She relaxes into it, her body liquid. New emotions fire along her neural pathways, sending chemical cocktails through her body that push her heart rate faster, dilate her pupils, and run shivers along her skin. She wants this. Her Fire nature slips from underneath the chemical haze of her brain and she pulls him closer, deeper into the shadows of the cemetery’s wall. Distantly, she feels her back hit the cold, rough stone, a flash of contrast to the warmth of his body pressed against her.
But, just as suddenly, he pulls away. Dark eyes look down at her, narrowed with unasked questions. She wants to close the space between them, but she remains still, letting the cold stone seep through the thin fabric of her shirt. He regards her silently, seeking out the source of the hunger hidden behind her eyes. A weight settles in the small void that separates them.
The tension does not last long – shattered by an explosion of sound that breaks the silence and echoes down the street towards them.
SIXTEEN
IT TAKES Anaiya a moment to recognise the sound that has shattered the moment. Kaide is shouting for Seth – his voice distorted by the distance and the walls between them, mangled by the sound of other voices, loud and unfamiliar.
She sees Seth’s eyes widen and his face, once confused, turn focussed. For a moment she just watches as he tears away and races down the street, and then something inside her reacts and she is following him. Her footsteps provide the off beat to his on beat and, in that moment, she is living two joys – the Air joy at the music of the run and the Fire joy at its physicality. She holds on to the balance, ignoring the pull of her body to disrupt the rhythm and break past the clumsy pace of the drunken Air Elemental in front of her.
Anaiya knows she can overtake him, stretch her stride out and sprint past him. Instead, she hangs back, content with the simple pleasure of her muscles burning and the sight of Seth making his way towards the growing noise. He is an enigma – familiar yet perplexing; high energy like a Fire Elemental, but elegant and inexplicable like an Air Elemental.
He runs straight, despite the tequila, but so slow and encumbered. If he knew how to run properly; could just stretch out those toned calf muscles to hit the pavement in a more efficient rhythm, push that adrenalin to his core instead of just his limbs…But, as inefficient and technically incorrect he is, his movement captivates her. There is poetry in it.
Turning the corner just a few steps behind Seth, her thoughts are halted as she is faced with a mess of colour and movement, a harsh and hypnotic dance of entangled bodies. She picks out the broad shoulders of Kaide first, watches him use his left arm to pull at a body that threatens to stumble to its knees while using his right arm to fend off the advances of a tall figure dressed in dark kevlar.
Anaiya’s breath catches and her body jolts to a stop.
Peacekeeper.
Time speeds up, matching pace with the surge of adrenalin that now assaults her. A flash of long auburn hair pulls at Anaiya’s eyes, but her gaze stops on the figure that stands in the middle of the melee, casually letting the body of an unfamiliar Elemental drop as she retracts her syringe.
Jenna.
Anaiya cringes as the body falls heavily to the road, gravity crushing it against the hard, uneven cobblestones. An invisible thread in her brain tenses and threatens to snap. The memories of her realignment testing appear as a translucent layer against her current reality. She waits for the rivers of blood to run like an oil slick towards her, her body breaking into a cold sweat that feels unnatural in the persistent warmth of the evening.
Jenna looks up, her eyes sliding past Anaiya and flashing with anticipation at the sight of Seth hurtling towards her in full flight. Anaiya future-searches, her brain clumsily pulling at the potential outcomes indicated by the chaos in front of her. It takes longer than it normally does, and she is less certain of the accuracy of her conclusions. Even so, she breaks out of her stillness and sprints at Jenna.
She sees Seth veering to the left, heading towards what she now recognises as Rehhd thrashing in the vice grip of another Elemental, hurling abuse and vitriol at Jenna and the other male Peacekeeper. Jenna has also shifted in her trajectory, positioning herself to intercept Seth, her right hand at her belt where another three syringes of restraint serum hang glistening in the street light.
Anaiya stretches further, pushing herself to move faster, stride longer. Nearing closer to Jenna and Seth, she pushes off her left foot into a quick series of feints to grab Jenna’s attention. Responding to the new threat, Jenna reacts in the calculated way of all Peacekeepers. Anaiya depends on it, watching as the syringe flashes in Jenna’s hands as it heads towards flesh.
Anaiya lets her left knee dip lower, pushes her body to a sharp angle and allows her right shoulder to thrust upwards. The sting of the needle breaking skin and hitting bone is overwhelmed by the immense satisfaction of feeling it snap on impact and seeing the look of shock and then recognition on Jenna’s face.
The impact of their collision sends them into a warrior’s embrace. Anaiya braces against Jenna, buffering her body against the shock of the conflict. Jenna’s left arm has instinctively wrapped around Anaiya, the perfect position to support her body for administration of the serum. This close, Anaiya can see the fire burning in Jenna’s eyes and feels her own lips curve in a victorious smile.
“Time to back down, Peacekeeper,” she whispers. “Zero engagement, remember?”
Jenna stares back at her, a face devoid of emotion. Her eyes narrow in concentration and for that brief moment, Anaiya remembers what it is to be a Peacekeeper. And, in that moment, she knows that Jenna is not angry that she has been bested in combat, but is merely weighing up the gravitas of one order against another. Protect the Orthodoxy. Avoid direct contact with Anaiya.
“Drop,” Jenna orders quietly.
Anaiya understands the necessity of the instruction, feels its logic register in her neocortex where her residual Peacekeeper training remains. The only way for the Peacekeepers to disengage is for the combat to dissipate. As a Peacekeeper, Anaiya would have struggled to put on the pretence, but in her new reality she lets her eyelids close, her knees buckle and her body turn liquid, as it had just moments ago.
She slumps to the ground, her fall mimicking the collapse of the unknown Elemental. The cobblestones are cold and rough like the cemetery wall. Jenna’s voice floats to her, refracted through the cold, the ease of her deception and the memory of the unfinished moment with Seth.
“Curfew commences in three hours,” she says. “Be on your way and keep the Orthodoxy.”
A deep-voiced grumble murmurs in the background, the other Peacekeeper protesting at the departure from protocol, but it is quickly silenced. Rehhd is still spouting obscenities, but they come from a quieter place and lack the pure aggression of minutes ago. Anaiya keeps her eyes closed, listening as the echo of fast footfalls recedes. Restraint serum can last anywhere from ten to thirty minutes, depending on the dose administered, so she releases the breath she was holding and lets the cold seep all the way to her bones.
* * *
THE COLD SLOWLY DISSIPATES AS warm hands cradle her face and lift her head up. Soft fabric grazes her neck and her head settles against what feels like a hard-cushioned bar. Fingers graze her temples and run through her hair. She lies there, tingling on the inside, motionless on the outside. Her lower back is still in contact with the road, her legs are cramped in the awkward position created by her fake collapse, but her head, neck and shoulders are enveloped in the warmth that comes from contact with another.
“How’s she doing?” asks a deep voice she recognises as Kaide’s.
“She’s a fighter,” comes a voice loud and close. Fingers run along her skin and the bar beneath her head shifts slightly. “Just like us.”
The voice is Seth’s. The fingers are his. And the bar beneath her head is the junction where his legs cross at the ankles, bracing her from the cold stones of the street. She wants to open her eyes and see for herself the scenario s
he imagines, but she resists.
“What happened?” he asks.
“They were attacking Eamon,” Rehhd says, her voice still strained with aggression.
“Why were they attacking Eamon?” Seth asks patiently, his fingers tracing circles on Anaiya’s cheeks and forehead.
“We don’t know – why do they do anything?” Rehhd replies. “We saw him dancing with the male Peacekeeper; they were shouting, we stepped in.”
“You stepped in?” Seth asks, his voice softer now. Lower.
“Yes, Seth. We stepped in.” Rehhd’s voice is tight and clipped.
Seth’s fingers slow to a halt against Anaiya’s skin.
“Rehhd…”
Anaiya can hear the conflict in his voice, shifting along the line between understanding and unforgiving. She wonders what drives it and why he holds the rest of his words back.
“It was Eamon,” Rehhd interrupts. “Eamon.”
“And Eamon should know better than to pick a fight with a Peacekeeper patrol,” Seth says heatedly. “Should act like the Air he is instead of an undisciplined Earth brute.”
Rehhd’s voice splutters as she prepares for what can only be a tirade in response, but Kaide cuts her off.
“He’s right, Rehhd. It’s too dangerous these days; there’s too much at stake. We all need to be more careful.”
The words seem to hang in the air around them. Seth is impossibly still below her, silent above her. Tension buzzes in the air and weight pushes on Anaiya.
This is not the uneasy weight of Elementals confused and fearful of Heterodoxy, of curfews and patrols. It is a dominant weight, pulsating with a vibrant energy. It reminds Anaiya of the weight that Peacekeepers hold before a patrol, full of anticipation and a tightly coiled discipline that controls the fire. That keeps it a hard, cold flame.
She shivers.
“The serum is starting to wear off,” Seth says, registering Anaiya’s movement.
“We should get out of here,” Kaide says.
Anaiya feels Seth shift below her.
“I’ll take Anaiya back to my place,” he says. “You help Cress get Eamon back to his.”
Arms slip around Anaiya’s frame and she feels the tug of gravity as it resists her disengagement from the cold ground of the street. Her leg muscles sing in relief as they are rescued from their unnatural angles and allowed to hang easily over the strong arm that cradles her below her knees. Her chest is pressed firmly against Seth’s and her head falls into that beautiful space of vulnerability that Anaiya has only known as a target for slender, silver needles.
She smells the saltiness of the sweat from his brief exertion mixed with the synth and organic alcohol being expelled through his skin. The hint of a spicy note from whatever soap he uses flashes bright and, beneath it all, a familiar scent – sharp and bitter – that she remembers but cannot place.
“I’ll go with Kaide,” Rehhd says, her voice flat.
Seth’s cheek rubs along Anaiya’s jawline as he nods, her body pressed closer to him as he starts walking. The sounds of Kaide and Rehhd fade behind them and soon there is nothing but the sound of Seth’s constant footfalls and steady breath.
The lack of other sound and movement is conspicuous. Anaiya lets her eyes flutter open, watching as their merged shadow glides underneath them, inking in the already shadowed street.
It is just them, the night and their shadow. Unable to look around without shifting and alerting Seth to her consciousness, she closes her eyes again and lets the rhythm of his steps and the afterglow of the tequila coax her into a soft kind of oblivion.
* * *
IT IS ONLY when the sound of heavy footfalls shifts to sharp and shallow echoes that Anaiya wakes from her trance. Bright fluorescent light follows shortly after, burning into her eyes behind heavy eyelids. She opens them reluctantly, squinting against the glare to make out a mosaic floor of small white tiles cut into perfect hexagons. The floor changes into a black matte expanse and Anaiya watches as Seth’s leg reaches out to kick shut the grate of an early-model elevator.
Loud, clunky sounds erupt around them as the elevator commences its ascent. Seth looks down at her. “It’s OK. I got you.”
He watches her silently and, in the drawn-out passing of a second, she thinks he can see her. See her disguise. See past it.
She closes her eyes, hiding from his searching gaze.
This has gone too far.
Her internal admonishment feels weak, overpowered by a sense of inevitability that vibrates within her.
I’m drowning.
It is a melodramatic reaction. A decidedly Air response. Rescuer Fire Elementals sometimes rushed to the River Syn, to sections where the walls were lower or easier to climb, to pull drunken Earth Elementals or suicidal Air Elementals from the fast-flowing currents. Sometimes the Elementals were dragged from the dark water back to breathe air, but sometimes they were irretrievable, sinking permanently to the river’s depths and lost forever to the other side of the Wasteland.
On her nightly patrols, Anaiya would often find herself atop the river ramparts and staring at the movement below. She would walk the fine edge of the wall’s inner facade, wondering what it would be like to cross the water’s barrier. To slip beneath the surface and become fully immersed, fully consumed.
She imagined it to be like the soft cloak of the dodecahedrazines she drank as a Peacekeeper – a gradual, yet complete, embrace that turned everything a little more warm, a little less sharp.
“Don’t panic, butterfly,” Seth says, as the elevator ceases its noisy journey. “It’s just the restraint serum wearing off. You’ll feel normal soon.”
Hollow footsteps and the sound of a door opening echo in Anaiya’s self-imposed darkness. Shortly afterwards, she feels the softness and give of cushioned velour as Seth releases her. Finally ready to confront him again, she opens her eyes.
He sits on the floor across from her, knees propped up to balance folded arms, back pressed against a bare wall. He doesn’t fidget, doesn’t speak. Just sits there regarding her.
“What happened back there?” she finally asks.
She is not sure what back there she is referring to. Other questions begin to trip over each other in her mind, their answers hidden under a moving kaleidoscope of new and unfamiliar emotions. The short, stabbing guilt, the mellow and sticky sadness, the fuzzy confusion, the high static of uncertainty. And the sometimes sharp, sometimes soft, shimmering of whatever this emotion is when she looks at Seth.
“Peacekeepers were roughing up some friends –”
“But why?” Anaiya interrupts.
“You know why,” Seth says.
The words float in her disoriented mind, gaining weight as they settle. She does know why.
She sees the scars that mark Rehhd and Kaide. She hears the sharp crack as Jenna carelessly drops the restrained Air Elemental to the street surface, his head ricocheting off the uneven stones. She smells the sharpness of spilled genievre as an intoxicated Earth Elemental falls heavily to a worm platform following the flawless execution of just another Peacekeeper Trainee.
And then her unease transitions to something darker. She sees herself dropping the synth-addled Earth Elemental in Precinct 20. Sees herself efficiently dispatching over-confident Trainee Air Elementals.
Recent memories segue into older ones – one Earth Elemental turns into hundreds; the sound of broken bones echoes across a thousand more incidents. She sees countless Elementals – faceless, bruised and broken – all of them damaged because of her.
And worse than seeing it is feeling the new emotions it engenders. It hits her with full force. She is faced with her callousness, her ruthlessness, her hard-hearted perfection. Her force, her aggression, her unyielding strength. Her inability to feel.
And something inside her fractures.
SEVENTEEN
MINUTES THAT FEEL like hours pass before Anaiya realises that Seth is speaking.
“C’mon,” he says, pushing hi
mself up from the floor and walking over towards her. “There’s still beauty in this world, you just need to know where to find it.”
He reaches down to her and she clings to his arm like a rescue line. He pulls her up and off the lounge, and she follows him silently out of the apartment and into the stairwell. The air is cooler once they exit the apartment building. Threads of the chilled breeze alight on every inch of Anaiya’s skin, barred only to the palm of her left hand, which is pressed so tightly into Seth’s under-linked fingers that it generates a heat to warm them both.
They head north, walking the straight lines of Rue Jonlaclare towards the boundary of Precinct 17’s Edge. The street is quiet and the thought of curfew drifts across Anaiya’s thoughts without really gaining hold.
The familiar bloated air recyclers loom larger than they should. She is no longer aware of her feet tracking along the hard ground, of the sticky suction created in the vacuum of Seth’s grip, of the increasing urgency to turn around and get inside before curfew strikes.
The recyclers regard her silently, uncaring portents of change and misery. Her eyes flick erratically between them, casting about for glimpses of paint.
Seth remains oblivious to her inner turmoil, casually weaving between the concrete structures. He pulls her easily along in his trajectory, his gaze steady on the path ahead.
Anaiya tries to calm her thoughts, her breath, her heart. She lets her grip tighten slightly in Seth’s hands, as if his quiet confidence can transfer to her via osmosis.
When he stops suddenly, she whips her head around, expecting to see the images that have plagued her last two trips to the Edges. Instead, she is faced only with the greyed surface of just another recycler.
“Are you scared of heights?” Seth asks, dropping her hand gently and moving closer to the recycler.
Resistance: Divided Elements (Book 1) Page 13
