“Yeah, I’ll hold,” Anthony said into the phone, sighing dramatically. “What the fuck do they think it means when you call 911?” he asked, looking at Steven. “Like I’m calling for take-out or something? Will I hold? Yeah, no problem, I’ll try not to bleed to death while you take your sweet time getting back to me.”
“We can do this from the car,” I said over my shoulder, still pulling a reluctant Jodi towards it. “Dude, what the hell is your problem?” I demanded, finally having enough.
“I just don’t feel like we should leave until the cops get here,” Jodi said, but her voice had a faraway sound, like her mind wasn’t here with us.
“And do what?” Anthony asked, tilting the phone away from his mouth.
“Help?” Steven offered. He too sounded distant, and his eyes were fixated on the carnage across the street. The taste of blood was thicker in my mouth now and any residual high I’d had from inside the theater was long gone.
“Are you high?” Anthony asked, his voice pitching with shock. “Oh yeah, hi,” he turned his attention back to the phone, “we’re at the corner of California and Santa Clara and there’s a huge mob of people fighting.”
“Okay? Good? Let’s go.” I reached out my free hand for Steven and tried to pull both Jodi and him with me, but I might as well have been trying to move the building next to us.
I let go of both of them, waiting a moment to see if either of them tried to go towards the fray, but when they stayed where they were, I let my shoulders relax and took a deep breath. I concentrated on my connections with each of them, feeling the lines of power flare to life under my attention. Jodi’s was an electric wire, snapping and dancing with blue energy whereas Steven’s was fire and light, flames licking at my consciousness. I centered myself and reached down past the concrete and asphalt until I could feel the humming power of the Earth pulsing through me.
I focused my attention on Jodi first, forcing a sudden influx of power to race down our connection and hit her hard. She stumbled and finally blinked as if I had just slapped her across the face. I turned that same force on Steven and got a similar response, but colored with choice words when he finally came back to himself.
“Awake now, are we?” I looked at them both, slowly pulling my awareness away from the Earth so I could move without pulling the magic along in my wake. “Good, now get into the fucking car!”
“Oh shit,” Jodi whispered. We turned to look in the direction that had caught her attention and saw that the fights had boiled over the edge of the parking lot and were spilling out into the street, dangerously close to where we lingered. My heart hammered in my chest and I reached out for Jodi again, but this time she reached for me as well, clasping my hand tightly.
“Time to go,” Anthony said, having already hung up with the 911 operator, and started to reach out for Steven in a mirror of me.
“You looking at something, homes?” An unfamiliar voice stopped us all. I knew without looking that they were talking to Steven because his anxiety pitched, making my stomach knot up.
“No,” he said uncertainly, and I knew that was a mistake. We should’ve just turned and ran for my car.
“I think you are, maricon.” I felt the sting of the insult slap all four of us, and to my surprise, Anthony’s indignation hit me the hardest, overpowering my connections with Steven and Jodi.
“You kiss your mother with that mouth, cabron?” Anthony was advancing towards the man and fear spiked through me as Steven froze, watching his boyfriend defend his honor. It was touching, really, but right now it was also very stupid.
“Don’t,” I said, reaching out towards Anthony as if I could stop him so easily, but he shook me off and only stopped once he was toe to toe with the other guy.
“Bad idea, bad idea,” Jodi was whispering, shaking her head, and I couldn’t agree more. Anthony was close enough to the other guy that their noses touched as they exchanged insults, waiting for the other to take the first swing. But I had seen this enough in school; the bully was just buying time for his friends to show up so that, by sheer numbers, he would win the fight as they overwhelmed their opponent.
Fae, I whispered into Jodi’s mind, wanting her attention, but not wanting to startle her. I felt her recognition almost instantaneously as a breeze kicked up around us. I’m going to try and stop this, but I’ll need some extra power, quickly.
Whenever you’re ready, Terra, Jodi consented just as I knew she would. I could take the power I needed from the Earth, but if I didn’t want the backlash and pain of ripping open my awareness to the feral power of the Earth, I needed a different anchor, one already ready for me. In this moment, I didn’t have the luxury to ground and center and draw the power into me in a controlled manner.
I let go of Jodi’s hand and walked over to the two men, all the while widening my connection with Jodi and letting her pour her power into it. The breeze in the air became intense, gusting through the street and battering at the trees in the sidewalk. Once I was close enough, I reached out quickly and pressed a hand to each man’s chest and shoved them apart. Power arched through my hands and struck them in their chests. I had enough control to make sure the majority of it hit the bully, saving Anthony from getting the wind knocked out of him.
The other man lost his balance and fell on his ass, blinking up at me. He started to get his hands under him to push back up to his feet, but I stopped him with a foot on his chest. I stepped down, slamming him into the ground just as another fury of wind raced down the street, whipping my ponytail around.
“If you don’t want your ass kicked, you’ll stay down,” I threatened, letting my magic fill my voice and strike out at him. A cut along his cheekbone opened, welling red and spilling down to his neck.
Drake, I thought at Steven, feeling his attention as a white hot heat on my back, get Fae to the car, now. My power, amplified by Jodi’s, lashed out at him, shoving him in her direction before he could argue with me. Anthony was still with me; I wasn’t alone.
“I’m going to get off of you,” I spoke to the guy under my foot, having never taken my eyes off of him. “If you try to get up before I’m gone, I’m going to make you bleed.” My voice was ugly and unfamiliar, but I saw the spark of fear in his eyes and I was satisfied that he believed me. Not that I was naive enough to believe he wouldn’t try to come after me once free of my foot. But I had to get us out of here; it would be his choice if he didn’t heed my warning. Sure, I could have planted the compulsion to obey me, but I didn’t want to waste the extra power. I needed to get Anthony and me to the car, and if we were intercepted before we got there, I’d need that extra power I’d wasted on him.
“Shayna,” Anthony’s voice wavered a little when he spoke, but I cringed as he used my real name. It wasn’t very common around here and I didn’t want this jerk to know it. I knew I had scared Anthony when I shoved him and pushed the bully down on the ground. I shouldn’t be able to do that and Anthony had no idea what we really were, so I was sure his mind was reeling.
“Yes?” I answered, never taking my eyes off of the man under my foot.
“Maybe we need to get out of here.” He said it like a question, as if I hadn’t been the one trying to get us to the car this whole time. Somewhere, far off in the distance, I could hear the sirens coming and I knew I didn’t want to still be here when the cops arrived. I was still living in the shadow of what happened last year when a boy I was trying to help had tried to kill me by shoving me off of a balcony in our local bookstore. He got arrested, only to break out of a concrete cell hours later.
“Awesome idea,” I said flatly, pressing my weight down on the bully’s chest until I could feel his sternum protest. “You gonna let us go all nice like?”
“Fuck you, puta.”
“Nice mouth,” I sneered at him, fighting the urge to spit in his face as his humiliation and anger swirled around me, tempting me to breathe it in and take it into me to feed my power. Anger was one of the strongest and most dangerous
emotions I fought. It was one of the very few energies that could penetrate my shields. It was definitely time to get out of here.
I shoved off of the guy, making him grunt as I pressed my foot into him again for leverage. Stepping back, I reached out a hand for Anthony, waiting for him to take it so I didn’t have to look away from the guy on the ground. I felt his warm fingers circle my hand and, gripping tightly, he pulled me closer to him to move faster. Before I could stop myself, I blew a kiss at my downed opponent and I felt his answering surge of rage slap at my face, but a laugh bubbled up out of me as I turned and started to run towards my car, pulling Anthony with me.
I could hear his feet scraping on the ground as he stood up, yelling for his friends and swearing after me. They were coming and they wanted blood. They wanted pain. My pain.
“How did you do that?” Anthony panted as we hit the asphalt of the parking lot, our feet pounding on the blacktop. I spared a glance over my shoulder and saw that the bully was only yards behind us and just a few yards from him were three other guys. Not fair odds, but it wasn’t ever going to be a fair fight, not the way these guys did things.
“Hey, bitch!” he yelled behind me. “Where do you think you’re going?” I could see my car, and Jodi and Steven standing outside of it, waiting for us.
Terra! Both of their mindvoices tore through my head, searing behind my eyes as I saw in my mind what had terrified them; one of the gangbangers running behind us had just thrown a rock at us the size of a baseball. I didn’t bother ducking, not knowing where it was aimed, and instead tried to force myself to run faster.
The sickening noise of the rock connecting with Anthony’s head stopped me faster than any scream. Anthony stumbled forward a few feet before pitching on his toes and crumpling to the ground. I could hear Steven as he rushed forward, trying in vain to catch him before he hit the ground. Jodi was with me in another instant, turning to face the men mere feet from us.
Drake, I thought calmly, my feet hip width apart, shoulders relaxed, palms forward, but he didn’t acknowledge me, too lost in his worry. Drake, I commanded, letting my power reach out to him and shake his terror free.
What do I do? What do I do? he screamed in my mind.
Help is coming. Get him to the car; Fae and I will do our best. I tossed Steven the key, hearing it hit the ground with a metallic ping before Steven snatched it up.
No, no! It was strange to hear him in my mind while he cried audibly over Anthony behind me. There are four of them, I can’t leave you.
Just keep our connection open and feed us your power; neither of us can get Anthony to the car, you have to do it.
Go, Drake, Jodi’s mindvoice echoed my own, encouraging him to go. Once he’s in the car, you can come back and help.
I’ll bring the car to you, Steven said as he started to lift Anthony.
No, I thought back, This is a dead end, the exit is the other way. Just get Anthony to the car and then we’ll get out of here. That seemed to do it for him because he stopped arguing and I heard him grunt as he tried to lift his boyfriend’s dead weight. I would have given him the keys to bring the car closer, but there was only one way out of the parking lot and it wasn’t in this direction.
“I told you to let us go.” I spoke to the man who’d started this for us, and he smirked at me before spitting a disgusting wad at the ground in front of us.
“Maybe you should learn to mind your own business, puta.”
“If you call me whore one more time, I swear I’ll break something of yours.” I let my anger and fear fill my voice and reach out between us, filling the air until it tore at his face. An ugly smile curled over my lips as I watched him flinch.
Terra? Jodi’s bright yellow voice filled my mind.
Yes?
Are you scared?
Fucking terrified.
Good, I don’t feel so stupid now.
There was no warning other than the bunching of his muscles to let me know when he was going to rush for me, but when he came, he came running. Jodi had spaced herself a foot and a half away from me, and rather than trying to meet him head on, I waited until the last second and turned my body to the side, letting him run right past us, making sure to reach out and shove him as he passed. He stumbled forward much like Anthony had done until he lost all balance and fell, scraping his hands and face on the ground, the pebbles and broken asphalt biting into his skin.
He stayed down for a few moments, dazed from the shock of hitting the ground, and his warring emotion latched onto me, creating a link that took no power from me to create. I trusted that link to let me know when he was going to get up and did the one thing I never wanted to do in a fight: I turned my back on him. His three cronies were still standing back, sizing us up. I’m sure they weren’t used to two girls standing up to four guys. And if Jodi and I didn’t have our abilities, we wouldn’t have.
I took their momentary hesitation as the opportunity to get a read on them. One of them hung back a few feet further than the others and I realized he felt very uncomfortable with the idea of attacking us – that was good for us; that made the fight a little more even.
“You guys don’t have to do this.” I took a chance and tried to play on their guilt and egos, but one of them sneered at me much in the same way as the first guy and I realized I was looking at his brother. Not good.
“No, I think we do,” he said as he started forward, walking carefully towards me, angling to the side as if he was going to try and separate me and Jodi. I concentrated on my connection with Steven and felt the answering heat in my hands, letting it fill me until my skin was pink and almost smoking in the cold air.
We started circling each other, stepping to the side, mirroring each other. In a ridiculous moment, I thought of the tango we’d learned in PE class last year and almost smiled.
“Think this is funny?” he spat at me and all I could do was shrug at him, hands up in front of me, my stance loose, waiting for him to throw the first hit.
Stay focused, Fae, I thought at her, feeding her courage through our open connection and letting her air power feed the fire power growing in my hands. A sweat broke out all over my body as the pain of Steven’s fire started to eat at me, waiting for release, but I was able to keep my face calm.
I’m okay, she answered. He’s not moving yet.
When this asshole hits me, your guy will move for you; be ready. I felt her silent agreement, satisfying me enough to concentrate on the man in front of me.
In a second, he flashed his left hand out at my face, but I knew that wasn’t the strike I was waiting for, and when he drew back his right hand ever so slightly before firing it, I was ready. I surfed my right hand up, checking his right wrist and pushing the blow away from my face, following with my left hand on his forearm and striking with a right back fist to his face. I hit his right cheek and felt it cave under the combined power of my strike and the magic behind it. His skin sizzled under my hand where I hit, a sickly sweet smell filling the air. He cried out, dancing back away from me out of surprise. I was small, but even without the magic, I had learned how to hit hard.
I felt Jodi’s tension spike at the third guy moved, remembering my warning. He didn’t try to hit her or rush at her like the others, he simply reached out to grab her shoulders, but she opened her arms wide and struck at his wrists with open palms, hitting him hard enough for me to hear the smack. Jodi balled up her fist and fired a right hook at his face while reaching out to kick him in the shin as she moved forward. He cried out when her blow landed on his jaw, his hands coming up fast to hold his face. Tears welled up in his face; it must’ve been the first time he’d ever been hit in the face. The first time is always the most shocking. With a quick glance at his friends, he turned around and ran down the road, turning the corner at the end of the block and disappearing altogether. I actually felt a little bad for the poor bastard.
“Okay? Let’s just stop this and go. The cops are coming and you don’t want them seeing you
fight with a couple of girls, right?” I tried again for reason, knowing that it wasn’t going to work even before I felt the guy on the ground getting ready to move. My eyes were still on the guy in front of me, but I was going to have to decide how to split my attention pretty quick.
I see him, Jodi thought at me and the wind swirled frantically, batting at all of us where we stood. Jodi’s heels scraped on the asphalt as she moved closer to me again, bringing the fury of the wind with her.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her hand arc up, hitting him in the chest just as he gained his feet, and with one furious gust of wind, she shoved him back down to the ground, his breath rushing out of his lungs.
“Stay on the ground.” Jodi’s voice was distant, but as her power swirled unchecked around us, we could all hear her words clearly.
“What the fuck?” The brother actually looked away from me. Confusion warred with his anger as he looked at Jodi, and I took that opportunity to flex my fingers and call up the power Steven had been feeding me, funneling it to my hands again until I could see tiny flames jumping from my fingers. I latched onto Jodi’s power, letting it feed the fire raging inside of me, wanting to release this power before it burned its way out of me.
“I’m done with this shit,” the brother said as he pivoted his body and threw a punch only a trained boxer could’ve executed, and I saw that meat hook of a fist coming right at my face.
“No!” I screamed, throwing my hands up in his direction, and I felt the Earth shake beneath us as the flames shot from my hands, catching on his clothing and hair. His screams tore the night air, beating at his body and face, making the glowing embers jump from his clothing, catching on the wind and scattering through the street.
His brother scrambled to his feet, forgetting us for the first time, and rushed to help his brother, taking him to the ground and beating out the flames. I reached out for Jodi and pulled her back with me. We took slow, backwards steps towards the car, afraid if we drew the brothers’ attention to us, they would come for us again. I glanced up, remembering the fourth, as yet silent man who hadn’t helped us, but hadn’t helped his friends either. His eyes were a little small for his clean-shaven face, but through the distance, I could see the fear in them as he looked at me and crossed himself before whispering, “Bruja.”
Elemental Series Omnibus Edition Books 1-4 Page 92
