Storm Born (18 page)

Hadrian’s tether really did feel like some kind of rope, but it wasn’t a noose. It wasn’t tight or constricting. It was just there. Cool, relaxed, and strong, as he was. A steady stream of energy that worked away tensions I didn’t know I had. A smooth caress that ran next to my very bones and veins.
 

“Was it the tether I felt when we first touched at the restaurant?” I asked, a little breathless.
 

“Yes,” he answered. He sounded a little husky himself. “That was the tether initiating between us. Tethers are indicative of our particular gifts. Mine is ice, so mine is cold.”
 

Cold is
not
what this was. Hadrian’s tether was a gentle fall breeze, or a glass of water on a hot day.
 

“What does mine feel like?” I asked, curious.
 

Hadrian paused, brilliant blue eyes looking nowhere but mine. It was beyond intimate, but I wasn’t going to ask him to stop. I liked the way he was looking at me. There didn’t need to be a reason for it.
 

“Like every element. The flow of water, the coolness of ice, the strength of wind, the warmth of sand.” He tilted down, getting even closer to me. “You are like nothing I have ever felt before, Ava.”
 

My pulse raced under my skin. I watched him, waiting and wondering if he would get closer. My eyes dropped to his lips, and I suddenly wondered what they would taste like.
 

That was when he stopped. He drew back and released my hand. I still felt the cool caress of the tether around my heart, but the intensity was a fraction of what it used to be. Saying I missed it was an understatement.
 

“Now you know what my tether is like,” he said. “If you find yourself in need of energy, reach for it. My power will give you strength.”
 

“And vice versa?”
 

“Yes.” Hadrian smiled roguishly. “But it is very unlikely that I will find myself helpless.”
 

I snorted. “Good to know your ego will always be intact.”
 

“Confidence and egoism can be separate.”
 

I wouldn’t know. “Okay. Next lesson.”
 

“Imagine the feel of the tether outside of your body. We’ll find a way to interweave the energy in the air with the tether’s power so you can use it. Your range may not be as substantial, but we can work on it once we have a trick figured out.”
 

Something told me that would take a
very
long time. “Is there no way I can draw it straight from the air?”
 

Hadrian frowned. “Not unless you are distanced from everyone. Otherwise, you could give into temptation and seek to strip anyone close to you of their life-force. Which is why we must do it the long and hard way. Stormkind react on impulse. You must rely on conscious control. Giving up too much of that will make you lose control, much as your friend Declan did.”
 

I tensed at his name. “Declan is not my friend. I want nothing to do with him. Ever.”
 

Hadrian paused for a beat. “Then do it the hard way. Exercise control.”
 

Sure, that sounded easy enough. Imagine the tether inside my body,
outside
of my body instead. Shouldn’t have been very hard.
 

Shouldn’t have been, but was.
 

It was like standing in a dark basement and trying to feel the heat of the sun. Yeah, I
knew
what the sun felt like, my brain would recognize the sensation, but if I were standing in a dark basement, my body couldn’t react to something it couldn’t feel, let alone see.
 

I imagined everything from ice on my skin to jumping in a cold pool. I thought about the tether, felt it inside, tried to push it out.
 

All I did was give myself a headache.
 

“You are trying too hard.”
 

I snapped my eyes open and glared at him. “Sorry I can’t master it after the first try. How many tries did it take you?”
 

Hadrian crossed his arms. “One.”
 

I rolled my eyes. “Of course it did,” I mumbled.
 

From my peripherals, I could have sworn Hadrian grinned, but I avoided it so I wouldn’t be distracted. For what seemed like the next forever, I tried to imagine the sturdy chill of the tether mixing with the lazy chill of the air around me. The textures were similar, but different enough that I wasn’t sure what they would feel like together.
 

I did everything I could think of, except touching the air. The last thing I wanted to do right now was give in to some kind of impulse I didn’t understand and manipulate the air around me.
 

I thought about different temperatures I’d felt over the years, how different the coolness in October was compared to the chill in January. I imagined fall breezes and cool nights, but I didn’t recognize the tether’s solid texture in the air around me. The tether seemed determined to stay inside my body rather than sneak out of my skin and help me create some snow.
 

My life was getting
insane.
 

I finally gave up and sighed, opening my eyes and turning to Hadrian.
 

“This isn’t working,” I complained, drifting off when I saw that his militant stare was fixed on the clouds. I looked up. They were much darker than they had been earlier, becoming thick rolls of smoke that turned the sky from a pale grey to an ominous gunmetal shade.
 

“Hadrian?”
 

“The storm is getting closer,” he stated, eyes still bolted to the sky. “The Stormkind will likely attack soon.”
 

Fear punched into my heart. “But– how? The Centennial already happened! How could there be another storm so soon?”
 

“The thunder-Stormkind is probably weaker than it was, but it has probably not been gathered and placed back in its cage.” His eyes were almost as dark as the clouds when he turned them to me. “This could be Mortis’s design.”
 

Hadrian headed for the exit of the prison. Thunder rumbled over my head. I flinched at the crushing roar and hurried to catch up with him.
 

“What are you going to do?” I asked, worried about the answer.
 

“Gather the Precips. Track the Stormkind. Capture it. Kill Mortis.”
 

The last goal was spoken with pleasure. It was something Hadrian wanted to do.
 

That was when I heard it. The sound of thunder rolling backward, quiet at first, and growing louder with each passing second.
 

The same sound I’d heard before the Stormkind attacked in the Centennial.
 

Real thunder smashed the clouds. Sharp white flashes of lighting dashed the ground. I gasped and spun around, bumping into Hadrian. The lightning continued to flash wildly, slashing like serrated knives that stabbed into the ground beyond the wire fence.
 

A blazing streak of white light cut through the sky like a comet. It descended less than a hundred feet from where we stood. I could almost feel the static in the air.
 

Rain poured from the sky in buckets. Lightning sparked wildly, each strike getting closer to us.
 

Hadrian’s arm wrapped around my stomach. He pulled me back into the prison, then set me behind him and looked at the blinding white flashes beyond the door.
 

“I truly loathe thunder-Stormkind,” he grumbled. He turned to me. “You need to stay here until we come back.”
 

“I thought I was supposed to stay with you,” I said. At least it didn’t make me sound like I was afraid of being alone, which was the actual, undisputable truth.
 

“You will be safe,” he stated. “The tether will let me know if you are in danger, and I will return to protect you.”
 

I glanced out the window. Lightning slammed into the middle of the yard. The roar of thunder sent a shiver through my bones. Hadrian gripped my arms and squeezed.
 

“Go ahead of me, Ava. I’ll be right behind you.”
 

Terror still had me in its unforgiving claws, but I nodded and started to jog down the hallway toward the core of the prison.
 

We didn’t get more than ten steps before the lightning struck again– directly onto the roof.
 

I screamed at the sound of disintegrating concrete and groaning metal. A funnel of air slammed into my back and pushed me forward. I landed face-first on the cold floor, air heaving out of my lungs. I groaned and clutched my stomach, trying to regain my breath. Thunder snapped and crashed over my head, cold rain hammering against my back.
 

I really need to take a vacation in a desert
, I thought.
 

Dragging to my hands and knees, I looked for Hadrian. He was on the ground a couple feet behind me, and he wasn’t moving.
 

Panic choked me. I crawled over to him. I clutched his shoulders and turned him over. He flopped onto his back, revealing his closed eyes and the bloody gash on his forehead.
 

My heart lurched. I touched his neck, whimpering with relief when I felt his pulse. I brushed his hair away from his forehead and looked at the wound. It was a nasty tear, but as I prodded his skull, I realized it wasn’t fatal. There were no dents in his head or strange decompressions. He had just been knocked out.
 

I looked down the hall we’d run from. Or what remained of it. The walls had been sheared, like hooks had embedded in the doorway and pulled it clean off to leave only crumbling remains. The entire space was open, the metal door lying dented and useless on the destroyed concrete. Beyond the rubble, I spotted the fence. It too had been bent and warped in the storm, curled over so that if I climbed it, I wouldn’t gut myself on the razor wire.
 

It was a perfect escape route.
 

I knew the right course of action. That I should stay here until Vitae and Zephys could come look after Hadrian.
 

But I also watched the blinking flashes of lightning. I saw how they were moving in a pattern– one close to the prison yard, another down the street, another further than that. Almost like the lightning was stabbing down in a path I was supposed to take.
 

I thought about the direction of that path in relation to the prison.
 

How it wasn’t far from the school where my family was hiding.
 

I should have been rational. I knew that whatever powers I might have, I wasn’t a warrior like the Precips. I knew the lightning path– if that’s what it even was– could lead me into some kind of trap.
 

I also knew my family was in danger, and even untrained, I might be able to help them.
 

My eyes went to Hadrian, unconscious and unmoving. I set his head down as gently as I could. My fingers cupped his cheeks, smooth and strong. My thumb brushed his lips, full and soft.
 

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
 

I got to my feet and ran for the newly created exit. I would find a way back to my family and protect them. That was the only thing I could think about right now.
 

The consequences would have to wait until after I survived.
 

If I did.
 

Chapter 8
 

Rain pounded down on me as I sprinted. Lightning flashes lit my way through the streets. I wasn’t familiar with the area– I wasn’t someone who hung around prisons for fun– so I relied on the storm to guide me. A naïve part of me hoped I was wrong, that the thunder-Stormkind wouldn’t be near my family.
 

Honestly, I had no idea why I thought I would ever be lucky.
 

I don’t know how long it took me to find Park Vista. But when I did, it was half buried.
 

I skidded to a stop, my heels slipping on the slick concrete. I clamped my hands over my mouth to keep from screaming. The high school I’d once spent so much time in was caught in a whirlpool, the heaviest of the rainfall smashing into the roof and the front lawn. The water and pressure was so thick that it was creating a sinkhole. Slick mud gulped at the brick, fuelled by relentless water. Lightning danced around the edges of the lawn, tormenting the petrified survivors inside. The windows on the first floor were half submerged, which had to mean that the rest of the floor was filling with rainwater and mud. When the lightning flashed, I could see human shaped-shadows flickering behind the windows.
 

Standing across the street, the rainwater barely touching it, was the thunder-Stormkind.
 

It looked similar to the one I’d faced a couple weeks ago, but the differences were apparent. They both had the same humanoid shape and glowing skeleton, and both seemed to have flesh made of water, but the resemblances ended there.
 

The watery exterior of the Stormkind was jagged and rough, like it was being chipped off with a pickaxe. Violent sparks of lightning spat from the fingers, joints, and face of the Stormkind. It paced back and forth quickly, like a man-eating tiger watching the humans behind the glass.
 

My stomach twisted. That was probably more accurate than I intended it to be.
 

Especially when I saw the man on the roof of the school.
 

He was too far away for me to see who he was. I didn’t know if he was a survivor or an SPU guard... Or my father.
 

The Stormkind didn’t care. It lashed its hands out, a bolt of lightning ripping from the sky and hammering into the roof. The flash was so bright I lost sight of the man. White spots still danced in my eyes when the darkness of the storm crept back into the world.