Elemental Hunger

by Elana Johnson

“I’ll tell you when to jump, okay?”

  “Most excellent.”

  “Just straight,” I said. The train barreled closer. It stretched on and on, the coal-colored cars streaking into the night.

  “Gabbers—”

  “Keep going,” I shouted. “Straight.”

  The engine roared by us, and we were still at least fifty yards away. I ran faster, sending steam to clear a path in the snow.

  “Adam?”

  “Right behind you,” he answered.

  Problem: The car doors were all shut. I scanned the train, desperation choking me at all the closed cars. Finally, I saw a rusty boxcar with the side open.

  “Slight right.” I changed my straight course so we could intercept the open car at full speed. “Twenty feet,” I gasped out.

  Isaiah flung his arm out, and a series of steps formed in the earth. We took them side-by-side, two at a time, and I screamed, “Jump!” I pushed off with my right foot at the same time Isaiah launched himself off his left.

  I might as well have been blind.

  See, I’d timed the jump wrong.

  All—

  —wrong.

  I envisioned myself falling under the train.

  The deadly kiss of steel.

  The crushing pain as my ribs snapped.

  A blazing inferno ripping through my muscles as my Element leaked into oblivion.

  Then a strong wind—an Elemental wind—slammed into me, propelling me forward. I lost my grip on Isaiah’s hand as we crashed onto the floor of the boxcar.

  I rolled, hitting my elbow and head on the far wall. I sat up just as Adam landed silently on his feet inside the compartment. He sent his wind away as he lowered Hanai to the floor and bent over him.

  “Elementals,” someone whispered.

  I jumped to my feet, straightening my clothes to cover all the offending parts. Isaiah stood, and we edged closer to Adam and Hanai. It smelled like moldy straw and rotting flesh. I inhaled through my mouth to calm my stomach.

  I wanted to light my hands to see how many strangers we were dealing with, but I didn’t.

  “Elementals. Help,” another voice said.

  Adam stood up. “We’ll help anyone we can. But first we need some medicine for our…Firemaker. Does anyone happen to have aspirin?”

  I stared at him, too shocked to speak. Inside I was screaming I’m the Firemaker! Adam looked everywhere but at me.

  “I do,” a raspy voice said. As Adam moved past me he hissed, “Play along.” He collected the medicine and knelt next to Hanai.

  “We need a corner for him to rest,” Adam said. “Like I said, we’ll help you, but he needs a few minutes to recover.”

  Some scuffling followed, and we moved into the corner of the car with the door immediately to our left. The confining steel walls constricted the air entering my lungs, and I wished Adam would call on his Element again to save me. He’d done a brilliant job of guiding us into the train with his air.

  “Firemaker?” I hissed without moving my lips as Adam laid Hanai in my lap.

  “If I said he was our Unmanifested, we wouldn’t have gotten the medicine,” Adam whispered. “They’d let him die, hoping we’d choose one of them instead. Trust me, it’s better if they think he’s our lead man.”

  “Adam’s right,” Isaiah murmured.

  Adam was always right. I stroked Hanai’s hair, pleading silently for him to wake up. By the time he stirred, my butt was numb and my bones felt spongy from the constant vibrating of the train.

  “Give him this,” Adam said, shoving a bottle into my hands. Isaiah helped me prop Hanai up. He moaned as I poured the water into his mouth. I pressed one hand to his forehead.

  Status: Too hot. I absorbed the fever, relishing his familiar heat.

  A minute later, he said, “Why’s it so dark?”

  Adam exhaled, and my relief-filled sigh joined his.

  “You wouldn’t wake up,” Isaiah murmured.

  “Gabe helped you,” Adam whispered, his mouth barely moving.

  I cleared my throat. Boys did that, right?

  “Thanks,” Hanai said, playing along. He slipped his hand into mine, squeezing as I helped him sit up.

  Adam broke the tense silence by unzipping the backpack and passing around a package of crackers. After we’d each had several, Adam moved around the boxcar. I sat in the darkness with my hand in Hanai’s, afraid to let go. So un-guy like. But Hanai didn’t pull away either.

  “There are seven others here.” Adam leaned down to whisper in my ear. “They’re cold. Act sick, but warm it up in here. I took some items from that house that we can distribute so we can gain their trust. See if we can get them to talk to us.”

  I didn’t know what he’d taken, but I stood up and took a second to find my balance, hoping that would be enough to fool the passengers into thinking I’d been the one who was sick. Once in the center of the car, I ignited both hands. But I let the sparks filter out, hoping to appear weak. It wasn’t that big of an act. See, I felt like throwing up. The rotten smell, the lurching car, Hanai’s illness….

  I swallowed, thinking the smell wouldn’t be improved if I spewed crackers everywhere.

  Two people moved forward and pulled on my pant leg. I crouched down and found they had brought a steel box with them.

  “What’s in there?” I asked.

  “Burlap sacks,” a man answered.

  “Do they burn?”

  No one spoke. Stupid, stupid question, I thought. See, a trained Firemaker should know the flammability of all materials. Seemed like Jarvis had mentioned that he’d learned such things once.

  “I’ve never tried burlap,” I said, my voice shaky. “Now cotton, that smokes a lot. As for denim—”

  “Just try it, man,” Adam said as he joined me. “I’m freezing.”

  I clapped over the box, dripping flames into the brown bags. They caught fire quickly, sparking and smoking. One deep lungful was all I needed to settle my nerves.

  “Let’s move it away from the door,” I suggested. “We don’t want to alert anyone.”

  Adam helped the two men drag the burning bags over to our end of the boxcar. I settled in between Hanai and Isaiah, desperate to grab Hanai’s hand again, needing his comforting energy. But with the firelight, I couldn’t. The other seven passengers left their places and settled around the fire.

  Most of them looked how I imagined we did. Dirty, pinched faces with hollow eyes and sunken cheeks. Two women huddled with one of the men who’d helped with the sacks. The other stowaways seemed to be traveling alone.

  Instead of sitting with us, Adam sat by an older gentleman whose rotten teeth made me grimace. He spoke with Adam for a few minutes, his gravelly voice buzzing above the crackling flames. Adam smiled, his face radiant in the firelight. “Guys, this man needs one of our coats.”

  I fished out a blue jacket from our backpack and handed it to the man. A trickle of tears leaked over his face as he pulled it on. “Thank you,” he said. I could only smile in return.

  Adam slid over and began talking with another man. I joined him, hoping I wouldn’t actually have to say anything. This guy already owned a coat—and a hat. He looked clean-cut. Well-fed. Adam asked him where he was from.

  He eyed us warily for a moment before Adam said, “We’re just here to help.”

  The man relaxed as he exhaled. “I came from Winston. There’s been some unrest there.” He leaned forward, his eyes bright in the firelight. “Unmanifested unrest. The Supremist burned Crylon to the ground, and most people in Winston think we might be next, our Councilman being the same and all.”

  I still didn’t know when the Supremist had set Crylon on fire. I had never seen a stitch of smoke on my trek across the wilderness. I knew my mouth hung open and my eyes were too wide, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t know Councilman Ferguson ruled Unmanifested villages.

  “I left to find work,” the man continued. “My wife and twin sons are hiding underground until I come b
ack.”

  “I think we’ve got something that’ll help your family,” Adam said, gesturing for me to get something from our pack. His expression was friendly, but I recognized the current of unease just beneath the surface. I understood where it stemmed from: the Unmanifested rebellion in Winston.

  I returned to the backpack and dug around in the front pocket. I found gold chains and rings with blood red stones. I pulled out a heavy chain with a brilliant blue jewel hanging from it. When I handed it to the man, he simply stared.

  Adam clapped him on the shoulder, and we turned toward the man and two women. They looked like sisters, but the man didn’t look like either one of them. Adam asked them where they were from, and the man answered, “We escaped Crylon.”

  “Ah, not far then,” Adam said without missing a beat. I, however, struggled to keep from choking on my own breath.

  He looked at Adam and then me. “The Supremist came,” the man whispered, as if simply saying her title might summon her to the train. “She buried the Elemental school under a mountain before setting the communes and agricultural center on fire. We’re some of the lucky ones. There are a few more in the cars behind us.”

  “She?” I blurted out.

  The man nodded, his expression somber. “The Supremist is a woman. The United Territories might fall.”

  “How do you know she’s a woman?” I asked.

  “Councilman Ferguson told us,” he said simply, as if Councilmen couldn’t lie.

  “Why do you think the Territories might fall?” Adam asked, shifting so that his elbow bumped my arm. Translation: Drop it.

  The man exchanged a glance with one of the women. She nodded at him, a clear encouragement for him to confess all. “Councilman Ferguson said the Supremist has instated new educational laws that prevent everyone from learning to read except Firemakers. She’s also been refusing to approve Councils for diplomacy training in Tarpulin. When he discovered she was destroying schools, he said several Councilmen withdrew their political support, him included.”

  I frowned; I hadn’t heard any rumors of the Supremist’s new educational laws. Of course, I’d put in my petition to learn to read and write three months ago, and it still hadn’t been approved.

  “In his last address to us before the fire started, he said that she’d be coming to destroy the city. He urged us all to go underground, or get out of the city if we could. He said she wouldn’t allow the Councilmen to unite, that if they did, their combined Elemental powers would be strong enough to overthrow her. He said she’d never allow a Councilman revolt, that she’d never let them get strong enough to overrule her decisions and take her power.”

  The man stared into the flames, where the dancing light caught on a single tear as it slid down his face. “Councilman Ferguson said he was going to try. That he was going to leave Crylon and gather with several Councilmen in the northern region. They were going to try to stand against the Supremist.”

  He looked up, and now his face held fierceness. “He left, and we haven’t heard from him again. A day later, the fields were on fire. A week after that, we fled.” He reached for the women’s hands and they linked their fingers through his.

  “What can we do to help?” Adam asked.

  The man met Adam’s gaze. “Nothing. We gathered food and supplies before we left. We’ll be all right until we reach Gregorio. Our Councilman said there’s a man named Davison there who is leading the revolution against the Supremist. Who knows? Maybe Councilman Ferguson has gone to Gregorio too.”

  The woman closest to him stared at me, the lines around her eyes creased with fear. I smiled and followed Adam to the next passenger. He prattled on about the train. It had twelve hoppers in the back, carrying wheat to Gregorio. I gave him a necklace too, thanking him for the medicine he’d given us.

  The last man took a pair of shoes after he pointed to the boxes stacked on the opposite end of the boxcar. He said they were filled with food.

  I moved across the car with Adam and lit my fingertips. The man from Crylon joined us in the corner. “There’s beans and corn and some stew, I think.”

  “Then how come you’re all starving?” I asked, staring at the glinting tin as my fire reflected off it.

  “We can’t open the cans.”

  Well, what a simple thing to fix. I reached for the knife at my waist.

  “Let me,” Adam said, his real message masked beneath the words. You’ll kill yourself with that thing.

  He pulled out his sentry knife and sliced off the top of the can. He handed it to the man and opened another. After everyone had a can of beans, Adam tucked two in his jacket pockets. We spent the next several minutes opening the rest of the boxes. They held more burlap sacks. I left everything but the food.

  I sat between Hanai and Isaiah again. Hanai lightly touched my knee, a faint smile on his face. We exchanged a glance that spoke volumes. I felt a strange sense of security near him. Adam opened four cans of stew and passed them to me. I heated them and handed them around the circle.

  After eating, I felt much better. I leaned my head against the cold steel of the boxcar and closed my eyes, wondering how long a person could survive on salty, canned garbage.

  My mind raced around what the man from Crylon had said. His story fit with a string of lessons on uprisings Educator Ostrund had taught me. The Supremist rarely left his—well, her—fortress. No, she sent diplomats first. Sentries, second. If she had to come, the situation was dire.

  “So why did the Supremist burn Newton?” Educator Ostrund had sauntered from one side of the chamber to the other.

  “Um.” I rubbed my forehead, wishing I could switch places with someone, anyone. “The Councilman wanted to appoint his daughter to….” I tried to remember his lecture from last week.

  “Unmanifested,” Educator Ostrund said, frowning. “He wanted his daughter to be his Unmanifested Councilmember.”

  “Yes. Unmanifested.”

  “And why didn’t the diplomacy work?”

  “You didn’t detail the diplomacy, sir.”

  “The sentries?” His voice hinted at excitement.

  I frowned, thinking back to our last session. “There was no mention of sentries.”

  “Sir,” he added.

  “There was no mention of sentries, sir.” I glanced up to find him loitering only a few inches away. I flinched away from his discolored teeth and rancid breath.

  “And what can we learn from this, Gabriella?”

  I couldn’t remember my answer. What I learned: The Supremist could do whatever he wanted. Whenever he wanted. Diplomacy be burned.

  And right now, the Supremist wanted me dead, Elementals uneducated, and Councilmen to be submissive. I could only hope that the Councilmen had managed to combine their powers, that they could do something together to overthrow the Supremist that they couldn’t do alone. Suddenly, the fragmentation of information and the distance between cities in the United Territories made much more sense.

  Segregating everyone and allowing Elementals to function as royalty gave the Supremist power over everyone. She controlled what they knew, where they lived, who they came in contact with. And none of them could combine what they knew or what they could do so they could get more power than her.

  But now that they have…. I didn’t finish the thought, because I didn’t know how. I couldn’t predict what might happen next.

  My back ached and my tailbone throbbed from the continual grinding of the train and the constant reminder that I wasn’t safe. Adam and Hanai had gone to sleep. Isaiah seemed content with the silence, so I suffered with my own thoughts. They ran in circles, around and around my situation. Around how I would ever find Cat in a city of thousands. Around how I was going to survive with the Supremist tracking me. Around what I might find in Gregorio.

  Two days and three nights passed before the train slowed. Hanai had recovered from his sickness. The gray light of dawn streaked the sky when the rhythm of the train changed.

  I gla
nced at Adam as he stood. After tapping Isaiah on the shoulder, I got up too. My legs and back were stiff, but the rest had been good for them.

  Adam pulled on his gloves and shouldered the backpack. Hanai’s hand brushed mine for a brief moment, a mere whisper of touch. At least he was as nervous as I was. The other stowaways moved toward the open side of the boxcar, jumping out one by one until they had all evacuated.

  “Are we jumping too?” I asked, eyeing the opening. My feet itched to flee before we got caught.

  Before any of us could move, the train shuddered to a stop. We slid behind the cardboard boxes as shouts and metallic gongs echoed just beyond the open door of the boxcar.

  “We’ll have to go up,” Adam whispered as two heads poked into our car. He shoved Hanai toward the sliding door on our side, but held up his hand for him to wait.

  “Nothing but supplies,” a voice said.

  Adam motioned for Hanai to open the door. He moved it enough to squeeze his body through, and then looked left and right.

  Every second I stayed in the boxcar felt like it would suffocate me. Each breath became an opportunity for Felix to leap into the car and hold a knife to my throat. Just beyond my sight, I heard two male voices asking questions. My blood ran cold at the words.

  “…Elementals. Have you seen any?”

  A long pause followed. I exchanged a glance with Adam, who had heard the question too. I held my breath and balled my fingers into fists. I didn’t know who was being questioned, or what they might say. Finally a man spoke. “No, sir. We were the last on and saw no one Elemental.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief as the guard moved on to another, non-Elemental question.

  “We’ll have to slide to the end. There’s a ladder,” Hanai whispered, poking his head back inside. “There’s a track the door slides on.” He swung himself out of the boxcar and disappeared.

  Adam motioned for me to go next. Through the gap, I saw nothing but fields. We’d stopped outside the city, and to my left, a long warehouse stretched toward the wall. A few guards—sentries?—hurried toward it.

  “This way,” Hanai hissed, drawing my attention back to the task at hand. The track he’d mentioned was only two inches wide and didn’t extend all the way to the ladder. Hanai clung to a rung halfway up, leaning toward me with his hand outstretched.