Firebird (The Elemental Wars Book 2)

by K. Gorman

  She clenched her jaw against the feeling and eyed the duffel on the floor.

  “Are you leaving?”

  Alexei retreated, his hands moving to her shoulders just like he used to do when she was little. But now, the height difference was gone. She looked him straight in the eyes.

  “I just stopped to say hi,” he explained.

  Which wasn’t strictly true, if she believed what her dad had said on Sunday. Behind him, her father shifted and caught her gaze, his lips pursed into a thin line.

  Alexei, as if sensing him, stiffened. His arms dropped back to his sides, and he stooped to grab his bag.

  “But you just got here,” she said.

  Muscles tensed under the thin shirt he wore. She could see the dip of his spine, the crest of his shoulder blade as he picked up the heavy duffel. A new, raw pink scar slashed across his neck, growing thicker where it vanished under the collar. When he straightened, his eyes had hardened once more. He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

  “I’ll drop in again.”

  He slung the bag over his shoulder, stepped around her, and walked up the hallway. And he took the stairs instead of the elevator.

  He must have really wanted to leave.

  Mieshka turned back. Her father had come out of the shadows now, and the hallway light beamed down over his loose T-shirt and worn jeans. Maybe it was the light, but he looked skinny under the clothes, as if his arms were thinner, tauter than she remembered. His collarbone seemed more prominent than it should have; it stood out starkly from the neck of his shirt. A rough shadow of stubble coated his gaunt cheeks.

  But then, he moved, the light shifted, and he was back to normal.

  His eyes caught hers and then flicked over the crutch and the bandages. His irises were brown, like hers, not the blue Alexei shared with her mother.

  “There was a bomb?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you okay?”

  She shrugged, then winced as it twinged her sore muscles. “A few more bruises. Ripped one stitch.”

  And pulled the rest, which had hurt a lot more than she’d thought it would. Even with the wonderful painkillers Dr. Deforet had given her, she could still feel the memory of the pain, sharp and immediate, from her wounds. “I’m okay, though.”

  A muscle tightened in her father’s jaw. He turned to Buck. “Is she safe?”

  “We will do our best to keep her from harm—”

  “Is she safe?” her father repeated.

  Buck paused and met her father’s eyes. He had a way with silence, could use a pause like a speech. He exchanged a look with her father, reading the nuance in his tone, his body language. Dad hadn’t uncrossed his arms, and his eyes, though tired, still held an edge of the anger she’d heard in his voice a few minutes ago when Uncle Alex had stormed out of the apartment.

  Eventually, Buck shifted back, breaking the moment.

  “For now,” he said. “If the people responsible for today’s attack had targeted her, they would have used something other than bombs. She’s practically immune to fire.”

  To fire, yes, but not to shrapnel. She didn’t say anything, though.

  “If things get hairy in the city, we’ll move you both into protected zones. We plan to evacuate well before the city falls.”

  Before the city falls.

  Those were not words Mieshka had ever wanted to hear. She gritted her teeth and moved her crutch forward, forcing her dad to step back from the door. The handle dug into the shallow bruise under her shoulder as she walked along, moving by habit rather than sight as her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the apartment. Behind her, Dad and Buck continued to talk.

  By the time the front door shut and he shuffled back up the hall, she’d lain the crutch across her bed, pulled out her luggage cases, and sat down next to her dresser.

  Time to pack.

  *

  Fire licked at her fingers. Mieshka stared at it in the mirror, fingers curled slightly as the flames danced at their tips.

  She’d never figured herself as a Fire person before this. Never thought about it much. The Fire Element had been popular in childhood games, and her orange hair had certainly made her prime for the Element, but the Mages and their Elements had been far away from Dione, her small, seaside hometown, as opposed to the more-central Terremain and Ryarne.

  Which was probably why it had been one of the first to fall when Swarzgard had started pressing the borders.

  She tilted her hand and flexed her fingers. The fire tingled as it flitted over her skin, feeling like an affectionate pet. She’d turned off the light before she’d entered the bathroom. In the dark, it was only the fire that moved, its light catching on the faucets, the shower curtain, the curved edge of the fiberglass tub. In the mirror, the glow cast her face in amber; it made the shadows flick on her skin and caught the orange of her hair with strands of copper and gold. Her eyes stared back, their brown irises partially visible in the shadow.

  They weren’t glowing now.

  Footsteps shuffled on the carpet outside. A shadow blocked the light underneath the door.

  “Mieshka?” her father asked softly.

  She met her gaze in the mirror for one more second, then let the fire extinguish on her hand. Heat lingered in the air as she turned to the door.

  “Yeah?”

  The floor creaked outside. After a moment, he spoke again.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  Another pause. She saw the shadow shift slightly. The floor creaked outside.

  “It’s late,” he noted.

  She examined the door. After a second, she pulled it open.

  He looked much the same as before—same rough, loose shirt, same sweatpants. But he’d been more active around the house tonight—as she’d packed, he’d made more trips to and from his room than he usually did. She thought she’d heard extra rustling in his room, too. Twice, something heavy had hit the wall between them.

  She knew the signs. He was restless. And she’d bet he was restless for much the same reason as she was.

  Worry, guilt, grief… perhaps feeling a little bit left out.

  But she didn’t want to deal with it right now.

  She crossed her arms as she leaned against the doorframe. His eyes flicked over her, searched her face.

  “Can’t sleep?” He didn’t ask about the dark bathroom.

  “Yeah. Slept most of the day.”

  An awkward silence crept in. She didn’t see any need to fill it. They looked back and forth at each other. She saw him gather himself, take in a deep breath.

  Crap. Was he going to have one of those father-daughter talks?

  “Mieshka, if you ever need to—”

  She cut him off. “I thought I’d go over to Robin’s.”

  He stopped short and frowned. “It’s past midnight.”

  “She’s awake. I’ve been talking to her all night.”

  She thought that might get him to relax—proof that she had been talking to someone, instead of being holed up in her room. Or in a dark bathroom, as the case may be. Okay, maybe he had an excuse to be worried. But she didn’t need him. Not right now.

  He didn’t look convinced.

  “It’ll be like a sleepover,” she said. “And her mom’s a nurse. If anything happens with my injuries, she can take care of it.”

  “I suppose,” he said. “But—”

  She dipped back inside and retrieved her phone from where she’d left it on the bathroom counter. Its screen glowed to life as she balanced it on her bandaged hand.

  “Besides,” she said. “If we’re going to evacuate, I don’t have a lot of time left to spend with her.”

  He didn’t argue much after that.

  Chapter 24

  Robin massaged Meese’s head, turning the red hair a muddy brown as she rubbed the dye in. They crowded the corner of her bathroom, Meese perched on the lid of the toilet seat, head bowed forward, Robin bent over, chasing every la
st ounce of copper from her friend’s hair. A ratty towel hung over the Fire Elemental’s shoulders, cherry-picked for its lack of aesthetics.

  “So,” Robin said. “You might have to go soon?”

  Underneath her hands, she felt Meese nod. The smell of chemicals rose into her face, and she twisted her nose. It had taken her nearly an hour to work back to that topic, and she still had to work her brain around it.

  Sure, she knew the reason—Meese had to leave because of the invasion—but it was taking a long time to process.

  Neither of them could sleep—not that Robin wasn’t tired, but she’d hit that stage where she’d been awake so long, her body had given up trying. Last night’s—or maybe this morning’s—research project had turned into a day-long affair, and she had been glued to her computer screen, clicking on links, reading articles, and watching videos for nearly fifteen hours straight.

  Granted, not all those articles and videos had been about the war. But it had been a recurring theme.

  It was also, she’d learned, much closer than her government had let on.

  That was what took so long to process. The point where the invasion stopped being a background news story and started being an imminent danger.

  All the news feeds had stopped saying ‘if’ in regards to invasion and were now saying ‘when.’

  She leaned back, twisting to reach the bathroom switch with her elbow. The overhead fan cranked on a moment later.

  A drop of dye slid off the thin cellophane glove she wore and stained the skin on her wrist. She combed her fingers through Meese’s hair, looking for spots that appeared lighter than the rest. If Meese was to be a believable brunette, then the dye job had to be even.

  She held her breath and squinted as the chemical fumes curled into her face. They’d gone through nearly two packages of the stuff. If this last one didn’t do the job…

  She moved to the side, double-checking.

  Then, she leaned back and gave Meese a pat on the head.

  “I think you’re done.”

  Meese straightened. In the mirror, Robin saw her open her eyes. Two chunks of hair, separated from her skin by a thin barrier of cling wrap, fell over her face. The dye appeared much darker than it would be—once they dried it, the hair would lighten considerably.

  Still, it’d take a bit for Robin to get used to the look. She’d only known Meese as a redhead—heck, as far as she knew, Meese had only known Meese as a redhead.

  Must be a bit of a shock to look in the mirror and see something different.

  Robin peeled off the gloves, turned them inside out, and plunked them into the garbage. Meese reached for the empty box of dye.

  “We let it sit for fifteen minutes, right?” she asked.

  “Yep.” She turned toward the door. “I need more caffeine. You want anything?”

  Meese shook her head. As she reached for her phone, Robin left her to it.

  *

  Thirty minutes later, Meese sat on Robin’s living room couch, looking skinny against the cushy brown leather and picking at her new hair.

  It looked weird. Maybe it was her lack of sleep, but Robin’s brain still had a hard time juxtaposing Meese’s face against the brown hair. It was even harder with Meese wearing one of her favorite shirts. Meese’s old shirt was just starting the spin cycle now. Despite the towel they’d used, dye had seeped through and leaked around the edges.

  She’d make a note of that, for next time.

  Of course, there wouldn’t be a next time, would there? Meese was leaving.

  “Do you know when?” Robin asked.

  Meese looked up from her hair. It made her brown eyes look lighter than they had been, which raised more red flags in Robin’s brain—like there was just something about the combination that put her straight into the ‘uncanny valley.’ She couldn’t stop staring.

  Meese seemed to know what she was talking about. She dropped the piece of hair she’d been holding and shrugged.

  “Not sure.”

  “What, like… this week? This month?” Robin leaned forward, narrowed her eyes. “Tomorrow?”

  God, she wasn’t leaving tomorrow, was she? She couldn’t. That would be impossible. Surely, they’d know a bit more in advance—

  “I already packed a bag,” Meese said.

  Shit. Robin took another swig of her energy drink, swirling it around. The fruity taste lingered on her mouth long after she’d swallowed.

  “You look so different.” It didn’t look natural, but she wasn’t about to say that. Natural-ness didn’t matter, she decided—it only mattered that it wasn’t red.

  Meese didn’t want to look like Aiden’s kid anymore.

  “Yeah?” Meese held a tuft of hair up in front of her. It looked slick and shiny in the light. Parts of it still had a copper undertone, as if the orange still lingered under the color.

  “Yeah.”

  Meese let the hair drop. For the first time that evening, her mouth turned up in the corners.

  “Good,” she said.

  They sat in silence. Robin nursed the drink in her hand. Thoughts whirred through her mind.

  “How will you go? The tram?” An underground train system, part tram and part cable-car, connected Ryarne to Mersetzdeitz in the west. As she’d discovered in her research, the system was largely responsible for keeping Ryarne well stocked with supplies. Without it, trade between the two countries would be nonexistent.

  It seemed the go-to option, as far as evacuation routes went.

  But Meese shook her head.

  “We’ll go in Aiden’s spaceship.”

  Robin paused. “Is ‘spaceship’ really the technical term for it?”

  “It’s a spaceship,” Meese said.

  Huh. Fancy. She clicked her drink down on the coffee table and pushed herself off the couch. It had been a while since her last sleepover, but she still knew the basics. Rule number one: you don’t actually sleep at a sleepover. She swung around the edge of the living area and into the open kitchen. The fridge’s seal sucked as she pulled it open.

  “You hungry? Thirsty?”

  Usually, the no-sleep rule was fueled by lots of carbonated, caffeinated beverages, but her mother made that somewhat difficult. Vitamin waters lined the front of the shelves like multicolored sentinels, blocking the rest of the content. Robin reached around them to grab an energy drink she’d hidden behind a bottle of orange juice—not a great hiding place, but good enough when Mom was out of the house.

  She backed out of the fridge just in time to see Meese shake her head. Robin poured her a cup, anyway. Then, she retrieved a stash of chips from the upper cupboard and upended them into a bowl.

  “So, what you wanna do?”

  Meese leaned her neck back against the couch and stared at the ceiling. “I don’t know. I just… needed to get away, you know?”

  The top end of a bruise emerged where the shirt slipped low over her collarbone, the skin showing a faded blue-green color. If Robin looked, she could see where the bandages lumped under her friend’s clothes. Between bombs and attacks by Earth Mages, Meese had had a rough few days. No wonder she wanted a break.

  She nodded along. “You’ve been kind of busy all break, haven’t you?”

  “I needed to catch up on my training.”

  “Your Elemental training?”

  Meese nodded. “Sort of. That kind of didn’t come until later. Aiden’s been busy.” She perked up. “But I learned to fire a gun.”

  “That’s cool.” Robin reached over and popped a chip into her mouth. Salt spread over her tongue as she crunched it. “You think Jo would teach me, too?”

  “Maybe.” Meese fidgeted. “I saw Chris today.”

  “Oh? Where?”

  “At the clinic I went to.”

  She hadn’t heard from Chris in nearly three weeks—no texts, no calls, no nothing. Of course, that could have been helped along by her mother’s grounding and her lack of a phone, but still. He’d been distant toward the end of te
rm. She had just chalked that up to finals, but maybe it had been a symptom of something else.

  Whatever. Boys.

  “How is he? Is he sick?” Maybe that was why he hadn’t been online.

  “I dunno. We didn’t really talk, but then, I was kind of out of it. The doctor gave me oxy-something.”

  “Oxycodone? Are you serious?” Robin whistled. “My mom says it’s unusual to prescribe it to teens like us.” And extremely dangerous. Mom had told her of some serious junkies coming into the hospital, half dead, stoned out of their minds. “Isn’t it supposed to be majorly addictive?”

  “Yeah,” Meese said. “The doctor was kind of hardcore.”

  “What’s Chris doing there?”

  “I think he works there.”

  “Huh.” Robin sat back. The energy drink was in her hand again, and she swirled the liquid around at the bottom of the can. The overhead light caught on the rim, pale, dim, and tinted with yellow. “I guess that’ll make three of us, then. Hey—it could be like school, except we get paid and will probably get beaten up a bit. I think Roger mentioned kickboxing. Did he mention kickboxing? I think he mentioned kickboxing.”

  “Probably. But…” Meese looked down at the lump on her thigh. “I think I can do without the beating up for a while.”

  Okay, she had a point. But it was nice to know that the Underground had some sort of medical facility. Robin was excited about the kickboxing prospect. And the gun shooting prospect. And the…

  She sat up. “Hey, what if—?”

  Keys scraped in the lock. She stopped short. Both girls looked over as the bolt turned and the front door swung open.

  A tall-figured man stepped into the apartment’s hallway, lugging two heavy duffel bags behind him. He bent his head as he dropped a set of keys on the mantle, the strong light from outside angling across the rumpled camouflage of his uniform. Medals gleamed on his breast pocket. Before the door closed and took the light with it, Robin saw sergeant stripes on his shoulder.

  It had been well over ten months since she had seen her brother, and there had been no love lost in that time. Nathan turned into the room, but halted at the sight of them. His eyes flicked to her, gave her a quick scan, and then focused on Meese.