Burn (Elemental Hearts Book 1)

by Jayelle Morgan

  "My reasons are valid," he said, idly tapping his finger on the desk. "I want to see if you returning to Elementium will help suppress the power flares you've been having.”

  Levi felt a small spark of hope. It had been a couple years since he’d been back. Maybe being close to the source would help fix whatever was wrong with his powers.

  “If so, then we might have to schedule some rotations out, back there, so we can keep things under better control. Especially now that Ajax is also having some issues." Walker looked away out the darkened windows. "It’s reasonable to assume we’re all going to feel the same effects eventually." Walker looked back to him, and he saw something in the depths of his commander's eyes he couldn't identify. “Now. Sit down so I can fill you in on everything you need to report.”

  He sat down and listened, but all the while in the back of his mind, he was remembering the look on Brooke’s face.

  He was going ‘home’, but it didn’t feel like it. He wasn’t looking forward to it, even though he was anxious to see if it would help him keep his powers in check. All he could think about was getting it over quickly and getting back here, back to Brooke.

  Chapter Twelve

  Her nightmare started the way they always did, with fire.

  She was back in the stairwell, the smoke choking her, blinding her. Flames surrounded her on all sides, no matter which way she turned. They crept closer, encircling her. Trapping her.

  And it was so, so hot. Her face burned from the heat, and she brought her arm up to shield her face, trying to press through the flames again. They roared over her, pressing her back, and with a whimper she fell to the ground.

  Her pants were on fire again, and desperately she tried to snuff them. But the fire spread, soon catching higher on her leg, on her sleeve. With a cry, she tried to pat them too, but the skin underneath was already tightening, stinging.

  Crazed with pain and fear, she looked around for something, anything to help her. She had to put the fire out! Water, she needed water. Lots and lots and lots of it, to put out all the flames and keep her safe.

  It began trickling in from somewhere, running in shiny rivulets across the floor. Coming to her, the silvery surface of it reflecting the flames. She crawled to it, crying with relief, scooping it with her hands and splashing it on her burning skin.

  The relief was short lived. Eyes wild, she looked around her. So much fire. This would never be enough water to save her. The flames would dry up the water, and they would burn her alive. She needed more.

  More water.

  We're drowning! We're all drowning!

  I'm sorry! So, so sorry.

  Brooke shot up in bed, a raw cry coming from her throat. Cold moonlight filtered in through the windows, touching everything with blue like an underwater scene.

  Blue, not brown. Not brown water.

  She took a few wavering breaths, her body still shaking although the memory of the dream was fading. All that was left were the emotions clogging her throat. Fear, horror.

  Regret.

  And now, facing the rest of the night awake, and loneliness.

  She reached for her cup of water only to find it upright but empty. Had she drank it earlier? She reached over and turned on the bedside light after no one knocked on her door or came to sit beside her until she fell asleep. Levi had never returned from his meeting.

  She'd be worried except that the other soldiers still came on their rotations. Questions got her nowhere, but at least she didn't think something bad had happened to him.

  Nope. He just didn’t come back.

  Throwing back the covers, she stood up, only to find the missing water all over her. The bed, too. She looked back at the glass. Maybe she’d flailed in her nightmare, knocking it off, and only woke up enough to pick it back up. Or something.

  Whatever.

  She put on dry jeans and a t-shirt and turned on her computer. Might as well work since she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep now. She'd learned that pretty quickly these last few nights. And lord, had she tried.

  But like an idiot, she'd come to depend on Levi's strong, comforting, distracting presence to send her back to sleep. Then he'd up and left, leaving her to deal with the nightmares on her own. And damn it, that's what she should have been doing in the first place. Not to mention the whole ‘not human’ thing, which she couldn’t even think about right now. Brooke rubbed the thin bandages on her wrist. The burn was superficial and didn’t hurt anymore.

  She walked down the hall to the kitchen, turning on every light on the way. Hadn't she known that depending on anyone for anything that she should do herself was a mistake? She shook her head while she loaded the coffee pot. Now, she was so used to him sitting on the end of her bed to lull her back asleep that she was like a child, unable to do it herself.

  Her mouth twisted. Just like her mother. At least now she could sympathize better over how easy it was to depend on someone, right up until the moment they disappeared. At least it had only been for sleep and not every aspect of her life like it had been for her mother.

  And at least she hadn't turned to a seventeen-year-old girl to pick up the slack.

  She sighed, the guilt over that thought stinging her. She loved her mom, despite the fact that she was weak and depended on other people for everything. She just didn't want to end up that way—crying in a heap on the floor, without the knowledge or will to work, drive, or pay bills. That the responsibility for it all had fallen on her shoulders after her father left, which was as much his fault as her mother's. More, for abandoning them both. She’d never give another man the power to abandon her.

  While the coffee was brewing, she got out bread, eggs, and the fixings for an egg sandwich, all the while eying one of Levi's nutrition bars on the table. Cooking seemed to sap what little energy she had, but she’d be damned if she'd give in and eat it instead. She was done depending on anyone but herself.

  She sat at the table and ate her breakfast, almost too tired to taste it. A glance out the window told her it wasn't anywhere close to dawn.

  Oh well, lots of time to work then, right?

  The only problem was she'd already gotten most of it done. The deadline for the Sunday paper was Thursday, and it was only Tuesday. Twenty-hour days gave you lots of time to be productive.

  And tired.

  She scrubbed her hands up and down over her face rapidly, trying to get rid of the hot, heavy feeling around her eyes.

  What she needed was a change of routine, a change of scenery. Something to do to keep her mind off the Chaolt and the danger, and one amber-eyed soldier who she hadn't heard from in days.

  Decision made, she went to the door and opened it. Which soldier was on duty?

  With the long, low whistle they'd taught her, she stood there a moment in the crisp, dark morning air, waiting. Hoping.

  But it was Ajax who came loping up the porch.

  "Hey, Ajax. Do you know when Levi is coming back?"

  "Nope," he replied, crossing his arms.

  "Is he coming back?"

  He just shrugged, and she sighed. All the soldiers were frustratingly tight-lipped on any of the details. This wasn't the first time she'd asked, and they both knew it wouldn't be the last. They both knew the answers wouldn't change either.

  "Can you get me some pansies? Apparently I want to garden."

  A slightly raised eyebrow was his only reaction to that request, coming at very close to four in the morning, but then he nodded.

  "Thanks. Just have whoever is coming on next bring them."

  He stiffened at her faux-order, and she barely resisted gritting her teeth. For all intents and purposes, she was on house arrest. "Or, you know, you could let me go get them myself."

  "Not a chance. The Chaolt could— "

  "Didn't think so," she grumbled, cutting him off. She closed her eyes and sighed. She was being grumpy and tired and missing her independence, but that did not mean she had to be rude. "Please, Ajax. I'm… going crazy in
here alone."

  “I could keep you company.”

  When she opened her eyes, Ajax's unusual teal eyes looked a shade brighter in the porch light. But then he blinked, and she wondered if she had imagined it.

  “Thanks. But… ” She shifted, unable to look him in the eyes.

  “Micah is on next. I'll have him bring them."

  "Thank you." She ran a hand through her hair. Now all she needed to do was burn the next several hours until he showed up. She peered up at Ajax, who was still staring at her.

  "So you and Levi. There's something going on between you, isn't there?"

  Brooke stiffened. What did she say? There had been. She’d started depending on him, and there had been something else there too, besides attraction. Thank god he'd left and she'd opened her eyes. "Answer just one of my questions, and I'll answer yours."

  Ajax looked away, a half-smile on his face. "You already did."

  Brooke felt like screaming all of a sudden, she didn't even know why. She just felt wild and angry inside and she clenched her hands into fists. "No. There is nothing between Levi and I, and there can’t ever be. He isn't even human," she answered, her voice vibrating with the emotion that swamped her.

  Ajax glanced back, his small smile now a cynical twist.

  That's right. None of them were. Not a one of them was really human.

  Shit.

  "Ajax," she said, stepping onto the porch, "I'm sorry."

  "You know what, Brooke," he said, popping the collar to his coat against a gust of wind. "Don't be. I needed to be reminded that we have no business making connections with humans,” he said, drawing out the word. “We're here to win a war, and nothing else."

  I needed to be reminded that we have no business making connections…

  Had the soldier in front of her developed feelings for someone here? Ajax’s prickly attitude now made a little bit more sense.

  I could keep you company.

  Oh god, it wasn’t her, was it?

  He looked back at her sharp intake of breath. He must have seen the panic on her face, because he let out a soft laugh.

  “Nothing you need to worry about, trust me.” Then his smile flat-lined. “Just someone I met who refuses to be forgotten.” He took a deep breath and looked out into the dark morning. “Which I need to do, because nothing can possibly come of it. Or for you.”

  She began to say something, but he cut her off, his stare unflinching.

  “There is some kind of connection between you and Levi. Anyone with eyes can see that, and believe me, Walker has taken note. But it can only end one of two ways. Either we lose, and this whole fucking world goes to shit and we all die. Or, we win and we go back home. All of us. We don't have a choice.” Her heart dropped at his words. “So it's best if we all just leave feelings out of it.” Teal light, pale and icy as moonlight on snow, leaked from his irises before he turned away.

  They were going to leave.

  “Micah will bring your flowers,” he tossed out as he strolled into the shadows.

  Brooke crossed her arms against the cold wind, the likelihood of Levi leaving for good a thorn in her chest that pierced her with every breath. Maybe he was already gone for good. And despite everything— his origins, his actions, her independence…

  It hurt.

  Brooke stabbed the trowel into the stubborn dirt, feeling satisfaction and frustration in equal measure.

  Levi was still gone with no explanation, and after her talk with Ajax this morning, she really didn’t have any hope of him returning.

  With him gone, the rental house felt more like a prison than ever. Even work couldn't keep her occupied enough. And the nights… they were intolerable.

  She was sick of the isolation, sick of the boredom. Sick of the same walls and the fear, the same closed-mouth people and the same questions and—

  She took a deep breath, plunging the trowel in again only for it to ineffectively scrape against the rocky, hard soil. Gardening therapy had seemed a good idea earlier. But apparently, though she'd yearned for a garden for years while living in her apartment, she'd forgotten that she actually knew nothing about plants or gardening.

  Micah had brought the plants she requested when he came for his shift, simple purple pansies that she'd thought would brighten up the rental house. And since she couldn’t leave, she’d thought this would be better than staying inside and would give her a much-needed change of scenery.

  Instead, she was just being met with more frustration, more resistance. She resorted to hammering the tip into the earth, and when the hole was finally big enough, she placed the pansy inside. Why did covering it with dirt feel more like burying than planting?

  It looked pathetic, sitting crooked in its hole, covered with chunky, dusty soil. Oh well. One down, just seventeen more to go.

  She closed her eyes, the aggravation and despair she was feeling threatening to spill down her cheeks.

  She couldn’t even say why she was so upset, really. Levi wasn’t exactly human. Okay, that was a curve-ball. According to him, she was part Elemental too.

  But why did that make her so angry?

  With all the questions Levi had answered, all the information he’d given her, why did he leave this part out until now? It felt like a very important piece of information, his origins.

  Brooke shook her head, scraping out another hole.

  That was the crux of it. He’d purposely left out the information that he and the other warriors weren’t human, that she wasn’t totally human. And that “human” didn’t even have the same definition as she thought it did. He’d dropped the bomb on her and left, leaving her to work through it all alone. Leaving her to get through her nightmares, alone.

  Sniffling as Micah came around the corner on his patrol, she attacked the earth again. She refused to so much as greet him, even when he leaned against the house near her. This soldier in particular made the other soldier's grudging conversations look down right chatty. No matter what she asked him or how she tried to engage him in conversation, he had about as much to say as a rock.

  Suspicion made her look up at him for a moment, but he was simply staring down at his feet, silent.

  Shocker.

  At least he made it easy to pretend she was alone. Several minutes later she was putting another pansy in a hole, Micah’s presence forgotten.

  She struggled through two more holes before she gave up.

  She looked at the small flat of plants she had left. With a heavy sigh, she gently stroked the delicate face of a flower. Whether she planted them or tossed them, they were dead anyway. She’d planted them in soil where they couldn’t possibly thrive.

  That was the problem with depending on anyone, even emotionally. It gave them the power to hurt you.

  The side of her mouth kicked up as a tear wavered on the edge of her eyelash. She could see the connection. Despite knowing better, she'd gone ahead and planted her heart in bad soil. Not that Levi was a bad man, he just wasn’t a fully human man. Which meant he wouldn’t be here long, even if he did come back this time. And the thought of him leaving forever hurt with every single breath.

  Thank goodness she hadn’t fallen all the way in love with him.

  She'd really thought the situation with her mother would have cemented the knowledge in her brain, but she must have the same flaw, the same weakness, her mother did; depending on someone else for something they wouldn't always be around to give.

  Jaw clenching, she took off her gloves with jerky, staccato movements. Just as she was about to stand, Micah's enormous form knelt in front of her. He sat still a moment, and then ran a hand over the ground with care, almost stroking it. Mesmerized, she watched as the soil began to shift.

  His fingers trailed through the dirt, the hard ground giving way before them as if it were flour instead. With each comb of his fingers through the dirt, it stirred and darkened.

  Soon the whole area she'd been trying to plant in was beautiful, rich, soft soil.

/>   She looked up at him, and when he was done he returned her gaze. Golden light, yellow and soft, radiated from his irises.

  Earth. He was earth.

  "Thank you," Brooke whispered, humbled for some reason.

  He just nodded his head once in response, but he did give her a small smile. She found herself smiling back.

  "Levi," he said, "will be coming back.” His voice rumbled like the tumbling stones he represented.

  So he would be back after all. She took a deep breath and nodded. At least she could stop worrying about that specific question now. It somehow made her other questions feel less urgent.

  Micah stood, looking off into the trees before walking away. She stared at the transformed soil as he left.

  Then she sighed and continued planting the pansies bare-handed, trowel on the ground by her feet. The soil was moldable and soft, and the contentment she'd been chasing settled through her as she patted it around the base of the last blossom.

  The sun was beginning to set, long shadows from the trees alternating with bars of sunlight across the plants, when she got to watering them. All the little bi-color faces turned up toward her cheered her, at least until she shut off the water and faced the prospect of going back into the house.

  She looked for Micah, seeing his large form way out under the trees. She raised her hand to wave at him, feeling a lot warmer towards him now. He didn’t wave back, and she dropped her arm, a little disappointed.

  And then she realized he was coming towards her quickly. Running towards her, in the deep shadows under the trees.

  Alarm made a cold glide up her spine.

  When he burst into the sunshine, the light glinted off of him, silver and red. Knives in his hands, blood on his face.

  And he was yelling now, but she couldn’t hear the words. The hair on her skin stood up, and she turned and ran.

  They’d gone over the plan. If anything ever happened, she was to lock the front door, and then go to her room and lock the door there too, and stay until one of the soldiers knocked.

  She never even got the door locked before hands came from behind her, covering her nose and mouth. She struggled, bit, twisted. But when they got the zip-ties around her wrists and ankles, the tape over her mouth, there was no point. She let the fight leave her, going limp. Hoping the dead weight would slow them down at least a little, to buy Micah time to get to her.