Elemental Hunger

Chapter Thirty-Nine

The full moon shone behind a veil of clouds. I stood in the shadows of a pine forest, watching the world burn. Someone stepped next to me. I didn't look away from the crimson glow on the horizon.

"Gabriella, you must let go," a man said, sounding like Chief Tavar. He couldn't be here, hundreds of miles from the Outcast settlement.

I didn't answer, unable to entertain my hallucinations. I held a firm grip on emptiness, and I didn't know how to let go. I had no teachers, no friends, no home. Yet the pangs of loneliness didn't stir in my heart.

Maybe I didn't have a heart anymore.

The sharp snap of water on crackling flames dulled my senses. I was burning but I didn't care. It didn't hurt.

In fact, I felt nothing. And see, feeling nothing at all was worse than feeling too much.

"Let go," Chief Tavar said again, but I couldn't even blink. I stared at Hanai, wishing he would move. Surely he would get up any minute, that playful glint in his eye telling me my soul was revealing too much.

He didn't.

His death hurt so, so much. The emptiness expanded inside my chest. A stabbing pain started behind my neck, eating its way into my head and down my shoulders.

The air became too thick to breathe. I gasped now, sucking huge lungfuls of air that couldn't quench my need for oxygen. The emptiness, the useless emptiness, spread, infiltrating all my limbs. Black spots pressed into my vision. They crowded my view of Hanai, and I wiped a smoking hand across my eyes.

Struggling for breath, saturated with rain and with the engulfing nothingness filling my entire body, I stood up.

Alex lay crumpled on the burnt ground next to me. She didn't move, except for the panting rise and fall of her chest. Her robes held only a slight singe, but blood crawled from her nose and mouth. Her survival didn't seem fair.

I raised my hand, ready to smother her in willing flames. I couldn't. Feeling nothing at all had ruined everything. The void had swallowed my rage.

Bodies littered the ground. Adam lay where he'd fallen earlier, his clothing layered with ash, but not a lick of fire had touched him.

The vehicle sat on the ground, fans silent, fierce scorch marks along the windowed roof.

A sudden, wild thought drove me forward. I stumbled toward Hanai, tripping over the man next to him. I'd heard him chant; I could heal him.

His body still felt warm. I pulled him into the vehicle, out of the rain. With his head in my lap, I chanted. He'd held his hands in a specific place, but I didn't know where to put mine. So I stroked his hair while I murmured the words of his native language.

I didn't know how long I held him. No one came. No one woke. No one, no one, no one.

The chanting hadn't worked, and now I just rocked him. Back and forth. Back and forth. The rain had cried itself out. I wished I could. My legs grew stiff and my back ached. The clouds parted and the sun peeked through. My eye caught a silver glint. A pin.

On Adam's Council robes.

My fire had long since extinguished, and with that spark of silver, it ignited inside again. Leaning down, I kissed Hanai on the forehead and whispered, "I'm so sorry."

Adam lay on the ground, his breath coming in shallow wisps. His torn shirt revealed his chest where the snaking sentry tattoo marred his flesh. The sight of those lines—a mark that would never go away—broke the dam inside. I bent over him and sobbed.

When I couldn't shed another tear, I took a deep breath, cleared away the infernal tears and slid my arm under Adam's back.

Fact: He weighed a ton.

Somehow, I managed to heave him to the vehicle. He coughed as I laid him across the seat. "Our...Council...prison." He went limp again.

The whole front panel of the vehicle contained only confusion. I ran my hands along the sides of the steering column, beyond grateful when my fingers brushed something.

A key. I twisted hard, and the fans roared to life. The vehicle lifted, a cushion of air separating us from the ground. I had no idea how to drive. While I fumbled with various knobs and felt some pedals at my feet, a beep blared from Adam's pocket.

A garbled voice.

I snatched the black box from his pocket.

"...Come in, Alex.... Adam?" Felix's voice contaminated my ears, even through the device.

A long silence followed. I looked out the front windshield and found Alex staring at me. She'd managed to raise herself to a sitting position. The rain continued to fall, creating a misty curtain between us, but the hatred in her eyes penetrated the space, the rain, the glass. A slow crawl of blood moved over her cheek as she raised her hand to her mouth.

Another beep filled the vehicle. "Alex here. I'm down." Her voice echoed with effort. "Send medics after you kill the Watermaiden and Earthmover."

"I'll send them now," Felix responded. "Position?"

"No!" Alex barked, and I almost dropped the device from the dose of anger in her voice. "Kill them...first." She coughed, a wet hacking sound from deep in her chest. "About five miles north of the city."

"Copy location," Felix said. "I'm on my way to the Enforcement Office."

A deadly beep signaled the end of the conversation.

At least I knew where to find my friends—and Felix.