Elemental Betrayal

by Elle Middaugh

  I nodded. “Cade’s alive, but he’s going to need a lot of help and healing. Can you, Lilly, and Chase work your Earth magic on him? According to Ida, we need all eight of us to take Nicholai down.”

  She nodded quickly. “I’ll grab them and be right back.”

  Then she disappeared into the landscape as quickly as she’d emerged.

  Scanning the battlefield from the safety of the trees, I noticed a few things at once. One, the Shadow Sect had officially shown up and joined the fight. I could see their black, snake-like outfits dotting the field. Two, the Traditionalists had joined as well. I recognized more than a few of them from the West Woods, including Henrie Landston and Aunt Marge.

  Thank the gods she’s alive!

  I was relieved, but that thought also made me think about my mom…

  My third observation was that with the fortress now destroyed and the playing field leveled, all five parties were mixed like batter in a blender of death. That meant my father was out there somewhere, along with Jay, Kale, and the rest of my friends. Were any of them still alive? They might have all been intermixed, but there weren’t very many left.

  Thankfully, the Earth demies showed up before I could worry myself to death.

  Lilly pulled me into a fierce hug when she saw me. “Thank god you’re all right.”

  “You too,” I said, sincerely grateful that we’d all survived this long—well, I assumed we all had. “Are the others still…”

  I didn’t need to finish that sentence for them to know exactly what I was asking.

  “Yes,” Elise answered as she started smearing salve onto Cade’s wounds. “All eight of us are still in the game. Most of the Elitists are not.” She turned to me and grinned. “We’re winning, Val. It’s almost over.”

  I licked my lips. I knew better than to underestimate Nicholai like that. He probably had something up his sleeve, something devastating.

  “Which Elitists are left?” I asked, watching Lilly and Chase begin working on Cade, too. “Loren, Chelsea, and Erion are gone. Amelia…is gone.”

  Elise’s eyes met mine again. From the curious look she gave me, I knew she wanted to know if I’d been the one to kill her. I nodded curtly. She nodded in return and got back to work.

  “Nicholai is still alive,” she said with an annoyed sigh. “So are Draven and Adira. I guess there’s a reason our dear old grandfather chose her nightclub as a meeting place all those months ago—she was damn strong enough to defend it.”

  I pursed my lips at the sour thought. “Who’s fighting who right now?”

  “Holden has been fighting Adira since the beginning,” Elise said. “He’s keeping up, but she’s slowly wearing him down. Xavier is squared off with Draven, and Sienna is taking on Nicholai.” She shot me a serious gaze across Cade’s chest. “They’re going to need as much help as you can give them, especially with Nicholai.”

  I nodded, taking that as my cue to get the fuck moving.

  I sprinted through the battlefield, acutely aware of how few people were actually left. The vast majority of them were littered across the ground like trash, nothing more than paper bags or empty soda cans. Dead bodies and ruined terrain were all I could see until I reached the tiny group of fighters that remained.

  Dad and Kale were helping Xavier deal with Draven, Marge and Jay were helping Holden with Adira, and Henrie and Exis were helping Sienna with Nicholai. At least none of them were fighting alone. There was safety in numbers, or so the saying goes.

  Nicholai was the only man on my radar, so you can bet your ass I went there first. Not even the fact that Exis was nearby was going to stop me.

  I collected every awful thing I could think of that he’d done and sent it straight to my willpower stores for strength. He’d killed thousands of humans and Elementals long before I was even born. He’d killed my grandma. He’d killed Cade’s mother. He’d bombed Center Allegheny, causing the deaths of hundreds, including Sienna’s parents, Holden’s mother, Charlene, and Kendrick’s biological father. He’d shot Holden’s dad right in front of him, as well as our friend Boone and a few other Modernist leaders. He’d bombed Wellsfield, killing I didn’t even know how many people. He’d tortured and abused Cade for weeks then left him for dead. He’d tried to kill every single one of my friends at least once, and he’d tried to kill me more times than I was even aware of, I was sure.

  The fucker deserved to die.

  Beyond that, he needed to. The world was not safe with him existing in it. He’d lived thousands of years and had thousands of chances at redemption, and he’d never taken a single one. Some people, no matter how tragic the backstory or how promising the future, are just not meant to be salvaged.

  I joined the fight by sending a spray of ice spikes at him, but he simply spun around and maneuvered out of the way. He was like a murderer on ice skates, so graceful and yet so homicidal. I threw a consecutive blast of fireballs just as Exis shot an Elemental-proof net, Henrie threw a tree as a spear, and Sienna accidentally sent a spray of water cascading over all of us. Nicholai simply ducked under the net, grabbed the tree-spear right out of the air, and spun it like a baton, keeping my fire away from his body until Sienna’s water killed it.

  Clearly, he had way too much practice with this shit.

  I turned to Henrie. “I know you’re my soon-to-be father-in-law and all, but can I say something that’s probably going to piss you off?”

  Surprisingly, Henrie nodded without an ounce of disdain.

  “I really need you to trade places with someone. You’re an Earth, and Nicholai is an Earth, so you’re doing nothing to each other. Your power would be better used against Adira, a Fire, or Draven, a Wind.”

  “You got it, chief,” he said before shooting me a small smile. Then he tapped Xavier’s shoulder. “Tag. You’re in, son.”

  Well, that was odd—my dad teaming up with Cade’s dad and Kale to defeat Draven. Oh well, whatever worked.

  That was when Nicholai upped his game and his speed, and we all struggled to keep up.

  He rocked the earth at our feet, knocking Sienna and Xavier onto their asses. Exis and I had a bit more experience, though, so we stayed upright. He dropped to one knee and shot out a wave of wooden stakes. One sank into Exis’s thigh and she screamed while I quickly forced my fire into a volatile shield and incinerated it.

  “Impressive, darling girl,” he said with a pleased smile.

  He was just psychotic enough to be proud of me while simultaneously trying to kill me. God, my family was screwed up.

  I reached over and yanked the stake from Exis’s leg then burned the wound so it didn’t bleed more. “Hurts like a bitch, doesn’t it?”

  She gritted her teeth and nodded.

  I smirked. “Good.”

  Sienna and Xavier had just enough time to stand back up before Nicholai was at it again. He created a log and swung it around in a circle, forcing us to either jump or duck. Exis went low and shot another net at him, which he deflected with a snapping vine that shot from his palm like a harpoon. I jumped over, creating my fiery whip and wrapping the flames around his neck.

  For the first time ever, he looked genuinely surprised.

  While I had him trapped, Xavier pelted him with iceballs, and Sienna tried to form a tornado but ended up with a whirlpool…which accidentally doused my flames.

  “Valerie, look out!” someone shouted.

  I spun around in time to see Draven aiming a gun at me. The next second, he fired. I gasped, watching the bullet spiral my way in slow motion, but I didn’t scream. All I could do was hold my breath, close my eyes, and wait. There was no time for anything else.

  But the hit never came—at least not for me. When I opened my eyes, Henrie was still and motionless on the ground.

  “Oh my god, no. No!” I ran to his side, hoping I could find the wound and cauterize it in time for an Earth to come around and heal him, but it was too late. The bullet had gone straight through his head and out the other side.
>
  He’d sacrificed himself…to save me. He and I had only just forgiven each other and decided to start fresh, and now he was gone…forever.

  I couldn’t stop the sobs that racked my body in that moment. There was so much emotional pain, so much irrevocable damage, so much loss.

  Draven swapped clips, cocked the slide, and aimed at me again.

  Survival instinct kicked in, and I immediately jumped to my feet, blinking to clear the tears. Dad was there in an instant, grabbing Draven’s big ugly head from behind and snapping his neck in half. It flopped to the side like rubber, and his entire body crumpled.

  I took a deep, shuddering breath. The only ones left now were Adira and Nicholai.

  I decided to concentrate on her first, that way we could focus on Nicholai alone in the end. It seemed like the smartest idea. Besides, her Fire wouldn’t hurt me, but my Water would hurt her.

  I whipped a few ice spikes at her and Jay followed suit, but Adira quickly melted them. Marge targeted her with wooden stakes, but Adira just burned them up. While her attention was on my aunt, I grabbed a dagger from my belt and threw it at her chest. It sank in with a loud thwack.

  God, I was almost too good with throwing knives. It kind of made me sick to my stomach.

  She yanked the blade from her chest and threw it back at me, catching me completely off guard. It sank into my shoulder and sent a vibrant pain cascading down my arm and back.

  As I went down, Adira torched the hell out of Marge.

  My aunt let out a blood-curdling scream as the fire touched her skin. She quickly put up a barrier of trees to block the flames, but the trunks melted as if they were made of butter, and once again, my aunt was screaming in pain as the flames consumed her.

  Jay did his best to intervene quickly, jabbing Adira in the back of the neck with an ice spike. She went down in an instant, but Aunt Marge…

  I ground my teeth and pulled the blade from my shoulder, recoiling as the sharpened metal slid past my bones, muscles, and nerves.

  I scrambled over to Marge the next instant, but the state of her body was horrendous. Parts of her were so scorched that her skin was completely gone and even her bones were burnt and blackened. She shook all over from pain and shock, and I knew her body had to have been shutting down. She’d helped save Cade from a fireball to the chest, but there was nothing I could do to help save her. All I could do was numb the pain.

  More tears rolled down my cheeks as I held my hands above her broken body.

  Away, I calmly ordered the Fire.

  As it fled and the burning subsided, a calming peace washed over her face. She smiled and sighed almost contentedly, but she never took another breath after that.

  “I’m so sorry, Val,” Jay said, shaking his head. “I…I tried to get there in time.”

  I touched his forearm and forced a small smile. “I know you did.”

  If I’d thought for even a moment the devastation would end there, I’d have been dead fucking wrong. If I’d thought, for just one fleeting second, I’d get a break from the pain of losing someone I loved, I’d have been wrong a-fucking-gain.

  I’d no more than turned around when I saw my father with a giant root jutting through his chest.

  This can’t possibly be real…

  Flashbacks to Delaney’s death assailed my mind. Nicholai had glued everyone to the ground that day and slowly ran her through with a root—just like now. Henrie had broken both legs trying to get to her and save her life, but it was no use.

  While my mind was busy rifling through memories, it apparently saw fit to remind me of another moment in time. The image of Alana’s face filled my mind, and our conversation from the afterlife echoed around in my brain.

  No one’s life, not even my own, is worth thousands of others, I’d said, or something like that. To which she’d replied, Remember that, Valerie. If you do, you just might succeed where your mother and I failed.

  Suddenly, the weird memory trip ended, and I was thrust back into reality once more. I almost wished I hadn’t been, though, considering Dad was still pierced by that gnarled plant. Nicholai’s root had lifted him a foot or two off the ground, and he hung limp as blood trickled from his mouth onto the jagged soil.

  My chin quivered, and for the hundredth time in less than an hour, I was crying uncontrollably. My dad was my lifeline, the only parent I’d had growing up, both when I’d thought my mom was dead and when I’d thought she’d simply abandoned us. He had supported me in everything I did, respected me, and loved me unconditionally. He’d taught me the meaning of hard work and respect, and he’d taught me how to adapt and cope with life. Just like my mom, Henrie, and Marge, he was now gone.

  “Surge Protector!” I demanded as I marched ever closer to Nicholai, a look of pure and deadly hatred blazing in my eyes.

  But I was met with shaking heads and shrugging shoulders.

  “They’re all gone,” Sienna said solemnly.

  I blew past her. “What do you mean they’re all gone?”

  “I mean they’re fucking gone. Used. Shattered. Spent.”

  I stared Nicholai right in his cocky-ass face but replied to Sienna. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to kill him no matter what.”

  Nicholai threw his head back and laughed. Arrogant little shit.

  He didn’t know I now had my mother’s power on top of my own, didn’t know my elements had no doubt mutated in some badass, mind-blowing way. Even I didn’t know what the change would be, exactly, but buddy, we were about to find out.

  I lifted my hand, but Exis rested her own on my forearm, making me pause.

  “If you alone kill him, his energy will destroy you. You already have so much power your body can barely handle it. I can see it shining beneath your pores. You’re glowing.”

  I looked down, mildly surprised to find she was right. I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. She didn’t appear to be bluffing, nor did she necessarily seem to be stopping me. She was merely informing me of my inevitable fate if I continued down this path.

  No one’s life is worth thousands of others, not even my own…

  The thought echoed once more in my mind.

  That’s how I’ll succeed where my mother and grandmother failed, I realized with sudden clarity. I’d already lost most of the people I cared about; now it was time to sacrifice myself.

  I nodded to Exis, and she removed her hand. Then I tipped my head slightly in the direction of her weapon, hoping she’d understand. “So be it.”

  Thankfully, she did not fail me. As soon as I spoke the words, she shot a net at Nicholai faster than he could shut the fucking hole in his face. As he stumbled and fell over backward, I jumped on him in an instant, pinning him down into the very dirt he could no longer control.

  I grabbed a dagger from my belt and held the blade up high.

  “This is for my mother!” I screamed, stabbing him once in the chest. “And for my father!” I stabbed him again. “And my aunt!” I stabbed him a third time.

  “Valerie, wait!” Elise called from out of nowhere.

  She stood at the end of a small line consisting of Lilly, Chase—and Cade! He was walking carefully between the three of them, arms on their shoulders for support. When his emerald gaze locked onto mine, my very soul lit up.

  “We’re a team,” he reminded me in a raspy voice.

  God, it was beautiful to even hear it at all.

  “And we’re going to end this together.” He looked around at the rest of the demigods. “All of us.”

  Suddenly I realized what he was doing. He was saving my life.

  Taking all of Nicholai’s power into myself would be suicide, but taking in just an eighth of it? That might be manageable.

  Nicholai’s eyes were wide and terrified, and his chest was gushing blood. I didn’t think he’d ever thought his time would run out, but every season comes to an end—even his.

  “Don’t worry,” Cade told him as he grasped the hilt of a dagger. “Maksim will forgive
you.”

  Nicholai’s Adam’s apple bobbed sharply as he swallowed. Sweat beads bubbled along his brow. “How do you know?”

  Cade’s smile was warm and genuine, not the sort of look I’d give someone who’d just freaking beat and tortured me…

  “Because I’ve seen the afterlife,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Just trust me on this.”

  To my sheer and utter astonishment, Nicholai nodded curtly and closed his eyes.

  “All right, all together,” Cade said, directing us once everyone had a knife in hand. “One, two, three!”

  The eight of us reared back and stabbed Nicholai as one.

  His power exploded in violent, vibrant rays of color, surging through us until every inch of our bodies lit up with electricity and our hair stood on end. The power transfer was excruciating and seemed to last for hours, though I was pretty sure it was only a few seconds.

  By the time it was done, we were all exhausted and so full of energy that we were bursting at the seams. Our eyes glowed bright white, as did our fingernails and veins. Light shot from our mouths when we opened them to speak, and cracks of brightness shined through our skin when we turned our heads a certain way or bent our elbows and knees.

  Exis stared silently at the destruction all around, and then eventually, she stared at us. Even now, after all that had happened, she looked calm, composed, and graceful as ever. She reluctantly shook her head.

  “The balance is still not restored.”

  She was referring to us; she had to have been. We were the only ones left, and our newfound powers were painfully obvious. She couldn’t kill us, not with a whole army of Sect soldiers, and certainly not by herself, but her one and only goal in life was to preserve the balance of power, so she was clearly at an impasse.

  I realized then what Elise had realized years ago: Exis was not inherently evil, nor was she inherently good. The balance was all she cared about, and if I was being completely honest, after everything I’d learned and experienced, I was pretty sure I understood where she was coming from.