Broken Elements (26 page)

Chapter 25

I felt a blanket drop into my lap, and Sera sat next to me on the steps. They were all that remained of my house. Behind us, small fires still blazed in the rubble. Even as they destroyed what little was left of my possessions, their warmth was welcome. I felt a chill in the very core of my being, one I needed to stave off before a part of me froze permanently. I wrapped the blanket around my shoulders and let the shivers run rampant through my body, their violent path the first thing I felt in hours.

Distantly, I heard Vivian behind us, shifting the earth that had crashed to the ground along with the staircase and second floor. Despite her squeamishness, she had volunteered for the gruesome chore of searching for any charred body parts. She held a long piece of burnt wood before her, using it to keep a safe distance between herself and anything she might find. I felt slightly guilty asking it of her, but it was not a task I could manage, either physically or emotionally. So far, she had found nothing, but I knew she would. The fire had burned with such heat and ferocity that nothing could have survived. He was in there somewhere, buried under the very earth that had been his undoing.

“Do you want me to look for anything else?” When only silence greeted her question, I realized she was speaking to me. Vivian was attempting to salvage something, anything from my old life. It was a fool’s errand, but it seemed too much bother to tell her this. I lifted my shoulders in a non-committal shrug and trained my eyes on the distant trees, where a large bear and small black house cat ran together side by side, heedless of the animal kingdom’s dictates. Their noses were both to the ground and had been since they arrived on the scene. They’d begun at the ruins and tracked in a steadily increasing circle. I wondered how far they needed to go before becoming convinced that Brian hadn’t escaped again. I knew he was behind me. I had watched the staircase fall on him and crush his spine, had seen the cascading earth cover his legs and trap him. I did not know how to tell them this without also telling how I had watched and smiled as he died, and so I let them search.

Josiah had not come back with the others. I did not know what he’d told them, let alone where he was or when I would see him again. At the moment, it seemed a small concern.

“So, coma girl, you ready to tell me what the fuck happened here?” Her black eyes fixed on me, and I experienced a quick flashback to the last time we’d sat together on this porch, when that look in her eyes had told me she was about to upend my entire world. Turnabout was fair play.

“Well, you see, it turns out I can control fire, too.”

She nodded, face impassive. “What, borrowing my clothes wasn’t enough for you?”

“You’re too short. This was easier.” She waited, knowing there was more. “Of course, the downside is that I’ll almost certainly become insane at some future point.” I indicated the wreckage with a quick tilt of my head. I wasn’t sure if I was pointing out the murderer now buried in its depths or my own role in putting him there.

“Become? Well, at least that won’t be an especially long trip.” Her expression barely changed, but I caught the slight tip at the corner of her mouth. It made me want to punch and hug her simultaneously.

“It’s true. If I’ve been friends with you for years, I must have been halfway to crazy all this time.” And somehow, from out of that cold place deep within, a laugh found its way to the surface, and I felt the thaw begin.

“So, tell me,” she said.

I told her everything. No more hiding.

When I finished, she stared at the ground for a very long time, long enough for me to worry that I was about to find myself a roommate of Trent Pond’s. “Well, it sounds like, until we understand this whole hybrid thing a bit better, you should leave the fire usage to me. Try not to get angry, okay?”

“So, you’re planning on not talking, are you?”

“You’re not serious. I am your sister, and it is my god-given right to give you hell.”

The word hung heavy in the air between us. Somehow, with everything else that had happened, I’d failed to make that connection, but it was the one thing from all this chaos that made any sense. Of course she was my sister. She always had been.

And she deserved to hear the words I should have said ten years ago. “I never should have hated you. I thought you were at fault for the warehouse fires. I thought you were reckless. But it was me, fanning the flames with my rage. You never deserved my anger.”

She waved her hand, dismissing ten years of estrangement. “I was reckless, and there was no way we could have known you’d turn out to be this much of a freak. It’s done. Just… never do it again, okay?”

“I’ll try not to. I’ll be too busy ordering you around. Older sisters get to do that, I hear.”

“You heard wrong. Older sisters get to wear out the parents so much that they half-ass the discipline on the younger one, and you totally failed in that regard. All other rights are therefore lost.”

“For the record, I don’t really plan to follow Josiah’s orders for the foreseeable future. I may just wear him out yet.”

She nodded, humoring me. “Good luck with that.”

“Hey, have some faith. And when I succeed, we’re playing only my music for a month.” I paused, uncertain how to approach the next topic. “You do know our father isn’t right in the head, don’t you?”

She nodded. “Welcome to the family, Aidan.”

Her words reminded me of what waited for us back in the world. “Considering Josiah knows we told the agents, other elementals probably do, too. We might be shunned, you know.”

She crossed her fingers and held them up, eyes closed tightly. “Here’s hoping.”

“I can take all the blame for that, you know. It was my call.”

“Please. I’ve been looking for an excuse to skip the family holidays for years now. I’m not letting you have all the fun.”

We sat in silence for a few moments, looking around the ruins of my previous life. “What happens now?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Carmichael and Johnson want to have words with us.”

“About…?” I gestured behind me.

“No idea,” she said. “But probably not this, since Carmichael called last night. Said he had something to ask us.”

“Huh. When I last talked to him, he did sound like he was up to something.” I vaguely wondered if I should worry about that, then decided I really didn’t care.

I stood and stretched, shaking off the blanket. The sun was beginning to drop in the western sky, but I felt the chill leave my bones. I wasn’t warm, not yet, but I might get there. Eventually.

Behind me, I heard Vivian squeak and take several quick steps toward us. It looked like she’d found Brian.

Sera stood with me. She put her fingers to her lips and let out a piercing whistle. She waved to the others, indicating they should join us. “Let Josiah deal with that mess. In his way, he helped cause it.” She reached out a hand to Vivian, helping her over a particularly tall bit of rubble. The three of us moved down the steps, toward Mac and Simon.

“You tell me, Ade. What happens now?”

“Now,” I said, “we go home.”

Elements, Etc.

The Elements series, in order:

Broken Elements

Shifting Selves

Turning Tides (available May 2014)

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Acknowledgments

Writing a novel is much like making pancakes, in that it requires a whole lot of ingredients to produce something that isn’t a big, soggy lump no one wants to consume. Completing a first novel comes with its own set of challenges, and I have many people to thank.

First and foremost, I must thank Shelly, without whom this book might never have existed in the first place. She was there at its inception and was the first to tell me I could actually write when I most needed to hear it. Sounding board, beta reader extraordinaire, and dear friend. I’m keeping you around for the next book, okay?

While I’m at it, I’d like to thank her partner Melissa, whose favorite T-shirt showed me who Vivian really was after she floundered across the pages for the first two drafts. Yes, the Marxist feminist dialectic is a real shirt, and you can buy it.

Jenn and Rachel were invaluable in helping me work out the book’s rougher edges and asking important questions such as, “How would a hermit know about tablet computers or data clouds?” and “Couldn’t you leave Carmichael’s question for the next book?”

Kaari Busick, my editor, forced me to explain things I was certain were totally obvious. It’s a better book for that, and I understand my own world more clearly thanks to her questions. Special, updated thanks to Carrie Stewart and Sarah Goshman, who were instrumental in the book’s rerelease.

I need to give props to those mad geniuses of NaNoWriMo, who decided it was perfectly reasonable to ask thousands of people to write 50,000 words in a month. Their organization, and the supportive/competitive spirit it creates each November, helped me finally break through my doubts and resistance and just write a damn book, already.

I have to thank my mom. She knows why. I’d go into more detail, but I suspect I’ll be thanking her in every book I ever write, so I’d like to spread it out over time.

Finally, I would like to thank any reader who took a chance on a debut novel published by an independent press. Your enthusiasm for reading and for trying new authors is inspiring, and I am tremendously grateful for it.

About the Author

Mia Marshall has always been obsessed with stories. When younger, her version of cleaning her room involved neatly organizing her books, then ignoring all other messes in favor of re-reading
The Wizard of Oz
series just one more time. As an adult, she earned an unnecessary number of degrees in literature, education, and film. She planned to spend the rest of her life teaching stories to others until she got distracted and started writing those stories herself.

Mia has lived all over the US west coast and throughout the UK. These days, she lives somewhere in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where she is hard at work on the next Elements book.

Broken Elements

Copyright © 2012 Mia Marshall

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

ISBN-13: 978-0-9889761-1-5

ISBN-13: 978-0-9889761-0-8 (ebook)

Book design by Cynthia Fliege

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