Power Revealed (The Elementers) (23 page)

“I’m nothing like you!”

“We both need our freedom.”

“But I won’t kill people to get it.”

“If you stay around, you’ll find that it’s sometimes forced upon you. Just like Henry forced it on me. But I don’t want to kill you either. We aren’t the bad guys. The Council has been robbing Elementers of their freedoms for centuries and it is time we help liberate all Elementers. Are you sure you won’t join us?”

“I’m going to take you down.”

“Too bad. It’s truly a waste to have to kill you, but we can’t have you working against us. Consider it a favor. We’ll be saving you from a life of being controlled by the Council.” Alexei tossed Justin’s phone to him. “Here you go. I hope you don’t mind that Patrick used your phone to send a message to your friends.”

Justin reached out to catch the phone and scrolled to his last message. It only contained one word: “HELP!” Justin figured he couldn’t wait any longer. He needed to get out of here and fast. He opened himself to the energy to send a blast of wind at Alexei and the others when a slicing pain shot into the back of his head causing his legs to buckle and a sheet of darkness to fall over him.

Chapter 33

“Let’s go to Pier 57 on Friday.”

“Boris, we have the job on Friday.”

“Not until two thirty. We can go earlier and then be back to the factory to do the job in the afternoon.”

The voices seemed distant as if they were coming from the other end of a tunnel. But a familiar voice broke through with more clarity.

“Quiet, you two,” Alexei said.

“What? The kid’s knocked out cold. Besides, even if he was awake, he’ll be dead as soon as the others show up.”

Justin opened his eyes only just enough to catch a view of his surroundings, but everything was blurry. He struggled to force his eyes to focus and tried to recall where he was. He remembered the anger and disgust as he rode next to Alexei in his car. They hiked into the forest, someone pick pocketed his phone, and Alexei had others waiting for them in the meadow. The meadow. His eyes began to focus better and he recognized the small meadow and the creek running along the edge. Alexei and the others were standing in groups with their backs turned to him about ten feet away

He tried to move, but his ankles were bound together with rope and his wrists were tied together behind his back. A dirty tasting cloth pulled between his teeth was bound tightly behind his head. He tried to call for help, but the only sound he could make was a muffled groan. How did this happen? Justin remembered Alexei admitting that he had killed grandpa. He remembered connecting to the energy and then feeling a searing pain in his head. A throbbing ache became uncomfortably evident at the back of his head.

He tried to sit up to look around, but dizziness flowed over him and he dropped his head back down bumping the spot where he must have been hit. A quiet grunt escaped through the gag. As he lay there trying to overcome the dizziness and pain, he tried to figure out how he could escape. Anya had built an intricate house with trees. She had begun to show him how to manipulate branches and roots. Maybe he could manipulate the roots of a nearby bush to serve as extra fingers to untie the ropes around his ankles. He connected to the energy, but before he could begin to move the branches, a powerful gust of wind picked him up and threw him at least six or seven feet. The gust dropped him abruptly onto a small rock outcropping. Justin’s back immediately arched up trying to protect itself from a sharp rock jutting into his lower back.

“None of that.” Alexei’s mocking voice carried across the meadow. “No connecting to any energy. Patrick isn’t only good at pick pocketing. He’s also great at felling trees and he’ll drop that one on you if you even begin to connect to the energy again. The tree is big enough to crush a house. So, right now, you just need to sit still and wait for your friends to arrive. You’ve been asleep for a while, so they’ll be here soon. We just received a message that they’re almost here. The fun is about to begin.”

The text message they sent to Raven from his phone came to Justin’s mind. Raven and the others would be hurrying here to help him, unaware they were entering a trap. Justin needed to warn them, but after already murdering his grandpa, Justin didn’t doubt for a second that Alexei would hesitate to kill him. Justin figured the only reason they kept him alive was to use him as bait, but if they thought the bait was getting in the way, dead bait would be almost as effective.

“Just stay put. The party will begin shortly,” Alexei said as he motioned for the others to move out of the meadow and into the cover of the trees.

Justin struggled to wiggle his hands free, but moving caused the rock to further dig into his back. An idea came to him. He pulled himself into sitting position, doing so slowly enough to not seem threatening to Alexei. He wiggled a little to the left to place his wrists next to the sharp stone. Moving slowly, to hopefully avoid detection, he rubbed the rope that bound his wrists hard against the sharp edge of the rock. Twice he slipped and cut his hands on the rock, but did his best to hide the pain and continued rubbing the rope against the sharp edge to break free. He couldn’t see the rope, but after a few minutes, it definitely had more give when he pulled against it. He figured he needed only another minute or two to break free.

The sound of people walking up the path caused him to rub hard and fast against the rock. He had to warn Raven and the others of the danger. Rex came into view walking cautiously into the meadow. Justin tried to yell a warning at Rex, but the cloth just transformed his voice into a garbled mess. After looking around the meadow and seeing no one, Rex motioned with his hand toward someone behind him. Anya slowly came into view. Justin urgently shook his head left and right trying to warn them away, but they weren’t paying much attention to him focusing instead on looking out for Alexei. Everyone except Raven emerged into the meadow. Rex, Anya, and Mr. Hamilton began walking toward Justin while the others spread out looking for Alexei. Justin continued to shake his head, but they ignored the warning, so he raised his wrists and shoved them hard against the rock successfully breaking through the rope, but also cutting into his left wrist. Clenching through the pain, Justin wiggled and pulled his hands free, yanked off the gag, and called out, “It’s a trap!”

A loud cracking sound tore through the meadow and Justin turned his head to see a tree as wide as a bus and many times longer falling directly for him. With his feet tied, he doubted he could move out of the way in time, so instead he connected to the energy and shot a gust of wind at the tree. He must have underestimated the mass and moving force of the tree, because the wind seemed to only move the path of the tree a few feet. Another powerful gust blew across the meadow shoving the massive tree further to the left causing it to crash a few feet to the left of Justin. The ground shook as it hit the earth and chunks of wood shattered in every direction. Justin curled into a ball and wrapped his arms around his head trying to protect himself.

Once the onslaught of tree fragments diminished, Justin felt the earth begin to shake again. But this time it wasn’t from the tree. It was an earthquake. Justin looked up to see Rex, Anya, and Mr. Hamilton struggling to maintain their balance as the ground shook beneath them and a crack opened wide between Anya and Mr. Hamilton The crevice split further and the ground swallowed Anya whole. Forgetting about the rope around his ankles, Justin leapt up to run toward her but only succeeded in falling on his face. He rolled closer to the fallen tree to hoping to remain unseen, pulled his knees toward him, and worked on the knots to untie his feet as quickly as possible. He could hear the chaos swirling around him as he struggled to undo the last stubborn knot and wondered where Raven must be.

Finally free, Justin jumped to his feet, still hidden partially by a boulder sized piece of the fallen tree. He scanned across the meadow searching for Anya, but did a double take when he saw what looked like massive snakes writhing in the air. On second glance he realized they were powerful jets of water being shot by Mr. Hamilton and Selena toward the surfer guy and the well-dressed woman who deflected them. Grant shot and dodged rocks with the huge guy and Rex sent a mini tornado toward Alexei.

Justin was relieved to see Anya back up on solid ground, even if a little battered up, but he noticed she was fighting Patrick, the pickpocket, and Steven. Justin was certain Steven caused the branches of the bush near Anya to whip at her. Why was he attacking her? She created a wall of blackberry bushes to block the thrashing limbs, but she was busy with what looked like the strangest sword fight Justin had ever seen. Anya and Patrick were clearing manipulating multiple branches of two nearby trees as the branches tried to attack the other Elementer and at the same time protect their puppet master.

Hurrying forward, Justin reached out to the wind energy to shove Steven away, but just before Steven fell to the side, one of Steven’s branches broke through the barrier Anya had created and pulled on her left foot. She fell forward and the distraction caused her to lose sight of the attacking tree. One of the branches hit her across the shoulder and head as she fell to the ground. Justin immediately connected to and shot a burst of tree energy directly at Patrick hijacking his connection just like Justin had done to Rex during their training session a little over a month ago. Next, Justin took control of the tree and swung two branches at Patrick sending him flying almost ten feet and smashing into the trunk of a large Douglas fir. His body crumpled to the ground and lay there motionless.

Movement came into the edge of Justin’s vision. He turned to see Steven rising to his knees and look up at Justin. Branches from a nearby blackberry bush swung at Justin from the side and hit him before he had time to stop them. The thorns tore at Justin’s clothes and skin. Justin gritted his teeth, linked up to the earth energy, and pulled the ground apart below Steven. The earth heaved under Steven causing him to fall into the newly created chasm. Justin opened another rift swallowing up the bush that attacked him. He turned to see Steven using roots to lift himself out of the crevasse in the ground. Justin connected to more of the roots near Steven and wrapped them around the man.

Justin could feel Steven trying to gain control of the roots to free himself. Physically binding an Elementer, had limited effectiveness. As long as Elementers were conscious, they could access their energy to fight back. Alexei’s comment of being forced to kill crossed Justin’s mind, but he wouldn’t be forced into it. Instead, Justin figured he needed to knock the guy unconscious. Not knowing how much force to use, but having limited time to think about it, Justin reached out to a tree near Steve, extended a new branch, and swung it at Steven’s head. Justin cringed when he heard the branch thud against Steven’s skull. He was relieved that Steven’s energy connection dropped because he didn’t want to have hit the guy in the head again.

With the two Tree Elementers taken care of, Justin rushed back to Anya. He confirmed that she had a pulse and was breathing, but she was out cold. He looked around for help and noticed that Grant must have taken care of the other Earth Elementer because he was helping Rex gang up on Alexei at the far side of the meadow. Alexei struggled and fell back. He had a gash on his forehead and favored his left arm. Justin smiled in satisfaction until a blast of wind threw Rex and Grant into the creek wiping the grin off of Justin’s face. Alexei turned and bolted in the direction of the path. Justin jumped to his feet and raced across the meadow to prevent Alexei’s escape.

Alexei had a head start, but running was Justin’s thing. Ignoring the branches that clawed at his face, Justin sprinted down the path oblivious to everything except catching Alexei. While running, Justin connected to the energy and tried to open a chasm just in front of Alexei to catch him, but the running messed with his aim and the rift opened many feet to the right of Alexei. He tried three more times, once just in front of Alexei but his opponent leapt over the hole and continued running.

Alexei rounded another bend in the path hiding him from Justin’s view. As Justin came around the corner, he skidded to a stop as he took in the sight before him. Justin had never felt so much anger and fear at once. His blood seemed to pulse hot with energy, but it was coated with a thick, cold chill. Alexei stood thirty feet in front of Justin holding a knife at Raven’s neck. Raven’s eyes were wide with fear. Alexei stepped back, pulling Raven with him. “It seems that Raven wanted to be part of the action. She’s going to come with me for protection.”

Justin balled his fists so tightly that his short fingernails dug into his hands. He began walking toward Alexei. “She’s not going anywhere with you.”

“If you take another step forward she won’t be going anywhere— ever again.” Alexei yanked Raven, pulling the knife tighter against her throat. Justin’s breath caught and he froze. But his mind raced trying to figure out how to free Raven and take out Alexei at the same time. Justin knew Alexei would react immediately if he sensed Justin connecting to the energy. Maybe cooperating would cause Alexei to let down his guard.