Turning Tides (20 page)

“Care to fill us in on just what happened today?” Miriam looked at me a little too closely, as if wondering which parts of the story I’d omitted.

They deserved to know. They should know, for their own safety and for mine. I needed people I trusted watching my back.

I didn’t want to tell them. I didn’t want Simon to decide it was safer to permanently live with Carmen. I didn’t want Miriam, my newest friend, to figure out I was more bother than I was worth. More than anything, I couldn’t stand for Mac to put distance between us again.

But those were my worries, my insecurities, and I couldn’t let them make the decision for me. I opened my mouth to tell them what I’d almost done to Rachel.

I didn’t get one word out before the three shifters covered their sensitive ears. Even I winced at the noise.

It took me a second to understand what I was hearing. I’d only heard such a sound once before, the day of my trial. The day Edith was killed.

Horror flooded me as another explosion assaulted our ears. The deafening noise came from the island.

Chapter 19

I didn’t wait to see
how the others reacted. I dove into the sea and called every bit of magic I possessed to push me toward the shore. I didn’t need to guess where the explosions originated. Despite the distance between the houseboat and the beach, my fire instinctively knew, and it urged me toward the western side of the island.

When the shore was in sight, a third blast, even louder than the first two, fueled my panic. My ears rang, but I refused to spare any magic to speed their healing. I needed to reach the house. I needed to reach Sera.

I didn’t beat the crowd drawn to the western side of the island by the explosion. I dragged myself from the sea and stumbled across the shore, feet churning in sand that seemed determined to trap me.

Fire, Sera could survive. It only made her stronger. It’s what fueled her, what defined her. She could stand in a bonfire and only have a healthy glow to show for her troubles.

An explosion, however, would have an entirely different effect. Sera couldn’t repair her body if it was blown into hundreds of tiny pieces.

I crossed the hundred feet or so to the small cottage. It was even smaller, now that everything except the back wall lay in pieces on the beach.

The house was completely obliterated. Wood and plaster were strewn across the ground, along with chunks of furniture and broken glass. Stubborn flames clung to the wreckage, and black smoke rose against the darkening sky.

My fire reached toward it, curious and greedy, and I didn’t try to stop it.

I studied the debris with panicked eyes, looking for any sign of Sera or Josiah buried beneath the rubble. A single shoe rested near the gathered waters, a beat-up old boot Sera had worn the day before. I froze, unable to move any closer lest I discover the shoe still held a foot.

Though the others could have easily put out the flames, they chose to stand quietly, murmuring amongst themselves as they watched the house burn.

“What happened?” I demanded of no one in particular. “Where’s Sera?”

Many chose not to meet my eyes, and those who did looked at me with pity. No one answered, until Grams stepped out of the crowd.

“I haven’t seen her. We only arrived a minute ago.”

I inched toward the burning remains that had once been a house, dreading what I might find. There were no steps to climb, but I grabbed onto the scarred floor and prepared to boost myself up. Strong arms grasped my arms, Grams and my mother pulling me back.

“Think, Aidan.” My mother spoke in a whisper no one else could hear. “You can’t go in there. The fire would kill you.”

It wouldn’t, of course, but it was a necessary reminder that the others would be mighty surprised to see me walk unharmed through the flames.

They’d have no idea if I accessed that part of my magic, however. I turned away, hiding my expression as I ceded control to my other half, and I sent the fire across the island.

I moved it in a radius, one hundred feet in every direction, looking for any sign someone else was accessing their magic. When I found nothing, I moved further down the beach and tried again, and then again, until at last I felt it. It was weak and fading, but it was undoubtedly a fire elemental.

I felt no anger right now. Shock and fear and horror, but no anger, so when it was time to release the fire and call my water back to me, it didn’t fight. I sent my magic into the ocean, where I’d picked up the signal, and asked it to grab hold. One thick wave after another fell across the shore, dousing the fire and sweeping the pieces that had once been a house out to sea. Even when the flames were extinguished, I kept going, ordering the ocean to the beach time and again.

The eighth wave I called returned a water-logged computer to the land along with two fire elementals.

“Sera!” I ran toward her limp body. She looked awful. Her clothes were torn and blackened, and while she appeared to have four limbs and a head, she wasn’t moving.

She wasn’t breathing, either. I thought I’d been panicked before, but that had only been a teaser. It was like the sand and my own body conspired to keep me from her, every movement pained and sluggish.

Josiah lay next to her, flat on his back and staring at the stars.

After what felt like a small eternity, I reached Sera and roughly pulled her upright. “Hold on,” I told her. With no other warning, I launched my magic into her lungs, grabbing hold of the water she’d inhaled and forcing it upwards, out of her body.

It wasn’t enough. I repeated the action, expelling every last drop until her lungs were empty. She was alive, damn it. She just needed to breathe.

I knew I couldn’t bring a second person back to life without ruining myself. I also knew, if it came to that, I would do it anyway. This was Sera.

I didn’t look behind me, but I sensed my family circling us. While their silent support was better than nothing, it still wasn’t enough.

I focused inward, trying to recreate the anger and desperation and clarity of the night I healed Mac. Maybe I would have found it, had my mother not grabbed my hair and yanked my head backwards, distracting me. Her message was clear: whatever the cost, she would not let me destroy myself.

That day, at least, it didn’t prove necessary.

There was no space between death and life. One moment she was limp and still. The next, her eyes flew open and her body convulsed, retching and coughing, attempting to reject the intrusion of the water and my magic.

“Oh, thank you. Thank you.” The words came out in a sob, gratitude and relief battling the slow anger I allowed myself to feel, now that I knew she would live.

“Serafina.” A hand reached out to grab hers. Josiah, looking weaker than I’d ever seen him, stared at his daughter. When he met my eyes, I saw the same potent mix of emotions that coursed through me.

If someone didn’t die for this explosion, it wouldn’t be for lack of trying on his part.

Even so, our priority was still Sera, and we watched her closely, needing confirmation that she was unharmed.

She looked between us. I was used to seeing her black eyes glowing with intelligence and energy, but at that moment she only looked tired. Tired, and a tiny bit amused. “This is what it takes to make you stop fighting? You two are hard work.”

Somehow, I found a way to smile around the sobs that threatened to burst from me. “Still more pleasant than a group therapy session, right?”

She started to laugh, which turned into a cough. Josiah patted her back, ignoring her dark glare and mutters about not needing to be burped.

At last, she sat up on her own. Color returned to her face, and I thought she was reaching out to the few small flames I hadn’t succeeded in putting out, feeding on them as best she could.

Josiah stood. Though he was unsteady on his feet, he already appeared mostly healed. The waters all took several steps back as he moved around the shore. He paid them no attention. They meant nothing to him.

Instead, he picked up the largest piece of wood he could find and fed the flame, building it into a respectable bonfire and placing it next to Sera.

I closed my eyes, hoping “out of sight, out of mind” applied to magic, as well. I could still feel the fire’s warmth, even feel Sera’s magic reaching toward it. Several deep breaths later, I was as controlled as I was likely to be, and I opened my eyes to see Josiah, Sera, my mother, and Grams all staring at me in concern.

“I’m fine,” I muttered, irritated. “Can we just once not worry about me going off the deep end?” My aunts looked at each other in confusion, but I was too exhausted to speak in code. “What the hell happened here?”

Josiah stared at what had once been a house, his face ricocheting from anger to confusion to doubt, none of which comforted me. If Josiah didn’t know what was happening or why, there was little hope for the rest of us.

Sera stood shakily, but once she was upright she gained strength by the minute. She continued to feed on the fire, walking in slow circles around the flames. Sera always thought best when she was moving, so I took this as a good sign.

“It happened so fast. I was in the kitchen, getting something to drink—”

“The wine!” Marie interrupted, her face horrified at the loss of so much quality booze. “Is it all gone?” Tina wrapped a consoling arm around her in a moment of shared and inappropriate grief.

“—And there was a loud noise. I thought it might be a gunshot at first.” She swallowed, and she wasn’t the only one who looked nervous. Elementals lived exceptionally long lives, but our magic had its limits. We’d been born from the union of magic and humans. It was our origin story, and our weakness. It was why we looked human, and it was why a gunshot or knife wound or explosion would kill us as easily as it would any human.

Suffice it to say, elementals donated a lot of money to gun safety groups and spent little time at firing ranges.

Sera shook her head to clear it. “My father was in the living room, and the blast threw him backwards. He slammed into the kitchen counter.”

Josiah rubbed the base of his spine. “The force was strong enough to break my back.” He said this the way a human might say they stubbed their toe. “Fortunately, by this point the house was already catching fire, so I was able to heal it before the second blast.”

Sera looked at the ruined house. “The second was in the bedroom.”

“Which one?” I interrupted.

“Yours.” We exchanged a long look, one full of questions. We didn’t know if the bomber thought I was still there, or if they’d been informed Josiah would be staying in the house. Though someone new might be trying to kill me, I felt only relief that Sera wasn’t the target.

Josiah didn’t share my relief. His face darkened at the mere possibility that someone might want me dead. “We didn’t want to see if the third time was the charm, so I grabbed Sera and jumped through the new hole created in the living room floor. We landed in the ocean, and I tried to swim toward the shore, but the third blast pushed us the other direction.”

Sera stopped pacing, and her voice was so tightly controlled I could only guess at the turmoil below her words. “And then I don’t remember anything. The third one knocked us out, at least until you found us.”

I released a ragged breath. She was alive. Logically, I knew this. She was right before me, breathing on her own, her wounds from the explosions already healed by the fire. Somehow, it wasn’t enough. Part of me, that place far below the conscious mind, the part that rejected rationality and empirical facts, refused to believe Sera and Josiah were safe.

If they’d been in the bedroom when it exploded, they wouldn’t be. If I’d been a few minutes later, they wouldn’t be. If I hadn’t accessed my fire side to find them, they wouldn’t be.

It was pure dumb luck that they were still here, and I wasn’t ready to count on our luck holding.

I stood and faced the island residents, looking at each one in turn. Everyone was present. My extended family. Lana and David. The council. Whoever had done this, they were here, watching.

One by one, their gazes dropped. I doubted it was guilt that caused them to avoid my stare. I could feel the rage and anger in my eyes, the gray hardening to steel. My face didn’t feel fluid and expressive. It might as well have been sculpted from granite. I didn’t show them anger, for that’s not what I felt. I felt cold.

“Someone on this island did this.” My voice was clear, the words carrying with no effort to every witness. “Someone attempted to kill my best friend and her father. I do not care that Josiah confessed to all the murders. I do not care that the fire elementals are strangers to most of you. I really don’t care about anything right now, except finding the person who did this and making them pay. You may think Josiah had it coming, but you are wrong. He is innocent, and only confessed to spare his daughter. I am absolutely certain of this.” The crowd started at my proclamation, and behind me Josiah protested. I ignored them all. I was so tired of lies and half-truths and secrets. “If you take two seconds to think about it, you’ll know I’m right. This was an explosion, same as the one that killed Edith Lake. Whoever created that explosion did this one, as well, and Sera and Josiah sure as hell didn’t try to blow themselves up. Someone else did this, just as someone else killed Edith.”

I paused letting my words sink in.

“What about Rachel?”

I sought out the speaker, finding him standing between the two remaining council members.

“Do you really want to discuss why Josiah killed Rachel at this particular moment, Michael?”

He held my gaze for only a second before dropping his eyes in defeat.

The crowd murmured questions, and I spoke again, refusing to allow them to be distracted.

“Sera and Josiah will be staying with me tonight, on a houseboat anchored to the west. I am giving no one else a chance to hurt them.”

I stared at the three remaining council members, daring them to disagree. They no longer looked like powerful representatives of one of the elementals’ oldest bodies. They looked scared and uncertain, willing to hand over control to someone else if it meant they could live long enough to get off this island. One by one, they nodded.

“No one on this island is safe. We may not understand what is happening, but we know that much. Don’t be alone. Call on your element often, to stay strong.” As I spoke, I sent out my own magic, knowing every scared water on the island was doing the same. My magic intertwined with my aunts’, my mother’s, my grandmother’s. It found Lana’s, splashing in a nearby canal, and circled to my extended family, people I hadn’t seen in years but whose magic I still knew. I even sent it toward the council. I danced between them all, reminding them what we shared.

It was what connected us to the land and the water, but it was also what connected us to each other. As our power greeted one elemental after another, tension disappeared from shoulders and faces lightened, distrust easing with the reminder of what we meant to each other.

When I spoke again, I found my anger and coldness had vanished. “We will solve this, but we must work together. No more secrets. If you know anything you believe will find the person committing these awful crimes, you must tell me. For all our safety, we must end this.”