Lost Causes (2 page)

“Okay, I think we’re…” Vivian didn’t finish the sentence.

Carmichael swore and returned to his computer. “Can you see the license plate?”

Dread pooled in my stomach.

There we were, clear as day on the map—a beat-up camper van a hundred feet ahead of a Bronco pulling an Airstream.

Two miles behind us was a black luxury sedan we couldn’t seem to escape.

Sera grabbed the walkie-talkie we’d been using in isolated areas and hit the button. It crackled for a moment, then went dead, its batteries exhausted. She hurled it against a wall and yanked her phone from her pocket. “Damn it. No bars. We’ve got to let them know.”

Simon returned to his feline form. Using Sera’s shoulder as a springboard, he leapt through the open sunroof. Light footsteps above us, then the cat landed on the Bronco’s roof. He slithered through the open passenger window with some contortionist ninja moves the rest of us had no hope of replicating.

The Bronco took a hard right, and we lurched against the trailer’s wall as the Airstream left the road. The camper followed suit. Several times, Mac swerved to avoid the piles of rocks decorating the landscape, and the trailer would tilt onto two wheels for several heart-stopping seconds. The huge vehicles aimed for a stretch of red rocks in the distance. They were tall enough to hide us, if we made it in time.

Their sedan could hit ninety without breaking a sweat. The council was closing the gap.

Carmichael’s eyes were glued to Vivian’s screen. “We should get to the rocks, but they’ll see where we turned off.” The desert was dry and still, with no rain or wind to cover up the tell-tale tire tracks.

I swallowed. “No, they won’t.”

I’d barely tapped into my magic the last couple weeks, only using enough to recharge and heal myself. Recharging through my element was so instinctive that most of the time I wasn’t even aware I was doing it.

The water magic I’d known all my life, the power that once comforted and fueled me, wasn’t the same. It was sharper now, covered in edges that would slice at my mind if I let my guard down for even a moment.

And I always let my guard down.

I’d tried after we escaped my family’s island. I tried to use my water magic as I had for decades. It wasn’t meant to be a passive power, and it chafed against the restraints. I thought I’d be safe, so long as I felt none of the rage that pushed me toward darkness.

But every time I reached for it, I found the rage already waiting and the monster that lived inside me eager to escape. I only needed to lose focus for a fraction of a second for the madness to dig its claws deeper into my mind.

Too many times over the last few months, I’d forced my friends to inject me with the drug that was both my bane and my savior.

Created by another dual and refined by many others with their own agendas, the serum suppressed magic. Neither elementals nor shifters were meant to live without their magic. Our bodies’ natural defense was to fall into a coma until the drug worked its way out of our system. At best, the drug was a delay, not a cure.

We didn’t know anything about the long-term effects, and our supply was rapidly dwindling. It was irresponsible to put myself in a position where we had to use more.

But those following us didn’t only threaten my life. Our laws promised a century of incarceration to any elemental who helped conceal a dual magic. My mother and Grams were already enjoying the hospitality of the elemental penal system. They’d been sentenced a month after I escaped my family’s island. They were in prison because of me, and I was too busy running for my life to help.

With three-quarters elemental blood in her veins, Sera would live for at least a thousand years. She would consider the punishment worth it. Vivian was another story. She had so little earth blood that she’d die in captivity.

The shifters didn’t fall under elemental rule, but it was impossible to predict what would happen to Mac, Simon, and Miriam. When large swathes of the elemental population considered them an abomination, due process might seem like a quaint notion to those pursuing us.

My friends were here because they were trying to save me, no matter the cost to their own lives. I had to at least try to save them in return.

I reached for the water magic in my core. As always, it was coiled around the fire. I tugged at the fire’s knots to free it, letting my water rise to the surface.

The fire churned, eager for release. Once, I would have fought against it, refused to allow it freedom. It was too late for that. The fire was part of me. It might help drive me to madness, but it wasn’t the enemy.

It couldn’t be, not when the enemy was behind us.

The water magic hummed under my skin. Not long ago, it had felt pure and energetic, a crystal stream pouring down a mountain. These days, it was more like a lake at midnight, dark and full of secrets.

I sent it from my body to look for water and knew its frustration when it found none. A southwest desert in late August was pretty much the definition of dry heat.

“How much time do we have?” I asked.

Vivian’s intent eyes never left the computer screen. “Their car is about half a mile away.”

“Hope no one’s thirsty later.” I twisted the faucet in the tiny galley kitchen and summoned the magic back to me. It attached itself, one molecule at a time, to the water flowing into the sink.

Sera’s panicked voice reached me, but not her words. I took long, deep breaths, striving for the kind of focus a Zen master would envy. Nothing existed but the magic.

I grabbed the stream of water from the sink and sent it arcing through the sunroof toward the tire tracks.

It wasn’t moving fast enough. It would never eliminate the evidence before the council reached us.

I knew only one way to boost its strength. Centering myself and hoping that was enough, I added the fire’s power to the water.

The water flew from me, well beyond the hundred-foot radius that limited other elementals. Two hundred feet, then three, and then five hundred. I released it, the water dropping onto the dusty ground and washing away the tracks. I did it again, this time pushing it one thousand feet, all the way to the edge of the road.

The wet ground would give us away as surely as any tire marks. I recalled my water magic but let the fire remain. Heat rose, devouring any sign of the rainstorm.

On the computer screens, the black sedan continued down the road, missing the turnoff.

My skin hummed, and my focus cracked. “Let’s go get them. We can end this now.”

I faced the others. They looked small. They occupied such a finite amount of space, and their lives were so fragile. They would never be more than what I saw now.

Dual magics were different. I was only beginning to understand how much.

“Aidan.”

My lips twisted, resisting the command in that voice. I turned to the speaker and saw the syringe in her hand.

The magic hissed in fear and anger. For a moment it considered attacking, but fire couldn’t hurt that woman and there wasn’t enough water left to drown her.

Also, it was Sera. I didn’t hurt Sera.

I stumbled backwards as reason slammed into me. I wrenched the threads of power back to me. They twisted in my core, displeased, but at least I controlled them. It had so nearly been the other way around.

Sera’s movements were hesitant, as if she approached a wild beast, but her eyes were as determined as ever.

“I’m back,” I said. My face was red and my heart pounded like I’d sprinted a mile, but I’d come back. This time, at least, I’d come back.

Sera studied my face for a long, silent moment. She returned the syringe to the black case and tucked that into one of the kitchenette’s drawers.

Carmichael and Vivian watched me as they would a stranger. A stranger who might try to eat their liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti.

“Really, it’s me. So long as I’m not using the magic, I’m still Aidan. I didn’t slide any further down the sanity slope.”

They looked unconvinced.

“We can’t use the drug every time.” I attempted logic. “It knocks me out for days, and we can’t afford that.”

“I’m all for knocking you out, but we don’t have enough left to do it whenever you’re an idiot.” That might have been Sera agreeing with me.

I gave her a shaky smile. She slapped my face.

“Hey!” It only stung a little, but allowing her to slap me whenever she thought I was stupid wasn’t a precedent I wanted to set.

“That’s for using your magic. We agreed. As little as possible until we find the other dual, remember?”

“But the tracks…”

“Don’t even start. If they caught us, we’d have dealt with it. We’re handling this, Ade, and you’re going to let us. You don’t get to be the hero this time.” Her eyes blazed with anger and fear.

I nodded. It was all I could do. After all, I didn’t actually want to go off the deep end. I wanted a life with my friends. I wanted Mac. And maybe, if it was even possible, I wanted a chance to make up for the things I’d done.

“Good.” She spoke between gritted teeth. I suspected I hadn’t heard the end of her anger on this one. “Now let’s get far away from those elemental fuckers and figure out what we do next.”

CHAPTER 2

W
e headed northeast, taking little-used roads that added hours to our trip. We drove across a land of red rocks that gave way to pale brown desert and scrub as we approached New Mexico. The sun crept toward the western horizon, but there weren’t any trees or structures tall enough to cast long shadows. We kept all the windows in the Airstream open for a cross-breeze, but that only helped so much when it felt like the air itself could leave scorch marks.

When we stopped for the night, everyone tumbled from the various vehicles, but there was none of the usual stretching and groaning that accompanied the end of a long drive. Our eyes were watchful, scanning the flat land in all directions.

“It’s clear.” Vivian still held her laptop. Sometimes, I thought it was fused to her hand. “I’ve been tracking their car. They stopped in Flagstaff thirty minutes after we lost them and haven’t moved.”

That put almost four hundred miles between us and the council.

The mood instantly lifted. Agent Johnson stepped toward Carmichael and grasped his partner’s shoulder in a strong, manly show of solidarity. Where Carmichael had dark blond hair and blue eyes and looked like he could be cast as Captain America’s uptight brother, Johnson was taller, darker, and stronger. Despite these physical differences, both men were serious agents who only wanted to help the good guys and catch the bad ones—even if those lines weren’t as clear as they used to be.

Miriam popped the back of the Bronco open and pulled a bottle from the cooler. If we were done driving, it was beer o’clock. She smacked it against the trailer hitch to open it.

Mac did what he’d done every day since we started running. He walked to me with fear in his eyes.

“You okay?” He wasn’t scared of me, though I sometimes thought he should be. He was scared we wouldn’t find a cure in time. They all were.

“I’m good.” I forced a smile I knew he wouldn’t believe.

It was crazy to think Mac could fear anything. He was somewhere between huge and freaking enormous, and that was in his human form. When he was a bear, he got to add claws and teeth to the whole intimidation package. The fact that he also had thick dark hair and melting brown eyes and a wide, handsome face—and was honest and loyal to a fault—just meant I’d never really had a chance. I’d started falling for him the first day we’d met.

We’d never put a name to what was between us. If we’d been humans, we’d have been dating for months now. We certainly would have enjoyed some naked fun time, maybe talked about moving in together.

Instead, we’d spent our days trying to solve murders or find kidnapped children while I slid toward madness. It hadn’t made for a conventional courtship.

Even so, the cord that tied us together was stronger than it had ever been, and it wasn’t just the tiny bit of my magic that now lived within him, permanently entwined with his shifter power. I was his, whatever that was worth, and I was pretty sure he felt the same about me. Most days, that was enough.

Besides, it was hard to move a relationship forward while surrounded by so many helpful friends.

“She’s pissing me off, Mac,” Sera called. “Control your woman.”

I made a face at her, and she only raised an eyebrow in reply. Mac waited for an explanation.

“I might have tapped into my magic but only for a few seconds and that’s why we’re not having a battle with evil elementals right now but I won’t do it again.” I spoke into the collar of my shirt. When there was no response, I forced myself to raise my eyes.

I was hoping for frustrated, maybe exasperated, but that wasn’t what I got. Thunderstorms had fewer clouds than Mac wore on his face.

“We’ll talk later,” he bit off, then disappeared into the Airstream. When he returned, he carried a five-gallon container of gas for the Bronco. He filled the tank without meeting my eyes.

The awkward silence was interrupted by a booming voice. Miriam’s vocals had two settings: loud and blow your eardrums. “At the risk of stating the obvious, we’re even more in the middle of nowhere than we were this morning. Please tell me one of you fuckers has a plan that doesn’t involve running from elementals for the next ten years.” While the words were sharp, she spoke with the hint of a smile. It took a lot more than being lost in the middle of a desert to freak Miriam out.

Vivian dropped to the ground out of habit, though she required rich soil rather than a dry desert to recharge. “Well, we know they’re not tracking the cars. If so, they’d have followed us.”

“Except they were in a sedan,” Carmichael noted. “They couldn’t have followed us far off-road, even if they were tracking us.”

Sera disagreed, which was to be expected. The two of them had an unspoken competition, though no one else seemed to understand the rules. “That sedan could go anywhere the camper could. Plus, we checked the cars last week, same time we switched to new burner phones. We’ve been careful.”

“A lot happens in a week,” Simon reminded her.

“From now on, daily checks,” I said.

We knelt on the ground and peered into each wheel well, and when we found nothing Miriam brought out a flashlight to be extra thorough. It wouldn’t have been the first time someone used a GPS device to track us.

I almost hoped we’d find something. A nice, easily smashable electronic, and then we’d be free again.

Each vehicle was clean.

“Could they be in touch with local law enforcement? I mean, Stephen Grant is an ice, but he’s also a cop in Tahoe. Maybe they’re getting some local help?” I was thinking aloud, trying to fit the pieces together.

Again, Sera disagreed. “The help would need to be a desert or stone. There aren’t any waters out here, and we know they haven’t told anyone else they let a dual escape. If they had, every damn elemental in the world would be looking for us.”

“What about that glitch at the motel?” I looked at Vivian’s laptop with distrust.

Vivian didn’t look worried. “That was patchy internet. It happens.”

Sera hesitated. Sera never hesitated, so she had to be carefully considering her next words. “But on the extreme off-chance that someone is finding us electronically, would it hurt to go off-grid for a little bit? As a test, Vivian.”

Vivian’s lips thinned. “It won’t make any difference.”

Miriam threw her cell phone battery into the middle of the group. “I always hated these fucking things anyway,” she grinned, doing her best to break the tension.

We all followed suit. Anything that sent or received signals was turned off.

Vivian watched the electronic carnage with displeasure. “It’s not me. It would be easier for them to access bank records than track this computer.”

“Good point. Cash only.” I pulled out my wallet and counted the money. “Twenty-three dollars,” I announced.

“I’ve got five.” Sera held up a single bill.

“Forty-six cents.” Miriam’s contribution fit in the palm of her hand.

“Two hundred seventy-six dollars.” We all blinked at Simon. “One never knows when a high-quality sushi meal will be required.”

Sera plucked the bills from his hand, adding them to the pot. “Sushi can wait. This will last us while we confirm they’re not finding us through any computers.”

Vivian mumbled something about how she was already setting false money trails, but no one was listening. It felt good to take any action, even an unnecessary one.

Mac replaced the empty fuel can in the Airstream, then leaned against the hood of the Bronco, eyes closed. He wasn’t relaxing. Mac might not talk a lot, at least compared to the rest of us, but I knew he was listening, sifting through the possibilities and finding the truth in his own time. When he spoke, it was usually because he had something worth saying. “What if they’re using the same system we are?”

Two lines formed between Sera’s brows. “But we’ve been relying mostly on the info we found in Josiah’s files. He had years of research on this other dual.”

She rushed through the sentence. We never wanted to forget our father—couldn’t if we tried—but it hurt to say his name. He’d been amoral and manipulative, with absolutely no respect for personal boundaries, but he was our father, and he shouldn’t be dead.

I dragged my mind back from the dark thoughts. Remembering Josiah’s death and the events it triggered was a surefire way to rouse the cruelest part of my magic.

I focused on Mac. “That’s not what you meant, though.”

He met my eyes for only a second, then looked away. Yeah, he was still mad. “The East Texas address we found in Josiah’s file was a bust, so we started looking at all the other possibilities he found. Every town that’s had some unexplained incident, anything that might have been the work of an elemental. What’s to stop the council from following that same trail? Once they figured out what we were doing, it would be easy enough.”

Sera considered it, fingers tapping against her leg to release excess energy. “Somehow, the old ones always find a way to track public magic use.”

Johnson looked less convinced. “It’s a pretty big leap. What would draw them to the southwest in the first place? You could just as likely be hiding in Tasmania, or Outer Mongolia. Or the Prince’s Islands, where Josiah thought there was another dual.”

“Why did we not look for that dual?” Simon asked. “It is a much smaller area to explore, and I understand the Turks are fond of cats.”

“A Homeland Security system that even Vivian didn’t want to hack.”

“I’d prefer to stay out of a terrorist detention facility, if it’s all the same to you,” she agreed.

“We can sail there,” I reminded Simon. “It would only take a month or two.”

I thought he actually turned green.

“We’re here because it was the best choice at the time. We had an address. Then we had a forwarding address,” I said.

Sera leaned against the Airstream. She didn’t even notice the scorching metal. “And then we were lost. Hell, maybe we should go to Turkey. Why not?”

Carmichael fidgeted. That was definitely outside his jurisdiction.

“No.” I hadn’t meant to be quite so loud. I lowered my voice. “It’s a long way to go. And it’s a long way back if we don’t find anything.” I didn’t finish the thought, but we all knew. I was already living on borrowed time. “At least we have another lead, right? Something in New Mexico? It doesn’t matter if they’re finding us by following our path or using bloodhounds or if they hired their own traveling psychic. It changes nothing. Our only hope of finding the answers I need is to find another dual. It’s all we’ve got.”

Miriam chucked the empty bottle into the recycling container next to the cooler. “You said northwest New Mexico, Vivian?”

Vivian’s gaze was fixed to her computer, and her fingers stroked the keys as it powered down. “That was the last possibility I found. I won’t be able to get our next location if we’re offline, you know. Plus, this will delay me looking into that whole boy-in-car thing. I think I was making progress, too.”

“We need to leave it for now.” Sera ground out the words. I wasn’t much happier. We still didn’t know the full reason David killed Josiah. All we had to go on was the stone’s quiet statement that Josiah murdered his mother and he’d been “the boy in the car.”

Still, if we could only find one answer at a time, one was more time sensitive than the other. “Let’s go,” I said, trying to sound more upbeat than any of us felt.

No one argued. We’d chosen to run, and we would keep running until we found what we needed, or until we were caught.

Those were our only options.

We needed to replace the water I’d used during our escape, so our small caravan crept back toward civilization, though we drove parallel to the highway as much as possible. We found an old truck stop not far from the state line. It had a single security camera, which was disabled when a black cat perched atop it and drooped his front paws across the lens.

While the others filled the trailer with water and loaded up on supplies, I sought out Sera.

She sat at the small table in the Airstream, the black case resting on the laminate surface. I slid onto the bench across from her.

Sera raised her eyes and we looked at each other for a long time. We’d always been able to have long conversations without speaking, but these days we had so many unexpressed thoughts that even our silent discussions were filled with double meanings and uncertainty.

When the silence veered from loaded to downright awkward, she moved to the freezer tucked under the counter. Holding a kitchen towel in one hand, she filled it with ice and twisted it closed.

“Here.” She handed it to me and returned to her seat. “Put it on your face. You should use as little magic as you can, even to heal.”

I waved it off. She hadn’t hit me hard enough to bruise, and I suspected she knew that. “Is this your version of an apology?”

“Did you hear me use either the words ‘I’m’ or ‘sorry’? Then no.”

I wasn’t ready to apologize, either. “What else could I have done?”

“Nothing! You do nothing, Aidan. Damn it. I’ve lost too many people already. Our father. Christopher. Hell, I’ve been losing people my whole life.”

She paused, swallowing whatever she’d been about to say. Sera rarely spoke of her mother, who died when she was thirteen. Elementals were long-lived, but we weren’t immortal. Any sudden trauma would kill us as easily as it would a human.

When she spoke again, her words were measured. “I’m not losing anyone else. I don’t care if I have to burn those council assholes myself.”

“You’re not a killer, Sera. You’d never be the same.”

She held my eyes, her own so serious I barely recognized them. “But I’d be sane. Can you say the same thing?”

She was right, and at the same time she was so very wrong. “You know who you sound like?”

One side of her mouth quirked in the tiniest of smiles. “What can I say? Like father, like daughter.”

“Daughters,” I corrected. “And if we’re not careful, we’re all going to die in our efforts to protect each other.”

Like Josiah already had.

Sera’s jaw was set, her expression as rigid as her thoughts. “You proved I was innocent when the council was ready to execute me. You already protected me. Now it’s my turn.” She opened the case. Nearly all the syringes were empty.