Indestructible (7 page)

My mother stood at the far end of the room and she was gazing through the window. She’d dyed her hair, so the curls that came all the way to her shoulders were black now. Her black suit jacket and black skirt hugged close to her body and I could tell she’d lost some weight.

“Ria,” she said as she slowly turned around and her dark brown eyes met mine.

“Mom.” I swallowed past the lump in my throat. She placed her hands on the back of her leather chair as if she was afraid she’d fall down. As soon as Adrian came in and closed the door behind him, my mom’s red lips curled in disgust.

“How dare you bring
him
here?” she spat out.

“Mom, he’s my boyfriend, okay?” I had no idea why I had the urge to convince my mother to accept Adrian. Now that my dad was far, far away, maybe she wouldn’t be so much under his influence and share his opinions.

“You shouldn’t be here. Neither of you.” She pressed her lips together and glared at us.

“Mom, I came to tell you that your life might be in danger. Our whole family might be in danger, actually.” I gave her a pleading look, willing her to listen to me.

“Our family?” She scoffed. “There’s not much left of our family, is there? Your brother ruined us, then you, then your father had to go because of you.”

The accusatory look in her eyes hit me like a ton of bricks. “Mom... It’s not my fault that I have the disease.” I didn’t want to explain to my mother that maybe I no longer had the disease because that was beside the point. I wanted her to accept me for who I was, not because the disease might be gone from my system. And I definitely didn’t want to tell her my fire was gone.

“Of course it’s not your fault, honey. It’s his.” She laughed and looked at Adrian.

“Mrs. Milanez, your daughter didn’t contract the disease from me,” Adrian said. “Don’t you think it’s a little bit strange that both of your children have the disease?”

“I don’t believe you.” She crossed her arms, but she blinked a little bit too fast and too often.

“Mom, he’s telling the truth. I inherited the disease, just like my brother did.” I slowly stepped closer to the desk. “And we can thank our great-grandfather, Jonathan, for that because he was the one who passed the faulty genes on to us. Why else do you think he’d need to seal a deal to kill off anyone who married someone of a different element? He needed us to maintain the illusion that we had a pure element. He couldn’t have known the disease would show in another generation.”

“That’s impossible.” My mother shook her head. “Your grandma would have inherited the disease. I would too.”

“Not necessarily. The chances of inheriting the disease from one parent are big, but they’re not a hundred percent. Grandma could have easily inherited only a fraction of the bad genes, which got transferred to Oliver and me.” I stopped in front of the desk, facing my mother, who looked pale.

“Your great-grandma would have noticed if her husband had the disease. She would have contracted it.”

“Not if he was careful around her. It was scientifically proven that the disease is contracted only if the disease and elements touch each other or exchange briefly, and if that doesn’t happen, there’s no way a carrier can transmit the disease.” Lily and I had revealed this to the world with some of the other secrets, but it seemed my mother needed a reminder.

“Fine,” she finally said. “But you and your brother are still carriers, even if you did keep your elements. You’re both killers. Murderers.” She must have heard I’d used my element in the fight, so she knew I was an element preserver. I’d had my element when my father found out that I had the disease, but he could have assumed that I’d gotten the disease recently and hadn’t lost the element yet.

The darkness and emptiness inside of me spread their fingers through the rest of my body, squeezing my heart. I stumbled back and Adrian was there to catch me. His wide eyes met mine as I tried to breathe. Was that what my mom thought of me? That I was a murderer? “I didn’t...” Tears stung my eyes. “Mom, I was defending myself...”

“Do you have their elements? The elements of the people whose lives you have taken?” A vein in her neck pulsed with anger.

“Not anymore.” My voice was so low that even I barely heard it. “But I’ve taken the elements of people who died near me. I didn’t kill those people!” I glared at her, my anger surging. “How many people Dad tortured and killed for his experiments? Or it isn’t his fault because he didn’t do it personally? You know what? I don’t care what you think. I never killed someone just to get their element.”

“What do you want?” she said, her eyes glassy. She believed me, or maybe she wanted to. I snatched the phone out of my pocket and showed her the picture of the symbol.

Her hand flew to her mouth. “Where did you get that?”

“Someone sent me a note with this,” I said. “Oh, and some woman tried to kill me a couple of days ago while I was in a coma. Not that you care or anything.”

She gaped at me, her dark brown eyes weary and frightened. “Honey...”

“I’m obviously still alive and I’d like to stay that way, but it looks like someone is after me, and maybe after our whole family because of that stupid deal my great-grandfather struck.” I put my hands on my hips, wondering whether my mom still called me honey because she was used to it or because she was starting to believe me.

My mother’s gaze flew in the direction of my left hand. “You didn’t get married, did you?”

“Of course not.” I groaned. “Even if I did, why would it mean anything? You said those people would hunt us down if we married someone who had an earth, water or air element. Adrian has ice.”

“I’m not sure that means anything,” she said. “At the time Jonathan signed the deal we didn’t know about… Sub-elements.” She glanced at Adrian.

“Still, I didn’t get married, so why are they trying to kill me?” The tension left my shoulders.

“I don’t know.” A frown line creased her forehead.

“Can you tell us more about the deal?” Adrian said. “We need to figure out who those people are.”

“I’m afraid I told Ria everything I know.” She sat down in her chair and clasped her hands. “I guess I could show you the police reports, but the police never found anything substantial.”

“That would be great, but we need something more personal,” I said. “Maybe something that belonged to Jonathan, like a journal or something. Or any info about who takes care of the bank accounts in Las Vegas? We know his lover’s name was Rosalia, but we need a last name, address, phone number or anything that could identify her.”

My mother’s cheeks were flustered. “Your great-grandpa had many secrets, but he’s gone. There’s no point in ruining his memory.”

“Oh, really?” I gritted my teeth. “I might die because of him!”

“Ria.” Adrian put a hand on my shoulder and I realized I’d gotten closer to my mother. Only the desk was in my way.

“Mrs. Milanez, if you have something we could use or know where we can find it, you better tell us or we won’t be able to stop those people from hurting your daughter or anyone else in your family. It is possible that whoever was monitoring the deal is dead, so there’s nothing stopping the assassins from finding you too,” he said.

She considered Adrian’s words for a moment, then reached for one of the drawers. I immediately stepped back because I couldn’t sense her element and I couldn’t tell whether she was upset. I had no idea how I’d lived so many years without being able to feel other people’s elements. Who’d have thought I’d miss my disease?

My mom took out a dark brown wooden box and placed it on the desk. “All the things that belonged to Jonathan are stored in the attic of his old house. My mother gave me the key for safekeeping. This office seemed like the safest place for it.”

“So our house is still full of cooks, maids and drivers, and you can’t keep such an important thing there,” I grinned. Some things never changed, I supposed. I’d been wondering if my mother wanted more privacy after everything that had happened, but apparently she’d never bother to learn how to cook and clean.

“I’ll give you the key,” she said, giving me a reproachful look. “But you must return it to me.”

“Whoa, why don’t you just tell us not to steal anything while you’re at it?” I said. “I know that you’re thinking it.”

“Honey.” She sighed. “Your great-grandpa wouldn’t want his things disturbed or damaged. You have to be careful. See if you can find what you need, but don’t take anything else.”

“Got it.” I snatched the box off the desk so I could inspect it. The golden clasp that held the box together had a symbol carved into it. Squinting at the inscription, I noticed a tiny letter R in the middle of something that looked like a heart. “Jonathan really loved Rosalia, didn’t he? Does that mean Rosalia’s children are related to us? I mean, when I heard the story, I assumed...” I didn’t want to say that it wasn’t my assumption, but Oliver’s. Maybe my mom knew the truth.

“Ria!” my mom said, horrified. “How can you say such a thing? Your great-grandfather might not have been the best of men, but you can’t assume he’d...”

“He’d what, mom? Send his own children to kill his other children?” I smirked. “Yeah, I totally believe he’d do it. How crazy do you have to be to kill off your offspring just because they have the disease, especially if there is a chance they inherited it from you in the first place? That’s, like, a whole new level of hypocrite.” I was sure my great-grandpa hadn’t had a clue about genetics and hadn’t even considered that one generation could inherit the disease. He must have thought everything was safe since his children and grandchildren didn’t inherit the disease. His great-grandchildren were a whole other story. My great-grandpa had still been alive when Oliver showed the symptoms of the disease, but either he was too old to change the terms of the deal or do something, or my parents had lied to him like they lied to me.

“Enough!” She got to her feet and made her way around the desk. Adrian stepped closer to me, uncertainty flashing across his face. But before any of us could react, my mom crossed the distance between us and put her arms around me. “Honey, I missed you so much.”

Taken aback, I placed my arms around her. “I missed you too, Mom.”

“You’ll have to explain to me why you took the presidency of the Element Preservers from your father. I still don’t understand why you did that,” she said as she caressed my hair. “You broke his heart.”

“We’ll have time to talk about everything.” I had questions for my mom too, but now wasn’t the right time for that. “I have to go now.”

“Alright, but call me or leave a message. I want to at least know that you’re fine.” She sniffled and let go of me. “Tell your brother to call me too.”

“Will do.” Maybe there was still hope my mother would realize Oliver and I couldn’t help who we were. She just needed time and an opportunity to hear our side of the story, but I didn’t know if we had time.

Chapter 10

“This is useless. We’re never going to find anything,” I said as I finished checking out another one of the dusty books from my great-grandfather’s attic.

Adrian coughed as he picked up another book and tried to shake off the cobwebs that were plastered all over it. “When was the last time someone cleaned this place?”

“I have no idea, but it wasn’t in this century.” I picked up a photograph of Jonathan in the military uniform. He didn’t look like a crazy elemental purist, but truly crazy people rarely looked crazy.

“Would he really keep any proof that he had the disease in his house and leave that to his kids?” Adrian asked.

“Maybe not, but there could be something about this other family or about whoever that ensures the terms of the deal are respected. I mean, it doesn’t have to be something anyone could recognize.” I inspected another photograph - this time a grainy one - of Jonathan and some of his friends. “We could be looking for a friend of his or an old acquaintance.”

Adrian flipped through another book. “Your great-grandpa had a lot of friends, so it could be anyone. There’s no way we can recognize that person.”

I let out a frustrated groan. “You’re right. I don’t think we’ll find anything. I mean, we’ve been looking for a clue for hours and there’s nothing here.”

“Do you think Rosalia is her real name?” Adrian got up from the floor, dusting off his pants.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You mean it might be a nickname? A fake name?”

“Why not?” He shrugged. “If she was his lover and had to keep their relationship secret because she was a carrier, she might have invented the name.”

If the floor wasn’t so dirty, I would have rolled over and banged my head against it. “Then there’s no fucking way we’ll ever find out who she was!”

“I found a list of people who went to university with Jonathan.”

I looked up at him in surprise. “Do you think he met Rosalia at university?”

“I don’t know, but he decided to keep only one picture of his university days and the people on it could have meant something to him.”

I jumped to my feet and took a closer look at the picture. “There are at least nine girls here.”

“One of them could be her.”

“Yeah, but which one? This here is my great-grandpa.” I pointed at the smiling man in the middle of the picture. “But none of the girls stand particularly close to him.”

Adrian flipped the photograph, revealing a list of names. “He wrote down everyone’s name, but none of the girls have a name that starts with an R or anything that could be turned into Rosalia.”

“But Rosalia was a carrier who couldn’t keep an element. How would she even go to university? They all require the use of magic on a daily basis. Even if she was killing people, it would be complicated to hide the disease.”

“Maybe she didn’t have the disease back then.” Adrian gave me a meaningful look.

“But...” I bit my lip. “We don’t even know how my great-grandpa got the disease, but if he infected her, why would she stay with him?” Could love be that strong? Or were there things we didn’t know?

“No idea, but maybe neither of them had the disease while they were going to university. The disease might have developed later than usual, or they might have contracted it somewhere else. Jonathan could have gotten married and gotten back with Rosalia later. If they stumbled upon each other after so many years and realized they were both carriers, they could have bonded over their mutual secret.”