Braving the Elements (2 page)

The nudge nearly had me sprawled on the floor.

“Pay attention!” Charles whisper-yelled at me.

I scowled at him, rubbing my arm where an elbow-sized bruise was sure to crop up.

“Maw, so let’s give it a try, shall we?”
Master Bert waved everyone on, the rest of the class scrunching their faces in concentration.

“What are we trying?” I asked quietly.

“He talked for, like, two minutes. You can’t pay attention for two minutes?”

My heart sank.
Because no, I couldn’t. Learning magic turned out to be no different than math or social sciences—I just couldn’t retain information when it was lectured at me. I tried to pay attention, and soak it all up, but my focus just wouldn’t stay put. Before I knew it, I’d been staring at a butterfly and thinking about random goings-on.

It had always been like this. In the past
, I’d been so scared about all my secret box items, I didn’t want to tell my foster parents that I might have a learning problem. Through high school, I’d always had Jared to help me manage.

Tears clouded my vision as I once again felt the loss of my ex-boyfriend. He was in Florida in a job
Stefan hooked him up with on the sly. I’d wanted to be mad that Stefan was reorganizing my life without my say-so, but in this instance, I couldn’t. Jared was doing extremely well, making a lot of money and approved for a loan to buy a house. Without me to drag him down, he was rising like bubbles in champagne.

But now I had no safety blanket and no tutor. Just a brooding giant pissed off that he had to learn elements with a girl
who couldn’t even pay attention long enough to learn names.

“Sorry,” I muttered, lowering my face. I took a breath through a constricted chest and tried to feel for elements. Opening my mind, and feeling that heat in my chest, got me a firm feeling of expectation. But nothing happened.

“So?” Charles asked, trying to bend down to get a peek at my expression.

“Very good,
Salline! You’ve pulled water. Maw, congrats!” Master Bert clapped for Salline, a beaming girl owning her overachiever status.

I took a deep breath. I could do this. I’d done it before.
Somehow.

I closed my eyes and
focused.
Blackness greeted me, like I was meditating. I mentally searched, feeling for fire. I wiggled my toes, thinking of dirt. Air was easy—it was everywhere. I strained with it, trying to suck at air somehow.

“It is okay not to touch the elements on your first few tries,”
Master Bert reiterated, but then quickly followed with, “Oh Marc, fabulous! Great work. And James—great!”

“You don’t have to hold your breath to wrangle an element,” Charles said with amusement.

Desperately, I strained harder,
searching.
I needed to be good at this! Without this, I had nothing. No job, no place to live, no friends—
Panicking, trying to turn my misting eyes away from Charles, who was grinning at me in mockery
like he thought I was joking with him, I tried to
pull
. Except, I didn’t know what I was pulling at or with. I tried to focus on the heat in my chest, which usually meant magic; but it just sat there, like a lump. I scratched my palms against my jeans—a nervous habit I did when I was staring down at a test filled with foreign information. It was a telltale sign of failure.

A light hand pressed my shoulder gently.
Master Bert wore a kind expression. “It’s okay—it often takes humans much longer to access their magic. Maw, some are never able to—it is cultural conditioning, not a personal matter. You should not take it personally.”

A glance told me that e
very other person—every single one—was smiling in jubilation. Salline had a pale purple flicker in her palm.

Oh goodie, I’m the dummy in a class full of achievers. Something new and different for me…

Sarcasm wasn’t helping.

Fear and the common feeling of failure welled up inside me. I shrugged
at my stupid brain, the act practiced.

“Fantastic, class, fantastic!”
Master Bert applauded. “Now, let’s talk some theory, and then we’ll try it again.”

The
rest of the lesson passed in a haze of foreign information, elbows from an increasingly solemn Charles (who had realized I wasn’t joking), and another practice session containing everyone else’s accomplishments.

“What’s wrong?” Charles asked quietly when
the class finally came to a close. “Usually you’re all peppy and excited. Why’d you stop trying?”

I
shrugged, slowing so a couple boys could file in front. “I just don’t get it. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“So? Si
nce when do you give up?”

I
shrugged again as we waited to get through the door, the usual traffic jam of everyone in a hurry to get out after class was no different here than anywhere else.

A boy in front of us pushed his friend. “You were the
last one.
What an idiot!”

“S
hut up,” the other boy spat. “I wasn’t raised with an older brother like you were—how could I’ve known how? And besides, the human didn’t get it at all.”

“The human doesn’t count. And hardly anyone has an older brother.
Idiot!”

“Shut the hell up or I’m going to shove my foot up your ass!”

The first boy laughed harder, taunting. They would’ve gotten in a fight right there if not for Charles grabbing each by their shirts and tossing one first, and then the other, out the door. Limbs went flying.

“Don’t worry about them, Sasha,” Charles said in a low tone for my ears alone. “We know you can do it. You’re just new to all this. You’ll figure it out.”

I shrugged.

“Stop shrugging and have some faith in yourself.”

Jared said that to me all the time. Have faith in myself. I’d always commented that it was his job. And he always had. Except now, he was gone.

We hit the first floor. I paused, feeling that familiar tug from the back of the house.
Where we should be headed for dinner, or to just go to bed. A glance told me the weird connection to Stefan was right—he stood in the center of the wide hallway, his body pointed directly at me, his eyes boring into mine. Like Moses parting the seas, people gave him a wide berth, his advisors standing by like a swat team on steroids.

He probably wanted to check up on his investment; find out what saving my life had yielded.

Goose egg, that’s what.

Pity part
y. Who brought the confetti?

“Can you beguile cops into deciding they shouldn’t hand out tickets for going outrageously fast?” I asked Charles, not really caring if he could or not.

“Uh…maybe we should head toward the Boss. He seems…
I think he wants you to go to him. See how your first class went…”

“My, my, Charles.
I had no idea your analytical skills could deduce the obvious. Well done.”

“I don’t like this defiance thing you got going with him. Someone’s going to get hurt, and it’s probably going to be me.”

“I thought you wanted a little excitement.”

“Excitement, Sasha. I didn’t say
public execution.”

Stefan
kept staring, the pull on my chest trying to drag my body toward him. And there was absolutely nothing in the entire world I wanted more than to let him fold me in his arms and make everything all right; to smooth all this away. But I would just be the human who got special treatment from the Boss—assuming he’d even leave his drop-dead gorgeous girlfriend and play nursemaid to a pain in the ass. His help would look like a hand-out if he stooped low enough to give it.

Jesus. Forget a pity
party, I was throwing myself a pity bonanza.

“I’m going to get in my car and drive really, really fast.
As in danger-ville fast. Can you keep the cops from hauling me to jail?”

“
Yeah,” he whined, staring at Stefan.

“
Then let’s go for a ride. Speed always makes me feel better.”

A half hour later
, the car was screaming down a two-lane road in the wooded area outside the city. Trees flashed by, a blur of shimmering green as the first rays of the sun sprinkled their leaves. I had to admit, I was partially testing Charles’ resolve, trying to see if he could hack it without the jitters. I took turns like the car was on rails, using both lanes of the road when the car got a little squirrely—which was often—dodging other cars when there were any. He’d screamed like a little girl, twice.

“
Oooohhhhhh sssshiiiiittt!” Charles clutched the dashboard as my Firebird pitched over the crest of a hill. Tires left the ground for a beat before crashing back down, and jousting us forward.

A manic grin spread over my face. I needed this.

“We should…oh shit…we should…
slow down
!” Charles braced for a turn, grabbing the handle on his door with a white-knuckled grip.

“C’mon, Charles, I’m not going that fast. I thought you were a tough Watch Captain.”

“I can face my enemies head on with a sword,” Charles said through clenched teeth. “I have no control over dying right now, Sasha.
Watch out for that tree!
”

The car squealed around the turn, drifting to the other side of the road.
Where another car was waiting.

Oh crap!

A punch of adrenaline rocked my body. I let off the gas, easing the car back toward my side of the road as a horn blared. I tucked the wheels back beyond the yellow line as the crawling sensation of a close call permeated my limbs. Warmth took its place, hot and spicy, ready for action.

I let out a huge, silent breath and let the speed dwindle.
Not today. I was exhausted.

“Done now?” Charles asked through a tight throat. “
Can we go home?”

“Yeah, I think I’m good. That helped.”

“What’s the deal with needing an adrenaline rush?” Charles asked as we headed back. “How can it possibly help anything?”

I shrugged, the warmth in my chest still zinging through my body, smoothing out my nerves. “It thrills me somehow, which then seems to just calm everything down. I get a big high, and then just,
kinda…level out. I don't know.”

Charles squinted. “I bet the thrill wakes up the magic, and then it fills you. That’s why you think you level out. You’ve probably learned to use your magic with that intuition thing you’ve talked about. You didn’t have teaching so you learned a rough version of controlling it on your own.”

“Quit analyzing me. My crazy needs no definition.”

A frown joined the thinking squint. “When you try to reach
for the magic, nothing comes. When you sprint at death, you apparently access it easily and then save the day. As the mastermind behind this operation, I find it my duty to figure this out.”

“You figuring something out—yeah,
that’s going to happen….”

Charles sighed and shook his head.
“Sarcasm. How helpful.”

The next day went the same. And, so did the day after. I just couldn’t grab those danged elements. I didn’t even know where to look! I was supposed to open up somehow, see them pulsing out there (no one would identify where
there
was), and pull them to me. What kind of cockamamie directions were those, anyway? Yeah, sure, just open on up and pull at some imaginary, universal power streams. Good call. I’ll just do that, shall I?

It made no
sense.

Each day after class
, Stefan would be waiting in a place where I was sure to run into him. The weird link I had with him, which seemed to have gotten stronger since the last time he saved my life, hinted that he was worried. About me? About his clan? I didn’t know; but yesterday, when I finally wanted to give in and sob in defeat on his chest, that tart, Darla, had been loitering around, giving me eye-threats. No way did I want to mess with her. Plus, I looked like a rat after it’d gotten spit out of the sewer, and she looked like a super model in the middle of a runway. I wasn’t winning any glamour votes.

Day four and I still had no idea.
No one gave me condescending looks anymore—now I got pity or indifference. When I pointed this out to Charles, hinting that this whole experiment into magic land was probably a mistake, he’d said, “Don’t give up yet, Sasha. We’ll get it. I’ve been thinking about when you use your magic, and I think that maybe I just need to threaten your life. That’s bound to wake your magic up. I’ll just, like, ruff you up a whole bunch. Or, I know—I’ll get Jonas in here. If there’s anyone who wants to choke the life out of you, it’s Jonas. I betcha he’ll spark your magic survival reflex.”

He meant well.

Master Bert clapped with a beaming smile as he sashayed into the room. “Okay, everyone, I have a special treat for you today. Maw, I have been reminded by the Boss himself that it is often easier to connect with the elements when we are out amongst them. He
personally
sought me out to tell me this!”