“Did you finally find something about him?” I asked Lily as soon as Jaiden and I entered the room. After a few days of no progress, I was hoping for some good news. Noah, Kenna, Nick, Ashley, Sam, and Marissa were sitting around a table, and three of Lily’s men were present too. Lily turned to us, the lines around her eyes more prominent.
“Yeah, I’m about to tell you everything. Please take a seat,” she said, and Jaiden and I settled ourselves in the two empty seats at the front of the table.
“We’ll have to act fast because the local authorities aren’t happy with us right now and think we invented a threat when there isn’t one. They even sent one of their investigators who’s a tainted elemental to check the minds of everyone who was at the casino, which means they could probably find out about the mind control the guy used and blame us for it.” Lily sighed.
“I thought you said you had some good news when you called us here,” Noah said. “This doesn’t sound good at all.”
“I wanted to tell the bad first. The good news... well, if you can count it as good... is that we identified our mystery guy. His name is Phil Clarkens. He’s supposed to be just a regular air elemental. He’s thirty-nine years old, and is officially a citizen of our country. We have a photo of him. I don’t know how he got his powers because he’s way too old to be a tainted, but we know how scientists like to play with our genes, and maybe someone succeeded in turning an adult into a tainted.” Lily’s face was grave, and I wondered why that news hadn’t cheered her up more. “But...”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Nick whispered.
“But,” Lily repeated, “most of the data about him has either been erased or was never even collected. The latest info about him is that he graduated from high school, and since then, there’s no record of him anywhere. I don’t know how he got here or what he’s doing, because there are no credit cards in his name or any indication that he ever went through customs in any country.”
“Does that mean he got his powers before he decided to go on a trip around to world to hunt down some special serum for God knows what?” Noah asked.
“It’s a possibility, yes,” Lily said. “But we might have found a clue as to why he’s in this area.”
“Oh?” Noah said. “Does it have anything to do with that serum he wants?”
Lily nodded. “There’s a factory in Marseilles that collects elemental energy. We have reasons to believe that’s his next target. The factory has apparently been working on a secret new development, but they aren’t allowed to say much about it.”
“So Phil is supposed to go there? Is he forcing them to create the serum for him?” I asked.
“Yeah, I made some contacts, and it looks like there’s an important meeting happening in a few hours, so I think that’s it. I already dispatched my team there under the pretext that we’re testing the factory’s security. We’ll try to use an element blocker in the factory, and install weapons in the room where the meeting is supposed to be held. Maybe the reason Phil escaped is because we were too late to turn on the blockers, so he was fast enough to fly out. This time the blockers will be on from the start, and the weapons will be ready to shoot as soon as Phil is in range. If he can defeat our elements easily, maybe he won’t be able to avoid so many bullets.”
“And what are we going to do?” Noah’s brow furrowed. “If everything’s automatic...”
“We’re going to wait outside and be ready if Phil somehow defeats our guns, so we can catch him once he’s out. If we’re lucky, he’ll be wounded, or at least his energy will be down if he has to use it to shut our blocker down,” Lily said. “And we won’t be inside the factory, so he’ll have to use a lot of energy if he wants to cover the whole area around it and freeze us all. Besides, with some of you flying around, it should be harder for him to do that.”
“Does Phil have any family or friends? Someone we could ask about him or...” Jaiden said.
“I already checked, but no one knows much about him. He’s been gone for a while, and even if they knew something, their memories were erased. Phil didn’t have any brothers or sisters. His parents are dead, and it doesn’t look like he got close with anyone,” Lily said. “And even if he did, it’s very unlikely we’ll find that person now. So gear up, and let’s go.”
“Before we go, can Moira try to mind-control us so we don’t respond to Phil’s mind control? Would that work if he tried to freeze us?” Noah asked.
I shrugged. “I can try, but I don’t know if it’ll work. His ability to immobilize us might not have anything to do with our minds. As for mind control, I can make you maybe slightly more resistant to it, but if he can fry your brain signals... I’m not sure anything I order you to do will be of much help.”
“I’d still prefer you do it,” Noah said. “We have nothing to lose.”
“Okay,” I said.
We all got to our feet and hurried to get ready. I wondered if we’d be able to catch Phil this time or if he’d see us coming. We had to make sure he wouldn’t spot us and flee... if he showed up at all.
It took us an hour to get ready and one more to fly to our destination. We didn’t want to use any vehicles that could be seen coming from miles away, and we couldn’t exactly drive invisible cars and hope we didn’t cause an accident. The factory was surrounded by thick woods, so it was easy for us to hide in the branches. Those of us who could turn into air were flying above and watching, while those who couldn’t were waiting on the ground, concealed in the trees.
“What if none of us can see him once he’s out?” Noah asked as he floated next to me.
“We hope we’ll be able to spot him, especially if he’s wounded or weakened. And if that doesn’t work, we should at least be able to predict when he’s coming out and we should try to create nets out of our elements around the exits.” Actually, Jaiden was flying a bit farther from us, and once we received an alert from the factory that Phil was there, Jaiden would spread his air as far as he could and try to catch the guy if everything else failed.
“Okay, I’ll go check the other side.” Noah whooshed away, and I just floated there, eyeing the factory. Everything was calm, and there weren’t any cars coming or going. Minutes passed, and I wasn’t sure if the guy was ever going to show up, so I lowered myself onto one strong-looking big branch and turned visible, taking my phone out of my pocket. It was still working, and there were no alerts of any kind. Judging by the time on my phone, Phil was already supposed to be here, so where was he?
Multiple shots rang out from the factory, and I immediately turned into air, surging up, but I was too far to see anything.
“He’s at the main door. Get him!” someone yelled, and we all came out from our hiding spots and rushed toward Phil. I didn’t wait to come closer to send a blast of air at the man who was running across the parking lot. It didn’t look like he had any wounds, so I wondered what had happened to the multiple guns that Lily had set up. Apparently, those were based on some simple system that could be easily triggered and not on technology, but Phil must have avoided them all somehow.
He was visible and on foot, so maybe his energy was down. Still, when my air was about to hit him, he deflected it easily with his own. Someone raised a huge wave of water in front of him, but Phil just burst through it as if it didn’t exist. Shit! He was still too strong for us.
I landed behind his back and threw multiple fireballs at him, but instead of smashing into him, they bounced off an invisible wall. Turning visible, I lunged myself at him. He barely dodged me, and I ended up rolling on the ground, but he lost his balance and tripped. As he tried to catch himself, someone hurled a huge fireball at the car nearby, which exploded, the force of it flinging me across the parking lot.
I covered my head as burning bits and pieces flew around me, and I formed an air shield to protect myself. When I could see again, Phil’s body was shimmering and he lifted himself up in the air. An air element wrapped itself around him, and I created a shimmering net right above it, but not close enough to touch it. More air nets were positioned one atop another as the others came to help.
“Try to shrink your nets slowly. Just be careful not to cancel each other out,” Noah yelled, and we carefully tightened the nets around the shimmering cloud that was Phil. The shimmering intensified and I felt light pressure against my shield, but nothing that I couldn’t handle. Everyone was doing fine too, until a branch came out of nowhere and wrapped itself around my foot.
I fell to the ground, the control of my air faltering, but I gritted my teeth, kicking at the branch that was trying to wind itself around me. Letting my second element surge out, I turned my legs completely into fire and the branches started to crack and burn. As I kicked off the ashes and stood up, a strong burst of something hit me in the back, sending me to the ground again.
Did Phil have more than one element or had he brought help? Another explosion rocked the parking lot as another car ended up in flames. When I looked up, my air net was still around the shimmering cloud, but the other nets were mostly gone. Just as I was about to check what had happened to the others, I spotted a thin shimmering thread breaking through all the nets and making its way across the ground toward me. Water splashed the asphalt, and I jumped back.
“Can someone cut through that shimmering thread?” I yelled, because I was sure that if I used my air to break through the thread, my net would go down too. Instead of an answer, a fireball flew in my direction, and I realized Marissa was running toward me and was ready to throw another fireball at me. Fuck. He’d gotten into their minds! But how? Hadn’t my protection stopped him?
My heart skipped a beat. What if he’d destroyed their brain signals and there was no way to get them to stop fighting us? Oh, God. My net of air was still in place, but if I didn’t do something soon, Marissa would be on me. A scream brought my attention to Nick and Noah, who were fighting. There were vicious cuts covering Nick’s body and his shirt was soaked in blood.
Not too far from them, Ashley and Sam were going at each other with their elements. I had to stop this. I couldn’t let my friends hurt each other. Forcing more of my strength into the net, I tried to squeeze it completely around Phil, but instead of pinning him to the ground, my net exploded into tiny shimmering bits.
I swore when I saw Phil flying away, and I hoped Jaiden was ready for him. Luckily, Phil hadn’t mind-controlled Jaiden or me, because if he had... I shuddered at the thought, and flung my air toward Marissa, who was only a few steps away from me. When she chucked a fireball at me, I hunched down, my air going for her head.
I was barely breathing when I entered her mind and captured her signals, ordering her to stop. She froze in spot, her eyes starting at me. A bit of the tension left my shoulders when I saw the signals were only darkened and not shriveled, so I immediately healed them all. As soon as I pulled back, I expanded my air toward Noah, Nick, and the others, entering their minds and healing them.
“What happened?” Marissa blinked at me.
“He mind-controlled you, but luckily it wasn’t permanent, so I healed your minds.” I finally pushed myself up as everyone started coming toward Marissa and me, some holding their hands over their wounds, some looking bewildered.
“Oh, God. I did that? I’m so sorry.” Noah’s voice cracked as he looked at the cuts on Nick’s chest and arms.
“It wasn’t you.” Nick shook his head.
“I know, but...”
“He got away. Again!” Kenna threw her hands up in frustration, one part of her shirt singed.
“Where’s Jaiden?” I turned around, but I couldn’t see him anywhere.
“He wasn’t here,” Noah said. “Maybe...”
I didn’t wait for him to finish the sentence, just turned into air and flew up. Nausea rose in my invisible throat as I looked everywhere for any sign of Jaiden. A figure lying on the ground caught my eye and I immediately plunged toward it.
“Jaiden!” I yelled as I turned visible and crouched next to him. His eyes were closed, his body unmoving, and I immediately pushed my air into his mind, my heart thudding so loudly that I couldn’t hear anything else. None of the signals in his mind looked shriveled, so I pulled out. “Jaiden, hey, wake up!” I shook him gently, checking for any wounds, but aside from scrapes and bruises, I didn’t see anything serious. His eyes finally opened and he looked up at me.
“Oh thank God.” I pulled him close to me, planting a kiss on the top of his head.
“Where’s Phil? Did we...?” Jaiden asked.
“No, he got away.” I let go of him and got to my feet. “How did you end up here?”
“I was trying to catch a shimmering cloud that was coming toward me, but it sent a blast at me, and I lost my balance. The next thing I know, I was on the ground and visible again.” He pushed himself up, his shoulders tense. “How did he pass through all of us again?”
“I’ll tell you everything.” I took hold of his hand. “Come on. We should get back and see if everyone’s fine. I hope he didn’t hurt anyone inside the factory.”
As we threaded through the trees, I wondered what we could do that would stop Phil once and for all.