The lumias cast white light throughout the clinic, their pale glow and the moonlight's blinding together. It is early in the morning, I've been lying in the clinic for hours since Tommy had brought me here and Doctor Maxwell began to check and see if I had a concussion- which I am unsure of how that was determined. After, she bandaged my scraped elbow. She forced Tommy to leave after 7 o'clock, he protested, but when she threatened to knock him in the head with a potion, he reluctantly left. I learned that Doctor Maxwell wasn't really an Elemental. Her parents must have been Elemental for her to know about this side of the world, but she specialized in potion making, Alchemy, instead, such as the one that eased the pain in my head.
Despite how exhaust I feel, I can't sleep. Earlier's events play over and over again in my head, and I'm afraid that if I shut my eyes, the dreams, or the attacker himself, will come back. I try to close my eyes, but images of fire and the attacker creep their way into my sight, so I return to gazing at the ceiling. I can see Cora and the other 2 victims fast asleep on the other side of the clinic, but besides that, the place is empty. The large double doors- but nowhere near as large as the doors to The Hall- are shut and locked, but paranoia tells me that it won't keep the attacker out.
I hear the faint sound of footsteps in the quiet corridor, echoing in the clinic, they would have been impossible to make out if it isn't for the dead silence. I sit up as they near, and I press my back up against the metal bed frame behind me. I hold my breath. It could be anyone, a professor, Doctor Maxwell, or the attacker. I wait, waiting for the doors to open and to see the attacker standing in the shadows. Instead, when it sounds as if the footsteps are just outside the door, they stop.
There is a loud whooshing sound and a gust of wind to my right. I jump away, nearly falling off the bed on the other side. I stare as a figure appears, and I begin to relax when I recognize it. It is only Tommy.
"God, Tommy! You scared me." I say in a hushed voice. For some reason I feel as if I should whisper, that it would be wrong to disturb the silence.
"Oops. My bad." He answers, amusement in his gray eyes.
I finally allow myself to relax, leaning back up against the bed frame again as Tommy sits in the small chair next to me.
"What are you doing here?" I wonder.
"I was making sure you're okay. I felt as if the locked doors wouldn't keep the attacker out."
"It sure didn't keep you out." I mumble, pulling the white blanket up to my chest as I shiver in the cold that seems to linger in the clinic.
"I'm an Air holder, I can travel by wind. The attacker on the other hand, holds fire, which means they are using a less noticeable way to disappear into thin air, such as when Ethan was attacked." Tommy explains.
I sit in silence for a minute, my mind swirling around many different things, but half of them I don't understand.
"Then how come he doesn't just use that power to magic his way out of this school?" I wonder.
"Two reasons. The attacker hasn't finished his mission, and you can't use your powers to 'magic yourself' out of the school. Especially when it's on lockdown."
"I don't know why you're calling him the attacker." I say in a low voice, even though I have thought of him as the attacker earlier. "We both know who it is."
"And that's how it's going to stay." He replies. "We keep this between us. We can't let anyone know."
"Not even Sophia." I agree, though guilty of keeping such a thing from her.
We sit in silence, unsure of exactly what to say. I still find it hard to believe that Levi is the attacker. I remember seeing him on the train for the first time. He was so cheerful and he had revealed to me that nothing was impossible, and showed me magic. I never thought it would end up like this.
"So what do we do?" I ask. "Confront him? Keep an eye on him?"
Tommy sits in silence, staring at the white sheets of my bed, considering the question.
"You burned him, remember? All we have to do is see if there is a mark on Levi."
"And how are we going to do that?" I inquire. "Just walk up to him and ask him to pull up his sleeve?"
He shakes his head "I don't know."
"So," I begin, going through the plan that we haven't really put together. "We pretend we know nothing, we continue as if we are searching for the attacker. We prevent Levi from finding out at the same time we try to verify what we know about him."
"Sounds about right."
I sigh. It won't be as easy as it sounds. Sleep ways heavy on me, but I know what my night will consist of. I now know how Cora felt, not even bothering to go to sleep, knowing what lay ahead.
As if Tommy can read my mind, and knows I am thinking about the dreams, he ask. "Earlier when you said that you had a dream you had forgotten to tell us about, and that the attacker-Levi- knew things. What did you mean by that? What happened?"
I sigh again, this time quietly so Tommy doesn't hear me. This is something I don't want to relive, even though it is still fresh in my mind.
"I was in a house." I start." I recognized it because I had a similar dream the first night here. I thought the kitchen was on fire and there was smoke everywhere, but when I entered the kitchen, there was no fire. Instead there was the mark, burning its way into the wall before it went up in flames. I tried to run but when I opened the door, the attacker stood there." I can't help but call him the attacker, it is habit. "When he spoke, he sounded like you, and it was what you had said to Cora. 'You know too much, You're the perfect target.' I started questioning him, but he said that over and over until I asked the importance of the house, then it hit me. I was the house my parents died in, then after that, I woke up."
"How would Levi know what house your parents died in?" Tommy asks.
"You're forgetting something, Tommy." I point out. "He also works for F.E.A.R."
The memory of the figure standing outside my window, so long ago, when I lived on Abbey Circle, flashes through my mind. I had spent weeks wondering who it was, then wondering if they were apart of F.E.A.R. Maybe the first time I encountered Levi wasn't on the train. He had put on a smile and asked who I was. What if he knew all along?
Tommy just sits in silence, staring fixated at the white blanket, as if he is in deep thought. I wonder what he is thinking about as I gaze at him, the pale light making his complexion lighter and his eyes glow.
"You're staring again." He suddenly says, I quickly look away.
"Sorry." I mutter.
I can see, in the windows across from me, the horizon glowing as the sun begins to rise, like the mountains in the distance are on fire. I know what it will bring. A day of being questioned and pretending and lying. I glance over at Tommy, to see his eyes on me, but when I look, he doesn't look away.
"Now who's the one staring?" I say, trying to make it sound like a joke but it doesn't turn out that way. I suppress a smile by biting my lip. "The sun's coming up. You might want to, you know, wind yourself back to the boy's dorm before you get caught."
"Right." He answers, slowly standing. "Get some sleep."
Like that's gonna happen. "You too." I say instead.
I expect Tommy to vanish immediately, but instead, he again surprises me with his actions. He quickly leans down and kisses my forehead, before a gust of wind carries him away. The only good thing about him suddenly leaving is that he doesn't see the blush that spreads across my face. The space on the middle of my forehead where his lips touched is burning with the sensation, like electricity. I bury myself under my sheets and close my eyes, drifting into sleep.
I wake up to the sound of silence, which is strange, because I'm not use to it. I cover my head with the sheet and when I remove it I am blinded by the light of the sun shining through the windows. I want to duck back under the blankets and go back to sleep. It had been the best sleep I had got in a long time and I'd had no dreams. Memories from the night before come back to me, and I am left questioning whether I had actually dreamed it.
Whether I am allowed to leave or not, I make my way out of the clinic, hearing voices and laughter echoing from The Hall, it must be around lunch time. Instead of going to The Hall, dressed in my pajamas, I decide it would be a good idea to change. After last night, I'm not going to walk all the way up to the girl's dorm alone, instead, I concentrated on what Professor Hernandez had taught us about traveling by wind. Attempting to travel by wind would have probably been useful before, like when I was being attacked. She had explained how we need to concentrate on where we want to go, to imagine it as if we are there, then allow ourselves to be carried away by the wind. I just pray I won't end up on the roof of the academy.
I close my eyes and imagine the girls dorm. The beds lining the wall, the desk, chairs, windows and curtains. I feel as if I am standing in the room, my feet on the cold stone floor, the familiar smell of perfume that the girls in my dorm seem to pour on themselves every morning. I feel wind blow past me, at first just swirling around me and making my hair fly into my face, then I am falling, but I keep my concentration on the room despite my panic.
I hit the ground, my knees giving way on me as I fall to the stone floor. It feels as if I have actually been in a tornado, my head is spinning, ears ringing, and I feel nauseated. I take a deep breath, before standing to see I have successfully managed to make it here alive. My school uniform had been messed up when I was been attacked, holes in the elbows where I had fell, and ripped at one point or another during my struggle.
I stick with the old clothes that use to belong to Stephanie. A pair of dark jeans that are torn at the knee and a faded gray shirt. I decide I'm not going to walk back downstairs, so instead I repeat the same process and feel wind spinning around me and I am back in the corridor that leads to entrance of The Hall. I quickly make my way to the smell of food and the sound of voices, realizing how hungry I am after missing dinner the night before.
I expected it, but it is still uncomfortable to have almost every eyes in The Hall turn toward me. I make a mental list of all the titles I'd had in the first three months at the academy. "One of them", "The girl who somehow survived" , "The girl who hadn't specialized" , and now, it is probably easy to guess what the title is now. "The only one to survive the attack." The others had survived, it isn't just me, but that isn't really how everyone else sees it. I'm the only one of them still up and talking. I take my seat next to Tommy, keeping my eyes on the ground, but I can feel everyone's intense stare.
"Hey Bella. How are you feeling?" Sophia asks, sitting diagonal from me.
"Better once I eat." I answer, grabbing a plate and a few sandwiches from a stack of them in the middle of the table.
"You sure you don't want the whole tray?" I hear Levi ask.
I stiffen and glance up at him, a little startled. He looks as carefree as always, a smile on his face and his green eyes bright. I glance down at his left arm, but he wears a dark long sleeved shirt that hides it.
"Um. No, I think I'll live with five." I reply, moving my hand away from the tray and attempting to shy smile.
Tommy doesn't say a word, probably because he is afraid he might say something to Levi that will give him away, so he stays silent, eating a sandwich and reading through the newspaper. I keep glancing at Levi, to see if he is any way in pain or uncomfortable, but he shows no signs.
"There have been more attacks, and it seems as if no one is doing anything to stop it." Tommy says, staring down at the newspaper with frustration.
"Maybe they are," Levi suggest, "But the Dark Elemental Hunters just can't catch up to them."
"Of course you would say that." Tommy mutters so softly I am surprised that Levi even hears him to reply.
"What's that suppose to mean?" Levi questions.
Tommy shakes his head and hides his face behind the newspaper "Nothing."
I glance at Tommy to see that he has also glanced at me and our eyes lock, and I can tell exactly what the look means. Maybe it's just our imagination, seeing things now because of what we know, but I can help but think: There's more proof.