“If I share my energy with you, the way we’re supposed to in Phazing, you will be crushed.” Cross interrupted, seeing where she was going next. “It will hurt like a nail gun to your eyes. And I won’t do that to you. Not if you ask me a thousand times. Not when my own instincts are screaming at me to just let it happen. Not even when the Shadows pound at my head wanting to touch you. So, don’t waste time trying to talk me into it.”
“We can’t Phaze properly unless you let go, Cross. You know that. It won’t work.”
He glanced away. “You can renounce me, then.” His tone was devoid of all emotion.
Nia pursed her lips. He was really not looking at her now, his eyes studying the shapeless clouds in the September sky. “Renounce you, huh? You’d be okay with that?”
No response. His jaw developed a tick.
“So, if I somehow, magically, found another unbroken, not wrong Match, you’d -What?- throw him a bachelor party before sending him off to Phaze with me?”
Mercury eyes sparked. Cross’ gaze cut back to hers so fast that Nia was surprised it didn’t ignite the oxygen in the air. “If I lost you, I’d topple the world without a second thought.” He snarled. “But, I swear to God, any man who tries to take you from me, I’ll kill slowly before the apocalypse even gets started.”
“See? Now, that sounded kind of like a real Match.” Nia mused. Honestly, his possessiveness turned her on, because she felt the same way about him. If any other woman came near Cross, Nia would crush the bitch with a tidal wave.
Cross was breathing hard, apparently coming to some tough conclusions. “I’d literally kill anyone else who touched you.” He repeated, almost to himself. “I know I would. Fuck. You really are stuck with me.”
Nia shrugged. “Could be worse. At least, you’re pretty to look at.”
“Would you be serious? You just said yourself that we can’t Phaze. Where the hell does that leave you, Nia?”
“I didn’t say that. I said we wouldn’t be able to Phaze properly with you holding back. You need to be a full Match and trust me to do my part. Let me share the weight of the Shadows.”
He leaned down so their foreheads nearly touched. “It will. Never. Happen.”
She met him glare for glare. “Then, I guess you’ll just have to think of something else for us to try, genius, because I’m all out of ideas.”
Cross swore viciously. “I already told you my idea. We just don’t Phaze. Ever. Very simple and foolproof.”
“That’s not an idea. That’s fear.” Nia went for the patriotism vote. “If we don’t Phaze, we won’t have children. With so few Phases left, do you think that’s really the right choice?”
“With so few Phases left, I think it’s the wrong choice to let one be flattened by Shadow energy because she’s too damn stubborn to listen to reason.” He shot back. “You’re fucking right, I’m afraid. You could die, Nia. How can you ask me to risk that?”
She rolled her eyes. “No one dies from Phazing.”
“A lot of stuff that ‘never happens,’ happens to me.”
Nia tried, again. “You’re talking about a celibate Phase-Match. Do you hear how crazy that sounds?”
“I want you.” He muttered. “I want you alive, and safe, and around forever. Even if it means that I can’t touch you, I want you with me. I don’t care if it’s crazy. Phazing isn’t the most important thing to me. You are. I won’t endanger you.”
Nia blinked.
That was… beautiful.
What a lovely, romantic thing for such a big, stubborn warrior to say.
But, she still wasn’t giving in.
“Cross.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t want you just because of the Phazing, either. I wouldn’t want our relationship to be like that. I want more.”
He looked relieved. “Good.”
Nia wasn’t done. “And if, for some reason, we couldn’t Phaze, I’d be okay with that. I’d be happy just having you as my Match. But, that’s not what this is. This is you being paranoid and self-destructive. And I’m not going to go along with that.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I get that you want a kid. Of course, you’d want one. I’m sorry. I am. We can get a dog or a horse or something.”
“I don’t want a horse! I want a baby.” Nia waved a hand. “And that’s not even the point. Look, do you really think you can resist the Phazing energy permanently? Unless you stay far away from me, I…”
“I’m not staying away from you.” The words were unequivocal. “No.”
That was good news, because if he tried Nia would just have to stalk him around until he came to his senses. That would be a bother. “Well, how do you plan to hold out against a biological imperative, then?”
Cross didn’t respond to that. Nia could see his mind working.
“Both of us will go out of minds.” She pressed. “You know that. This isn’t going to work. There’s no way. My energy is already driving me nuts.”
“You need release. That’s what you’re saying?”
“Yes, but Phazing is more than just physical. We’re connected, Cross. You said that you felt me, right? You somehow knew that I was your Phase-Match right after the Fall?”
“I felt you.” He agreed, warily. “I didn’t know who you were exactly, but I felt you out there someplace.”
That actually distracted her for a beat. “You knew that you had a Match, but you didn’t know I was me?” She translated.
He squinted. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Nia suddenly felt a lot better. “Then, you didn’t deliberately abandon me for two years?” She just wanted to make absolutely sure before she forgave him.
“Do I look like an idiot? Of course, it wasn’t deliberate! I would have gladly traded centuries off my life to find you sooner. What the hell do you think?” He scraped a hand through his hair. “Shit, I can’t believe we’re on this topic again. Do you own a mirror, for God’s sake? What kind of dumbass wouldn’t give anything to have you?”
Nia was so touched by his annoyance that she leaned up to press her lips against his. She felt Cross hiss in a breath as the Phazing sparked between them. Passion took over like a wildfire. Apparently forgetting every single thing he’d just said, Cross grabbed her closer, his mouth devouring hers.
Nia kissed him back, mentally cheering her victory.
Best debate ever.
Chapter Eight
It was not crime that she had done; it was elemental justice.
Arthur B. Reeve- “The Dream Doctor”
“I don’t think Nia’s coming for us.” Tharsis muttered. He leaned up against the wall of his cell and sighed. “We’ll just have to do our time for the next seven to ten years, I guess. Then, pray that the parole board is merciful. I’ll need to get some cigarettes to trade with the other prisoners, though. And I’ll probably have to sell you to gang members.” He looked over at Ty and shrugged. “Nothing personal, but I saw Oz. It’s every man for himself here in the big house.”
Ty glared at him through the Plexiglas partition separating them. “You should be nicer to me. Which of us is more likely to come-up with a viable escape plan, at this point?”
“Hey, I also saw The Shawshank Redemption. All I need is a Rita Hayworth poster and a couple of decades and I’m on my way to Baja.” Tharsis waggled his eyebrows. “Or we could do a Prison Break and get all tattooed. How cool would you look with some tats, huh? Think about it: Queen Tritone, Badass Despot.”
Ty felt her mouth twitch. “I’ll consider it. If I ever see daylight again, I’ll probably want to commemorate ‘the first day of the rest of my life’ with some kind of tribal marking, anyway. Would a rose or a koi fish look more regal tattooed on my hip?”
Tharsis chuckled. “No, do ‘Hello Kitty.’” He nodded towards her hat. “A permanent, trademarked memorial to our B and E prowess.”
The two of them had been passing the time teasing each other for the past half-hour. There wasn’t anything else to do in the
Mayport Beach jail and it certainly beat focusing on what might happen if the Reprisal or Parald found out where they were.
Ordinarily, getting thrown in jail would have been annoying, but not really anything to worry about. Elementals could’ve manipulated the metal bars of any ordinary cage in a dozen different ways. If there had been spaces between jail bars, Tharsis could’ve used Water powers to pry them apart with a little effort.
Unfortunately, the holding cells at the Mayport Beach jail were made of state of the art, bulletproof, Plexiglas, for some reason. No Elemental could manipulate Plexiglas or any type of plastic. Tharsis had argued that they’d prefer to be in “real” jail, like they’d seen on TV, but Police Chief Sullivan Pryce remained unmoved.
Ty made a face and looked out one of the small, circular cut-outs that studded the Plexiglas walls, allowing the prisoners to breathe. They had a toilet and a cot in the cell. All their Constitutional rights were taken care of, according to Sullivan, so they could just suffer through whatever aesthetic problems they had with their cage and shut-up. He really was a very hard man to reason with.
“I wish I’d found the name before the Air House attacked.” She murmured for the sixtieth time. No matter how Tharsis tried to distract her, Ty’s mind always went back to her failure at the hospital. One would think that she’d be used to failure by now, but it still stung. She’d been so close and Parald’s Phases had wrecked everything. Ty wasn’t sure why that was a surprise, either. Her ex-Match delighted in ruining her life whenever he could.
Bastard.
She shook her head, trying to clear the image of his face from her memories. Ty didn’t like to think about Parald.
Ever.
If she found the Quintessence she could make up for so much that she’d done wrong. It couldn’t rewind time. At least, she didn’t think that It could. Ty knew that Nia wanted it to undo the Fall, but Ty wasn’t so sure that was possible. Still, maybe it could somehow fix things. Restore at least part of what Parald had destroyed.
Ty had first started looking into human medical journals and hospital databases out of some kind of survivor’s guilt. She’d wanted to know why she’d survived the Fall when so many others had died. When the Elemental libraries had turned up nothing, she’d looked to the humans’ knowledge for answers. Ty had a theory that there was a connection between the humans’ immunity to the Fall and why some Elementals didn’t contract it. A statistically improbable number Phases had survived in family groupings. The immunity had to be genetic. Following that logic, Ty was working on the idea that some kind of human gene had protected a handful of Elementals.
Of course, it was heresy to even suggest that Elemental bloodlines might be soiled with human DNA, but Ty knew she was onto something.
It was a working hypothesis. Her pet project. Her only way to repent.
What she’d never expected to find in her digging was evidence of the Divine. Reports of critically sick children mysteriously healed. Of disaster victims saved against all medical odds. Of elderly patients feeling young again.
Miracles.
Ty wasn’t certain why the scattered tales had caught her attention. They really were just isolated news stories and hospital gossip circulating among the humans. Except, the more Ty stared at the words and images on her computer screen, the more certain she’d been that all the separate snippets and rumors were connected. Pieces of a larger whole.
Again and again, the same pattern would appear. For months, Ty researched every odd story that popped up. Every supposedly miraculous cure that was reported, she double-checked and analyzed. She’d thought it was part of her ongoing mental breakdown. Some sort of wish fulfillment fantasy, where she was searching for a chance to miraculously alleviate the sickness and decayed horror inside her own mind.
But, it wasn’t.
She’d discovered something even better.
For countless nights, Ty stared into the blue glow of her laptop, her bedroom door bolted tight against the oppressive darkness of her own thoughts. Until one night, she’d realized that she wasn’t crazy. There was a connection to all the stories. A reason beyond her delusions.
Something magical and so simple she wasn’t sure how she’d missed it.
Blood.
All the verified cases of healing traced back to a blood transfusion. And the blood from the transfusions came from Mayport Beach, Florida. When she finally put the puzzle together, Ty had sat frozen at her computer until the screensaver feature kicked in and went to endlessly shifting fields of black and white daisies. She’d found scientific evidence of the Quintessence. It was real and she knew where to look for it.
For the first time since her ninety-third birthday, Ty had felt a fissure of hope about the future. The Quintessence could potentially solve so many problems for the Elementals. For Ty. Finding it had become her obsession.
“Ty, we’ll find the name of the Quintessence.” Tharsis soothed for the sixtieth time. “Don’t worry about it. We have time.”
Except they didn’t and everyone knew it. The Elementals were dying out and taking the rest of universe down with them.
And it was all Ty’s fault.
They had to discover who had donated that blood.
She took her hat off and ran a hand through her short, red curls. “What about Nia?” She asked, focusing on the other topic preying on her mind. “Do you think Uriel’s right and Cross is her Match?”
Tharsis considered that for a beat and then nodded. “Yeah. I do. The guy was acting just like a male Phase acts around his Match. And he sure got Nia outta that lab in a hurry when the cops busted us.”
“I’m not sure how Cross did that. Or where the Air House Phases’ bodies went.” Ty adjusted her glasses and lifted a shoulder. “I mean, I get a good feeling from him, but I worry about Nia being alone with him for so long. Matches aren’t always right.” Ty actually hated the very idea of Matches. They tried to steal freewill and trap you to someone forever. Even if he was horrible.
Tharsis stared at her through the plastic. “Not every man’s like Parald, sweetheart.” He said, softly.
Ty winced and focused on the stitching at the brim of her baseball cap. “I know. But some are.”
“Matches can be a good thing.” Tharsis insisted. “Look at my parents. Look at your parents. They loved each other right to the end. Parald…”
Ty cut Tharsis off with a shudder. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
There was a sudden surge of power so strong it blew out one of the overhead lights.
Tharsis straightened to his full height. “Oh, shit. Ty, get down.” He moved closer to the plastic wall separating them, instinctively seeking to protect her.
Ty ignored her cousin’s warning. She got up from the cot she’d been sitting on, so she could meet the danger on her feet. Her doctor called it a heightened fight-or-flight response, but Ty couldn’t really do either in her plastic cell.
Energy crackled as a single Phase appeared in the room with them.
Dread pooled in Ty’s stomach when she saw it wasn’t Job. Aside from Job and Cross, there were very few Elementals powerful enough to jump into the human realm alone.
And this one was the worst of the lot.
Gion, of the Air House.
Parald’s second-in-command.
Ty’s pulse skyrocketed at the sight of him. She felt the lightheaded, slightly dizzy sensation that she always got before a panic attack. Her breathing increased, her palms went damp and vertigo swirled at the edges of her vision. For some reason, Gion was one of the biggest triggers for her disease.
Or maybe the reason was just that he was mean and scary on the level of some nightmarish high school bully mixed with an unstoppable slasher movie supervillain.
Just the sound of his name set off Ty’s anxiety. She’d been raised to be a queen, though. None of the exponentially increasing panic showed on her face as Gion stepped closer to her. Ty had never lost it in public and she especially didn’t want
to reveal her instability to him.
He’d eat her alive.
Gion glided around the edge of her Plexiglas cell, like a shark circling a diver in a cage. “This is interesting, Tritone. I always expect surprises with you, but this…” He rapped a fist against the plastic and smirked. “Well, it’s a terrarium, isn’t it?”
Gion was fascinating in the way of cobras. From a strictly academic standpoint, it was possible to see the deadly grace and striking beauty of him. But, you sure as hell didn’t want to get real close out in the wild.
Like most members of the Air House, Gion had icy blue eyes that constantly reflected displeasure with everything around him. But, instead of the Hitler Youth, blond and wholesome haircuts that Parald and most of the other Air Phases shared, Gion’s shoulder length mane was the color of dark licorice. Tall and aristocratic, the streak at his temple had the yellowish brilliance of twenty-four karat gold.
“I can’t believe you’re still wearing that fucking cape, Guy.” Tharsis put-in, scornfully. He took in Gion’s solid black uniform and high gloss leather boots, and snorted. “Dude, seriously. You look ridiculous. You don’t come to the human realm dressed like that unless it’s Halloween or a Star Wars convention.”
“Sadly, not all of us have your impeccable fashion sense, Tharsis.” Gion spared Thar’s Armani and Converse sneaker combo a quick dismissive glance and then focused on Ty, again. “As I imagine that soon you’ll both be resplendent in prison jumpsuits, I doubt you’ll be able to keep your spots on the best dressed lists this season, either.” He leaned closer to the door of Ty’s cell and lowered his voice to a commiserating tone. “The neon orange will do nothing for that lovely red hair of yours, either.”
Ty didn’t respond to that. She wanted Gion to think that she just wasn’t giving him the satisfaction. But, in reality, she knew that if she tried to answer him, her voice would stutter and give away her nervousness. If that happened, her whole façade would crack and she’d start screaming like a lunatic.
She didn’t do well with stressful situations. In fact, Ty was so bad at them, that Nia and Tharsis had been taking her to a psychiatrist in an effort to help cure her. Even Job had okayed that idea. There wasn’t a lot of mental health care in the Elemental realm, so they had to try human methods.
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