Awaken the Elements (Elemental Trilogy) (41 page)

             
“I’ll take it from you.” He put up his hand and closed it inches from her face.

             
“Go ahead,” she looked him in the eye, “and try.”

             
“Go away, Moss. Go back upstairs,” Anatha finally interrupted. She knew her brother’s anger, and she knew Autumn would not back down. She knew one way or another, it would get ugly.

             
They both turned to her. “I will not!” Moss made a grab for the key, which was attached to a silver chain around Autumn’s neck. She moved in time, and he missed. “Fuck!” He bellowed.

             
“Go out the roof,” Anatha told him.

             
He turned to her. “Fuck you. Don’t tell me what to do!” He screamed, pointing his finger at her.

             
Without thinking, she grabbed his finger and twisted it back. “Don’t yell at me.” She felt her middle chakra open. Still without thinking, she sent a small force of energy down her arm, into her hand, and into his finger. She let go quickly, shocked at what she had just done.

             
“Ouch.” He looked at her wide eyed. “What the fuck did you do to me?” He rubbed his arm. It felt like it was on fire.

             
“I don’t know.” She was telling the truth. She had no idea what she’d just done. Her arm started to itch, and she scratched it without thinking.

             
“Anatha, what are you doing?” Autumn whispered.

             
Anatha looked at her blankly, “Huh?”

             
“You’re scratching your arm.”

             
Anatha looked down at her arm. She had scratched around her birthmark, and it was really red. “Ouch.” She murmured. Her birthmark looked like an upright triangle. She and Autumn had always thought it was strange that they had triangular birthmarks.

             
Autumn looked around, and then got a feeling that others were watching. She looked up. “Hi, guys,” She told everyone up on level three and gave them a small wave.

             
Anatha walked over to her brother. “Stay away from me,” he told her, already throwing off his battle gear to look at his arm.

             
“Moss, look, I’m sorry.” She tried to apologize.

             
“I don’t care. Stay away from me!” He walked away, still rubbing his arm, running up the stairs.

             
“What did you do?” Autumn asked Anatha in a whisper.

             
“I was angry, and without thinking, my magic came out.”

             
“The more we learn, the harder it is to control the feelings.”

             
“I know,” Anatha said. “I didn’t mean to hurt him. But he was going to hurt you or you him. But it looks like I did the hurting.”

             
“It is okay, Anatha. We will practice more blocking skills,” Angel said.

             
“I just wish we knew more about our magic,” Anatha looked down at the snake.

             
Rowan held open the doors to the elevator. “Yep,” Autumn agreed as they got in.

****

             
“So to show we have no hard feelings, we made you guys brownies,” Autumn said, setting the massive heap of brownies on the small coffee table.

             
“You didn’t do anything to them, did you?” Jaime asked cautiously.

             
“Nope. River and I decided that the spider attack could not be counteracted.” River bobbed his head up and down.

             
“How do we know there is nothing wrong with these brownies?” Anatha asked.

             
“I’ll eat one.”

             
“But the top one could have nothing in it for that very reason,” Stefan said.

             
“I’ll take one from the bottom then.” She moved some brownies out of the way and grabbed a bottom one. “See.” She took a bite, “Yum. I think I out did myself this time.”

             
Stefan, Jaime, Rowan, and Anatha dug in, making River smile wider. “Here, River, have one before the pigs eat them all.” He gave her a questioning look, and she shoved the brownie into his hand. He took a bite.

             
Half an hour later, they were all laughing and saying things they shouldn’t. They didn’t know the brownies were spiked with a nice little portion of drugs that Autumn herself put together. It had no effect on her and River because she had made the ones on the bottom drug free. She knew that someone would suspect the one she grabbed from the top to be okay, and they would want her to take one from the bottom. They watched the others ride the effects of the drug.

****

             
The next morning, everyone woke with a headache. “Teach them to scare us like that.” River said.

             
“Make sure I don’t get on your bad side,” Adair whispered.

             
Anatha walked over slowly, eyes squinting at the light. “Damn,” she said as something loud crashed in a store. “What the fuck was in those brownies?” She sounded a little too moody.

             
“Don’t know what you’re talking about. You saw me eat one and River too. We’re okay.” Autumn motioned for River to leave.

             
Angel hissed with laughter. Anatha shot him a look, and he shut up. “I don’t get it. Then what happened?” She rubbed her temples.

             
“So it had to be someone or something,” Moss was telling Joe as they walked by Autumn and Anatha. They watched the guys and looked at each other.

             
“But no one would be out there with the zombies. No one from here anyway,” Joe said.

             
“What’re you two talking about?” Anatha asked as they caught up with them.

             
“We saw smoke or something. Are the infected afraid of fire?” Moss asked.

             
“Intelligent question,” Anatha said sarcastically, “But I don’t think so.”

             
Autumn shook her head. “No. They walked through fire, and they burn. They would be more hazardous to us.”

             
“Question,” Joe raised his hand. “Could the dust still be active or alive like the infection?”

             
Anatha shivered. “That would be bad.” It was all she could think to say. It would be terrible to know that even as ash, the infection could be spread.

             
“No,” Autumn said. “The infection would be burnt out.”

             
“Really?” Joe said. “That’s good to know.”

             
“Who’s on watch?” Anatha asked.

             
“I think Howard and Windle.”

             
“Maybe we should go up?”

             
Autumn shook her head. For some reason she felt really tired. She went into the music store and plopped down on the bed. Reaching over to the nightstand, she grabbed the walkie-talkie. As she rolled over onto her back, she hit the side button. “Who’s on the roof?” she asked, and then released the button, waiting for a reply.

             
“Who wants to know?” A tired voice asked.

             
“A reporter from the Chicago Times,” she replied back, yawning. Even to her, her voice came out more tired than sarcastic.

             
Rowan walked in. He didn’t look well. 
Good
, she thought, still a little angry about the spider incident.

             
“Well, you can add this to your paper. We’re cold, tired, and out of anything that will keep us up,” the voice said.

             
“Must be Howard,” Anatha’s voice came through loud and clear from two stores down.

             
“You guys see anything weird?” Autumn asked.

             
“If you consider sick people moaning weird, then yeah,” Howard said.

             
“Okay, just checking. Somebody should be there to take your spots in a while.” Autumn yawned and dropped the walkie-talkie on the floor. Lying on her back, she stared up at the roof.

             
Rowan dropped down on her, giving her a big wet kiss. “How you doing?” He asked as she wiped the back of her hand over her mouth.

             
“That was just gross,” She said, pushing him off.

             
He didn’t budge but propped himself up on his elbows. “Sorry.”

             
She rolled her eyes as he moved to lie beside her. “So what are we looking at?”

             
“Nothing,” she moved her head over a little, so it was resting against his shoulder.

             
“I have been looking for you guys everywhere,” River said, coming in.

             
“Naptime,” Autumn said in a sleepy voice, her eyes heavy.

****

             
“Something is wrong,” Mabon whispered. He was standing next to Pyrus and Aarawn. “The wards are going crazy.” The darkness was pitch black, no lights anywhere. Even the half-moon was hiding from the darkness. There was something nasty out there. Something bad was going to happen, and they couldn’t do anything about it.

             
“They sense evil,” Pyrus said. She tapped her oak wand on the ward closest to them. “This should make it stronger.”

             
Aarawn felt the magic field protecting them from sight. “It’s not Moorgun,” he said. He felt other people near. But there was something different. Not magically inclined like them but not regular either. Something other than human but not too different. “What is it, Pyrus?”

             
“I don’t know,” she stared out the gate with her grandsons. Worried about the children in the mall, she knew she could do nothing to help them.

****

             
Autumn was walking around in a forest or orchard, and there was noise. A loud, yet familiar noise. She had heard it before but couldn’t place it. She blinked and found herself in a house. There was something coming in through the window, and an alarm was going off. That’s what the sound was. An alarm. A warning. What kind of warning? The alarm got louder and louder as she struggled to see what was coming in through the window.

             
Autumn sat up, eyes alert. She knew what the alarms were. The security gates were going up. The gate’s alarm was buzzing loudly throughout the mall. To her, it sounded like both gates, and there were two on the second floor. Rowan sat up, rubbing his eyes sleepily. Autumn looked over the side of the bed, searching for the walkie-talkie in the dark. River looked around.

             
Autumn felt for her key. It was there. How did the gates open?
Shit
, she thought,
the only other keys were down on the first floor in the small maintenance room next to the concession stand
. “Somebody opened the gates.” she said into the walkie-talkie.

             
They all slowly left the store and Autumn could see everyone peeking out of their stores. Anatha had started to slowly walk over to the railing, but the sound of breaking glass made everyone fall to the floor. Autumn crawled over to Anatha, and they looked through the railings, peering down. They watched as a mass of people made their way into the mall.

             
“This is not good.” Autumn whispered. “Adair and Angel, go down below and check things out for us.” She didn’t turn to see if the animals heard her. She knew they would do it. The guys crawled over. The people were no one she knew.

             
“What’s going on?” River whispered.

Chapter 18

              Drake was standing across the way, and Autumn could see all the others on the third floor looking around wildly. She crawled over to the entranceway of LS Denny’s and held up the walkie-talkie in her hands. Everyone nodded and disappeared to grab them.

             
Autumn motioned Anatha, Rowan, and River over to her. From the area she was standing in, the people from below couldn’t see her. “We have got to get to Toy World.”  They nodded and followed her.

             
“Autumn,” it sounded like Stefan. “What’s going on?”

             
“Stefan, get over to Toy World quickly. If you run into the others, tell them. If you guys are listening to me, get over there now. Be quick, and stay down. Don’t let them see you.”

             
Autumn motioned to the wall of stuffed animals they had created. A few days ago they had the equivalent of a snowball fight; a pufferball fight. They hid there waiting for the others. Being really quiet, Jaime ran in, and Anatha motioned him over. Envy and Ivy Lee walked in, followed by Stefan. Drake came in slowly, watching behind him, and then some of the others followed. Sage was holding onto Janice, who looked a little upset.

             
“We’ve got to get up to the top floor.” Autumn started to tell everyone.

             
“What’s taking you kids so long?” A voice shouted through the walkie-talkies, making them all jump. It sounded like Bud. “Get your asses up here, now!”

             
“We’ll be up in a minute,” Autumn said calmly into the walkie-talkie.

             
“Hurry and get here.”

             
She looked around, “You heard him. Let’s go.”

             
They all got up and, quickly but quietly, made their way to Toy World’s escalators. Just then the power went out, leaving them in the dark. “It would be just like one of those freaks up there to turn off the power like this.” It sounded like Janice.

             
“Don’t talk about them,” Anatha growled.

             
“No fighting, guys. They turned off the power for one reason; who else knows the mall better than us?” Autumn replied. They reached the fourth floor and quietly walked out of the store. They crept over to the stairs to the fifth floor.

             
“We can sneak attack,” Moss was saying. The darkness was all around them, hiding their movements to anybody who might be looking. “We can hit the roof and go down through the garage.”

             
“It’s really dark,” Envy said.

             
“Don’t push,” Stefan said as someone pushed up against him.

             
“Whose hand is touching me?” Linden said.

             
“Sorry,” Hazel said.

             
“River is that you?” Drake asked.

             
“No, me,” Frank replied.

             
“I see light up ahead,” Anatha said.

             
They made it to the fifth floor without killing each other. The older adults were standing around talking as the children ran around screaming. Bud looked up. “What took you guys so long?”

             
“It was dark.” Autumn came up to them and looked down at the papers on the table. It was the second floor’s blue print.

             
“So how did they get in?” Anatha’s stepdad asked.

             
Autumn scanned the blueprints while the men talked about the different ways the intruders could get in. She picked up the second floor and looked at the first story. She was looking for something. There was a dark blue dot that indicated an emergency exit by the funhouse. She remembered seeing it their first night. The second key had to have been down there.

             
“This is how,” Autumn said, pointing to the blue dot.

             
Everyone looked at the emergency door. “Shit. Why did no one notice it before?” Moss asked.

             
“It wasn’t noticeable,” she said. “That’s the point.”

             
“It’s also the water distribution area. We’ve never had problems with it, so we never had to check it out. How did they get in? The door’s supposed to have an alarm.

             
“All I know is that they came in from there, and then grabbed the secondary keys we leave down there to turn the games on. We’ve got to stop them. If not, we can kiss the mall goodbye.” Autumn walked over to one of the rifles, checked to see if it was loaded, and swung it over her shoulder. She paused briefly. “It’s us or them.”

             
Everyone who was going back down grabbed guns and ammo. They crept back down to the fourth floor. On knees and bellies, they peered over the edge, gazing down to the first floor. They could see beams of lights, flashlights. The beams spread light around the area.

             
Soon a flashlight was beaming up around the higher floors. A man yelled up, “Why don’t you all come out? We come in peace
   
no, let me not lie.”  He taunted them with rude gestures, including flipping them off a couple of times, “We’re here to take this place.” This sent the men below into a fit of laughter.

             
Moss came running over to the group. He had a couple night scopes for the rifles. After she screwed on the scope, Autumn took her rifle and sighted it on the guy talking. The bullet missed by half an inch. “Shit,” she murmured. Moss had on some goggles and wedged his body a little more over the edge. He fired but missed too. Instead of hitting the man who spoke, it hit the guy next to him.

             
He jumped to his feet and peered over the edge, trying to get a better shot, but the man moved and the bullet hit the ground where he had been standing. Bullets started to whiz through the air around them. Tugging on Moss, Anatha pulled him over to the wall of Toy World. “We have to get down to level two,” he said.

             
“No way,” Windle said. “Impossible.”

             
“Third floor then,” he said.

             
Autumn looked into the dark. “We go down to the third floor and split up.”

             
“Fuck that!” Windle almost screamed. “I ain’t going down there.”

             
“Stay,” Stefan said.

             
“Come on,” Moss said, he just emitted excitement. Autumn thought that he was meant for this. If life had been different for him, she believed he would have done really well in the Army.

             
At the third floor entrance of Toy World, they separated into two groups. There were only four of them. Autumn took Stefan with her. She trusted Moss and Anatha to be okay with each other. But putting Moss and Stefan together could be a near fatal move. 

             
In front of LS Denny’s, Stefan and Autumn hid toward the wall. “Anatha? Autumn? Where are you guys?” River walked right by them, whispering.

             
Stefan grabbed River by his shirt pulling him to them. “What are you doing here?”

             
He showed them his hands. “I came to give you guys some extra ammo. Your dad said you needed some.”

             
“You can’t go back up. Someone might see you” Autumn said, worried clear in her voice.

             
“Here,” Stefan gave him a 9mm Glock.

             
“Where were you hiding that?” she asked.

             
He smiled at her. “I’ll tell you later.”

             
“Might as well make it now,” a voice said.

             
The three looked at a group of about five or six men. Autumn leaned into River and told him to hide the gun. “Drop, your rifles,” the man said. Autumn and Stefan dropped their rifles. The guns made hollow thuds as they hit the tile. “Put your hands on your heads. Don’t give me an excuse to hurt this little girl now.” They did as he said.

****

             
Moss peered over the edge and saw three men below parade Autumn, Stefan and, surprisingly, River to the man he had been trying to shoot. “What’s going on?” Anatha asked.

             
“They got Autumn,” Moss replied. They were too close to the man, and he couldn’t get a good shot off.

             
“Is that River? What’s he doing down there?”

             
“I don’t know. So far it looks like they aren’t going to hurt them.”

             
“So far.”

             
Angel slithered over. “They were caught by surprise,” he told Anatha. “I don’t think he will kill them.” Anatha gave the snake a slight nod.

             
The man below was talking toward them. He started with River, and then turned to Autumn. She said loudly, “I’m not your fucking dog, asshole.” She didn’t look scared in the scope Anatha was looking through.

             
“Autumn has balls, you have to give her that,” Moss muttered. They watched as the man put his arm around her, groping her. The men grabbed River as he struggled and yelled to leave her alone. He pulled away with a small yelp.

             
Moss laughed. “She bit the son of a bitch.”

             
The man was talking to Stefan now. Stefan said something, and the man took a couple steps back. He then walked to the middle of the floor as three men dragged Stefan, Autumn, and River behind him. They dropped them in front of him. “All right, I got three of your fucking buddies down here.  If you don’t turn the fucking lights on right now, they’re all going to have new assholes, maybe several.  Especially the witch with the green eyes.”  The man yelled up, and then looked down at Autumn, “She looks kinda tasty, though, so I might make her my bitch.”

             
“It’s now or never,” Moss whispered. He and Anatha fired shots below.

             
The man grabbed some of Autumn’s hair and pulled it out, making her scream. The gunfire stopped. “Do you think I’m playing with you little worms?” He raised his gun, and without saying anything else, shot River. He fell to the ground.

             
“River!” Autumn screamed as she made to move toward him, but the man grabbed another handful of her hair pulling her to him.

             
“Ohmygod,” Anatha said covering her mouth.

             
“Hush, he’s alive.” Moss whispered. They watched as River moved painfully to his side.

             
Stefan said something to the man, and he kicked Stefan in the chin. Grabbing him by the hair, the man dragged Stefan over to River.

He turned from them and shouted, “If you don’t wa
nt these three pricks to bleed, then you had better flick the damn switches and surrender.” He crossed his arms over his chest and added, “I promise none of you will be harmed in any other way.”

             
“Why don’t I believe him?” Moss muttered. A couple minutes later all the lights were on. Men ran up the escalators and started to gather everyone. Moss didn’t want to give up his rifle, but one man had caught Anatha. He couldn’t let anything happen to her. No matter how mad she made him, she was his sister.

             
There was shattering glass. “What the fuck is that shooting?” The man said, looking around. They could all see him better now.  He had blond hair, medium build, a small head, no neck, and chunky legs. He sounded like an asshole before and looked like one up close.

             
“It’s Treant and Gale!” A man shouted, and everyone looked up to the third floor where two men were fighting. Everyone stared, not wanting to turn away from the fighting that came out of nowhere, but Autumn. She turned, checking on Stefan who was sitting up rubbing his chin which was now red. River was on his back, eyes closed.

             
“River?” she asked, worry hung heavy in her throat as she checked the bullet wound. It freaked her out seeing so much blood. “Come on, River, talk to me.” She ran her fingers over his throat to feel for a pulse. It was there.

             
Adair sat by River. “He’s okay, but watch out!”

             
She caught the man’s attention, and he came over and grabbed her hair, pulling her with him. “Ouch! Let me go!” She struggled, trying to kick him as she whipped her head back and forth trying to dislodge his hand from her hair.

             
“Shut up, bitch. Who gave you permission to talk anyway?” He kicked her in the side. Her curls fell in her face, and as she swept them out of the way, she saw River aiming the gun. Weak and a bit unsteady, he pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the man in the back and lodged in his chest. He fell to his knees, blood trickling down his chin as he looked at Autumn. His hands let go of her hair and groped blindly for something on his back. After a while, he gave up and fell face first to the tiled floor.