you’remad.” He observes.

“I didn’t say I was… Just shut up or I’ll—”

“Or you’ll what?”

Anger flashes over my body and I blast him with water.

“Oh it’s on!” He yells.

He throws mud at me but I deflect it with water. He concentrates really hard, staring at my feet, when the sand I was standing on turns to mush and sinks to my ankles.

“Quicksand!” I scream. “Are you crazy?”

“Dylan, not cool.” Willow states.

I’m up to my knees now. “Dylan make it stop!” I shout.

“Fine.” He yells, and the quicksand around my turns to dirt.

“Seriously?” I scream. “I’m stuck!”

He curses. “ I can’t get it to sand!” He hollers with worry in his voice.

I look at him with wide eyes. “What do you mean you can’t?”

Suddenly the ground turns back to quicksand, then it turns to stone.

I wail in pain. “Dylan stop!” I plead with tears in my eyes.

“Dylan,” Grace says sternly. “Whatever you’re doing, stop it.”

“I’m not doing this!” He shouts.

Suddenly the stone turns to sand and I try to pull my legs out but it hurts too much.

I look to the sand in fear, when I feel myself being pulled up, but when I look up, there’s no one there.

“Willow?” I ask quietly.

“N-no.” she replies. “I’m not doing this.”

I’m pulled out of the sand, but the force doesn’t stop. I look at everyone else in fear. “You don’t think…”

“Omnia.” Grace confirms.

And just like that I’m being pulled at what feels like a million miles an hour, and the last thing I remember before I black out is that I’m being captured by Omnia.