The Elementals

I’m shaking with rage. ”You set this up.” My fists clench till my nails almost break skin and I walk deliberately down the deck, my feet stabbing imaginary holes into the fiberglass.

“You deceitful, evil, untrustworthy, low-life, horrible, lying, two-faced dirtbag. I can’t believe I thought I could trust you!” I snarl and Caelum winces with every word. I reach him and I glare right into his eyes. “I can’t believe I ever liked you.” I hiss in his face and he steps back as if my words are actually hitting him.

“I-”

“Don’t even try.” I snap, and almost against my will I feel the power rise but instead of stopping it I let it flow. A bit of water slithers up the side of the boat, unnoticed till it’s in the air and suddenly Coal is in front of me, shaking free of the guard.

“Tide.” He says, grabbing my shoulder firmly, stopping me in my place. “You’re going to regret this.”

The water hangs still as I hear guns clicking. My voice quivers with tension. “Get out of the way Coal.”

“No.” He says and quieter, “This isn’t you.”

“How do you know?”

He pauses, trying to put his answer into words. I can see it in his face though. The water falls and my hunched shoulders drop. I spin again and face Izila, who has by now boarded our boat.

“I thought you were going to kill him.” She says plainly. “Shame you didn’t. I need only the strongest in my command. Only the ones willing to do whatever it takes.” She smiles coldly at me, inspecting her nails.

She hunted us.

She burned down innocent peoples’ homes just to find us.

She trapped kids for horrible experiments.

She killed Breeze.

Silently, like a cat, I go to tear her apart. She ducks away like a bullet and the soldiers move in. I shriek something like “Sparta!” or maybe “for Narnia!” but I bring the puddle up and slam it into the first man. He goes down like a rock and more men board the boat. That’s fine; I have the entire harbor at my disposal.

More water spirals up from the ocean and I duck a blow and freeze a mask on someone’s face. They step back, and trip over the rail. I barely have time to think about what I’m doing. All that’s important is getting to Izila and making her pay. It doesn’t matter who I have to go through.

It takes a second for me to realize I’m not alone. Coal is fighting next to me. He’s fighting with me. We both spin, blasting out attacks, fire and water, and then we’re back to back and I feel calm. Yes, my world is spinning out of control, I’m not sure who else I can trust, but I know I can trust Coal.

It’s a good feeling. You should try it sometime. Not the whole fighting to survive thing, but the trust. It’s life affirming. I take down another couple men and then I’m face to face with Izila.

I’m so close. I almost do it. The water, it’s inches from her neck, formed into little blades, ready to shred her skin. I was so close.

Then the ice smashes to the ground, shattering into itty bitty pieces. The sound is like a thousand little screams I haven’t let out. I’m thrown into the air, hovering at least ten feet above the deck. I see Coal up higher than me.

“Put him down!” I shriek, pedaling my feet uselessly in the air.

“Destroy them.” Izila flicks her hand and motions for the soldiers to start moving the others onto her boat. I drift higher into the air.

“Caelum!” I shout. “What are you doing? Whatever she promised you, you’re not going to get it!” He doesn’t answer. Then, as if his voice is floating up with me, I can hear it clearly.

“She promised me that you wouldn’t get hurt.”

Coal drops to the boat like a stone. He’s slammed sideways onto the deck and almost skids off the edge, but the railing brings him to painful stop.

And I lose it.

It’s like the entire harbor converges in on our boat. The water surges in a wave, lifting us up, and then drops, rising up into a wall around us. I fall to the ground, but gently enough so it doesn’t hurt. I stand up slowly, seething. The tower of water is surrounding just our boat; I can’t see Izila or the others. But right now I don’t care.

“You knew!" I scream at Caelum. “You told her where we were!”

He doesn’t deny anything. “She was going to intercept us at the island.” he says, and somehow I can hear him over the roaring of the water. “But then we found the boat.”

“So you called her.” I growl. “You could’ve told me. We could’ve escaped somewhere else.”

“She said she would kill you.” He says.

“That doesn’t mean you let her kill everyone else!” I screech. “That doesn’t mean you betray me!”

He just stands there, absorbing my anger, a look of pain on his face. “I couldn’t let her kill you.”

“What makes you think she wouldn’t even after you did this?”

“I wouldn’t take the chance.” It makes the whole thing worse that he did it for me. If he’s even telling the truth. It feels like a giant gaping hole in my heart is growing larger with every sentence he speaks. “Tide, I’m sorry-”

“Stop it!” I shout at him. “Just stop it!”

The water implodes on us, drenching everything. I stand there, the salty water mixing with the silent tears that have started rolling down my cheeks. I don’t even know why I’m so upset. I should have expected this. I can’t trust anybody. Not the orphanage owners who promised me a family, not Caelum. No one.

Coal.

Coal has my back. He always has. Where is he now? I slip in the torrent of water streaming down the boat sides. My hands scrape against the stucco ridged floor of the boat. I blink my eyes, trying to find Coal. I see his soaked figure trying to stand near the bow. And another shadow with an arm, aiming a gun, just behind him.

The water roars up again, and I expect to start fading in and out of consciousness, but all I feel is anger and fear mixing together into a huge ball of betrayal that’s fueling my movements like an engine. The entire boat is plunged into a bubble of water, and all the noise is muffled. I zoom through the water, slamming into Coal and the water loses its unnatural form, flooding back into the harbor, washing everything on deck into the seawater.

Coal and I tumble onto the other boat and smash into the men holding the others like a bowling ball. They stumble over the railing, off balance.

“Hold on!” I scream in warning and then the boat is taken by a wave and skipped over the water like a stone. I’m not sure how the hull stays together against the force.

When the boat finally stops jumping and bouncing, my hands are numb from gripping Coal so hard. We’ve been squished into a corner of the wheel room, and my arm aches where I hit it.

“Am I dead?” Coal asks. “Because you’re hugging me.”

I shake my head, jumping back, and get up to do a roll call. “Okay!” I try to keep the whipped tone out of my voice. “Report!”

I hear a couple people reply and figures emerging from the floor and rigging. I count six heads and have a small jump until I realize six is the right number now. I stand motionless; feeling like I just got shot and Oh’Rian gets up, walking over to me.

“I can take it from here.” She says, and guides me below deck.

I hate this. Feeling like toddler, needing to be taken care of. But the only thing I can manage to do is dry everything off. Oh’Rian gives me a smile as her clothes stop dripping, but I can’t return it.

I leave the lights off. The moonlight coming through the water casts eerie shadows across the floor and walls. I know I won’t be able to sleep, so I just sit in the dark, mind swirling with my own thoughts and feelings. I can’t remember what happened to Caelum after I freaked out, or Izila. I hope Izila is dead, but if she is, it means Caelum probably is too. I wish he were here now, not evil and on our way to the island, safe and sound. I raise my head, then duck it back down after I see a warm glow coming from the stairs and hear footsteps.

“Go away Coal.” I say and bury myself deeper into the pillows on the couch.

“Do want me to turn on the lights or something?” He asks conversationally, ignoring me.

“No, go away and leave me alone.” I say again, as he spots me and walks over.

“Flippers, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” I shrink back into the shadows when I realize I shouted. Stupid Coal. Stupid Caelum for hurting stupid Coal, I hate both of them, they’re both stupid, stupid-

“I’m sorry.”

I stop. That’s not something Coal usually says. I don’t think he’s ever apologized before. Of all the idiotic, infuriating, thoughtless things that have come out of his mouth, “I’m sorry” has not been one of them. Ah, of course, I know why. Because “I’m sorry” is actually an intelligent, not self-centered statement.

“Why do you think it’s because of you?” It comes out harsher than I meant.

Coal looks down and stays silent. Why do I always do this? I just snap at everyone even when they’re trying to apologize. I sit there, different feelings all mashed up inside of me.

Finally, choking down my pride, I slowly inch over to make room for him to sit next to me. “I mean, it’s not your fault.”

“Well,” he says, making himself comfortable like he always expected me to move over. “I like to think I had something to do with it.” I scowl at him. “I have been trying, you know.”

“So you’re saying being a confusing jerk isn’t natural for you?”

"I’m confusing?” Coal looks at me in disbelief. “What about you?”

“I don’t know,” I say, “What about me?”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not. Tell me.”

He shifts, turning towards me, all playful humor gone. “You insult me every chance you get, but don’t leave me when you can. I kiss you, you freak out, then I almost die and you kiss me and then act like nothing happened. Next, ”

His tone darkens and I have a feeling what’s coming. “You find some magic gravity guy to adopt, say you don’t like him, act like you do, and then break down when I say I won’t come, which,” he says defensively, “was perfectly reasonable. You tell me you need to me, then go back to Caelum, and even after he betrays you still hate me.”

“I don’t hate you!” I don’t hate you at all, I think, but stay silent.

“Really?” he asks, half sarcastic, half serious. “Because it sure seems like it.”

“Well it might be because you didn’t say any of this sooner.”

“It might be because you’re too blind to see people like you.”

“Oh yeah, well, I don’t like people!”

"There’s my pessimist.”

“I’m not your anything!” I want to crawl under the couch and stay there forever. “You’re delusional.”

“You’re frustrating.”

“You’re an idiot.” I sit up.

“You’re sensitive.”

“Conceited.” I say, fishing for more insulting adjectives I can throw at him.

“Stubborn.”

“Lazy.” I lean forward till we’re face to face.

“Naive.” He says, and my breath catches for a second. Instead of glaring into grey eyes, I’m falling into silver speckled ones.

“Selfish, stuck-up, untrustworthy, back-stabbing jerk!” I shout, then stop, seeing Coal again. “I-I mean...” Caelum. I meant Caelum. I try to correct myself but my voice won’t work.

“I know,” Coal whispers, and my body sort of crumples into him.

I don’t cry. Crying isn’t my thing. Besides, I’m done with crying. Crying is overrated. I just sit there, curled up against Coal, silent. I know how it feels to be drowning now. Not being able to function, not knowing which way is up; sinking into somewhere you’ll never be able to get out of. Trying to get any air when you know there is none, but you keep opening your mouth, just in case. It hurts like that on the inside.

What now? I ask myself. There’s no going to the island, that’s for sure. But I have no idea where else we’ll be safe. Maybe nowhere. The thought has crossed my mind many times. Every single time we’re close to finding a place that’s right, something bad happens. I feel like such a failure to the others. I’m supposed to be in charge, always know what to do, and I don’t.

In a way, it feels like I betrayed everyone. I trusted Caelum, and because of that we’ll never be able to relax and stay in one place. I ruined any chance of them living a semi-normal life.

“Stop blaming yourself.” Coal says, reading my mind again. “Everyone liked Caelum.” He says it somewhat bitterly.

“You didn’t.”

“I’ve been told I have people issues.”

I smile a tiny bit. “You have an odd way of cheering people up.”

“But it’s working.” He says.

“So why did you really come down here?” I ask, sitting up a little.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you didn’t come to have me cry on your shoulder, so what was it?”

“I came to see if you were okay.”

I nod slowly, skeptical. “Right.”

“I did! Why are you so surprised?”

“Because you’re not nice to people.”

"Other people,” He mutters.

I look at him doubtfully. He seems to be telling the truth.

“I can leave if you want.” Coal shifts under me, getting up.

“No!” I stop him. Trying to recover from my quick response, I say, “You’re warm.”

“Great, so now I’m your personal radiator.” He says, but stays, smiling slightly.

A silence passes. I almost fall asleep because Coal is warm and I’m comfortable and then I realize I’m leaning against him, and I sit up quickly, moving away a bit.

“Sorry.” I say hurriedly.

He shrugs. “I don’t mind.”

“No,” I insist, “I’ll stop. I’m sorry for being confusing, and, you know, that I...” I’m having trouble putting it into words. That I kissed you? That I need you? I can’t apologize because I’m not actually sure that I am sorry.

Coal looks at me evenly. “And I said I don’t mind.”

“Oh,” I stare down at the couch. My fingers pick at the fabric, heart beating out of control. “Right.”

There’s another quiet, where the clouds cover the moon and the shadows eat everything. When a shaft of light does finally pass through the portholes, I can see Coal grinning. I have time to get annoyed but then the room is plunged back into pitch blackness, and my eyes close.