Inferno : Elements Series Book One

Gwen

It’s been six days now. I’ve been living in the arena, the plants in my forest lovingly providing me with food and I’ve been drinking water from the lake. It’s been quiet and peaceful, if not a little lonely, but I’ve had the plants and animals in my forest to keep me company. I’ve been searching people’s minds, following vibrations back to their sources and using them as a gateway to people’s consciousness. It’s been working well enough but it’s not as fast as I’d like. My only distractions over the last few days have been Anya, Oliver and Derek coming in here to train. They don’t know that I’m here. I’ve been concealing myself in the forest, just watching and trying to rifle through their minds. They’re not in here long enough for me to really get into their heads though, so I haven’t been able to take them off my suspect list. It’s infuriating. I want my friends back, but I can’t take the risk. Everything I’ve been told about Recruiters has lead me to believe that if they manage to get their hands on me then the rest of my life will be spent being tortured and manipulated into doing horrible things. No one wants that. But I can’t stay in this arena forever, I already know that I need to leave here and re-enter everyday life in the refuge so that I can route out this traitor. My longing to clear my friends is just one more reason to get back out there. I have a plan. I’m just going to knock on Hank’s door. I won’t play nice; I’m not going to act like nothing is wrong. I’m just going to get to the point. I head out the door of my arena and I’m on my way. I refuse to look over my shoulder to see if I’m being followed. I’m not going to let this bastard get to me anymore.

I can hear voices through Hank’s door. He’s not alone, but that’s alright. It won’t matter, they can answer my questions too if they like. I lift my hand and knock twice on the big door. I hear the scrape of a chair and heavy footsteps as someone walks across the room. The knob turns and Hank steps backwards into the hallway, shutting the door as he goes.

“All right, this had better be g-” he begins as he turns around, but he freezes the minute he sees me. I guess I was the last person he expected to see.

“If it’s a bad time I can leave,” I say, doing my best to keep all emotion out of my voice.

“No, no, not at all. How can I help?” his tone changes immediately and I have no idea why. “Actually, why don’t you come in?”

He opens the door and walks inside, motioning for me to follow. I can’t help my small moment of hesitation before I cross the threshold. I’m going to have to suck it up and remember who the hell I am. I’ve never been this uncertain or intimidated before! I straighten up, walk in, and find that it’s my turn to be surprised. Derek, Jill, Jasper and someone I’ve never met before are in the room. I fortify my mental defences, hopefully making them completely impenetrable.

“You can leave now Aaron,” says Hank.

“I will call you back again if I need you to answer more questions,” says Jasper, a little irritably.

The man, Aaron, leaves without a backward glance. What’s happening in here? Hank turns back to me.

“We thought you’d left. No one has seen you in days.”

He wants to know where I’ve been, but doesn’t want to ask. He’s trying to be subtle, maybe get me to volunteer the information…not a chance. I prefer them not being able to figure out where I’ve been.

“Why were you questioning him?” I say, deliberately changing the subject. It’s not exactly discreet but I wasn’t trying to be. Hank gives me a small smile, knowing full well why I changed the topic.

“We tried to narrow down a list of people who could be the traitor and we’re questioning them all one by one,” he motions to Jillian and Derek. “They’re here to help. Jillian can rifle through their heads and find out if their telling the truth and Derek can help both Jillian and me. Jasper is here just in case someone decides to get violent.”

I should have known that they would be doing something like this. If I’d figured out what they were doing then I could have simply followed Hank’s vibrations and gotten into the minds of everyone on his list. Not that my efforts have been completely worthless, but they seem to have sorted out a better system than mine.

“Have you had any luck?” I ask. I want to see if their results match up with mine.

“We haven’t found out who it is, but we have eliminated a fair amount of people,” says Derek. “You?”

“I haven’t found the traitor either, but I have also eliminated a number of people.” I respond, trying not to let on how good it is to talk to him. “Do you have a written list?”

Hank moves back over to his desk and pulls a few stapled sheets of paper out of a top drawer. He hands them and a pen to me and I sit at what is obviously supposed to be an interrogation room table. No one says a word as I read the list, ticking off names as I go. By the time I’ve finished I’ve crossed off 138 names, leaving only about 200 unticked. I wonder how they’ve been ruling people out…I’m here, I may as well ask.

“How have you been eliminating people?” I ask as I hand the list back to Hank.

His eyebrows shoot into his hairline as he looks over the list and hands it to Derek. I hear a sharp intake of breath from Jasper as he reads the list over Derek’s shoulder.

“You’ve certainly been busy. Here I was thinking you’d just been in hiding,” he sneers.

Clearly Jasper hasn’t adjusted his attitude over the past six days. I roll my eyes and turn my attention back to Hank, but it’s Derek who answers my question.

“We went to your house,” he says. He sounds apologetic and uncertain, clearly thinking I’m going to be mad at him. I’m not, if it helps find the traitor than I’ll give him a damn key and save him the trouble of trying to remember where the furniture is before he teleports.

“And?” I prompt. He looks a bit surprised, and relieved, but he continues.

“We went to see if any Recruiters had been inside your house and to see if we could recognise their auras. We couldn’t, but then we search for Elemental auras that weren’t our own and we picked up on one that we weren’t able to get an accurate read on, but what we got was good enough to considerably narrow down the suspect list.”

It all clicks together in my head.

“That’s why you and Jillian are here. You analyse everyone who steps through that door to see if they’re a match to the aura from my house.”

“Exactly,” Jillian smiles at me. “If you don’t mind me asking, how have you been getting your information?”

“I’ve been following vibrations and tracing them back to their origin. It’s an easier gateway into people’s heads. The vibrations are all at different frequencies depending upon the person and I can use them to get into people’s heads completely undetected,” I explain. They look confused, surprised and impressed. It’s a familiar expression that tells me that they’ve never seen anyone do this before either. I continue as if I don’t notice. “It’s not as fast as I’d like but it is very effective.”

Hank is the first to comment.

“You eliminated 130 odd suspects in less than a week, and you don’t think it’s fast enough?”

Well, actually…

“I eliminated nearly 160 people, but you had a few names crossed off already.”

“How long does it take you to get into people’s heads?” asks Derek, his tone telling me that he has some sort of idea, he just needs a little extra information.

“It only takes until I trace the frequency back. How long that takes depends upon how far away I am from the person,” I respond.

He chews his bottom lip, nodding to himself, and seems to come to a decision.

“How would you feel about being in here while we question people?”

That was unexpected.

“And do what, exactly?” I’m curious. What does he think I can do here that they haven’t been doing already?

“Everything would go much faster if you were here. Jill and I can try and get a lock on the Recruiters aura and I imagine it would be so much faster for you to search people’s minds if you only have to trace vibrations for a few metres and you’re staring straight at the person,” he explains. He sounds almost excited.

Is this a good idea? It means that I’ll be surrounded by people, any number of whom could be Recruiters. It’s a risk…but is it the easiest way to find the Recruiter? It’ll let me get close enough to Derek, Hank, Anya and Oliver to finally get inside their heads. I can finally see if my suspicions are correct.

“Are you still in there?” Derek asks and I can’t help the smirk that springs to my face.

“I’ll do it,” I say, completely on impulse. It takes me by surprise as much as it did them. I play it off, trying to hide my surprise and keep a blank expression. “I need to know when and where.”

“Yes, of course,” says Hank, and then he frowns. “There’s just one small problem, how do we find you? We don’t know where you’ve been staying.”

I guess it’s okay to tell them the truth.

“I haven’t left the refuge.”

“Seriously?!” exclaims Derek and the annoyance, and a little anger, in his tone is easy to hear. He pulls himself together quickly enough. “Sorry, it’s just that we’ve searched this place top to bottom and no one has found any trace of you.”

I knew they’d search for me, that was the point of me staying hidden.

“That was kind of the point,” I say, glad that my voice isn’t telegraphing my discomfort, because I definitely feel uncomfortable. I feel exposed and a little embarrassed by the fact that I went into hiding rather than face this intruder head on. “How do you usually run these interviews anyway?”

“We sent out notes telling people that I wanted to talk with them. Everyone has a different time and strict instructions telling them not to talk to anyone about the meeting. People start showing up at eight each morning and we leave half an hour between interviews so that people coming and going won’t see one another and start talking,” Hank explains. “We’re trying to keep all of this as quiet as possible.”

Well that was easy.

“So you meet in your office every day at 8:00am?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Then I suppose there’s no need for you to know how to find me, is there?” I say as I stand up, ignoring Hank and Jill’s shock and protests as I walk towards the door. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

I’m almost out the door when I hear Derek.

“We still have interviews left for today,” he says, immediately making me turn around. “That’s only if you want to stay. It’s completely up to you.”

Damn it. He knows full well that I’m going to stay!

“When is the next person coming?”

“They’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“Okay then,” I say and go to sit in an armchair on the other side of the room, as close as I can be to the suspect’s chair. It’s less than five minutes before there is a knock at the door and a woman that I don’t recognise walks in. Hank plays nice, acting like this is just a random chat, and pulls the closest chair to me out for her to sit in. She does so and I immediately locate the vibrations coming from her body. I’m in her mind in seconds, being this close makes it so easy. Her name is Elizabeth; she’s a healer with a second affinity for water. She was born in the late 1700s and as far as I can tell she’s never so much as sworn or j-walked. She might be the most innocent mind I’ve been in since I started this. It only takes about twenty seconds for me to gather this information and when I’m finished I get Derek’s attention. It’s incredibly easy to get his attention, he’s already watching me. I shake my head, telling him that it isn’t her, and settle down into the couch to wait. It’s going to be a long few days if everyone is this easy to read.