The Order of the Elements 01 - Breaking Point (27 page)

Cynthia moved swiftly to her feet, her anger rolling off of her. Phoebe saw red. This was it—justified action. She turned, her eyes narrowed and her hands shaking. She too, rose to her feet. The air around her tensed as people turned to observe their standoff. She could feel the others stand up behind her. Three boys stepped forward to pick up Kali’s flanks, Aiden, Orin, and Daniel. They had recently taken to following Kali and her friends around like loyal puppies.

Cynthia smiled maliciously. “Oh, so you think winning the trophy is going to win you Dorian’s heart?” Kali’s eyes narrowed, but even as they did, Phoebe could see the victory celebration in her head. It was taking all she had to restrain herself. Cynthia continued. “I really do
hate
to bust your swelled head, but in case you haven’t noticed, Dorian can’t stand you. Funny though, that you felt the need to get rid of the competition. I didn’t know you were so
insecure
.”

“You don’t even have a chance,” Kali replied. Her smirk had vanished, and her own anger was freely flowing. Phoebe could feel it coming. One more push would be one too many.

Cynthia pushed. “You know, maybe that’s true. Hmm. On the other hand, Dorian did tell me I was doing quite well, and I can’t really remember him saying that to you…
ever
.”

That did it. Flames shot out of Kali’s hands right at Cynthia. Phoebe was already prepared. A wall of water burst forth and put the flames out. Kali turned to glare at her instead. Phoebe could feel her hate, could see that this is what she had really wanted. As fast as lightning, Kali conjured a fireball and threw it at her. Phoebe’s shield went up immediately to block it. At the same time, she conjured a ball of water and threw it at Kali.

Kali’s reflex was slow as she examined Phoebe’s shield. Meanwhile, the water engulfed Kali and her friends, causing them to fall. Each one of them was sopping wet when they got to their feet. Phoebe dropped her shield, amused by the wet rat look. Kali steamed dry as she engulfed herself in flames and leaped toward Phoebe. Ethan’s shield went up this time. Kali bounced back, but landed on her feet. Kara, Beth, and all three boys stepped forward, as did Phoebe’s group.

Phoebe laughed. “Seriously, you think your little friends are going to do you any good?”

Kali growled in fury. It was amazing how much Phoebe was enjoying this. Kali jumped forward again. She was the catalyst, and now everyone was fighting someone. Phoebe couldn’t see who was fighting whom. She was concentrating on her own fight. Kali was fast but nowhere near as strong as Phoebe was.

It wasn’t even a challenge. Phoebe blocked every move as soon as Kali thought of it and fought through her defenses easily. Soon Phoebe was crushing her down into the ground by her forearms as Kali gasped for air. She saw Kali think it just before it happened. She engulfed herself in flames again. Phoebe felt the heat on her arms, her chest, her legs. Within seconds, Phoebe encased Kali in ice.

Phoebe only had enough time to straighten up before Kali melted her way out. Phoebe fell back for a second to regain her position. Everyone backed away at the same time so that now Phoebe only saw Kali. She was flipping through different ways to catch Phoebe off guard. Too bad Kali didn’t know that was impossible.

A shot of flames traveled lightning fast across the grass. At the same time, a vine whipped out and wrapped around Phoebe’s wrist. Evan immediately broke the vine, and Phoebe sent a flood of water across the ground, putting out the burning flames around her legs and twisting the water around Kali’s body so she was encased. Phoebe was just getting ready to throw the sphere of water, with Kali inside, across the river when everything froze.

Phoebe couldn’t move at all, not even her eyes. But she could hear the distinctly familiar rhythm of footsteps approaching her. Dorian. She fought against her frozen limbs, wanting nothing more than to be moving again as Dorian came into her view. She fought harder. He couldn’t break this up. This had to be settled now. With one last Herculean effort, she unfroze.

“What are you doing?” Phoebe exclaimed.

He jumped and looked extremely surprised. “How did you do that?”

His silver eyes distracted her; they had a tendency to do that. “What?”

“Get unfrozen.”

She thought about it. “I don’t know. I just really wanted to tell you that we are in the middle of something here.”

He frowned. “I can see that, which is why I’m here. To stop it.”

Phoebe started to protest, but he unleashed his eyes on her again, and the protest got lost. When he was satisfied that she wasn’t going to say anything more, he unfroze everyone else and put his shield up between the two groups. Everyone regained their standing positions, and they all looked a little worse for wear. Kali and Phoebe were still glaring at one another, although Kali’s eyes flickered frequently to Dorian.

“I don’t know, or care, what you’re fighting about, but I suggest you save it for the tournament and remain civil to one another the rest of the time.” Everyone turned to him and opened their mouths in protest about having to be civil. He spoke loudly. “Or avoid one another if that isn’t possible. Don’t we have enough to worry about without you all fighting?”

Phoebe turned her glare from Kali, not wanting to give herself an excuse to fight her again. Dorian was right—enough fighting was going on outside; she should have held her temper better. Even if Kali did start it. Phoebe was at least mature enough to not try to play that card, but she still couldn’t help but be angry at Dorian for breaking them up. There would have been no need for a future battle if Kali got kicked off her pedestal now. As it was, it looked like there would be another fight; Kali was already planning it in her mind.

Phoebe turned first to walk away. She wanted to get as far away from Kali’s thoughts as she could manage. Kali was starting to fantasize about Dorian telling her how well she had fought and how he had only wanted to get rid of Phoebe so he could be with her. Phoebe’s jaw clenched uncomfortably. She heard the others walking behind her, dragging their feet. They were ashamed for fighting, while she was just angry. She stomped her way through the peaceful hallways and stairwells of the Annexus before she wrenched the door open to her room and sank into the couch in the sitting room. She was still burning in anger. She could feel it in her arms, on her legs, and in her neck and chest.

20. Burning

Phoebe felt a little better now that she was away from Kali and the girl’s thoughts no longer plagued her. She was able to inspect everyone else. Jared looked the worst, like he had been cut from head to toe with thousands of razors. Evan had a black eye. Ethan’s nose was bleeding but looked unbroken; he also had a few cuts along his arms. Lucy and Cynthia looked all right; their clothes were rumpled and torn in a few places, but they were fine other than that. Then Phoebe realized she was burning. She had thought she had only been feeling her hot, burning anger, but now that her anger was fading, she began to think it was something else.

She looked down. Her arms were blistering and blackened. Her skin looked like it was peeling off and melting. Her clothes were covered in singed holes, and her legs were burned just as badly. Now that she realized what the burning was, she also realized it hurt. Her eyes were already watering, and her throat constricted as she tried not to cry out in pain. She felt like she was still on fire. It seemed she wasn’t the only one who hadn’t noticed her injuries. Evan looked over and stared in horror at the look on Phoebe’s face and the burns covering her arms and legs. She knew it would be worse if she moved, so she didn’t. She also knew if she started screaming, she wouldn’t be able to stop, so she bit down on her tongue. She barely noticed the taste of blood.

Jared jumped up. “Phoebe, are you okay? What do we do? That looks horrible!”

Tears streamed down her face. She couldn’t stop those.

“Get some water!” Cynthia yelled. Phoebe shook her head furiously. Water would make it worse.

Lucy jumped up and sprinted out of the room. Ethan slid to the floor and knelt in front of Phoebe.

“It’s okay. Hang in there. Lucy’s getting help. Is there anything we can do?”

Phoebe shook her head. She could feel stinging as she did this. There must have been some mild burns on her neck as well. Ethan looked lost as he tried to figure out what to do. He reached out like he was going to pat her arm and then stopped. She couldn’t do anything. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t even swallow the blood that pooled in her mouth.

Ethan’s expression changed to relief. “Lucy’s coming, Phoebe. She found Dorian; he’s coming to help you. They’re almost here. You know how fast she is. He’s going to take you to the infirmary. We’ll all come, of course.” Phoebe shook her head; they didn’t need to see that. “You don’t want us to go?” She shook her head again. “Okay, we’ll check on you when it’s over. Is that okay?” She nodded. When the fire stopped, it would be okay. “All right, they’re almost here. Two more hallways.”

Phoebe knew he was keeping up the commentary to distract her. She also realized at the same time that the only way he knew what was going on was through some connection to Lucy. She couldn’t think about it any further. Lucy burst through the door, and Dorian was right behind her. Before Phoebe could even think, he scooped her up and was running again, leaving the others behind. Dorian was very gentle, but the slightest movement made the fire worse, and she screamed. Dorian pulled her closer to his chest and ran faster. Phoebe cradled her horribly burned arms in front of her as best she could.

“Make it stop,” she cried.

“It’s okay; it’s okay. We’re going to get you help in just a minute. I can’t believe I didn’t notice.” Dorian was running down stairs now. “I thought it was just soot and ash.”

Her arm hit his chest, and she screamed again. He was practically sobbing now. “I’m so sorry. Just a minute more, I promise. You’re going to be all right.”

Phoebe should have had someone else take her. Even through all the fire, she couldn’t bear to have him look so upset. She clamped her jaw shut again. A minute later, he stopped and kicked a door open and ran inside. She heard the scuffling of two sets of small feet as they entered, and she was laid down on a bed.

“She’s burned, her arms and her legs, and a little over her neck. Help her.”

Two small figures popped up on either side of her. She couldn’t take in their appearance. The fire was burning; she was trying not to scream. Something poked and prodded at her burns, and she started shaking. It was like having a knife stuck into her with every prod.

“What are you doing? She’s having convulsions. Just help her.”

“Sir, you must remain calm. We have to assess the injuries.”

Dorian growled and started pacing. With every touch, a thousand knives made the burning worse. Phoebe wasn’t sure if she was even still breathing. Everything was blurred as she shook uncontrollably. Then she felt ripping, horrible awful ripping, pulling her skin away. The burning raged out of control. She screamed. Dorian’s carefully controlled, reined-in emotions broke free of their cage, and everything went black.

Phoebe didn’t know if it was ten minutes or ten hours later. She only noticed that the burning was gone and was replaced by something else. Something cool and soothing as a feather-light pressure traced the side of her face. The smell of burning skin was gone, and she heard soft murmuring around her. She cautiously stretched out her arms, seeing if the fire was really gone. They felt whole. She took a deep breath of relief.

“Phoebe? Phoebe, are you okay?” A silky soft voice whispered in her ear.

Phoebe opened her eyes. She was still in the infirmary. She turned her head to the right to see Dorian sitting on the edge of her bed. His hand was the something gently touching her face. She slowly sat up and looked down at her arms. They were pink, but otherwise unmarked. Her legs were also pink, but whole. She had on clean clothes. She looked up into Dorian’s silver eyes.

“What happened?” she asked. The details were incredibly blurry.

“You were in a fight with Kali. She burned you very badly. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before you walked off. I was focused on breaking up the battle.”

“No, I mean, how did they fix the burns, and how long have I been here?”

Dorian’s eyes constricted. Phoebe could tell it had been painful to watch whatever they had done. She searched his thoughts. Luckily the answer wasn’t hard to find. She watched him carry her to the infirmary; her screams had been physically painful for him. She watched as the two small witches had fluttered around her, looking at all her injuries. They’d poked and prodded, and she had started convulsing.

Then one of them had pulled off the diseased, blackened pieces of skin. That’s when she’d screamed and passed out. Another witch had started pouring elixirs down her throat and used her wand to make Phoebe swallow. Then she watched as new skin had started to form and heal over the wounds. The witches had rubbed a cream over all the new skin. Dorian had left for a few minutes; that must have been when they’d changed her clothes, and then Dorian had sat on the edge of the bed to wait for her to wake up. It was only an hour and a half later.

She pulled out of Dorian’s thoughts. “I’m so sorry. My screaming, I could tell it hurt you.” She was whispering. It wasn’t necessary, but she couldn’t do anything else.

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest. She breathed in the smell that was uniquely his. “I am sorry you were in so much pain,” he whispered.

“It was my own fault. I’m the one who fought with her,” Phoebe replied.

“She started it. I saw it from a window on the fifth floor. That’s why it took me so long to get there. You were only defending yourself.”

“Maybe, but I wanted it. I wanted to fight her.” She hated to admit it. She was afraid he would pull away and be angry with her.

She didn’t want to move. He smelled so good and was so comfortable. She didn’t want to move ever again. He sighed into her hair. “I know, but you didn’t make the first move. That’s what counts.”