The Elementals

I wake up feeling better than I’ve ever had in ages. I stand up and stretch. The cuts on my side are pretty much healed, and it only feels a little tight, no pain. I look around and meet Stella’s gaze. She smiles. I don’t bother to wake up Coal. As soon as he smells the bacon on a portable grill someone brought in, he’s right next to us.

“You’re going to burn yourself.” Rico warns as Coal reaches for a piece straight off the pan.

Coal grins and lights his hand on fire, grabbing the slice and popping it into his mouth. Rico is staring, wide eyed. “Yep,” Coal says, “I’m one too.”

Rico looks between me and Coal. “Shouldn’t you two, like, hate each other?” he asks, “You know, fire vs. water?”

I shrug. “I manage not to kill him. Some days it’s very hard.” Coal looks at me in a fake offended way. I shove him.

“Your wounds have healed exceptionally fast,” Stella points out.

“Well, he had some help,” I say, motioning to her neat bandaging on the shot.

“And we do that,” Coal says unhelpfully, snitching another strip of bacon. “Fight things, beat them up, heal quick. It’s kind of a cycle.” Rico rolls his eyes.

“He’s got a bit of a Napoleon complex,” I whisper to Rico. He smiles wryly.

“I heard that.” Coal says through a mouthful of toast.

“Heard what?” I ask innocently, and Stella holds back a giggle. I don’t want to leave. It’s amazing, really. These are the people who just yesterday were cold and cautious, ready to shoot us. Now I feel like I’m their sister. Even the other gang members were friendly. I feel welcome, and safe, and protected.

I feel like I have a family. And now I’m going away.

The others are your family too. I remind myself. I have to find them, make sure they’re safe. I want Maple and Sparky to feel exactly like this someday. Wanted, loved, protected. Not living in fear of what some messed up grown-ups might do to you next.

The goodbyes are harder than I expected. Rico scrounged up some money, and Stella gave me some of her old clothes, which fit me perfectly, surprisingly enough. I feel like some strange biker in the worn leather jacket and ripped jeans. She smiles sadly, and hugs me tightly. Silent understanding passes between us.

“I told him.” She whispers and then lets go and says good bye to Coal.

Rico doesn’t hug, but he says, “You stay safe alright?” like all those big brothers in the movies. I smile and nod.

We cross the tracks- I pay careful attention to stay off the third rail this time- and back into the woods. It’s weird at first, but I quickly readjust to the sounds and smells. The forest brings back the tension of the argument of the day before. I glance at Coal, realize he’s doing the same thing, and quickly go back to staring at the ground. We travel like this for an hour or so; I can’t see the sun through the dense foliage to judge time.

“Hello.”

Coal whips around and I turn also, but not as fast. It’s quiet, distant, but I recognize the voice. “Breeze?” I ask, hope rising inside me. I peer through the underbrush for her.

“Come with me, please.” She says. There’s something strange about her voice. It has an almost robotic hint to it.

“Where are you?” I ask. I ignore the bad feeling in my gut and move towards the source of her voice.

Coal says cautiously, “I think we should-“

I don’t hear the rest. I spot Breeze up on a hill after I push through some branches. She’s standing against the sun filtering through the trees, and her silhouette is rigid.

“Breeze!” I shout, waving my arms. I look around more. She’s alone. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Come with me, please.” She repeats icily. She speaks slowly and accents each word.

I walk up to her, confused. Coal comes behind me. “Breeze, is everything okay?” I ask, shielding my eyes from the sun. I reach her and stop. Her eyes are glazed over, dull, dead. They’re not the bright, clear blue I was accustomed to.

“If you don’t come,” She says, “I will have to destroy you.”

“Flippers,” Coal says in warning, grabbing my shoulder and pulling me back.

“Stop,” I say to him, shaking his hand off, “Breeze, what’s wrong?”

She raises her hand and I’m blown back by a sudden, powerful, gust of wind. I’m in the air for a second, then I hit the ground on a rock, but I barely feel it. I’m still in shock that Breeze attacked me. She was the most peace going person I knew. Coal is glaring at Breeze and he clenches his fists. I scramble painfully to my feet. Rushing up the hill again, my side aching, I run in between Coal and Breeze.

“Get out of the way, Flippers.” Coal growls.

I ignore him.

“You’d best do as he says.” I turn around as Breeze brings her fist around and punches me in the stomach.

I stumble back into Coal. He steadies me and tenses, ready to spring at Breeze. I stop him. I stand up, wincing. She’s surprisingly strong for someone so gentle natured. Breeze convulses suddenly, doubling over like someone shot her.

“Tide…sorry…didn’t…mean to.” Breeze gasps out, her voice back to normal, and her eyes haunted, but recognizably blue.

She shudders and then the robo-Breeze is back. It’s like she’s being possessed. She raises her arm again, and I duck. Then her arm shakes mid-swing as if she’s rebelling against some sort of programming command. Her hand twitches there for a second.

“Leave.” Breeze chokes. Her eyes flash menacingly, and then both Coal and I are thrown down the hillside by a blast of wind. I roll down and slam my back into a tree. I lay there, gasping like a fish out of water.

“You can’t win.” Breeze-bot says coldly, mechanically, “Surrender now and live.” Her voice reaches me, even though she’s many feet away.

I push myself up. I can just see Breeze, arms raised to the sky. She’s walking down towards me, with disturbing sense of cold purpose. The wind picks up. My hair blows across my face, blinding me for a moment. I see a streak from the corner of my eye. “Coal, don’t!” I shout but it’s too late.

Breeze throws her hands out and I have to close my eyes because dirt and twigs are flying everywhere. The wind swirls up into a huge tornado. Coal is gone, like a scrap of paper. I crouch, low to the ground. I’m pushed back, my heels leaving trail marks in the earth. I clench my teeth, and grab a root. I use it to pull myself forward. Branches scratch past my face. I dig my fingers into the ground and keep moving. The wind rips at my clothes, threatening to throw me away if I let go.

“Run!” Breeze screams over the howling, “Run! Get away from me!”

I can’t see her through the dust spinning up in the air, but I know she’s close by. “Breeze,” I yell blindly, my voice being ripped away by the wind. “We can help you, just stop the tornado!”

“I can’t stop it!” She shrieks. “She has them. Save yourself!” The dirt crumbles away from my hands and I tumble away like a leaf. I’m thrown to the ground with a final blast of wind.

It takes me a while to get my bearings. I’m lucky I didn’t hit another tree. The force might’ve killed me. All the grass on the hill is blown back, almost flat. Breeze is nowhere to be found. My entire body hurts. I groan because no one is there to hear me.

Standing up unsteadily, I take a few small steps. It feels like I’m in a gyro ball. Everything else is spinning, but I’m stationary, even though my feet are moving. My hair is tangled and I keep pulling leaves and dirt from it. Not surprisingly, I trip. Hitting the ground is almost a shock. I mean, gravity and stuff, no duh, but I’d gotten so used to having Coal catch me that it takes a second to process that my face in the mud. I get to my feet, spitting out dirt.

“Coal?” I call, my voice shattering the silence that has fallen over the woods. No answer. I stumble around, looking for him. “Coal?”

The situation is eerily familiar. I look behind rocks, piles of sticks in a circle around the hill. I can’t find him. Now I know something’s wrong. Very, very wrong.

“Coal!” I shout. My voice is swallowed quickly by the shear emptiness. The twister must’ve scared anything within a mile. I would leave to, if I had the choice. But I have to find Coal. There’s no doubt in my mind.

The sun filters dimly through the trees. The patterns are like snowflakes made out of light. They move with the left over bits of wind brushing the leaves up high, like a kaleidoscope. It would be pretty but I’m starting to get frantic. I can’t find Coal anywhere. I walk back up the hill, to where Breeze was standing. I still can’t get the picture of her lifeless eyes out of my head. Coal was running at her when she blasted him back and started the tornado. I look down the hill. There are a few painful skid marks in the dirt and I follow them down to the edge of the woods. Coal isn’t there.

How can you lose a whole person?

I start walking into the forest, trying to follow the invisible line the marks made. This part of the woods is clearer, not as many trees. In fact, I haven’t had to move out of the way of a tree yet. I’m starting to get an idea of what happened. Breeze probably threw Coal straight this way and without trees to block the way, he went far. I have a shred of hope that Breeze has some control over her robo self, and did this on purpose. Luck is also a factor.

Or not.

I see in front of me, about 30 feet away, a tree.

With a crumpled figure underneath it.

I sprint over, imagining horrible things. When I reach Coal, my breath catches. The tree bark is partially cracked from the force that he hit it with. He’s lying motionless on the ground, twisted so that one arm is underneath him. I gingerly flip him, feeling to see if anything is broken. Thankfully, nothing is. I’m not sure what I could’ve done if he had cracked a rib or something.

“Coal, wake up.” I say. No response. I lean him up against the tree. “C’mon Coal, I’m not joking.” I shake him. Still nothing. Tentatively, I press my ear against his chest, checking for a heartbeat. Nothing. There’s nothing.

“No,” I say, “No, Coal. You can’t die.” I shake him again, harder. “Don’t you dare.” My voice is catching. “Don’t you dare die on me. Don’t you even try.” I gulp in some air, throat tightening. “No, you can’t do this. You’re not going to leave me now. Wake up. Wake up you idiot.” I’m spitting out the first things that come to my mind. I think they’re from some sort of bad movie I watched late one night at Westerville.

I listen for anything. A heartbeat, a small breath, anything. The silence is deafening. He can’t be dead. He can’t just die.

“Coal!” I yell, gripping his shoulders so hard my knuckles are white. “Wake up!” My voice is cracking from held back tears, surprising myself. I never cry. You learn to sort of board up your feelings at an orphanage. I blink them away.

“Please,” I whimper pitifully.

Then I do something even more shocking.

I kiss him.

Yes, me, who flipped out when he did the same thing. I can see the irony. His lips are cold and lifeless, not warm and curved into an annoying smirk. I would take that over this any day, believe it or not.

He gasps. I jump back. He’s breathing. The jerk has the nerve to be breathing.

“What the heck?” I shout before he can say anything. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

He offers a small, surprised smile, “If it means you kiss me, then yeah.”

“I thought you had died!” Mortified, I stomp over to the other side of the tree, pressing my back against the bark and sliding down slowly, head in my hands.

“Are you crying?” he asks, not following me.

“No!” I snap, rubbing my eyes dry. I sit there, head in between my knees, silently going crazy.

Why, why, why did you do that? I snarl to myself. You could have just smacked him. Or screamed a bunch. Some cold water might’ve done the trick. It’s worked before. But noooo, you had to kiss him!

The most horrifying thing is that I did it. There’s no pegging someone else this time. And the fact that he knows. I don’t suppose there’s a chance a bear will come along and smack him in the head again. Yeah, didn’t think so. The leaves rustle overhead. Coal isn’t going to be healed for a while. Between the bear, being shot, and Breeze, he got pretty beaten up.

“You should follow Breeze before the trail disappears.” he says slowly. I know what he’s suggesting. I should go find the others and figure out what Breeze’s little split personality problem was about. But he’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

“I’m not leaving.” I say with finality, carefully avoiding saying you at the end. I can’t see him, but I can feel Coal smiling. I grit my teeth, leaning my head back against the tree.

Why? Well, for starters, I thought he was dead. So you kissed him, yeah that makes loads of sense. I. Thought. He. Was. Dead. That’s all there is to it. Well, he wasn’t genius. Now look where you are. This goes on until nightfall.

I shiver from the chill that’s settled in the air. I can feel the heat from the other side of the tree, just barely on my back. I’m not going over there.

“You’re going to get cold.” Coal says.

It’s exactly what he said after the bear attacked him. I twist around the trunk. “You remember?”

He turns his head, almost smacking noses with me. “What?”

I reel back, then give up and move so that I’m sitting next to him. The warmth is welcoming. “The bear attack.”

“No,” He says, confused. “Why?”

I shake my head hurriedly, “Nothing.” He’s almost invisible in the dark, with his tan skin and black hair. Coal looks at me, eyes the only bright thing about him. I avoid his gaze and stare down at the leaves. He leans forward so I have to look at him.

“Stop it.” I say.

“Stop what?”

“Smiling at me.” This just makes him laugh and my stomach feels kind of fluttery. I scowl and pull my jacket tighter around me. Noticing, Coal heats up.

“Don’t waste your energy, you need to rest.” I tell him, though I appreciate the warmth.

He shrugs. “You’re going to get cold.” He repeats. I cross my arms. “Look,” he says, “I’ll be fine, you go to sleep.”

“I didn’t fight a bear, get shot, and stop breathing within forty-eight hours.” I say, stubbornly. He doesn’t budge. I sigh. “I’ll tell you what happened the night you forgot.” As I suspected, that gets his attention. “But,” I say, “You have to cool down and rest.”

After a pause, the heat fades. I can barely see him in the darkness, except for the outline from the moonlight. “So?” Coal asks.

I take a slow breath, heart beating fast out of nervousness. “I was trying to stop the bleeding and you wouldn’t shut up about something you needed to tell me and so I asked what it was and you kissed me.” It comes out in a kind of stumbling rush.

Coal laughs after a pause and the warmth returns, hotter than ever. “No wonder you were freaking out so much.”

“Hey!” I protest, glaring at him, “I was not freaking out.”

He nudges me. “Yeah you were.” I stop arguing because I’m suddenly aware of how close we’re sitting. Our shoulders are just barely touching. I don’t feel cold at all and my skin is all tingly.

“You’re not cooling down.” I snap at him half-heartedly.

He shrugs and grins. “Make me.” I frown and bring my knees to my chest. “Just go to sleep, Flippers, I’ll be fine.”

I continue to scowl at the ground, but my eyelids are drooping. Coal shifts and the heat strengthens. “Stop it.” I mumble. He ignores me. Against my will, I drift into a warm sleep.