by Mia Hoddell
* * * *
When I arrived back downstairs Kai had changed into his standard jeans and t-shirt. Doesn’t he get cold? I thought as I watched him setting about lighting a fire. His muscles rippled under his navy shirt and I admired the view as I sat down on the sofa, combing my hands through my hair untangling the last few knots.
“Doesn’t this place have central heating?” I asked, never having used a wood burner before.
“Yeah but it takes forever to turn on and circulate so this is the quickest way to get heat until it does. Plus I prefer it as it’s cosier.”
I shrugged, indifferent to either option.
“So what are we going to do now we’re stuck here and the Elementals have forced us together,” I teased.
“Whatever you want. There isn’t really a lot here besides the things we brought and ourselves.”
“Hmm... Whatever I want?” I inquired, my eyebrows raised in question while a huge smile spread across my face. He grinned, obviously misinterpreting the meaning like I assumed he would.
“Yep, whatever you want.” With the fire going he moved to come sit by me once again.
“OK. I want to hear about your family.”
His arm stopped mid air and he turned to face me in shock, obviously not expecting the turn of events. I knew it was a risk asking him so bluntly but I was prepared to take it. What’s the worst he can do, lock himself in his room? He seemed to have recovered slightly as he brought his feet up underneath him and turned to face me.
“Are you sure? It’s not the most pleasant story.” He winced and I felt slightly guilty about asking him to tell me, yet not enough to say it didn’t matter.
“Yes, I want to know everything about you.”
He sighed heavily and nodded. “Let me get a drink first, you want one?”
I shook my head as he moved to the kitchen and returned with another mug full of coffee after a few minutes. I waited patiently for him to start, sitting crossed-legged against the arm rest.
“OK, my family. First of all they all worked in the same business as I’m in now, that’s how I got involved. It was before the Elementals were taken seriously and so there wasn’t as much funding thrown at us by the government.” He was looking down at his drink rather than at me as he spoke.
“Anyway, I was the youngest and even though they were training me to follow in their footsteps I wasn’t allowed to go on any jobs with them. I was better than most but they still wouldn’t allow me to help.
That was left to my two older brothers. One day there was a really big outbreak near the training centre and out of the forty E.Ks that went out only five came back. My parents had told me to stay put in the gym but I couldn’t just sit there wishing they would come back. I was nine so easily slipped out unnoticed in all the commotion.” He paused as if the next words were lodged in his throat and wouldn’t come out of his mouth, but I didn’t press him to carry on. I wanted to wait until he was ready to speak again.
Finally he sighed and continued. “They were surrounded by Elementals, fire mostly with the air adding to the flames and earth causing mild tremors to keep them off balance. I can remember the look of every Elemental there. They looked beautiful, elegant and enchanting. Beings like that wouldn’t be considered killers but that’s what they are. They surrounded my family, separating them from each other with walls of fire as they danced in between. It didn’t matter how many of them were killed by my family, there was always one to replace it and another to replace that. Orders were being shouted by the leaders but as the faint sound of guns emptying emerged they all stopped listening.
Instead they all focused on fighting for their own life. Some tried to go up against the Elementals in hand to hand combat but were instantly killed. The ones who had more sense tried to make a break in the fire, but with that many Elementals the fire had already caught on everything within reach of burning. I could see the Elementals communicating with each other silently as I stood hidden behind the building, just watching. I don’t know what they said but no sooner than they finished speaking they closed the walls of fire in, engulfing everything below. I heard their screams as everyone I’d ever known perished. I did nothing to try and stop it, I just turned and ran. I was scared, horrified and confused.
Only five people came out of that attack, Alanah, Jack, Trish, Ryan and myself. Trish and Ryan are the only original E.Ks left and once they recovered they bought the three of us up and taught us everything we needed to become an E.K. The number of E.Ks remained at five for awhile but we are slowly growing in numbers as we train more people and thankfully an attack that big has never taken place since. You saw Pasole, multiply that by ten and you have something near the scale of the training camp attack.”
I was at a loss for words as I sat there silent. Never would I have imagined something so horrible or cruel and I wish I had never asked in that moment. I wanted to crawl onto Kai’s lap, wind my arms round his neck and comfort him but it didn’t look like he wanted that. He had shut me out, his face guarded as he remained deep in thought.
“That’s why I can’t stand Elementals, they need to be stopped at all cost and every kill I get is for my family. That is the only reason I have stayed in this job.” He reached for my hand, his tone softening in severity as his finger entwined with mine.
“I’m sorry, I kinda got lost in the past then, you probably didn’t need all that detail, I’ve just never told anyone that before so got a little carried away.”
I leaned against him. A weak smile that didn’t reach his eyes forced itself on his face.
“Don’t apologise, what you saw is probably a hundred times worse than what I can imagine. I can’t believe you’ve managed to keep that dwelling inside you for so long though.” I kissed his cheek and his arms tightened around my waist, hugging me tightly to his chest. “Thank you for telling me, I never imagined it would be something that bad and if I knew I would never have asked you to relive it.”
He squeezed me tighter kissing the top of my head. “Don’t worry I’ll be fine, you deserve to know.”
We lay there in silence for a bit before he spoke again.
“I can’t let anything happen to you Rea, promise me you will never take any chances. This necklace may be the key but if it involves anything that could cause you harm, promise me you won’t even consider it. I can’t lose you too.”
“I promise,” I whispered.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I don’t know how long we lay there, silently offering comfort to each other but it was at least a few hours. My thoughts ended up wandering to my dad. I wondered if he had died anything like Kai’s family had and if he did - which was most likely - I also wanted the Elementals to pay. I sighed as I thought of his last moments alone in the woods and only Kai’s soothing hand stroking my hair kept me calm.
“Do you want to go for a walk?” he said after a while as he looked down at me, his chin buried in his neck.
“Yeah okay.” I pulled myself off the top of him, sitting on the other side of the sofa and stretched. Kai did the same thing before we both headed towards the front door to grab the thick, mountaineering coats we had bought at the one of the stores we visited before arriving. I had thought Kai was crazy when he added them to the trolley but now I was glad he had thought ahead.
“Where are the wellies Kai?” He pointed to a cupboard below the coat hooks while he had one arm in the black coat. He really needs to start wearing some other colours, I thought as I knelt on the floor and took out two sets of army green boots out.
Pulling open the door a gust of icy wind hit us, shocking me with the intensity of the cold.
“You sure this is a good idea?” I asked, starting to doubt how sensible the plan was. He didn’t give me a chance to moan any more though as he grabbed my wrist tightly, tugging me out the door.
“Of course it is.”
I half fell, half ran down the steps, nearly losing my balance and ending up head first in the snow. Luckily for m
e though Kai still had an iron grip on my wrist and stopped me going over. me under his arm and we began walking through the deep, fluffy snow that covered everything.
Kai’s mood seemed to have returneLaughing, he pulledd to normal as we trudged on through the tranquil forest, marking the untouched snow. The soft creaking of the flakes compressing under our feet and our steady breathing were the only sounds audible as we moved deeper into the heart of the forest.
“This is really strange,” I whispered.
“Why are you whispering?” he said turning his head so his mouth was by my ear, tickling me with his breath.
“I don’t want to disturb the silence, it’s weird if I’m really loud.”
He shook his head in despair at my reasoning.
“You’re the weird one.” I just shrugged in response while slipping out from underneath his arm.
Crouching down I ran my hands through the snow, raking up a few handfuls and patting it together to form a ball. I repeated this four times until I had four perfectly round snowballs lined up by my feet. Surprisingly Kai just stood there watching, even though it must have been obvious what I was planning. Only when I stood up, clutching the three snowballs and threatening to throw the fourth did he react.
“Don’t you even think about it Rea.”
I gave him a devilish smile, not bothering to hide my intent. “Too late, I already thought about it a while ago.”
“I’m warning you Rea, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
His tone was playful so I could tell he was only half serious. If he thought warning me would work though, he was wrong. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me so our size difference didn’t bother me either. I kept throwing the fourth snowball up and down, taunting him. He hadn’t moved to make his own yet, probably assuming I would strike when his back was turned.
We stayed in the face off until I got bored of taunting him. I stopped throwing the snowball, holding it in my hand and admiring it for a second.
“Just put them down Rea, you don’t really want to start a fight you can’t possibly win do you?” His hands were buried in his pocket, his posture relaxed as he tried to coax me to do his wishes.
“How do you know I wouldn’t win? You’re just scared you’ll lose,” I asked, rising to the challenge, even though I knew there was no hope for me beating him at anything physical.
Deciding that I was bored of talking I threw the first snowball, cutting off his words before he could list all the possible reasons as to why he was better than me. The ball hit him square on the jaw, exploding in his face while little pieces remained stuck to his face. I used this as a chance to get a head start on him and while he was momentarily blinded, I raced off taking cover behind the biggest tree I could find.
Peeking around the edge of the trunk I saw him wiping the snow from his face with the back of his gloved hands. I couldn’t help but laugh at his unimpressed expression and just as he finished clearing the remains I threw another one. This time though I missed and the ball sailed straight over his head, catching his attention and alerting him to my hiding spot.
“Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you not to start this Rea,” he said in a mock stern tone, while crouching to build up his own weapons.
I took this as a chance to build up my own arsenal but before I could create the sixth snowball I heard the crunching of snow as someone approached me.
Gathering my own ammunition I took off again, arms full with snowballs which disabled me until I stopped. As I ran I felt the first ball Kai threw hit me on the back, between my shoulder blades but I didn’t stop until I thought I was out of range. Turning I dropped a few of the snowballs and aimed to throw one at Kai’s head again.
However before I got the chance to swing my arm back another icy ball hit me straight in the face, blinding me. Similar to what had happened when I hit Kai, the snow exploded, coating my face in a white mask and winding me momentarily with shock. The ice felt rough against my skin while other parts had already begun to melt and were dripping down to the inside of my coat. I wiped as much as I could off, the ice feeling like tiny pieces of grit against my numb skin as I dragged my hand across my face.
When I regained my vision Kai was no longer in sight. I turned my head, searching all the possible places he could be hiding but saw no sign of him. That’s when I felt two strong hands plant themselves firmly on my shoulders, causing me to yelp in surprise and fear. Something hard then pressed against the back of my knee, making my legs buckle so only the hands on my shoulder were supporting my weight.
Kai’s smug face appeared above my head as he lowered me unceremoniously to the ground. I screamed as the snow appeared on all sides of my head, chilling me to the bone before I started laughing uncontrollably. I tried to haul myself up but with the amount of layers and the thick coat I had on I found I couldn’t lift myself more than a few centimetres off the ground. Kai was shaking with laughter as I wriggled around on the floor like a fish out of water, trying to find away to sit up.
“OK you win. Can you give me a hand now?” I gave up struggling and just lay there, feeling my trousers becoming increasingly wet.
Kai held out both of his hands offering to help me up, but as soon as I reached to grip them, he pulled them out of reach.
“Seriously, give me a hand, I’m getting soaked.” I said in a slightly irritated tone. The game was no longer fun now that I was losing, cold and wet.
He held out his hands again and this time he didn’t pull them away. I took hold of them both when an idea formed in my mind. Before he had a chance to pull me up I yanked on his arms, using his already unsteady balance to topple him so he ended up next to me, face down, in the snow.
I rolled onto my front so I could use my own arms to push myself back onto my feet before laughing at him.
“I changed my mind, I win,” I said, my voice filled with happiness.
Kai groaned as he rolled over, staring up at me frowning at my laughter. “Yeah Yeah, you cheated and took advantage of my kind and helpful nature.” He folded his arms over his chest clearly not caring that he was getting soaked.
“Well there was no chance I’d beat you in a fair fight was there. And you cheated first by dumping me in the snow, I thought it was non contact.”
“Non-contact? How can a snowball fight be non-contact?” He held out his hands in the same gesture I had performed when wanting a hand up.
“Not a chance, you can get yourself up.”
He rolled his eyes at me before shuffling onto his side and pushing himself to his feet.
“Draw?”
Reluctantly I nodded and he wrapped his arms back around my waist.
“Do you want to go back because your lips are turning blue and you look like you’re freezing?”
“Yeah okay.” I wrapped one of my arms around his waist too as we began walking back towards the house.
The heat from the fire was a welcome comfort as we walked into the house and began stripping off the outdoor clothes. Kai of course stripped down to just his boxers, clearly not self conscious at all but I left at least one layer on. We both headed towards our rooms when I heard my phone ringing from somewhere inside mine. Rushing to the door, my arms full of jumpers and socks I dropped them onto the floor and tried to follow the ringing sound.
Opening the draws I searched through the odd things I had put in them. I turned over my bed, rummaging in the sheets but had no luck in finding it. I then turned to the bags of clothes we had bought and throwing everything out I found my mobile finally at the bottom of the last bag I looked in. Not wanting the person to hang up I answered it before I had chance to question how the phone got to be where I had found it.
“Hello?” I answered, once again forgetting to check the caller ID due to my rush to answer before the caller hung up.
“Rea! Oh my god it’s so good to talk to you again.” Chloe’s over dramatic voice rang out from the other end of the phone.
“I’ve only been gone a few days, you c
an’t be missing me that much.”
“We’ve seen each other every day for the past five years Rea, of course I miss you. So where’s he taken you?”
I sighed. It was true that we had been inseparable for the past five years and I was missing home too, I had just forgotten about it for awhile, something I guessed Kai was trying to do.
“You know I can’t tell you that Chlo. I wish I could but for everyone’s safety I can’t.”
“I know, just thought I’d ask anyway.” She sounded slightly defeated as she spoke.
“So was there a reason for this call or did you just want to hear from me?” Talking to Chloe was making me a little upset and home sick so as much as I wanted to speak to her, I also wanted to end the call as soon as possible and go back to forgetting about home for a while.
“Um, a bit of both really. I wanted to make sure you hadn’t died yet, especially with this freaky weather changing constantly. I also wanted to hear from you and there’s some stuff happening here that I wanted to talk to you about.”
It was never a good thing when Chloe covered up certain things so I was put on edge by her evasive manner.
“Well as you can hear, I’m not dead and not planning on being so any time soon. Yeah the weather's weird but it’s not like we can do anything but wait it out I guess,” I lied.
“It’s good to hear from you too, I’ve been missing home a lot recently. What’s been happening there that you needed to talk to me about?”
There was silence on the other end of the line for a while and I was beginning to think Chloe had hung up on me.
“OK, you’re not going to like it but you are probably the only one who can stop it.”
“Stop what...” I said warily. Once again there was a long silence before she began speaking again.
“Ian has kind of lost it. When you weren’t in college he went mental, shouting, storming out of lessons and questioning everyone. Of course the others and myself were the first people he turned to but we wouldn’t tell him anything. Now he’s forgotten about Mel, Becka and Lindsey and he’s just bothering me with questions. He follows me home sometimes and just refuses to leave until he hears from you. I haven’t told him anything and he assumes you’ve run off with Kai. I don’t understand why he doesn’t just call you though.”
