Elemental (2 page)

Drip, drip, drip…

I drew a breath down to my toes and moved to
my knees to stand up. That’s when I heard it, a puff of exhaled
breath. Blood chilled in my veins.

There wasn’t much I could do—I was just as
blind in the dark corridor as I’d always been—but now a hound stood
somewhere close behind me. I rose to my feet, agonizingly cautious
in my slow but steady movements.

I straightened with my hands on the wall.
Something scraped against the metal floor—a claw. I took one step
forward. A muffled noise like bristling fur filled the silence. I
bit back my terror.

Way, way off at the distant end of the hall,
something caught my eye, which was odd because I hadn’t used my
eyes in a very long time. I welcomed the strange sense. I needed
all the help I could get. The end of the hall glowed with a weak,
pale light that threatened to be snuffed at any moment. But it was
light
, and to me, it meant everything.

The furry, bristling sound moved closer.
Razor-sharp teeth slid against each other with a sickening screech.
My mind moved ridiculously slowly while my body screamed at me to
run. My muscles actually prickled with the need while my brain
refused to give the order. And so I was trapped there, waiting for
the reality of the situation to settle in, my spastic body having
already figured everything out eons ago.

It’s too far away, I kept telling myself.
Even if there is something around the corner, you’ll never make it.
But my body had had enough, and I ran.

The hound’s reaction was immediate. The air
rushed past me as he made his first lunge. I cringed, waiting for
the blow. It didn’t come. The staccato of his claws on the floor
came closer—he’d been farther away than I’d thought.

Not far enough, though.

Hot, musky breath blew across my head,
whipping my thick and crinkly hair into my face. I spit the strands
out of my mouth and ran harder. Sharp fangs closed onto my
shoulder, snagging my shirt. I stumbled and screamed. The hound’s
breath moistened my cheeks, mixing with my tears.

I twisted away and the sleeve ripped from my
shirt just as the hound’s jaws snapped shut. Foamy slobber hit my
arm and neck.

I don’t know what I was thinking—maybe I
wasn’t—but my fist swung out and collided with the hound’s jaw,
somehow making him stumble back. I took advantage of the
opportunity and ran for the end of the hall and the glowing
light.

The light—which I’d first thought a
miracle—burned my eyes. Each lunge I took brought me closer to its
warm promises, but my ill-used sense of sight protested. Actually,
it flat out said “no.” My eyes and nose burned, tears and snot
pouring down my face. To make matters worse, the hound had
recovered and started chasing me again, gaining. The light didn’t
seem to faze him at all.

A room opened up at the end of the hall. I
could tell because the light suddenly brightened in the corner of
my left eye. I turned, slipping on the floor, but kept my balance.
The hound’s moist breath hit my neck; his jaws hovered just inches
from my head. Claws scraped against the floor.

Hot, sticky warmth oozed from somewhere in
the room. The cold ship air battled valiantly with it, but lost.
Somehow, I knew I needed to go toward the warmth, just like I’d
known I needed to go toward the light. The light and the warmth
were connected, and they were the lifesavers I’d been looking for.
I just had to get closer to them. Whatever the light was, it was
good and protective. It was life. I knew that; I just didn’t know
how
I knew that.

Something like a memory flitted across my
mind and for a second I imagined sunshine, breezes, and wispy
grass, and lying next to a boy—a boy with green eyes.

Then three things happened: I heard the
hound’s wet chops open wide and felt his steamy breath closing the
distance. A claw grazed my back, slicing my shirt and skin open.
And I fell through a hole, screaming all the way down.

Chapter Two
:

Meir

Pain shot up my legs and spine. With my
knees pressed against my chest and my teeth clenched to keep from
screaming, I turned and smacked my face right against something
hard and freakishly hot—so hot it singed my cheek on contact. I
rolled a few inches away and lay flat on my back. I tried to open
my eyes far enough to see what the thing was, but the glare burned
a thousand times more intensely than before I’d fallen. Stinging
wet tears poured down my cheeks.

Snarls ripped through the air above me. I
cringed away and covered my face. I waited and waited with my
breath held fast. The expected pain from fangs ripping through me
never came. I pressed my hands against my lids and forced them open
to see. Tears pooled in my eyes, but I wiped them away. Above me,
maybe fifteen or twenty feet, the hound stared back at me, teeth
bared. He’d pushed most of his nose through a long and narrow break
in the ship’s smooth exterior. Narrow for him, but perfect for my
decrepit little body. A metal limb plummeted down from the break to
just beside me, ending in a wide pad—landing gear.

If my face hadn’t already been drenched in
tears, I would’ve been weeping for joy right about then. As it was,
it felt like my whole body might burst from the sheer unbelievable
relief I felt. I knew instantly I was a different person—an Ella
who didn’t just have a glimmer of hope living inside her, but
someone who ran on it like fuel. At that point, I felt utterly
invincible. I’d set out to do the impossible and had come out with
war wounds to prove my success. In fact, I didn’t even care that I
was broken and bloody. I was too proud to care.

A little whisper of reason seeped into my
mind, threatening to smother my joy.
Time to be smart, Ella.
Time to use your head.

I didn’t want to listen to it. I didn’t want
to do anything but lie there with my eyes closed and feel the hot
air blow across my skin—the perfect reversal to the cold death I’d
been living through. My skin soaked it up and luxuriated in its
sizzle.

I sighed. The reasonable part of my brain
was right. I needed to get moving. Circumstances—albeit amazing
circumstances I never dared dream of before—had turned me into an
ex-con on the run. And an ex-con on the run who didn’t get as far
away as possible from the prison she’d escaped was an idiot.

I turned over onto my hands and knees and
pulled myself up. Something stirred the air by my head. I looked up
to see the hound’s long front limb stretched through the narrow
hole, trying to grab me. His head pressed through the hole and he
snapped at me. I smiled back at him before turning away.

Pavement scorched my bare feet. I didn’t
care. I gasped for breath through the sticky, thick air that stank
of rot and fumes. Searing pain ripped through my back and shoulder
and yet despite all this, I felt happier than I could ever remember
being. I’d made it off of
Sho’ful
.

Somehow
, I’d made it off.

But I was still blinded by the brightness,
and for that reason only, my joy was cut short. The glare didn’t
ease up at all. If anything, it became worse. My eyes burned worse
than my back as they tried to function in daylight for the first
time in a decade.

I pressed my hands above my eyes and forced
my lids open again. They fought against me, but my will was
stronger. It worked… kind of. Since I’d left the shade of the ship,
I had no protection from the sun. A lot of little dark blurs
bunched together to my right and left. Ahead of me blinding blue
light splintered into blinding white light—open land, I assumed. I
decided to try my luck by going straight. The blurs probably
indicated some sort of settlement, and that was precisely where I
didn’t
want to be.

With one hand shielding my eyes and the
other babying the stitch growing in my side, I started running
again. I had gone maybe a dozen precarious feet when something to
my right caught my attention. I stopped and turned. Ahead of me, a
tiny light flashed—a beacon. Unfortunately, it came from the dark
little blurs, and I still had no intention of going that way. I
started to head back to the open land when I heard it: the
voice.

“Follow the light.”

My heart pounded in my ears. The voice
wasn’t in my head. It echoed through the air around me and
whispered in the wind. Despite the heat beating down on me from the
sun and the burn of my wounds, I felt cold.

Invisible hands grabbed my shoulders and
pushed me toward the beacon. I stumbled a few steps before
regaining my footing, and then whipped my head around.

There was no one there. I pursed my lips and
clenched my fists to rein the terror in.

I knew I had a choice to make now. I could
listen to the bone-chilling voice a second time and go toward the
beacon, trusting I’d be all right. Or I could continue on with my
original plan to get as far away from this place as possible. The
latter option was tempting. In fact, it was
very
tempting.

I looked back at
Sho’ful
and
shuddered. The hulking monstrosity loomed like a creature out of a
nightmare, bigger than I’d ever imagined. The dark shape rose
higher than I could see with the sun glaring behind it and
stretched across the horizon. No, I definitely didn’t want to stay
anywhere near that.

But I couldn’t deny that the voice had
helped me so far. If not for its urgings, I would still be sitting
in my cell, waiting for death and doing nothing about it. I bit my
lip and looked back at the flashing light.

All right, voice. Lead the way.

I stumble-ran the short distance to the
flashing light.

“Get in here,
now
.” A man pushed me
through a doorway. His rough manner didn’t exactly soothe my
nerves, and I immediately wondered if I’d made the right
choice.

Once inside, I froze, no longer blinded by
the glare of daylight. The subdued light felt like balm to my sight
and I breathed a sigh of relief. The enormous room sat empty except
for a red, blue, and gold sofa and a small, round table. And yet,
it didn’t
feel
empty. It felt alive, but it also felt cold
and dark after the scorching heat outside. Goosebumps popped up all
over my skin. I blinked my eyes and wiped away my tears.

The man closed the door, plunging the room
into even more darkness, and brushed past me. I recoiled and turned
my face away from him.

“I don’t think they saw you.” He crossed
over to the side of the room and drew the shades closed on the only
window. “But I think you should hunker down here for a while,
regardless.”

I gulped. Staying here was not an option. I
needed as much distance between me and
Sho’ful
as I could
get. I knew it had been a bad idea to come here. I should’ve
followed my instincts.

I turned to leave when the man caught me by
the shoulders. I took in a gasping breath to scream just as he
clamped one hand on my mouth and pulled me deeper into the room. I
twisted and turned, desperate to break his hold.

“Enough of that,” he said. “I’m not going to
hurt you. I promise.”

Promises meant nothing. Everyone in my life
had hurt me. Why would this man be any different? In fact, he
wasn’t. As my eyes adjusted, I took in his black robes and long
beard peppered with gray. I’d seen that look before—a long, long
time ago, right before I’d been put on
Sho’ful
. They were
the garb of the people who had kept me imprisoned. I’d been a fool
to listen to the voice. I needed to leave. I kicked at his shins
and struggled to pull myself away. His fingers locked tighter
around my arm.

“Stop. It.” I knew from those two words and
the penetrating look in his eyes I would be in trouble if I didn’t
listen.

My limbs went limp even as my insides shook
with terror. I’d walked into a trap.

“That’s a good girl.” He took his hand off
my mouth, but kept his firm hold on my arm. “Now come and sit
down.”

He dragged me to the plush sofa in the
middle of the room. I sank down into the cushions as he sat next to
me and let his hands drop to his lap.

The man looked me over as I chewed on my
bottom lip and waited for the inevitable beatings to come. It was
his duty to punish me. Everyone knew the Mamood—my captors—enjoyed
any reason to inflict pain on others.

His black eyes grew sad as he tenderly
touched my bleeding shoulder and back. “First, we need to take care
of those wounds.” He left the room for a moment and came back with
a bowl and towel.

After a few more timid glances at my face,
he dipped the corner of the towel in the water and washed my
shoulder. I winced from the sharp pain.

“Shh,” he soothed. “It’s okay now. I’m Meir,
by the way.” He smiled. “Meir Groff.”

I nodded and turned away.

“You don’t have a name?”

Of course I had a name. What kind of
question was that? I just didn’t know if I wanted to share it with
him.

Meir started humming something after a few
seconds and I turned back to stare at him. He looked older than
me—a lot older. His salt-and-pepper beard appeared to be just a few
short years from silver. Wrinkles, both deep and shallow, swarmed
around his charcoal eyes. His ebony skin embraced the wrinkles with
love, though. I imagined I could see the pride behind each earned
crease, as well as the sorrow.

He stopped cleaning my shoulder and stared
at me. I spoke before I had a chance to think it through. “I’m
Ella.”

Blood rushed to my head at the sound of my
voice. Memories swam through my mind again, so clear, so
real—memories of spring fields and running with a boy—the boy with
the green eyes. He whispered my name to me. His voice rippled like
the wind. My eyes rolled back into my head as hot and churning
blood flooded my vision.