Elementals: Entwined

Chapter 6: Amy

 Uri's arm on my waist tightened. "You could have died." His voice trembled slightly.

 One of the students pointedly ignoring us shot a slightly alarmed look at Uri. Now that the two of us were together, people were practically walking single file to avoid us, as though Uri and I both had the plague. I couldn't help but mentally shake my head at how stupid they were. With his pale skin, mismatched eyes and dark hair shot through with silver, Uri's appearance was startlingly different to some of the other students', though he wore jeans and a t-shirt like any normal person. He was over six foot, causing him to lean down slightly to look at me, and he had large muscles from the amount of time he spent in the training rooms. These things combined probably didn't help in making him seem harmless, but that wasn't what made everyone scared of him: like me, his abilities stood out far more than anyone else here. We were the freaks in a school already designed for freaks, and because of that, few people really bothered to get to know us. It was something that made school here pretty depressing when you considered that Uri and I were year-rounders. The two of us may as well have been orphans.

 I shrugged off Uri's fear. "I'm fine, same as usual. If anyone's to be worried about, it's Tiffany and Lily. Lily got bit."

 I shouldn't have said that. Uri's eyes immediately went black, and the temperature around him shot up. Students who had been warily pretending to ignore us suddenly began moving rapidly down the corridor with fear in their eyes. Only this time they actually had reason to be scared. I ignored the clearing hallway and grabbed Uri's face between my hands without a second thought. "Calm down! Uri, look at me. I'm fine."

 Uri closed his eyes. "That could have been you."

  "But it wasn't. I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere, so relax."

 Uri took a deep breath and opened his eyes. I smiled with relief to see that they were back to normal: his left eye gold and his right eye green. "Thanks," he murmured.

 "I wouldn't ever let you lose control. You know that," I said softly.

How long we stood like that, I don't know. But eventually we suddenly became aware of the fact that Uri still had his arm around my waist and I still had his face between my hands. Both of us leapt back from one another at the same time as though burned.

 "You have to find Tiffany," Uri said at the same time that I said: "I need to see if T got here okay."

 Both of us laughed to relieve the tension before heading down the corridor together, carefully not touching. Uri filled me in on the details of what I'd missed as we walked. Helena Gold, his fellow metal elemental and sister, was in trouble yet again for having slapped a guy who'd hit on her and hence put him in the infirmary. The popular crowd were being their usual asshole selves and the gossip had somehow already spread like wildfire about Tiffany's parental status.

 So apparently nothing much had changed.

 "Where do you think you're going?" Vera, the healer that served as the school nurse, folded her arms and stood in front of us to block the doorway as we entered the infirmary. I held back a growl of frustration and looked at her.

 "To see Tiffany. Everyone's permitted one visitor at a time, and she's my best friend."

 "She already has a visitor." Vera gestured at the curtain at the far end of the room, "Mr Reynolds is checking up on her."

 "He doesn't even know her," I retorted. I was on the verge of hitting something. "Hell, I don't even know him, and I know everybody in this school!"

 "He's her guardian, so he gets priority rights."

 I froze at her words. "What? You're telling me that he's -"