Elementals 3: The Head of Medusa (5 page)

CHAPTER NINE

My parents reached for my arm and examined it, searching for the cut. Becca remained in her chair, dazed, and watched us in complete silence.

“There are no signs of injury,” my dad confirmed, finally dropping his hold on my arm. “Is that a trick knife? The kind you buy in magic stores? Because let me tell you—that was one crazy stunt you just pulled.” He chuckled
and
ran his hand through his hair. “You actually had me believing that cut was for real for a few seconds.”

“Because it
was
for real,” I told him. “This isn’t a trick. I cut myself with the knife, and then I used magic to heal it.”

“Funny.” Mom chuckled as well, and she eyed up the knife. “How does it work? Is there a button you press to let out the fake blood? It’s pretty realistic looking blood, by the way. You had me fooled as well.”

“It’s realistic because it
is
real,” I said. “Want me to show you again?” I raised the knife, ready to make another slash on my arm. This time, I would wait before healing it—give them a few seconds to check out the cut first and understand that it was real.

“No.” My mom held her hand out, stopping me. She bit her lip, her eyes searching mine. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?” she asked. “You really believe that you can use
magic
to heal yourself?”

She sounded like she thought I was losing my mind.

“Yes,” I said. “I
know
I can. I can heal
other
people, too. As long as they’re still alive, I can heal them.”

“Okay.” My mom nodded. “Then give me the knife.”

I held the knife closer, eyeing her skeptically. “Why?”

“Because I’m going to use it to cut myself. And then you’re going to heal it.”

“What?” My dad’s eyes bulged, and he stepped closer to her, pulling her back toward him. “No. Absolutely not.”

“It’ll just be a small cut,” she said. “Nothing that a Band-Aid won’t be able to fix.”

“You won’t need a Band-Aid,” I told her. “Because I’ll heal it.”

“You’re right—she
won’t need a Band-Aid,” my dad said. “Because I’ll be the one with the small cut—not her.” He looked at the knife, his eyes hard with resolve. “Nicole, give the knife to me,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Do you promise you’re not going to take it from me and call 911?” I asked.

“I promise,” he said slowly. “If I were going to call 911, I would have done it already. Right now, I think we all need to watch what’s about to happen for ourselves.”

By the way he was speaking to me—as if I were a patient at a mental hospital—he clearly thought he knew what was about to happen. He thought he was going to cut himself, and I would try to heal him, but that I would fail.

I knew that wouldn’t happen. So I handed the knife to him, trying to keep my hand from shaking. “Here,” I said, letting go as he slid it out of my grip. “But just a small cut, okay? I don’t want you to hurt yourself any more than necessary.”

“I won’t,” he promised. Then he held the knife over his palm, took a deep breath, and traced a small line at the base of his thumb.

“Is that real blood?” Mom asked, leaning forward to get a closer look. “The knife isn’t a fake one, like they would sell in a magic store?”

“It’s real,” he confirmed. He held his hand out to me, watching me with what seemed like sadness. He thought this would prove that I was crazy.

But I knew otherwise. So I lowered my hand over his, my palm covering the cut, and focused on the white energy. As always, I sensed it around me, and I called it into my body, the tingling warmth of it flooding my veins. Then I sent it out of my hand and onto the cut. It barely took any energy, since the injury was so small. Within seconds, the tingling stopped, the job complete.

I lifted my hand and looked at his palm.
The
cut was gone.

He stared at it as well, his eyes wide, his mouth open in disbelief. “How…?” he finally said, looking back and forth from me to where the cut had been. “How did you do that?”

“I already told you,” I said, dropping my arm back to my side. “Magic.”

“Are you serious?” Mom asked, looking to Dad for confirmation. “She was actually able to heal you? You aren’t just playing along with a trick?”

“I’ve never been so serious about anything in my life.” He remained focused on me, his face pale, as if bewildered that I’d been able to do as I’d claimed I could.

“Why don’t we all sit down?” I said, backing up toward my spot on the couch. “Because now that you’ve seen what I can do, there’s a
lot
I need to tell you.”

CHAPTER TEN

It took about two hours for me to tell the entire story. There were a few parts that I purposefully left out—for instance, I didn’t mention how the harpy had kidnapped Becca and brought her to the cave. I didn’t want to terrify my sister more than she already must be feeling. I also didn’t mention that I was a demigod. My family believed that I was a witch, like the others, who had been gifted with powers over the elements. Telling my mom that Aidan was actually the Olympian god Apollo would be too much for her to process right now. And, most importantly, I downplayed the danger of our fights against the monsters, and I left Rachael out of the story entirely. It would scare them too much to know that she’d died.

By the time I finished catching them up on everything, it was almost midnight. But despite having to wake up early the next morning, sleep was the last thing on our minds.

“So you’re here tonight to ask permission to go on this journey to Antarctica, and then wherever you need to go to behead Medusa?” my mom asked once I’d finished. “Medusa,” she repeated before I could answer, shaking her head in wonder. “I can’t believe that I just mentioned her as if she actually exists.”

“It’s a lot to take in,” I said. “I had a hard time believing it all at first, too. But I learned about all of this before the night of the comet, so our powers hadn’t physically manifested yet. After that night, it was impossible
not
to believe anymore.”

“I don’t think this is right,” my dad finally chimed in. “You and the others with these elemental powers—you’re only teenagers. Your focus needs to be on school. This fight that you’ve been thrown into should be handled by adults.”

“I agree with your dad,” my mom said. “From what you told us, there are plenty of adult witches in the world. They should be the ones dealing with all of this—not you.”

“They’re not
nearly
as powerful as we are.” I clenched my fists, frustrated that they didn’t understand this after everything I’d just told them. “The five of us—me, Blake, Chris, Kate, and Danielle—we were chosen by the gods. Our powers make us stronger than any witches known in history. This is our responsibility.”

“No.” My dad shook his head. “As your father, I cannot allow you to go on this mission. Your safety is our prime concern.”

“I agree,” my mom said. “You can’t just leave whenever you please and put yourself in danger.” She paused for a second, and then added, “I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around all of this, but if what you said is true, can’t you leave this fight up to the gods? I understand that the five of you have these abilities that make you unique, but aren’t the gods much stronger?”

“The gods
are
helping us,” said. “They gave us our powers so that we can fight. And Nyx has foreseen that the five of us can stop this war.”

“But like you said, that’s only one future out of many,” my mom said gently. “There’s also a chance that you might fail.”

I sat back, unable to believe it. My mom always told me that if I put my mind to something, I could accomplish it. She encouraged me to be the best I could be.
Believe in yourself, and you will succeed,
she always said.

This mission was more important than anything else in my life. Why didn’t she believe in me now?

“If I were you, I wouldn’t do it,” Becca chimed in for the first time since I’d finished telling the story. “It sounds scary. You could get hurt. You could
die
.”

It was true, but I forced myself to smile, not wanting to worry her. “I have the power to heal, remember?” I reminded her. “I’ll be fine.”

“I think we should move,” my dad said suddenly.

“But we just got here,” my mom said. “Your
job
is here.”

“It’s not healthy for Nicole to be here,” he said. “These people are messing up her priorities. Ever since she moved here, she’s been distracted. She rarely spends time with us—her
family
—anymore, and she’s so busy with this training that she barely spends any time studying.”

“I don’t need to spend much time studying,” I reminded him. “I can harness yellow energy to help me focus and get my work done faster than I ever could before. My grades haven’t dropped at all. I promise.”

“They might not have dropped, but if what you say is true, imagine how much you could excel if you spent more time on your schoolwork,” he said. “You could get straight A’s. You could even have a shot at getting accepted into an Ivy League school!”

I had no idea how to tell him that worrying about what college I might get into was not high on my list of priorities anymore. He’d always wanted the best for me, and I knew that part of the reason why he was happy about moving to a town so close to Boston was because he thought it might make me interested in one of the great colleges in the area—maybe even Harvard.

Unfortunately, college was the last thing on my mind. But… perhaps I could get him to support my decision by appealing to his concerns.

“If we lose this war and the Titans escape from Kerberos, then it’s likely that there won’t
be
any more colleges for me to apply to,” I said. “How about this—let me work with the others to seal the portal. Once we succeed, then I’ll spend more time studying. Maybe I’ll get my grades high enough to be considered by Harvard. Deal?”

His eyes lit up the moment I said the name of the school. “You’re going to apply to Harvard?” he asked.

“If you let me do this, then sure,” I said. “I might not get in, but I’ll try.”

“Don’t lose focus of the problem, Jerry,” my mom said to him. “We can’t allow her to go on this mission to Antarctica tomorrow morning.” She turned to me, her eyes brimming with concern. “I hope you understand,” she said, softer now. “You’re our daughter, and we love you. It’s our job to protect you and keep you safe. We can’t let you put yourself in danger like this.”

“Maybe I should just get Darius to come over here,” I said, since we clearly weren’t getting anywhere. “He can use gray energy on you to make you forget about everything I just told you. It would be easier that way.”

“So you can go on lying to us?” my mom asked, her voice cracking. “From what you said, I know we probably wouldn’t be able to fight Darius’s magic, but I hope you wouldn’t do something like that to us. We’re your family, and we love you. We deserve to know the truth.”

I wrapped my arms around myself and sank into my seat. She was right. They
did
deserve to know the truth—that was why I’d insisted we delay the mission until tomorrow morning. So that I could come clean to my family.

I just hadn’t thought they would try to
forbid
me from going. After all, I hadn’t come here to ask for their permission. I’d come here so I could be upfront and honest with them—so that if anything happened to me while I was gone, they would know the truth of what I was fighting for. Completing this mission was my destiny. No one could stop me, not even my parents. I just wished they could understand and accept that.

I ran my fingers over my necklace, tracing the details of the sun charm given to me by Apollo. What if I called for his help right now? I doubted he would come—he never did. But if he
did
come, maybe he could convince my parents how important it is that I do my part to stop the return of the Titans. He was a god—they would have to listen to him.

But I dropped my hand back to my side, letting the pendant fall back onto my neck. Because as much as I wanted to meet him, I didn’t need Apollo to swoop in here and stand up for me. This was
my
problem. I had to be the one to solve it.

“I didn’t tell you all of this to ask for permission,” I said, keeping my voice calm and steady—like an adult. “I told you this because I want you to know the truth. Because I
don’t
want to keep on lying to you. We—me, Blake, Kate, Chris, and Danielle—are the only ones who can stop the Titans from returning to Earth. After being locked in Kerberos for so long, the Titans aren’t in their right minds anymore. If they return, make no mistake—they will destroy our planet. And I will not allow that to happen.”

No one said anything for a few seconds. Was I wrong in coming to my parents at all? Maybe my initial concerns were right, and this was too much for them. Maybe it would be best if I called Darius over here and asked him to wipe their memories of the past few hours. He could explain my upcoming absence by telling them that there was another school trip. It had worked when we went to Greece, so it should work again.

Just as I was about to text Darius to ask for his help, my mom broke the silence. “I need to talk with your dad about this privately,” she said. “We’ll come back here to talk to you once we’ve figured out our thoughts.”

The two of them went to their room to talk, leaving me in the living room with Becca. At first, she continued to stare at me, shocked. But then the floodgates opened, and she couldn’t stop talking. She had lots of questions—mainly about magic and how it worked—and I happily answered them. Surprisingly enough, she was actually glad that she
didn’t
have magic. She said that everything I had to do sounded scary to her, and she was glad not to be responsible for fighting monsters.

Even though Darius had made her forget about being kidnapped and almost killed by the harpy, did the experience still remain in her subconscious? If it did, I was glad. Because Becca was right to want to stay away from danger. I’d never felt so powerless as when I’d seen her bound to the chair in that cave. I didn’t want her involved in any of this ever again.

When my parents came back in, I watched them, looking for some clue about their decision. But their expressions gave away nothing. I hoped they’d decided they were okay with me going on this mission. Because if they weren’t, it wasn’t going to stop me. Saving the world from the Titans was my purpose in life. The gods had gifted me with these powers, and I wasn’t going to let them—and the rest of the world—down. I was going to do everything I could to succeed, no matter what.

I just hoped my parents could support me in that.

“Your father and I talked, and we decided that you will be allowed to go to Darius’s tomorrow morning,” my mom finally said. “On one condition.”

Despite the fact that I hadn’t been asking for their permission to begin with, I was glad that I had it. “What condition?” I asked, curious about what it would be.

“We’ll be driving you there, and will go inside to meet him,” my dad said. “We do not doubt everything that you’ve told us, but it will make us more confident if we were to hear it all from him directly. Once we hear from him, then we’ll decide if you’re allowed to go, or if you’ll come home with us.”

My heart dropped at their words. They still thought they could stop me from going. I didn’t want to have to go against them… but at least this was a step in the right direction.

“Of course,” I said, confident that Darius would back me up on this. If speaking with him didn’t convince my parents to let me go, then I didn’t know what would.

“And one more thing,” my mom said. “No matter what happens, we don’t want Darius to wipe our memories of what you told us here tonight. We don’t want you to go back to keeping this secret from us. Can you promise us that you won’t let him do that?”

I almost told them that I promised, but I held my tongue. Because the last time I promised someone something—when I told Ethan and Rachael that I wouldn’t let anything happen to them during our journey through Greece—I hadn’t been able to keep it. And while Ethan had said that he
understood
my decision to save Blake before his sister, he never said that he’d
forgiven
me for it.

I no longer wanted to make promises that I wasn’t sure I could keep.

“If Darius wipes your memories, I won’t be able to stop him,” I said. “But I’ll promise you this—I’ll ask him not to. Because I don’t want to continue lying to you, either. And if he doesn’t listen to me, then I’ll tell you the truth again when I return.”

If
I return, I thought, thinking of Rachael’s lifeless body in the hydra’s cave. The memory of it made me shudder. Because I didn’t want to die. Not anytime soon. I’d always thought of death as being something that I would worry about as an old woman—not something that I would have to think about now.

But if I didn’t go on this mission, then we would all surely die when the Titans returned to Earth. The best way for me to try to make sure that I would live to an old age was to do everything I could to seal the portal forever.

My dad looked at my mom, as if asking her if my answer was acceptable.

“I suppose that will have to do,” she said.  “We’ll drive you over to Darius’s first thing in the morning. I’m very much looking forward to meeting him.”

With that, we said goodnight and went to bed.

I thought I would have trouble falling asleep, but that wasn’t the case. I texted Blake to let him know that I was too tired to stay awake any longer and that I would tell him about what happened in the morning, and then I fell into bed, zonking out the moment my head hit the pillow.

Which was a good thing, because I needed all the rest I could get before the journey tomorrow.