Monster (Tainted Elements Book 3)

by Alycia Linwood

  “Relax. We’ve done this before,” the man said.

  “Really?” I raised a questioning eyebrow at him.

  “Nah,” he said, his eyes gleaming. “But it will be fun to see what’s inside that thing.”

  I wished I was as passionate about it as he was. “So what do I do? Do I just shove my hand inside...?”

  Josette pressed a button, and all the holes closed, the glass starting to glow blue from the inside. “You’ll see.”

  “Are you sure this isn’t going to trigger whatever is inside?”

  “Yeah. But it will trigger it only once you put your hand inside. Come on.” She grabbed my hand with the grenade and pushed it against one of the holes. As soon as my hand made it through, the glowing in the device intensified.

  “Um, guys?” I could feel the grenade heating in my hand, or was that the device?

  “Just a second.” Josette closely monitored the device. “Now!” I let go of the grenade, pulling my arm out, and Josette quickly closed the hole. We watched as the grenade floated, and then it burst apart, tiny pieces and mist flying in slow motion. A couple of moments later, the whole device was so full of white smoke that we couldn’t see anything.

  “That was amazing,” the guy breathed, his eyes transfixed to the device.

  “Yeah.” I stretched my tingly fingers, shaking my hand. Now I had to figure out a way not to get kicked out of the lab too soon.

  “I’ll take this to Casper so he can take a look at it.” Josette started wheeling the device away. “Pierce, you take care of the girl.”

  “Thanks for not letting me die!” I yelled after Josette, and turned to Pierce. “Can I go now?”

  “No,” he said. “There are some other things we need to be sure of. Come with me.”

  He led me to one of the tables in another part of the room. Then he picked up some kind of a scanner and turned toward me. “I have to make sure nothing dangerous remained on you, before you go out.”

  “Okay,” I said, aware that he was actually checking for something else entirely. If they were at least a bit worried a residue of dangerous material could be found on me, they wouldn’t have let me roam around without protection, and they wouldn’t be just walking and talking with me. Something else was up; probably the boss’s orders to check me for any devices.

  I held my breath as Pierce brought the device close to me, moving it up and down around me. I prayed Lily’s device in my skin was as undetectable as she thought, because otherwise I was screwed. Pierce frowned as he moved the unusually silent device, and I fought the urge to just punch him in the face and run. Would I even know if they detected something, or would they be the only ones to know and I’d find out when it was too late? The lack of noise from the device seriously worried me, because every damn device here usually beeped or wailed. Pierce made sure every inch of me was scanned, and then he set the device aside.

  “Am I good to go?” I asked. “Or are we all going to die?” I watched his face for any clues, but he gave me nothing.

  “We’re not going to die.” He placed his hand on my shoulder, watching me intently. “I just need some time until I get the results.”

  “Oh, okay,” I sounded disappointed. “How are you going to get the results?”

  “This device scanned everything it needed, and now the data is being analyzed by our computers.”

  “Your computers?”

  “Yeah, the device automatically sends all the info to that computer over there.” He pointed his finger across the room at one of the computers.

  “Nice,” I said. “And how long does that usually take?”

  “A couple of minutes at most.” He offered me a smile.

  “So what are you doing here? I mean, what were you doing before I came in and disrupted your whole day?” I said in my sweetest voice, hoping I could get him to talk. I needed to get to that computer, but it wouldn’t be easy to get the tiny device out of my arm without anyone noticing.

  “You didn’t disrupt anything. I was working on some stuff you agents found in Carter’s old factory.”

  “Did you find anything?” I perked up. “We’ve been trying to get hold of those elementals for a while. It would be awesome if we could finally find out who they are.”

  “It’s interesting, because we managed to get some DNA samples, but some of it was contaminated because the agents weren’t careful enough at the scene. Some of it was salvageable, but it doesn’t match anything. The tech team used the cops’ and secret agencies’ systems, and still couldn’t find a match.”

  “How’s that possible?” I feigned interest, leaning on the table.

  “No idea.” He shrugged. “Either they’d never been to the doctor’s or never entered any of the systems. Or maybe they had someone delete all the records.”

  “But that would mean they had to have someone in a high position, right?”

  “Or they mind-controlled someone who could do it. And of course now that person doesn’t know a thing.” He gritted his teeth.

  “Are you... a regular elemental?” I wasn’t quite sure how to ask without offending him, but if he thought that tainted elementals were a danger, then maybe he wouldn’t be too upset.

  “Yeah,” he murmured, turning away from me.

  “Do those tainted elementals scare you? I mean, I have two elements and I still get shivers when I think of what they could do to me.” I twirled a strand of my hair around my finger, hoping I could get him to like me at least enough to show me something or get me closer to the computer.

  “No, they don’t.” He eyed me carefully. “But their abilities... your abilities... are interesting to observe.” He glanced at the tablet. “Your energy levels are very high despite the bracelet. Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

  “Yeah, of course. I...” I looked away and spotted a camera hidden between the things on the shelf. “I just held a fucking grenade in my hand. I think anyone’s elements would have spiked.”

  “Right. But I’m still going to ask your supervisors to increase the strength of your bracelet once you’re out of here. We don’t want any accidents,” he said with a smile.

  “What’s she doing?” I pointed at the woman across the room who I’d seen holding the heart or whatever it was.

  “Her job,” Pierce said.

  I raised my hands in the air. “Okay. Sorry. I know I’m asking things I shouldn’t, but I’m a little shaken after what happened and I don’t know what else to talk about. Do you have any hobbies, perhaps? Like playing video games or something?”

  “You should just sit down here and wait. The results should be in soon.”

  It seemed like I would have a better chance of charming Josette than Pierce. Too bad I wasn’t more likeable. Oh, well. “Can I sit over there?” I pointed at the area with the computers. “It’s boring as hell here.”

  “You would only disturb the work of the scientists there, so stay here.” He pulled out a stool from under the desk and placed it in front of me. “You can sit here.”

  I plopped onto it, fighting the urge to groan. Pierce picked up the tablet but didn’t say anything, which either meant the results weren’t through yet or they’d found something suspicious. If the guards even set foot in this place and came toward me, I was ready to use all of my energy to break through the bracelet and fight them, everything be damned.

  “Looks like you’re free to go,” Pierce said a couple of minutes later, and I looked up at him in surprise.

  “I am?”

  “Yeah. You have to report to the boss immediately, though,” he said, sounding a little sympathetic, or maybe I was imagining it.

  I got to my feet. “Okay. Thanks.”

  “The exit is that way.” Pierce pointed in the direction of the computers, where we’d come from.

  “I remember.” I turned on my heel and headed in that direction, but Pierce didn’t follow me. I must have passed whatever test they’d had for me, and I was glad Lily’s techs had known what they w
ere doing. But now I needed to get to the computers because I’d never get another opportunity like this.

  Looking to my right, I noticed a shelf with an empty jar on it, just as one of the scientists was about to pass by me. I moved out of his way a bit too fast and knocked down the jar, which broke into pieces. Tripping over it, I fell into the glass, which cut into my skin. As I was hunched over the glass, my hair covering me, I grabbed a piece of the glass and, gritting my teeth, sliced my skin close to where the device was supposed to be.

  “Oh for the love of God!” I heard Josette’s annoyed voice. “Somebody clean that up.”

  Someone helped me up. I looked at my arm as blood trickled down it and winced in pain.

  “I’m sorry. I...” I said, but everyone just shot me an irritated look. Well, now they thought I was an incompetent fool. Maybe they weren’t that far off. Anyway, if they tried to send me all the way to the infirmary, I’d be dripping blood all over their precious white floors.

  “Come on.” Josette grabbed my uninjured arm and dragged me toward the nearest chair, which happened to be right in front of a computer. “You’re lucky there wasn’t anything in that jar. You see? This is exactly why we don’t let anyone in here.” She shook her head as I sat down.

  Since everyone was pretty much busy with other things, they didn’t make a move toward me or toward the computers. They probably only used computers once in a while, and everything was automated, so no one had to sit there all the time. There was one woman at a computer just down from me, but she was staring intently at the screen.

  “Try not to bleed all over the place,” Josette said, her lip curled in disgust, and headed for one of the shelves. “I’ll find some bandages.”

  As soon as she turned her back to me, I looked around for any cameras, spinning in my chair so the camera wouldn’t be directly on me. Gathering my courage, my heart racing, I pushed and poked around the wound until I felt the device. Squeezing it out with a gush of blood, I thought I’d faint from all the blood and pain.

  As I held the device in my bloody fingers, I waited for the opportunity to put it on a computer like Lily had instructed me. Trying to look as if I were getting really weak, I swayed toward the computer. When I waved my hand, my fingers collided with the computer’s system box, the device pressing into it. It grew warm under my fingers, and I held it in place, hoping it was doing its job and that soon Lily would be able to breach Elemontera’s systems.

  “What are you doing?” Josette’s voice rang behind my back and I jumped, the device slipping from underneath my fingers. Closing my eyes and wiping my shaky hand over my head, I held my breath.

  “I told you not to get blood all over the place and look what you did!” Josette yelled, and I slowly turned toward her.

  “Sorry, I got dizzy.”

  She huffed and roughly grabbed my injured arm, wrapping the bandages around it. “You didn’t cut anything major, but I swear the cut looks deeper than when I first looked. You should really get yourself to the doctor. Now.” She helped me up, or, rather, hauled me up.

  I swayed on my feet and stepped on the device, kicking it farther under the table in hopes no one would see it or find it. Josette dragged me all the way to the door where a guard was waiting to escort me to the doctor. But before we passed through the glass door, I saw a man in white banging on the glass, his mouth open as if he were screaming in agony, his whole face red.

  “You’d think elementals who pass the tests would be more competent,” Josette muttered to the guard as she handed me over. As the guard helped me down the hallway, I glanced over my shoulder at Josette and saw her looking in the direction of the man who I’d seen, shaking her head in disappointment. I really hoped Lily would find a way to get rid of this organization forever.

  Chapter 17

  The boss paced up and down the office, his face pensive. As soon as the doctor had dealt with my wound, the guards had taken me to the boss, and I had to fight to stay on my feet because the whole thing had sucked my energy dry.

  “Your parents have influential friends,” he said finally, breaking the silence. “Did you know that?”

  “No. I mean, I never really thought about it. They rarely introduced me to anyone.” And that was actually the truth. I’d had no clue about my mom’s best friend until she took me to Roivenna.

  He waved his hand. “Yes, yes, because they were trying to hide your parentage, which obviously didn’t work, but... I found something interesting in Sheridan’s files. She thought you might be able to develop some interesting abilities. I must say I didn’t really care who your father was, but now I see I should have paid more attention. Your energy levels seem high all the time lately, even with your bracelet on.”

  “Well, it’s been a crazy couple of days, and my life was in danger at least twice.” I didn’t like where this was going. If he thought I could have abilities like Jaiden’s, then both Jaiden and I were at risk.

  “Yes, but I’m still intrigued,” he said. “We’ll try something new with your elements in the next few weeks.”

  “Um, yeah, sure.” I hoped that by then Elemontera would be down for good, because I had no intention of doing more training or discovering what other methods the boss planned to use on me to get me to develop my abilities. A knock sounded on the door, and Jaiden entered the room, relief crossing his face when he saw me.

  The boss sighed heavily, looking at Jaiden. “Is it done?”

  Jaiden just nodded. I looked from one to the other in confusion.

  “Good. You can go.”

  “What about her?” Jaiden asked.

  “She’ll come to you in a moment. Now go.” The boss all but shooed him out of the room. With one look at me, Jaiden left me alone with his father again.

  “You’re not permitted to leave this building until I tell you,” he said. “Your parents have decided to play a little game with me.”

  “Please don’t hurt them!” I said, my eyes widening, my voice cracking a little. Lily had better be keeping her promise to look after my parents, because if this man came anywhere near them, I’d kill him.

  “Make sure you don’t ever cross me, and I won’t.” His smile was like icicles. “I’ll send you some footage of them as soon as I have it, and I will have it.”

  I gulped, staring at my shoes.

  “You can go now.”

  I strode to the door, glad that the boss hadn’t suspected anything, but I didn’t like that I wouldn’t be able to leave the building. Still, if Lily’s tech had gotten anything out of the computers, maybe they were already negotiating with the government. Well, negotiating was probably more like blackmailing, but whatever.

  Jaiden waited for me in the hallway, jumping from foot to foot. He immediately pulled me into a hug, and I breathed in his scent, my shoulders relaxing.

  “Are you okay?” he breathed.

  “Still in one piece. But I lost my permission to get out of the building.”

  “What?” Jaiden gaped at me, then started for the door. “Let me talk to him. He can’t...”

  I grabbed him by the arm to stop him. “No. Don’t. I don’t want you to put my parents’ lives in danger.”

  He lowered his chin to his chest, then looked up at me. “Are you hungry?”

  “Famished,” I said. Maybe we could find a way to talk in the lunchroom without being overheard. We just had to find a seat far from the guards and make sure the cameras couldn’t read our lips.

  After we grabbed some food, we settled at one of the tables in the back.

  “What did you come to tell your father earlier? What is done?” I whispered, my sandwich raised in front of my lips.

  “I was sent to deal with Victor, to eliminate him,” he said, not looking at me, his lips barely moving.

  “Did you?” I waited until his eyes met mine.

  “I mind-controlled him to leave the city and never come anywhere near or try to contact my father.” Jaiden picked at his fries.

  “I assu
me Victor confirmed my story,” I said, turning my head slightly away from the cameras.

  Jaiden nodded. “I made sure he did. They sent me to interrogate him.”

  “I completed my mission,” I said.

  “Okay. Then we’ll see what happens.” He pressed his lips together, as if he didn’t believe anything would happen.

  I took a few bites of my food, and used another opportunity to speak. “You think the government won’t cooperate.”

  “Something like that.”

  Another agent came to sit at the table across from us, so I didn’t dare say anything else, and we ate our food in silence. No matter how hard I tried not to think about it, I couldn’t help but wonder if Lily had even gotten any data. For all I knew, I’d connected the device wrongly or Lily’s techs couldn’t use it, or there was nothing useful on that computer. It did look like all the computers were connected, so maybe the virus would spread and infect all the devices.

  “Moira!” Jaiden raised his voice, and I looked up at him. “Your arm.”

  I looked down at my arm that was wrapped in a bandage, noticing lines that looked like blue cracks on my skin that were spreading from the bandage. Calling down my element, the cracks disappeared. What the hell?

  “Your elements should be blocked,” he said. “How did you do that?”

  “I don’t know. I guess they’re trying to fight their way out through my skin.” I frowned. “Or maybe there was something in that jar, after all.”

  “I’ll tell my father to unblock your bracelet, but let’s get you to your room first.” Jaiden stood up, offering me his hand, and I took it. My elements wanted out, and I wasn’t sure how long I could contain them. Maybe the boss and the whole of Elemontera would finally realize that elements shouldn’t be blocked; they should be unleashed.

  Chapter 18

  A week had gone by, and I’d been tasked with training Elemontera’s four new recruits. My elements were still acting out, but my bracelet had been adjusted again, and training with the recruits and kicking their asses helped me to use up a little bit of that energy, which seemed to have no end. Just as I sent two fiery blasts, one blue, one red, toward one of the recruits, an alarm sounded in the building, but the sound was different. This time it was deeper and lasted longer. It wasn’t merely a beeping sound; it was like a trumpet.