Elemental Hunger (18 page)

Adam’s voice haunted me. It started out concerned. Grew into panic. I tried to soothe him. He wouldn’t stop saying my name long enough to listen. He shook my shoulder, still calling for me to wake up. Which annoyed me. I was already awake.

He slowly reached toward my face. He stroked my cheekbone, and I sat up straight.

My eyes were open, but blackness blanketed me on every side. I inhaled, trying to coax my Element to life. Adam’s touch sent a flash of fire into my stomach.

I blinked, and then I could see. Isaiah lay across from me, his body registering a wicked orange in my vision. Hanai knelt over him, and he was so hot, he burned red.

I turned, and Adam’s rugged face filled my view. He lurched back, his mouth dropping open. “Raging hurricanes.” He moved a little closer, his eyes searching mine.

“What?” Hanai turned and emitted a strangled yelp. “Magic alive,” he breathed. “Gabby has therma-vision.”

“Therma-vision?” I repeated.

“Your eyes are glowing like hot coals,” Adam said. “You really freaked me out. I couldn’t wake you up.”

I frowned. I’d heard him though. Saw him.

“I still can’t wake Isaiah,” Hanai said. “Do you think it has anything to do with the Supremist?”

“I don’t see how,” Adam said, crawling over to Hanai.

My head hurt. The chill from the ground filtered through my jeans. My Element felt strange. Weaker.

While I’d been asleep, my fire had leaked further away. Maybe that was why I couldn’t wake up. Now Isaiah—

“We gotta wake him up.” I slid across the passage and put my hand on his head.

His body temperature registered in the normal range. His breathing came evenly, as if he were asleep.

I snapped my fingers at the same time I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I groaned. The therma-vision was still on, but now I held dancing flames in my palm.

And I’d nearly blinded myself.

Blazes, I looked like a
girl
who couldn’t even control her own Element.

I snapped my eyes shut.

“Gabby?” Hanai asked.

“I’m trying to turn off the vision thing.”

Both Adam and Hanai shifted. Surely they were rolling their eyes too.

I ignited my other hand. The fire burned, casting flickering light through my eyelids.

The therma-vision had turned off.

I released a breath and met Hanai’s eyes. He grinned and clapped his hand on my shoulder.

I refused to look at Adam.

“Isaiah, wake up,” I commanded. “I need you, Earthmover. Your Firemaker summons your Element.” I thought I sounded stupid, using the formal Council speech, but nobody snickered.

The only noise in the tunnel came from the hiss of my fire. After a few seconds, Isaiah moved, but it could’ve been a normal shift as he slept.

“Summon him.” I looked at Hanai and then Adam. “I’ll try again, then you try, Adam. Then Hanai.”

I turned back to Isaiah. He snored softly. I placed both hands on his chest. “Isaiah Hawking, I command you to Manifest your Element. Your Firemaker demands it.”

Adam repeated the same words. As he did, Isaiah started to shake. By the time Hanai finished, Isaiah opened his eyes. The earth trembled beneath us, and dirt fell from the ceiling.

“Whoa,” he said, finally coming to consciousness. “That was so weird. I heard you calling, but I couldn’t answer.” He sat up, rubbing his hands over his face. “Thanks, Gabbers.”

I smiled at the old nickname. Blazes, I’d missed Isaiah more than I’d realized. “Sure.” I watched him pick up a handful of earth and rub it between his fingers. I knew how he felt. See, I kept my hands burning just to renew my power.

Adam settled against the wall. “Now that we’re all awake, maybe we could do a reading lesson until it’s dark enough to travel.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Great. Hanai, I’ll work with you. Isaiah, can you teach Gabby how to spell her name?” Adam cleared his throat and avoided my narrowed eyes. I guess he didn’t want to “mess up” again.

He moved to the other side of Hanai to write in the dirt. The tattoo only extended halfway up his face now. Even as I watched, the topmost line faded from across the bridge of his nose.

He looked up and caught me staring. He smiled and inside, my stomach melted.

“Blazes,” I murmured under my breath. I looked away, burning the sight of his twinkling eyes and playful grin in my memory.

“You ready?” Isaiah asked. “Your name is G-A-B-B-Y. Here.” He took my un-burning hand with his dark fingers and guided me as he wrote the letters. “The first letter is a G.
Guh.
” As always, his fingers on mine felt like security.

“What happened to you, Isaiah? Where’s Cat?”

“She had to leave Tarpulin.” His voice came out as a mere whisper. His grip on my hand tightened. “I was forced to stay and audition for a new Council.”

“What Council? Where did Cat go?”

“She’s in Gregorio. The Unmanifested rebellion has allowed her to hide. The Supremist is exterminating excess Elementals, and they know they’re next if they don’t do something. Most Councilmen disagree with Alex, but she’s powerful and has a slew of faithful supporters, so….”

My breath caught. “Is Cat—?”

“I heard from her last week. She’s hiding her Element, waiting for me to come.”

“What happened?”

“The Supremist wanted me to demonstrate my earthmoving abilities to be on her Council. She dismissed Cat.” He said it like those few words would explain everything. But they didn’t.

“And your eyes…?”

He squeezed them shut as if they still hurt.

“I’m sorry, Isaiah. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay.” He squeezed my fingers. “Can we talk about it later?”

I cleared my throat to cover up my embarrassment. “Sure.”

Isaiah didn’t harbor any tension in his face. He helped me with the rest of the letters in my name, and then the alphabet. He never mentioned Cat, or his blindness, again.

An hour later, I couldn’t feel the spark of another Firemaker. So Isaiah blasted a hole in the ground and created a soil staircase to the surface. A few stars winked a greeting from the navy blue sky. I was secretly glad to be above ground again. Tunneling wasn’t my idea of fun.

My teeth chattered as I breathed in the icy air. We hadn’t even left yet, and already exhaustion consumed me. See, sleeping out in the open didn’t appeal to me. At least I wasn’t alone anymore—at least physically. The walls around my heart had lowered, but hadn’t completely dissolved.

I kept my eyes down, navigating through the snow by stepping in Isaiah’s footprints. No one spoke for the first couple of hours, and I simply existed inside my own skin. For once, I didn’t wish I was someone else, existing somewhere else, doing something else.

The only resistance I met was the complaining of my stomach. Adam wore the backpack under his cloak, and he never passed anything forward.

Then Isaiah started singing. He had a deep voice that carried easily in the midnight silence. He sang in a different language, but the words wrapped me in comfort.

We trudged on until the darkness turned charcoal, and then gray. Isaiah quieted and cleared an underground cave. He left a hole the size of my fist in the ceiling for air. I crawled to a corner, intending to sleep forever.

Until Adam popped the top of a can. “Some light, Gabby, please.”

I held out one hand, illuminating the small space.

Frost coated Hanai’s eyebrows, and Isaiah’s shoulders shook with chilly tremors. I scooted closer, urging both hands to fill with jumping flames.

Even Adam’s face shone bright pink, stained from the chilly wind. Hanai held his stiff fingers over my fire, groaning as they warmed.

“What does this say?” Adam turned the can so I could see.

I studied the letters. “No idea.”

“Beef jerky,” Adam said.

“Okay, beef jerky. Sounds great.” My stomach growled.

Adam took three strips of meat from the can and passed it around to the rest of us.

I took mine and smelled it. Lots of salt. I bit off a large piece and chewed. Lots of salt was the understatement of the century. More like more salt than beef. I didn’t care, though, and almost inhaled my three pieces. Even so, I finished last.

Adam removed his cloak. He spread it on the ground, splaying it wide enough for all of us to lie on. He slid to the far edge and lay down. “Isaiah,” he said. “Sleep.”

Isaiah settled next to him, and Hanai looked at me pointedly. I also removed my cloak before lying next to Isaiah. Hanai spread the second cloak over all of us and wriggled underneath. The cloak on the bottom made the ground pillow soft, and the top cloak kept me plenty warm.

The air pressed down. Blazes, I felt trapped again. Sandwiched between two boys. Even though one of them was an old friend, my heart hammered. Hanai touched my shoulder and whispered, “Settle, Gabby. It’s okay.”

But it so wasn’t.

My tension bled out as Hanai pressed gently into my shoulder. I took several calming breaths and rolled onto my side.

Hanai rolled too, and now he faced me. “I’m cold.”

“We all are,” Adam growled. “Except the Firemaker.”

A spark of irritation flared inside. Like it was my fault I didn’t feel the cold the way he did. I traced my fingertip along the hem of the magic cloak. It smoked but didn’t catch the flame. My heat infused it, turning the cloak into a heated blanket.

“Thank you, Gabbers,” Isaiah said, his voice heavy with sleep.

I smiled in the dark as Hanai sighed.

So there,
I couldn’t help thinking, wishing Adam could hear my thoughts.

His soft chuckle lingered in my ears as I fell asleep.

When I woke
up, my face was pressed into Isaiah’s chest. He held me like a lover, his breath cascading over my neck. Hanai was nestled right up behind me, his left arm draped around my waist.

I stiffened as I sucked in a breath.

Adam chuckled. “Looks cozy.”

I couldn’t move, though I desperately wanted to. Isaiah’s arm weighed as much as my whole body. As I struggled, Hanai snuggled closer.

“I’ll help,” Adam said. “Hanai, wake up, man. Time to go.” He nudged Hanai with his boot. Hanai groaned and mumbled something rude. His grip on my body tightened.

“Sorry, I tried.” Adam laughed again, moving away.

I maneuvered my hands up to Isaiah’s chest. I pushed as hard as I could, infusing my hands with heat. He moaned and rolled onto his back. That allowed me to slip out from under his arm. As I did, I felt the cloak. Ice cold. No wonder they had latched onto me.

I poured more heat into it and found Adam in the corner, stuffing cans into his backpack. He shifted away from me as I sat next to him, blowing on his fingers, his breath fogging in front of us.

“I can help.” I traced my pointer finger down the zipper of his coat. The metal blazed with warmth. Though I didn’t see Adam smile, I felt the heat of it in my face.

I didn’t think I could survive another night of trudging through the snow. When I told Adam, he agreed.

“Plus, we’re leaving tracks,” I said. “Felix and Alex won’t have any trouble finding us.”

“They’re not looking.”

“What?”

“They’ll just head to Gregorio. They know that’s where we’ll go. They know that’s where the rogue Elementals are hiding.”

“How do they know that?”

“They downloaded everything I knew. It’s not like I wanted to tell them.” His voice carried that annoying sentry tone.

“Of course not.” Mine sounded forced. “Maybe we should go somewhere else.”

Adam exhaled, and I couldn’t read his eyes in the fading twilight. “Well, we need your friend Cat. Real bad. With her, we’ll have a full Council. Alex won’t be able to touch us without major consequences if we complete the chartering.”

“Alex is crazy,” I said. “No way she’ll approve our Council.” I didn’t like the way the words sounded coming out, but I knew they were true.

“Doesn’t matter,” Adam said. “She doesn’t get to approve the magical bond. She might never give us an apprenticeship or a city, but at least we’ll be alive.”

“We’ll have each other,” I murmured.

“
We
can protect each other,” Adam added.