A man stood with his hands on the crystal bars, watching me.
I scrambled to my feet and squinted harder, trying to adjust to the light. It made my head want to crack down the middle.
“Hello?” I asked, unsure of what else to say. My voice was still gritty.
“Hello,” the man replied, barely moving.
“Where are we?” I asked, staggering over to my own set of bars.
He swayed absently. “Shadow Sect Headquarters.”
Great. Just…great.
He eyed me curiously. “What’s your name?”
I stared back with narrow eyes. “What’s yours?”
“I’m in a cage, too, in case you missed that detail. You don’t need to be suspicious of me. My name is Paxton.”
“Valerie,” I said, feeling dumb for worrying about something as stupid as a name. “Are you an Elemental?”
He blew his dark bangs away from his eyes. They were blue, even paler than mine.
“I don’t know. It’s been so long since I used my powers, I’m starting to think I imagined it all.”
He was thin in a malnourished sort of way and had a mousey face. It made me wonder just how long he’d been trapped there. So, I asked as much.
He sighed as he thought. “Three hundred years, maybe? Give or take a couple decades.”
My jaw dropped.
Paxton merely shrugged. “That’s nothing. There are people who’ve been here for thousands of years.”
“Why do they keep us here instead of simply killing us?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure. I’d say it had something to do with using our power, but they would get it anyway if they killed us, so that doesn’t really make sense.”
“Speaking of not making sense,” I said, patting the bars of my cage, “do you happen to know how all this element-proof stuff works?”
He hesitated. “Not exactly, but I think it has something to do with mixing blood.”
“Like a curse? Or blood magic?”
“No, no. Like, by mixing the blood of the strongest Elementals of each element to create an antidote.”
“Wait,” I said, putting up a hand to stop him as my brain worked it all out. “You mean, mixing the blood of an Earth, a Fire, a Water, and a Wind to essentially cancel out our power?”
He nodded. “I think that’s why our ancestors insisted upon pure blood pairings. The purer the blood, the stronger the power. The more the blood mixes, the more it cancels out and the weaker the power becomes.”
I tried to think it through logically. How, exactly, would combining all the bloodlines cancel out the power? Why wouldn’t it strengthen it, instead? I supposed it could have been like a double negative. God, I wished I’d paid just a bit more attention in science class.
“So, you mean to tell me these element-proof bindings all have blood flowing through them? Like, real living beings?”
Paxton hesitated. “I wouldn’t say they were alive, but they are made with blood. I’m almost sure of it.”
I took a deep breath and branched off on another tangent. “Why do they let us talk to each other?”
He pursed his lips and shrugged. “Overconfidence, maybe? These rooms seem to completely counteract any power we might have had. We wither away to skin and bone with no physical strength to use to break out. There’s no way to escape, so why not at least let us talk?”
“They just don’t seem like the sympathetic type,” I said, trying to figure it all out. “Why not just keep us isolated and desperate?”
Again, Paxton shrugged. “I’m sorry I don’t have more answers for you. I’ve been here for hundreds of years but still haven’t figured it out.”
“Do they ever come down here?”
“Who?”
“The Shadow Sect soldiers.”
“Oh, no. Sect soldiers operate strictly in the outside world. Sect scientists and alchemists do come around every once in a while, though. Sometimes they interrogate us, sometimes they draw blood—for tests, I imagine, or maybe more bindings and weaponry—but their visits are always short-lived.”
My eyes widened and a light kicked on in my brain. “More bindings and weaponry! They need us alive so they can use our blood to create more weapons!”
“Yeah, but they could use any Elemental for that.”
“But we’re the strongest ones—that’s why we were captured, right?”
His lips slowly spread into a smile. “That’s gotta be it.”
I leaned my head against the bars and my hair spilled down around my face. “Now we just need to find a way out of here.”
His response was barely a whisper. “We’re never getting out.”
I peeked over at him through a few blonde strands. He looked defeated.
“What do you mean?”
Releasing the bars, he wandered away to the back corner of his room.
“Paxton!” I called, but I was met with silence.
It was no wonder his enthusiasm had died. He’d been there for years, hundreds of them. What were the odds a new girl would show up and suddenly change all that?
With him emotionally shut off, I was left with only my own thoughts to entertain.
Thankfully, my memory had completely returned, but with it came the pain of remorse and regret.
Cade.
Just thinking his name was like sinking a knife into my chest.
The way our final moments had gone was sickening. Brad’s poison had infiltrated our systems, flooding our minds with hatred and anger, causing us to lash out and fight. I had no idea where Cade even was, but if that was the last time I’d ever see him, in the throes of a poison-induced argument, I would never forgive myself.
Had he been kidnapped and taken to the Sect, too? I doubted it, considering he hadn’t been there when Brad and I were attacked, and since Brad hadn’t caged him up, I had a feeling he wasn’t being taken to the Elitists, either.
Surprisingly, that gave me a bit of hope. Maybe I was the only one they were after. Maybe once Cade’s poison wore off, he’d be free to find our fathers and rally our troops. Maybe he was on his way to rescue me right now.
But…where the hell even was I?
No one knew the location of Shadow Sect Headquarters. No one.
I shook my head as sadness and hopelessness coursed through my body, making me numb. What I needed was to get the hell out of there. Wallowing in self-pity and waiting for someone to come help would get me nowhere.
I tapped the glass bars, and a musical bell-like sound echoed off the walls. I patted myself down, and that was when I realized I wasn’t wearing the same clothes as before. I was in an all-white outfit of pants and long sleeves. I didn’t even have shoes. There was nothing on me that could double as a weapon or tool of any sort, nothing that could be used to shatter the crystal bars.
I swallowed hard. I supposed that meant I’d be using my own hands. I clenched a fist and pulled back as far as I could, trying to solidify my resolve. This would probably break my fingers and do absolutely nothing to the bars. The doubtful thoughts made me falter, but I shook them from my mind.
Just do it, I told myself. I had nothing left to lose. I needed to try everything I could to escape.
With a quick forceful jab, I let my fist loose and immediately regretted it. A shrill scream tore past my lips and I clutched my fingers tightly. I’d been right. The bars hadn’t so much as cracked, but my hand was already red and swelling. From across the hall, Paxton shook his head but continued to remain silent.
I cried out again, this time in frustration, kicking the bars with the balls of my feet.
Again, the bars remained solid, and all I felt was pain.
Maybe I needed to change tactics.
“Let me out!” I screamed, so loud it rattled my vocal chords down to individual threads. “Let me out, let me out, let me out!”
Up the hall, a new face appeared at a different set of bars, a girl. She had beautiful black curls and stunning brown skin.
> “Shut the fuck up,” was all she said.
My mouth snapped shut in surprise. I hadn’t realized there were other prisoners down there, nor had I realized they’d be quite so rude.
“Who are you?” I asked stupidly.
She merely flipped me the bird before disappearing back into her lit-up box.
Paxton sighed. “Her name is Lilly.”
“What kind of Elemental is she?”
Paxton shook his head. “No idea.” Then he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.
What time was it? Was I supposed to be asleep? I didn’t feel tired. I felt panicked.
“Hello?” I cried out again. “Help me! Get me out of here!”
I shook my full weight against the crystal bars, trying to get them to budge, but they refused. I contorted my fingers, squeezing them as tight as I could, and willed my power to flow…but it wouldn’t.
“Help!”
Suddenly, footsteps echoed down the hall. A short woman in a bright white lab coat strode into view. Her features were severe—even her haircut was sharp—and she had a syringe in her right hand.
My throat tightened. I knew exactly what was coming next.
“No!” I cried, backing up against the wall as the sickening sensation of fear overwhelmed me. “No, no, no! Someone help me!”
She crossed through the bars like some sort of magic. They were there in front of her one minute then disappeared and reappeared behind her the next. How the hell was that possible?
I kicked out at her, but she merely shook her head. Grabbing my arm with the swiftness of a snake, she stabbed the needle into me. A stinging broke out across my skin and sank deep into my muscles. Immediately, the strength drained out of me, and as I slumped to the floor, the room spun sideways and wobbled.
The last thing I saw was a jumbled mess of her exiting feet.
20
Holden
I stared into the dusky clearing, watching, waiting.
The early glow of the moon just barely illuminated my surroundings, but I knew them well enough.
When my father was a boy, a whole town had thrived in this area, rich in lumber and coal. Now, only a few crumbling foundations remained. The rest had been reclaimed by nature. My friends and I had played here a few times when we were kids, imagining the former glory of the place however we wanted to. That was back when the world was still pure and magical, back when our futures were wide and bright, our potential limitless. Now I saw the abandoned town for what it was: just another broken piece of a run-down world that was slowly falling apart.
A twig snapped, and my eyes darted toward the source of the sound.
Neither Loren nor I were Earths, so I assumed the ominous crack meant she’d finally decided to show.
I crossed my arms and my lips thinned as she strode into view.
“Loren,” I said by way of greeting.
A wicked smile spread across her lips. “Holden.”
I decided to cut straight to the chase. “The Shadow Sect has Valerie.”
She shrugged as if she didn’t care, and in all honesty, she probably didn’t.
“And who has Cade?”
“I do,” I said.
The truth of my words startled even me. When had I become so depraved that I’d kidnap a man for the love of a girl? But then I remembered it was Landston we were talking about, and my remorse quickly faded away.
I hated him. If he hadn’t broken Traditionalist law, he never would have spoken to her in the first place. She’d have been with me right then, happy and safe. It was his fault she’d been captured, his fault my life had been ruined. Taking him out of the picture would be the best thing for all of us.
Loren pursed her lips. “So, what’s this deal you want to make? Surely you don’t expect to trade Cade for Val?”
I grinned. “That’s exactly what I expect, actually.”
“I can’t do that. No one knows where the Shadow Sect is, and even if they did, there’s no one alive strong enough to infiltrate it.”
“Maybe not alone,” I said with a shrug, “but as a group? I think the Elitists are more than capable.”
Her eyes narrowed, the blue of her irises shining an inky black in the growing darkness. “That doesn’t change the fact that I don’t know where it is.”
“Don’t you?” I asked with a smirk. “I heard a rumor that Nicholai, your father, and your uncle were captured by them once, a long time ago when the Elitists failed the first time. I also heard your father and uncle have been captured again and need to be set free.”
She growled, clearly unhappy to be reminded of her family’s shortcomings.
“You want me to lead a team of Elitists on a suicide mission into the heart of the Sect? I’ll get my dad and uncle back, you’ll get Valerie back, and then you’ll hand Cade over to me?”
She made it sound a bit preposterous, but I knew how badly she wanted him, what she was willing to risk for him, because I felt the same way about the person I loved.
“Yes.”
I sort of hated myself for coming up with the idea, but my love for Val overpowered any rational second thoughts I might’ve been having. She had been happy with me once; I knew she could be happy with me again…once Cade was out of the picture.
I swallowed hard and held out my hand. “Do we have a deal?”
For a long moment, Loren didn’t say anything, didn’t move. She simply stood there as if feeling conflicted about the choice. Then, slowly, a grin crept onto her face, and she placed her hand in mine.
“Deal.”
Chapter Twenty-One
I blinked, and the brightness of the room assaulted my eyes. Squeezing them shut as they watered, I pushed myself into a sitting position. My muscles ached and shook violently.
Paxton was back to standing at the bars across the hall.
I rolled my eyes and looked away. “How long was I out?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea. I lost track of how to keep time long ago.”
Slowly and tenderly, I pushed up onto my feet. My legs trembled, and I rested my palms on my thighs. Whatever was in those syringes, it was more than a sedative. My body felt like it was deteriorating already.
Dizziness swarmed in my head like a cloud of bees. My stomach lurched, and I swallowed down the impulse to puke. Staggering, I pressed my forehead against the brightness of the closest wall.
I forced myself to think of something else, anything to distract me from the impending sickness creeping up my throat.
In the past, I had counted my steps to calm down. Maybe I could count my breaths in the same way.
Inhale. One. Exhale. Two. Inhale. Three. Exhale. Four.
“You okay?” Paxton asked.
I nodded. “I’m fine.”
I licked my lips and reassessed my body. My stomach had settled a bit, but my muscles were still shaky. The simple act of standing there had caused a vibration to flare up in my legs and core. I hoped it’d go away, and soon.
I recalled Paxton’s words from earlier: We wither away to skin and bone with no physical strength to use to break out.
I couldn’t allow that to happen.
If a Sect scientist came down to anesthetize me every time I caused a ruckus, I would just have to do it again, except next time, I would fight back and knock the bitch out, maybe give her a dose of her own medicine—literally.
I would need to stay strong in order to make that happen.
Despite the aching in my body, I dropped to the ground and held a rickety plank position. Breathing deeply, I lowered myself and pushed back up. One. Swallowing hard against the pain in my arms, I moved my body down again. It took forever to lift my chest and fully extend my arms. Two. Sweat broke out along my hairline and dampened my spine. I lowered myself again, but this time I fell to the illuminated floor.
Frustrated, I punched it, but it didn’t even hurt. There’d been no real strength behind the motion.
I needed to try harder.
Holdin
g another plank, I lowered myself down and struggled to rise back up. Three.
“What are you doing?” a voice snapped in irritation.
Lilly.
I wanted so badly to flip her off like she’d done to me, but I couldn’t do that and continue my exercises, so I ignored her. Instead, I channeled that pent-up anger into determination. I bent my arms then pushed back up, faster this time. Four.
Footsteps sounded again in the hall, faster than they’d strolled in last time. Another scientist, if I had to guess.
Were there cameras hidden in the walls? I suppose it wouldn’t have surprised me. Was exercising a crime? Maybe it was the only way to counteract the serum they were so fond of injecting. More likely, they just preferred their prisoners to be weak and desolate.
Regardless, I now had another chance at escape.
A man in a white lab coat entered my line of vision. I lowered myself then pushed up. Five.
He slipped through the bars as if they didn’t exist, holding another syringe. His thumb was already on the plunger.
I did another push-up. Six.
He strode over to me, grasping the back of my neck, but before he could stab the needle into my skin, I thrust my elbow back into his face. He cried out, dropping the syringe and grabbing his nose as it bled.
Quickly, I rolled over and seized the syringe, sending the needle straight into his neck. The next second, the scientist dropped to the floor in an unconscious heap.
Paxton’s eyes went wide across the hall. His fingers were bone-white as he squeezed the bars. “What’s your plan?” he asked. His tone was either one of excitement or terror—maybe both.
“Um…” I said, but I wasn’t exactly sure. I hadn’t had time to plot much further than that.
There had to be something on or in the scientist that allowed him to enter and exit the cage. I patted him down, checked all his pockets, his socks, and his security card, but I couldn’t find anything useful.
“Check his neck,” Paxton suggested. “Maybe there’s a chip or something?”
The Essential Elements: Boxed Set Page 72
