Resilient (Tainted Elements, #6)

by Alycia Linwood

  “How on earth is she planning to do that?” I frowned.

  “She has techs working on a device that might be able to convert elemental energy into water, and she has people like me working on a serum that could change any element into a water one in a person’s body, so instead of having two or three elements, all of them would be converted into a water element, which would be very powerful and could be milked for months,” Jack said.

  “Are any of you close to success?” I raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Of course not.” He shot me an annoyed glare. “But I did create something special. Something I planned to use on you.” His gaze fell on Jaiden.

  “On me?” Jaiden eyed him with suspicion. “Would it make my elements permanent?”

  “Perhaps.” A slow smile broke out on Jack’s lips. “It’s a serum that could enhance your elements and change them a little... make them more powerful. I haven’t had a chance to test it yet, but I’m certain it would work. I don’t know what new abilities you’d get, if any, but your elements would be much stronger. Definitely strong enough to make sure Asya can never mind-control you again, even if you’re unconscious. It would work on Moira too. Of course, you can always just storm Asya’s office and see where it gets you in your current condition, especially after your elements are being harvested every day.”

  “What do you want in return?” Jaiden asked.

  “Um, my freedom, of course.”

  “Your freedom?” I said. “Don’t you realize that everyone’s looking for you?”

  “Yeah, but you’re forgetting we’ve left the country.” He grinned.

  “We did?” Lily thought Sophia’s friends were operating in another country, but I didn’t think they could’ve transferred us so easily. “I thought this facility was somewhere closer to home... and that they’d send us somewhere else later if we proved strong or useful.”

  Jack shook his head. “Didn’t you hear what language most people speak here? We’re in Russia.”

  “Right.” I hadn’t understood a single word of the language I’d heard, so that could be totally true. “So you want us to help you break out of here and go live a happy life somewhere in some country where no one can find you in exchange for the serum that might not even work?”

  “Of course it’ll work.” Jack’s eyes were like shiny daggers that wanted to make holes in my chest. “And once you have the serum, you’ll be unstoppable, you’ll take Asya down, and you’ll let me go because that’s the right thing to do. You can’t hand me over to the cops since I did everything to save your pathetic lives, so you better return the favor.” He curled his lip.

  “Fine,” Jaiden said. “Where’s the serum?”

  “Are we really going to do this?” I met Jaiden’s eyes. For all we knew, Jack was lying about everything and Asya had actually removed or passed through his blocker and made sure he would pump us full of some toxins or sedatives so she could stop us if we ever figured out that we’d been mind-controlled.

  “The cameras could go on any second. We don’t have time to discuss this, but if you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to. Your elements are strong enough on their own.” Jaiden offered me an encouraging smile, which faded as his gaze fell on his father. “And I’ll have to trust that my father won’t kill me.”

  “Oh, please.” Jack rolled his eyes. “Why would I want to kill any of you? I want out of this place. I don’t want to be anyone’s slave.”

  “That’s really funny.” Considering what he’d done in Elemontera and how he’d used people, I didn’t think his current situation was that bad.

  “So, do we have an agreement or not?” Jack flashed us a smile.

  “Okay, but if something goes wrong, I’m going to kill you,” I said through my teeth.

  “Fair enough,” Jack said. “But give me your word that you won’t hand me over to the cops or shoot me once this is over.”

  “Fine. I give you my word.” I wasn’t sure why he actually believed me, but he seemed pleased.

  “Good. Make yourselves comfortable then. This might be a bit painful.” Jack went over to one of the shelves and picked up a small metal box. As he carried it to the table, I sat down into the chair used for sucking out elemental energy while Jaiden settled in the regular one in front of the desk.

  “Painful? Why?” I didn’t remember his serum being painful, but maybe I’d just blocked bad memories, or this serum was different.

  “It’ll basically rebuild your element and change its structure completely. Your elements will still be yours and won’t change in type, but they’ll be stronger. I don’t know much about the discomfort you might feel, but you won’t be able to use your elements for twelve or so hours until the whole process is finished.” Jack lifted a vial from the box and grabbed a syringe.

  “That sounds... scary.” Could we really trust Jack with this? He was good with serums, since he’d basically created Jaiden’s elements, but I wasn’t sure there wouldn’t be any drawbacks to this.

  “It’ll be fine.” Jack approached Jaiden and took his arm. I tried to smile at Jaiden as he looked up at me, but I wasn’t sure if I was convincing. Jaiden didn’t make a sound when the needle pierced his skin and I watched the blue liquid disappear. “See? That wasn’t so bad.” Jack stepped back with a satisfied smile on his face.

  “It feels... It burns a little.” Jaiden’s brow wrinkled.

  “Still want to do this?” Jack turned toward me, and I nodded.

  Jack picked up another syringe and approached me, taking hold of my arm. “I’m going to tell everyone you came to me because you wanted stronger elements so you could donate more energy, and that I agreed because giving you my old serum would take too long and could damage your elements if taken every day. You just have to say you agreed to be my lab rats to test this new, improved serum.”

  “Okay,” I said as the burning sensation spread through my veins. “But if you have more of that serum, destroy it and tell them you have to recreate it first if they want to use it on others. We don’t want them to take it for themselves before we can use our elements again.”

  “I’m not stupid.” Jack jabbed the needle deeper into my skin, and I yelped. “But if someone gets mad at me for doing this without their permission, you better waltz in and save me. Mind-control them. Kill them. I don’t care. But remember you owe me.”

  “Yeah, okay.” I leaned my head on the seat as nausea rose in my stomach. The red light on the camera in the corner of the room came back on, and I glanced at Jaiden, who was gritting his teeth and trying not to fall off the chair. The serum crawled through me, as if thousands of ants were rushing under my skin.

  Jack didn’t react in any way when the door opened and Kira came in, her eyes wide.

  “What’s going on here?” Her eyes flitted from Jaiden to me and then to Jack.

  “Nothing special. Our volunteers wanted to increase the strength of their elements so they can give us more energy.” Jack quickly threw the syringes into the trash.

  “What did you do?” She frowned, rushing toward him and looking at the table. “What did you give them? I swear if something happens...”

  “Relax. Asya will be pleased. It’s an improved version of my old serum.” A satisfied smirk flashed on his face.

  “You’ll have to explain that to her yourself. I’m not getting involved.” Kira pressed her lips together.

  “Fine. I’ll talk to her. Now could you get someone to take these two to their rooms? They’ll need plenty of rest, and their elements won’t be working for some twenty-four hours or so.”

  Kira huffed. “Fine.”

  A sly smile played on Jack’s lips. Asya and Kira would think they had more time until our elements started working again. Maybe we could use that opportunity.

  Chapter 10

  When Kira came to tell me that the boss wanted to see me, I had to stifle a groan. It had only been eight hours since Jack gave the serum to Jaiden and me, and my elements still weren’t at
their strongest, which meant taking down Asya would probably have to wait until we could assess her abilities better.

  “Wait here,” Kira said, just as Jaiden was approaching. One of the guards was escorting him. “Someone will call you once the boss is ready to receive you.”

  “Okay.” The corners of my lips quirked up. “Is everything okay? Is the boss angry because of what...?”

  “She’ll explain everything, but don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong.” Kira patted me on the shoulder and walked away. Jaiden stopped next to me, right under a camera, and when the guard left too, I leaned to whisper into his ear.

  “What now?” I asked. “Are your elements feeling any stronger?”

  “Not yet,” Jaiden said. “But we could try to attack the boss and see what happens. If she’s alone in there, it’ll be two of us against one. We could probably overpower her easily.”

  “Probably?” My eyebrows shot up. “That’s the problem. We don’t know how strong she is. Just because she doesn’t seem so, doesn’t mean she didn’t find a way to make her elements even stronger than Sophia’s. And we don’t know what kind of equipment and protection she has in the office. We can’t risk letting her know that we’re no longer under her control.” There wasn’t much protection in the whole facility... well, at least not anything super sophisticated that we could see, but Asya was having no trouble keeping everyone in here, which meant she was good at this. “And what about the chips that could explode? What if they get triggered if we try to enter her mind?”

  Jaiden grimaced. “But if she goes into our minds to check if we’re still under her control and realizes that our brain signals are healed, then what?”

  “She won’t figure it out.” I met his eyes. “Not if we make our signals look as they were before our minds were healed.”

  “Do you think she can notice the difference?” Jaiden tilted his head.

  “Let’s hope she can’t. I can sort of fake reverse your mind control so that you respond to her how you would as if you were still under her control, but I can’t do that for my own mind. Do you think you can...?”

  “Yeah, I guess, but our energy is still not at full strength. Are you sure we can do it?”

  “We have to try.” I glanced at the still closed door, hoping no one would come out just as Jaiden and I were mind-controlling each other. Letting my air out, I aimed the shimmering thread toward Jaiden’s head and slipped inside, making sure that whatever mind control Asya added would be undone as soon as we were out of her office. And I prayed she didn’t know about mind healing and ways to fake mind control. When my element pulled back, Jaiden blinked at me, but a moment later, a shimmering thread pushed at my mind. Ignoring the pain, I let him in.

  “You can come inside,” a blonde woman said as the door opened, and Jaiden’s air immediately slid out of my mind. “Asya is waiting for you.”

  A frown creased my brow because I found it strange that this woman, probably a secretary, would call Asya by what I assumed to be her first name, but I hadn’t heard anyone call her otherwise, so maybe that was what she preferred in order to make herself seem friendlier with everyone.

  Jaiden and I stepped into a long, narrow hallway that led to yet another door, and when it slid open, we entered a small office with a black desk and three white chairs. Asya was sitting in a black leather chair, her long dark brown hair cascading around her shoulders, her blue eyes sparkling. She stood up and came over to us. Her red ruffle shirt and black skirt hugged her lean body, and her black high heels clicked on the white floor.

  “Moira. Jaiden.” She flashed us a broad smile. “Please take a seat.”

  We all settled ourselves in our chairs, and I glanced around the office. There was a shelf with books and files to my right, and two computers to the left. The screens were dark, but the blinking light underneath told me that they were on. Asya clearly didn’t want us to see something.

  “Do you remember me?” she asked. “I’m Asya, and I’m in charge here. We met when you came here.”

  “Sorry, my mind is a little fuzzy,” I said. “I don’t even remember coming here.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. It’ll probably come back to you eventually. The treatments to enhance your elements can be a little... complicated, so things like that happen, but I’m sure it’s only temporary.” She waved her hand. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about the latest treatment you went through. I didn’t authorize that one, so I’m a bit concerned. “The scientist who carried out the procedure claims you came to him and agreed to take the serum, even thought it hasn’t been tested. Is that true?”

  “Yeah.” Jaiden and I nodded.

  “And you did that because you wanted to be able to produce more energy?” She leaned forward, inspecting our faces carefully.

  “Yeah,” I said, “we were told that the serum would work and that we had a chance to test it, so we agreed to take the risk. I mean, you have to test it on someone, so why not on us? If it works out, you can use the serum on the others, and we’ll all be able to donate more energy.”

  “True.” Her smile didn’t falter. “What about you, Jaiden? Jack is your father. Did he tell you anything specific about the serum or about anything else?” I could see a shimmering thread shooting out of Asya and going for Jaiden, and I held my breath as her air slipped inside his head. He grimaced and squinted his eyes, but then his face went blank.

  “He said the serum would enhance our elements so we could donate more. Nothing else. He promised me that it would work,” Jaiden said, and I knew that my mind control, or better said, my mind protection had worked. The only question was if Asya could tell what we’d done.

  “Good. And what about your intentions? Did you take the serum just so you could donate more energy or was there more to it?” Asya asked.

  “I only wanted to be able to give more. There isn’t anything else.”

  “Alright.” Asya’s element rushed out of Jaiden’s mind and whizzed toward me. I didn’t fight her intrusion, just waited, aware that she was working her way inside my head and forcing me to tell the truth, but thanks to Jaiden’s protection, I was aware of what was going on and her probing wouldn’t have the desired effect.

  It was as if there were a wall in my head, and I was split in two. Asya’s control was working, but only until it hit the wall, so I could still think clearly and she thought she was mind-controlling me because the signals were reacting that way, and she didn’t know they weren’t really transmitting.

  “I want to hear the truth from you too, Moira. Is it true that you don’t remember anything about how you got here?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I don’t remember anything, but I’m glad I’m here and that I can help save our world for future generations.” I really hoped I wasn’t overdoing it, but Asya’s face was calm.

  “Why did you want to enhance your elements, despite the risks? Why didn’t you discuss this with me first?”

  “I thought you knew about it because I didn’t think anyone here would offer to do something that wasn’t allowed. And I wanted my elements to be stronger so I can donate more of my energy.” God, I should get a parrot to repeat the stupid energy donation sentence, but that was what Asya wanted to hear.

  “That’s really nice of you. Both of you.” Asya’s element lingered in my mind. “But next time something like this happens or you get any ideas, come to me first. And if any of the scientists act weird or say anything against our wonderful cause, you report to me immediately. Understood?”

  “Yeah,” I said, and her element slipped out. She went for Jaiden’s mind again, and for a moment, I wondered if I should just try to slip into her mind and see what would happen. Her mind control didn’t seem too strong and I could see the shimmering just fine, but after mind-controlling Jaiden, my energy was seriously down.

  “Jaiden, you understand this too, right?” She smiled.

  “Yes,” he said. As she repeated to him some of what she’d said to me, I looked around th
e office and spotted a phone lying next to her bag on the floor. If Asya could use her element in here, then there were no blockers inside or any alarms that would go off, because surely they wouldn’t be able to detect such a small amount of energy that was different from Asya’s since she was still using her element. There were no cameras that would be able to see the phone moving, but I was still very careful when I wrapped my element around it and slowly dragged it from under the table toward my foot and then slipped it under my pant leg.

  “Okay, thank you so much for coming here.” She got to her feet. “You may go.”

  I got up too, swaying slightly on my feet as I guided the phone up, just under my knee, so the bump wouldn’t be too noticeable. Since I didn’t really have a secret pocket anywhere, I had to keep the phone in place with my air and hope I wouldn’t lose my focus.

  “Um, I’m not really feeling well.” I placed my hand on my forehead. “Can we go talk to Jack about it? I don’t know if I’m supposed to feel this way. And it would be good if he could write down any side effects for future reference.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Asya nodded.

  “Thank you.” I gave her a big smile and headed toward the door, bumping into Jaiden, who immediately put his arm around me. My pants weren’t exactly tight, so my air should be able to make it seem like they were falling wrong and not that I was hiding a phone underneath them.

  As soon as Jaiden and I were out of the office, I breathed out a sigh of relief.

  Chapter 11

  “I didn’t expect to see you so soon,” Jack said as Jaiden and I entered the lab.

  “We talked to Asya and Moira isn’t feeling well, so we came to check with you,” Jaiden said, helping me take a seat in one of the chairs, then moved closer to his father. Jaiden turned his back to the cameras and whispered something in Jack’s ear.

  “Just let me make sure nothing went wrong,” Jack said, going toward the computer and pressing some buttons. A few moments later, the computer started making strange, loud gurgling noises that filled the room. “Come here, Moira,” he yelled over the noise, and I got to my feet.