"Oh sure doll, no problem." I'd take any help I could get, no matter how small the help was. "I'll go ahead and charge the crystal for you, if you want?"
"Yeah, all the good vibes we can get, go for it."
***
We ended up at that party Steven was so desperate to get to, and after twenty minutes I was horribly reminded of the fact that I just never seemed to fit in with most people my age. I always ended up feeling like the chaperon. A sixteen-year-old chaperon. Now that’s cool.
There were so many bodies inside the house that the heat started to get to me. The hormones were prickling at the small of my back and the vague sense of competition, testosterone, and estrogen were swirling in my belly. A cold sweat broke out along my hairline. The room was tilting slightly to the left. I pressed myself against a wall to stay steady until Jodi ordered me to go home an hour later, promising they'd found rides home.
"Besides, you need a good night’s sleep before tomorrow night. Take some Nyquil and knock out when you get home and don’t get up until noon. Promise?" She squeezed my hand as Steven leaned to give me a kiss on the cheek.
"I'll try." I tried to smile but I was sure it looked more like a grimace.
Hurry, Mike just walked in and he's looking around. Red thoughts. That was Steven, pressing his fingers into both our palms.
Crap! I looked around for a different exit since he was so close to the front door.
Here, we'll play interference. Jodi grabbed a hold of Steven's hand and dragged him straight over to Mike, talking animatedly to him, almost too quickly for him to follow. I dashed out the door right behind him. The cold air was as refreshing as a cold drink on a summer day. Not wanting to chance my luck, I didn’t take the time to fully appreciate it but quickly raced towards my van.
We'd gotten here later than normal and I was forced to park around the corner. I reached out and felt the shields I always had up around me, finding no weak spots, and breathed a little easier as I rounded the corner. Nearing my van I heard a girl’s muffled cry and stopped dead. Eyes wide, trying to take in every sliver of light available, I scanned the street. Straining to catch any other sounds, I was careful not to even breathe. I still had that underwater feeling in my ears from the noise inside the party and the sudden quiet of outside.
Eternity passed in the few moments before I heard another soft sob a few cars ahead of me. I walked slowly, not sure which car the noise came from, reaching out with every ounce of empathy I had and three feet from a large midnight blue F-150 I heard a familiar echo of pain and pulled my energy back into myself. Anger colored the edges of my vision as I marched up to Nick's truck, a birthday gift for his sixteenth birthday from his over indulgent parents almost two years ago. We all joked that it was also an apology for shortchanging him on the genetic code and helping to compensate for what he lacked physically.
"Nick, baby, please! My stomach hurts so much." I heard Tracy's pathetic pleads coming from the back of the extended cab, wishing with all my might I had something more lethal on me than just pepper spray. Tomorrow night can’t come soon enough, I thought to myself as I planted my feet shoulder-width apart, feeling my way past the concrete sidewalk down to the bare earth beneath. I drew up the energy I needed, balled up my fist, and banged harshly on the truck door.
"What the fuck?" I heard Nick's angry words and they seeped into my ears like poison. I tried not to gag at the thought of him polluting me. I saw his dark shape through the tinted window as he pulled up and away from Tracy and turned, reaching for the door handle. As soon as it was unlocked I reached up and yanked it open, causing him to come tumbling out, crashing on his shoulder on the sidewalk. "Sunnovabitch!" He spit the swear out with a snarl.
"Hey Trace! There you are! We were looking for you at the party," I said bright and loud as I stomped on Nick's inner thigh and reached into the truck, grabbing Tracy by the ankle. I pulled her sliding across the seat and out, catching her waist as her feet hit the ground.
"Shay? What’s going on?" She looked like a mouse caught in a corner by a large cat. Her shirt was undone and in disarray and the button and zipper of her jeans were pulled apart. I caught a glimpse of the bruises I had been suffering through with her and tried not to stare and embarrass her. They were much worse than I had imagined.
"Oh nothing, just people were asking about you and wondering where you'd gotten off to." I kept hold of her wrist as I stepped backwards, stomping on Nick's stomach this time, helping her with my free hand to straighten and close her clothing. He cursed again and beat the sidewalk with his fist before finally pushing himself up. I pulled Tracy behind me, shielding as much of her as I could, which wasn’t difficult given how tiny she was.
"Just what the fuck are you doing, you stupid bitch?" His breath reeked of stale beer and cheep weed. My stomach flipped as it hit my face.
"Just looking for Tracy. People were asking. Wouldn’t want people looking for her, would you, Nick? You know, asking questions, if she went missing or got hurt." I double checked my energy lines and projected as much feeling as I could at him, trying to fill him with rejection and fear and the sense of flight. I hoped if he felt creeped out enough he would just turn and run, thinking I was a freak; it didn’t matter to me what he thought of me. But in his drunken state he took the feelings and allowed his need to overcompensate blind him, feeling challenged instead of scared. I felt this channeled back at me through my own projection. Damnit. Stupid jock. He took a clumsy step towards me.
"Tracy, get in the goddamn truck. Now!" He found his confidence quickly and yelled at her. Tracy jumped as if just his words would inflict more bruises.
"No!" I cried out as he moved quicker than I thought he could. In one motion he was stepping towards me and reaching one hand to push me out of the way, grabbing at Tracy with the other. All pretenses aside I drove all my energy down in one angry spiral and felt the tremors flying back up at me. The ground shook, sudden and violent, the sidewalk cracked and crumbled beneath Nick's feet. I turned, wrapping my arm around Tracy's waist and running into the nearest front yard, re-centering and grounding myself almost instantaneously. Without the barrier of concrete it was much easier to do.
Nick faltered and tripped over his own feet trying to get away from the crumbling sidewalk. As he fell, I closed my eyes and reached for the energy lines that were still shaking. I pumped more energy into them causing a second violent episode and the small crack opened five inches. Nick came down, shoulder first again, landing awkwardly in the crack. Under the rumbling of the ground I felt the snap of his clavicle and I smiled to myself, reaching down and thanking the Earth and pulling my energy lines back into myself. The rumbling stopped.
"Oh my God," I heard Tracy whisper through the fingers she had pressed over his mouth, her eyes so wide they seemed to take up half her face. "Do you think he's hurt?"
"One can only hope," I muttered and Tracy looked at me, tears welling in her eyes. "Sorry. Um, have you been drinking?"
"No." She couldn’t seem to speak in anything more than a whisper and two fat tears spilled over and down her cheeks.
"Well, yeah, I think he's hurt," we could hear his curses by now, "and he's had quite a few," she nodded dumbly at me, "so you should get him to a hospital." She nodded again and scurried away, reaching to help Nick as much as she could to stand back up and get into the truck. She was so tiny, barely five foot one and all of a hundred pounds, maybe. And here was this jerk-off, over six feet tall and probably well over two hundred pounds abusing her. I guess it takes a big guy like that to beat up such a tiny girl.
I pressed my lips together in a tight line, trying with all my might not to wince as she did when she bent over, putting more pressure on her old and new bruises or when he draped his meaty arm over her battered shoulders. I waited until he was finally in the passenger seat and she scurried around, climbing up into the driver’s seat before stepping off the yard and back onto the sidewalk. I waited there, just outside of a pool of light from a street
light, watching Nick through the window, my eyes narrowing. In my mind I was already reciting the binding and banishing of him.
I knew as I watched Tracy pull hesitantly away from the curb and drive down the street that, being only seventeen, the hospital would insist on calling Nick's parents. I hoped with his obvious level of intoxication, even golden boy Nick wouldn’t escape a well-deserved grounding. That would buy us a little extra time to find Mr. Right for Tiny Tracy. I sighed heavily when I lost sight of the truck’s rear lights. I knew he had been hitting her, for all of her lame excuses and denials, but I had no idea that he might be raping her. It seemed even ungifted girls learn to build walls around something like that, hoping to hide it and keep some dignity. Well Trace, at least tonight you don’t have to put out.
***
The next morning I'd woken up feeling a little better than I had yesterday since I took some Melatonin and passed out to some late night T.V., satisfied that I had given Tracy one of the better Friday nights she'd had in months. I knew I had dreamed but luckily the drug induced haze left me with only memories of blurred green and yellow and slivery light rather than specific details.
I drank my coffee slowly, savoring the flavor, allowing myself time to wake up. The house was totally quiet, my parents having taken off for the day to go the Indian Casino about two hours away. The house was colder than usual, with a slight bite in the air, letting me use my robe for the first time in almost a year.
I took my time getting ready, taking a long hot shower and eating a huge lunch, not sure if I’d have time later for dinner. My mom called at some point to let me know they were doing well at the casino so they’d be staying for the rest of the day and probably have dinner there. When I reminded her I’d be out tonight, she sounded strangely disappointed but didn’t press the issue. I was in a hurry to get off the phone and prep my supplies for tonight.
When I was a kid my dad built me a tree house in our backyard. Much to their surprise I still used it frequently, mostly as a cache for our casting supplies. I scurried up the tree and through the trap door with my bag from The Oak, Ash and Thorn clamped in my teeth. After latching the trap door I took a deep satisfying breath, smiling to myself and exhaling in a sigh. My dad had taken care not to damage the tree by not cutting down the branches and building around them, allowing thick branches inside the space, giving it an earthy smell. I pushed open the huge window he’d built into the south-facing wall that opened to a view of a large orange orchard.
I set to work charging the candles and crystal I bought last night and left them sitting on the window sill to absorb the sun’s energy. I turned to cleansing my pentagram and my sacrificial knife – an athame – I pulled from a chest I kept up there. Although I was by nature a control freak, I did trust the other two to do this work just as well as I would do it, but I was the only one out of the three of us with a decent hiding place for our tools.
Jodi would have to hide them under her bed or in a dresser drawer where she ran the risk of her sisters finding them when they went in to steal clothes. As for Steven, his mother still frequently cleaned where she wasn’t wanted and picked up his laundry and put it away for him, which completely ruled him out. We could handle blackmailing siblings but not a freaked-out Catholic mom who still chose to pretend Steven was just going through a phase rather than admit he was actually gay. After a little over an hour my cell phone went off loudly, shattering my peaceful reverie.
“Hey, Steven.” I answered absentmindedly as I polished the blade of the athame.
“Hey! Did. You. Hear?” He was punctuating his words again, he had juicy gossip. I could practically hear him salivating.
“Probably not. What?”
“Nick Braver!” he breathed. I smiled, silently congratulating myself.
“What about him?” I tried to ask lightly.
“Oh you witch! You do know!” His voice rose excitedly.
“Know what?” I asked.
“Ooooh you did it didn’t you?”
“What? Steven, spill!”
“Well he’s telling everyone that he was mugged last night when he and Tracy left the party and was beaten up so bad that they broke his collarbone.” He was bursting to laugh. “But the funny thing is you’d think he’d have some bruises or a black eye maybe or even a fat lip, but just the collarbone. That’s weird, right?” He was fishing.
“Absolutely bizarre.”
“Shay!” I could feel the red in his voice.
“What?” He was silent, waiting for me to spill this time. “Oh fine,” I conceded. “Remember when I left?”
“Yeah?” His voice took on a hungry tone.
“Close your mouth. Anyway, I heard Tracy begging him to leave her alone in his truck, so I simply… separated them.” I packed all our necessary items into a backpack and slung it over my shoulder.
“And just accidentally broke a bone?”
“Can I help it if he was literally falling down drunk?”
“Fine, but you’re telling me and Jodi everything later. Swear!”
“Fine.”
“Hey, want dinner before? My treat.”
“Yeah, I’ll pick you and Jodi up at, what, seven?”
“Yeah.”
“’Kay, call Jodi for me.” I hung up and shoved my phone back into my back pocket and shimmied back down the tree.
***
Dinner was at a rundown café on Main St. with a decent comfort food menu at cheap prices. Despite the nine hours of sleep I’d managed to get, that didn’t make up for the missed sleep over the course of the week so I threw back my fair share of cream and sugar coffee while we ate. I knew when Steven called Jodi after speaking to me this afternoon our dinner conversation was going to be comprised totally of my recounting, detail for detail, what happened between me and Nick last night. I was careful to give them too many details so they wouldn’t hound me about it and recounted the whole five-minute episode that somehow took ten times as long to describe.
“So I told Tracy to take the jerk-off to the hospital.” I shrugged as I finished the tale and signaled the waitress with my coffee cup for a refill.
“Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to call on my energy that easily.” Jodi stared at me wide eyed after the waitress scurried away.
“Easily? Are you kidding? I was exhausted.” I shook my head at her and took another sip of my extra cream and sugar coffee. “And remember, earth can be more tangible than air. It’s easier to summon up the faith that its there for the taking.”
“Still though, that’s pretty impressive,” Steven agreed with Jodi.
“I wasn’t trying to be impressive.” I was glowering and I knew it.
“No, I mean that you were able to do that without Tracy realizing what was going on. She’s been insisting there was a freak earthquake last night.”
“What?!” I spilled some of my coffee, burning my hand and coughing on the sip I was in the middle of taking.
“Calm down!” Jodi hissed at me, shoving napkins at me. “She hasn’t even mentioned you were there. People just think Nick tripped and fell on that crack you made and that Tracy’s trying to make something up to help him save face for being so clumsy.”
“Oh. And people are buying that?” I asked.
“Obviously, no one’s gone to check out her story. They’re really just brushing her off.” Steven shrugged at that last part. “But no one really believes he was mugged, I mean look how big he is!”
“Hmmm…. Oh well, can’t ask for much more than that.” I wadded up the ruined napkins and shoved them to the end of the table. “So, how high was Prince Charming’s B.A.C.? Is he grounded for life? Kicked off the team? What?”
“Actually no,” Jodi sighed, rolling her eyes to the ceiling and holding them there for a moment. “I guess Tracy did like you told her to do but his mom was so upset about his clavicle that they didn’t really even pay attention to the fact that he was obviously drunk and stoned.”
“Are you freaking
kidding me!” I lost control of my voice and startled the waitress behind the counter. I shot her an apologetic look before whispering back at Jodi and Steven, “Nothing? He’s off scot-free?”
“Pretty much babe.” Steven shrugged again, shoveling the last few bites of his strawberry shortcake into his mouth. I sat there fuming for a few quiet moments, gripping my coffee cup until I felt the ceramic start to shake under the pressure and set it down carefully.
“That is utter bullshit.” They both nodded slowly at me. “Well then I’m glad I included a binding and banishing on that creep in the spell tonight. Maybe when Mr. Right shows up to sweep Tracy off her feet it’ll be in a way that humiliates Nick.”
“Terra…” Steven gave me a warning tone with one raised eyebrow, using my elemental name for emphasis; we all knew once you started casting for revenge it was a slippery slope that many people couldn’t recover from. You’d find yourself asking for things you knew you shouldn’t, even for personal gain, which just opened a flood gate for karma to bite you in the ass down the road.
“I know! I know!” I sighed; flustered with the rules we were all careful to follow, even if it was tempting not to. I drummed my fingers on the tabletop for a moment, counting to ten in my head to give myself time to calm down and then took a deep breath. “Let’s go, we’ve got a lot of setting up to do. We’re doing a double circle instead of just a single tonight.” We climbed out of the booth as Steven threw a few bills down to cover the bill and tip. We turned to walk out when the waitress came running up to me holding a Styrofoam box.
"Don’t forget your take out!" She stretched her arms out, handing me the box.
"Oh, thanks!" I pulled a ten out of my pocket and handed it to her, the greasy roast beef sandwich and mashed potatoes with brown gravy felt like they weighed fifteen pounds.
Elemental Series Omnibus Edition Books 1-4 Page 3
