Quickly, I scooped it up and slid it back on my finger, immediately feeling whole once again. I glared at her, a hardened mixture of emotions swirling in my chest as I watched the flames crawl up to her neck.
“I love him,” I told her honestly. “And he loves me. And you will never pull something like this ever again…or next time, you’ll be dead.”
I extinguished the flames with a slow exhale. I couldn’t kill her, no matter how much I knew I should, but if I wanted to keep Cade safe, I needed to eliminate her. She was a psychotic kidnapper, and I had a feeling she’d never stop trying to take him. Was I being dumb for letting her go? For giving her another chance? Was I essentially putting Cade’s life on the line yet again?
God, I hoped not. I’d rather mercy and karma just sort of figure it out on their own without any help from me.
I grabbed Cade once more and started dragging him toward the woods. Even more color had returned to his face and cheeks, and I couldn’t help but smile. He was going to be okay. We were going to make it through this.
But Loren had other plans. She let out a battle cry and charged at us, a rainbow-colored Surge Protector glittering in her grasp.
How the fuck?
I glanced down at my belt and realized my Protector was gone.
“If I can’t have him, no one can!” she shrieked, raising her arm high in the air, the strange blade hovering mere feet above Cade’s chest.
If she pierced his skin with that thing, it would all be over. There were no longer any other options. I had to act immediately, and I had to take her out permanently.
In a flurry, I grabbed a set of daggers from my belt, lit them on fire, and threw them at her as fast as I could. They each sank into a different part of her chest, but I wasn’t sure if it was enough. I grabbed two more, flamed them up, and threw those too.
She staggered backward, staring at the burning front of her body in awe and horror as the blood started pouring out. Since she still hadn’t gone down yet, I panicked and sent two more flaming daggers sailing through the air. One landed in her shoulder, the other slicing into her neck.
Finally, she crumpled to the ground in an awkward heap of bleeding, burning flesh.
My heart was racing. I’d killed people before, but this was probably the most gruesome death I’d ever caused. My head was light and buzzing, and I had a bad feeling I might faint.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Loren’s parents charging at me.
Oh shit. If I blacked out now, I was as good as dead.
I reached around behind me and pulled a handgun from my belt, aiming it rather unsteadily between the two of them. My muscles were exhausted from all the cave-digging, fiancé-hauling, and bitch-fighting, and my mind was hazy from nearly fainting. I had no idea how I was going to keep this shit up long enough to end Nicholai’s pathetic life.
I fired a shot and luckily nicked Erion’s side, but it didn’t stop him or slow him down. I fired again, this time missing Chelsea completely.
Son of a bitch!
I pulled the trigger again and finally hit her in the hip, but it still wasn’t enough to stop them. They were almost on me. Gritting my teeth, I charged up my elements and prepared for impact.
Then Amelia showed up from out of nowhere and blindsided them, tackling them both to the ground from the side.
I frowned and stood there like an idiot with my mouth hanging open.
Had she just…protected me?
Erion tried to punch her, but she simply lit him on fire. The blaze was white hot and he barely even had time to scream before he disintegrated into ash.
Chelsea’s face was slathered in terror. “How could you do this?! Why would you betray us after all these years?”
Amelia’s face was hard and emotionless. “Because this is nothing more than a game of power. You strategize and do what you must to survive, but as soon as you get a chance to make a move, you take it.”
Chelsea sneered as tears streaked down her dirtied face. “So that’s it? You just want more power than your dear old dad? Good luck with that. He’s going to kill you for what you’ve done.”
Amelia smirked. “No doubt he will, but I don’t want his stupid power. I just want to keep my daughter safe. It’s what I’ve always wanted. It’s why I’ve played this godforsaken game so long and so diligently, and it’s why I’m going to kill you now.”
As promised, she lit Chelsea on fire and quickly cremated her into a pile of ash beside her husband. As their power flowed into her, I swore I saw her skin swell and glow.
She stumbled and dropped to one knee as if the power were physically heavy. Shaking her head, she glanced up at me and forced a pained smile, tears welling in her eyes.
“Valerie, my sweet girl. I love you so much. Everything I’ve ever done has been to keep you and your father safe, I swear it, but you must end this. This is the last chance we have before all is lost forever.”
I nodded, numb and in complete shock. Amelia…my mother…had been good all this time? She was just playing a part so she could protect me? And Dad?
“I honestly thought your father was a normal human,” she said, out of the blue. “When we brought you into this world, I thought your life would be simple and pure and safe, but when I finally realized he was a Water and you were an Elemental, too, I knew I needed to run. Nicholai believed in the Gifted prophesy, so I knew he would kill you and take your power, just as he had with my mother. I hoped if I abandoned you and moved on with a new husband, child, and life, he’d think you were nothing to me…nothing at all. I hoped that would be enough to keep you safe, at least until you grew up and came into your full power.” She shook her head and a couple tears dripped onto the ground at her feet. “But it’s still not enough. You need more power if you hope to defeat him. He’s killed so many…”
Then she gritted her teeth and staggered up to a standing position, holding out her arms.
“I’m sorry, Valerie. I’ve done terrible things for far too long, and I’d do them all again in a heartbeat if it meant keeping you safe and alive, but please, let me make it up to you. Let me be your mother again.”
Tears filled my eyes. The strained rope holding my heart together snapped, and emotions flooded everywhere. I don’t know what came over me, but I rushed to her and hugged her tightly, allowing the tears to pour down my cheeks in scalding hot waves.
She caressed my hair and pulled me even closer.
“I love you, baby girl,” she whimpered, and her voice sounded absolutely devastated. “I’m so sorry, but this was the only way.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
Terrified, I backed away, stunned to find the hilt of a dagger in my hand. Blood poured from a wound at her ribs…a wound I had apparently caused. I dropped the knife in dread, staring at the bright red blood coating my fingers.
“What…?” It was a stupid thing to say, but it was the only thing that would come out.
“You needed more power,” she said again. “As your mother, I’d give anything to protect you…even my own life…even my own power.” The light in her eyes dimmed and she swayed where she stood. “I love you, Valerie.”
Then she crashed to the ground as her power surged into me.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“No!” I cried as I dropped to my knees and threw my arms around her body.
But she was already gone; I wouldn’t have received her power if she were still in there.
Sobbing, I hurried away from her and back over to Cade. We couldn’t linger, no matter how much I felt like sinking into a pool of mourning and despair.
Get Cade to safety, I told myself in a quivering mental voice. Then kill Nicholai. Nothing else matters right now.
Still, I cried the whole time as I hauled him to the forest’s edge. We were almost past the first line of trees when Elise suddenly materialized out of nowhere. I was too damn grief-stricken to be startled.
“Brad’s gone,” she announced. She was breathless
but proud; I could hear it in her tone and knew she must’ve killed him herself.
I nodded. “Cade’s alive, but he’s going to need a lot of help and healing. Can you, Lilly, and Chase work your Earth magic on him? According to Ida, we need all eight of us to take Nicholai down.”
She nodded quickly. “I’ll grab them and be right back.”
Then she disappeared into the landscape as quickly as she’d emerged.
Scanning the battlefield from the safety of the trees, I noticed a few things at once. One, the Shadow Sect had officially shown up and joined the fight. I could see their black, snake-like outfits dotting the field. Two, the Traditionalists had joined as well. I recognized more than a few of them from the West Woods, including Henrie Landston and Aunt Marge.
Thank the gods she’s alive!
I was relieved, but that thought also made me think about my mom…
My third observation was that with the fortress now destroyed and the playing field leveled, all five parties were mixed like batter in a blender of death. That meant my father was out there somewhere, along with Jay, Kale, and the rest of my friends. Were any of them still alive? They might have all been intermixed, but there weren’t very many left.
Thankfully, the Earth demies showed up before I could worry myself to death.
Lilly pulled me into a fierce hug when she saw me. “Thank god you’re all right.”
“You too,” I said, sincerely grateful that we’d all survived this long—well, I assumed we all had. “Are the others still…”
I didn’t need to finish that sentence for them to know exactly what I was asking.
“Yes,” Elise answered as she started smearing salve onto Cade’s wounds. “All eight of us are still in the game. Most of the Elitists are not.” She turned to me and grinned. “We’re winning, Val. It’s almost over.”
I licked my lips. I knew better than to underestimate Nicholai like that. He probably had something up his sleeve, something devastating.
“Which Elitists are left?” I asked, watching Lilly and Chase begin working on Cade, too. “Loren, Chelsea, and Erion are gone. Amelia…is gone.”
Elise’s eyes met mine again. From the curious look she gave me, I knew she wanted to know if I’d been the one to kill her. I nodded curtly. She nodded in return and got back to work.
“Nicholai is still alive,” she said with an annoyed sigh. “So are Draven and Adira. I guess there’s a reason our dear old grandfather chose her nightclub as a meeting place all those months ago—she was damn strong enough to defend it.”
I pursed my lips at the sour thought. “Who’s fighting who right now?”
“Holden has been fighting Adira since the beginning,” Elise said. “He’s keeping up, but she’s slowly wearing him down. Xavier is squared off with Draven, and Sienna is taking on Nicholai.” She shot me a serious gaze across Cade’s chest. “They’re going to need as much help as you can give them, especially with Nicholai.”
I nodded, taking that as my cue to get the fuck moving.
I sprinted through the battlefield, acutely aware of how few people were actually left. The vast majority of them were littered across the ground like trash, nothing more than paper bags or empty soda cans. Dead bodies and ruined terrain were all I could see until I reached the tiny group of fighters that remained.
Dad and Kale were helping Xavier deal with Draven, Marge and Jay were helping Holden with Adira, and Henrie and Exis were helping Sienna with Nicholai. At least none of them were fighting alone. There was safety in numbers, or so the saying goes.
Nicholai was the only man on my radar, so you can bet your ass I went there first. Not even the fact that Exis was nearby was going to stop me.
I collected every awful thing I could think of that he’d done and sent it straight to my willpower stores for strength. He’d killed thousands of humans and Elementals long before I was even born. He’d killed my grandma. He’d killed Cade’s mother. He’d bombed Center Allegheny, causing the deaths of hundreds, including Sienna’s parents, Holden’s mother, Charlene, and Kendrick’s biological father. He’d shot Holden’s dad right in front of him, as well as our friend Boone and a few other Modernist leaders. He’d bombed Wellsfield, killing I didn’t even know how many people. He’d tortured and abused Cade for weeks then left him for dead. He’d tried to kill every single one of my friends at least once, and he’d tried to kill me more times than I was even aware of, I was sure.
The fucker deserved to die.
Beyond that, he needed to. The world was not safe with him existing in it. He’d lived thousands of years and had thousands of chances at redemption, and he’d never taken a single one. Some people, no matter how tragic the backstory or how promising the future, are just not meant to be salvaged.
I joined the fight by sending a spray of ice spikes at him, but he simply spun around and maneuvered out of the way. He was like a murderer on ice skates, so graceful and yet so homicidal. I threw a consecutive blast of fireballs just as Exis shot an Elemental-proof net, Henrie threw a tree as a spear, and Sienna accidentally sent a spray of water cascading over all of us. Nicholai simply ducked under the net, grabbed the tree-spear right out of the air, and spun it like a baton, keeping my fire away from his body until Sienna’s water killed it.
Clearly, he had way too much practice with this shit.
I turned to Henrie. “I know you’re my soon-to-be father-in-law and all, but can I say something that’s probably going to piss you off?”
Surprisingly, Henrie nodded without an ounce of disdain.
“I really need you to trade places with someone. You’re an Earth, and Nicholai is an Earth, so you’re doing nothing to each other. Your power would be better used against Adira, a Fire, or Draven, a Wind.”
“You got it, chief,” he said before shooting me a small smile. Then he tapped Xavier’s shoulder. “Tag. You’re in, son.”
Well, that was odd—my dad teaming up with Cade’s dad and Kale to defeat Draven. Oh well, whatever worked.
That was when Nicholai upped his game and his speed, and we all struggled to keep up.
He rocked the earth at our feet, knocking Sienna and Xavier onto their asses. Exis and I had a bit more experience, though, so we stayed upright. He dropped to one knee and shot out a wave of wooden stakes. One sank into Exis’s thigh and she screamed while I quickly forced my fire into a volatile shield and incinerated it.
“Impressive, darling girl,” he said with a pleased smile.
He was just psychotic enough to be proud of me while simultaneously trying to kill me. God, my family was screwed up.
I reached over and yanked the stake from Exis’s leg then burned the wound so it didn’t bleed more. “Hurts like a bitch, doesn’t it?”
She gritted her teeth and nodded.
I smirked. “Good.”
Sienna and Xavier had just enough time to stand back up before Nicholai was at it again. He created a log and swung it around in a circle, forcing us to either jump or duck. Exis went low and shot another net at him, which he deflected with a snapping vine that shot from his palm like a harpoon. I jumped over, creating my fiery whip and wrapping the flames around his neck.
For the first time ever, he looked genuinely surprised.
While I had him trapped, Xavier pelted him with iceballs, and Sienna tried to form a tornado but ended up with a whirlpool…which accidentally doused my flames.
“Valerie, look out!” someone shouted.
I spun around in time to see Draven aiming a gun at me. The next second, he fired. I gasped, watching the bullet spiral my way in slow motion, but I didn’t scream. All I could do was hold my breath, close my eyes, and wait. There was no time for anything else.
But the hit never came—at least not for me. When I opened my eyes, Henrie was still and motionless on the ground.
“Oh my god, no. No!” I ran to his side, hoping I could find the wound and cauterize it in time for an Earth to come around and heal him, but it was too
late. The bullet had gone straight through his head and out the other side.
He’d sacrificed himself…to save me. He and I had only just forgiven each other and decided to start fresh, and now he was gone…forever.
I couldn’t stop the sobs that racked my body in that moment. There was so much emotional pain, so much irrevocable damage, so much loss.
Draven swapped clips, cocked the slide, and aimed at me again.
Survival instinct kicked in, and I immediately jumped to my feet, blinking to clear the tears. Dad was there in an instant, grabbing Draven’s big ugly head from behind and snapping his neck in half. It flopped to the side like rubber, and his entire body crumpled.
I took a deep, shuddering breath. The only ones left now were Adira and Nicholai.
I decided to concentrate on her first, that way we could focus on Nicholai alone in the end. It seemed like the smartest idea. Besides, her Fire wouldn’t hurt me, but my Water would hurt her.
I whipped a few ice spikes at her and Jay followed suit, but Adira quickly melted them. Marge targeted her with wooden stakes, but Adira just burned them up. While her attention was on my aunt, I grabbed a dagger from my belt and threw it at her chest. It sank in with a loud thwack.
God, I was almost too good with throwing knives. It kind of made me sick to my stomach.
She yanked the blade from her chest and threw it back at me, catching me completely off guard. It sank into my shoulder and sent a vibrant pain cascading down my arm and back.
As I went down, Adira torched the hell out of Marge.
My aunt let out a blood-curdling scream as the fire touched her skin. She quickly put up a barrier of trees to block the flames, but the trunks melted as if they were made of butter, and once again, my aunt was screaming in pain as the flames consumed her.
Jay did his best to intervene quickly, jabbing Adira in the back of the neck with an ice spike. She went down in an instant, but Aunt Marge…
I ground my teeth and pulled the blade from my shoulder, recoiling as the sharpened metal slid past my bones, muscles, and nerves.
The Essential Elements: Boxed Set Page 81
