Chapter Twenty

Brae

Today was already off to a shitty start.

Seeing the bruises on Marley’s neck made me even less sure about what we were getting ready to do. Humans were so fragile. How could I put her through any kind of experiment, no matter if I’d already thought about its safety from every angle?

And yet, what choice did I have?

Sooner rather than later, the rest of my clan would discover I’d failed them. That the oculus was no longer in my possession, despite the fact that I could still reach out and touch it.

And it was only a matter of days before Cassen himself showed up for a rematch.

I couldn’t bluff my way through a fight with him like I could with one of his lackeys. Without the full extent of my oculus’s power, he’d pound me into the ground. And there’d be no getting up this time.

Then there was the fact that I was physically drained. Even walking was taxing. It had been a long, long time since I’d felt this weak. My little showdown with Cade and Tifa had zapped me more than I’d thought it would. But I hadn’t tried to summon lightning without the oculus in over seven years, and I’d forgotten that lightning was made of energy…and that energy had to come from somewhere. Mainly my own body.

Literally the only thing keeping me going was an energy bar and a cup of coffee. I’d never felt more like a human.

Our walk through the park was silent, and I was glad for it. During our drive, her questions and remarks had reinforced a very large gap that I already knew existed. Not that I wanted to necessarily close that gap—she was a distraction and liability I couldn’t afford to have—but it just made this whole ordeal harder. If she hated us for our powers and somehow blamed us for all the storms that had ever injured, killed, or destroyed livelihoods, then this tenuous deal between us could break. Very easily.

After walking through a thin forest of chinkapin and bur oak trees, I stopped in a wide clearing. Off to the side were picnic tables and grill sites. Plenty of signs about camping rules lined the perimeter of the area, but still humans had seemingly ignored them. A few snack wrappers were wedged between the wooden boards of the table, and cigarette butts had been ground into the dirt.

With an annoyed snarl, I wiped my hand across the scene and a breeze jumped at my call. It swept up the wrappers and cigarette butts and the garbage danced as the wind carried it all to the large trash can mere feet away.

“You did that.”

Marley’s voice almost startled me. She’d been so quiet that I’d forgotten she was right behind me.

“Just a little wind,” I said.

“How do you do it?” she asked, circling around me to stare at my hand.

I wanted to answer, I don’t know, how do you learn how to ride a bike? You just do it. But I’d promised her knowledge, and I tried to give her a fair answer. “We control the atmospheric pressures. Raising them and lowering them allows the gases in the air to move.”

With wide eyes, she glanced back toward the trash can. “But you’re so precise.”

“That’s practice.” I crossed over to a picnic table and slid my leg underneath, straddling the bench. When she didn’t follow, I drummed my fingers on the wood. “Your turn.”

Marley ran her hands up and down her arms and glanced around the clearing. Then she looked skyward, as if checking to see that I hadn’t called down any storms. But no, the sky was a lovely blue with little water vapor in the air. That didn’t exactly bode well for me with how exhausted I was, but if this experiment worked, I’d be feeling better in minutes.

“Marley?” I prompted.

“Fine. Okay fine,” she snapped. She stalked over to the other side of the table and swung her legs around the bench to sit, straight-backed, across from me. “What do I need to do?”

“Hold out your hands.”

Her lips twisted to the side in irritation, probably thinking of the last time I’d made her do it, but she obliged. I pulled the crystal pendant from my pocket and dropped it into her hands. Then, before she could realize what it was, I enclosed her hands with mine and summoned the oculus’s energy.

The tempest roared inside her, swirling with power, answering my call. Marley’s hands jerked in my grip as the power rushed to the surface of her skin to meet mine. But I tried to redirect its flow, rejecting it, to flow in the opposite direction.

Redirecting an electrical current wasn’t easy, but if I could push its power back into the enelia crystal…

But it didn’t seem to want to budge. I could feel the power push and pull like the moon and the tide. Resisting.

The oculus was acting like a rebellious child. If that was even possible. For as long as I could remember, our people had treated it like an endless power source that protected our clan. Never something that could operate with a mind of its own.

But that’s what it felt like it was doing. Disobeying me.

Well screw that.

I dug deeper. With all the strength and control I could muster, I guided the lightning into the crystal. It was like trying to bench-press five hundred pounds of pure energy. It was physically heavy and mentally exhausting. Sweat beaded on my temples and before I could stop it, the lightning exploded outward, like a water leak out of a pipe. Too much pressure and only one place to go.

Crackling ribbons of purple electricity burst from Marley’s skin and zapped my own. It took everything in me to keep my hands where they were and allow the lightning’s harmful volts into me. I wasn’t immune to the electricity, just more adept at handling it. It still hurt like a son of a bitch. But it was either that or let the lightning fly into a nearby tree and start a fire.

When I felt the final bit of electricity drain into me, I jumped from the table and shook out my hands that were now smoking, breathing through my teeth. My skin was purple and blistering in the places where the lightning bolts had shot, while stinging pain pulsed through all my nerve endings.

Marley stood too, her expression downright furious. “You tried to get it back into the crystal!” she shouted.

I ignored her, too consumed with pain and panic to respond. Pushing it back into the crystal had been the only clear plan I had. If it wouldn’t go into me, or back into the crystal, then what other options were there? None. Not a damn one. All secrets of the oculus were gone with the planet of its origin. My home.

Rising anxiety hit my chest as Marley stomped her way over to me and shoved her phone in my face. It had her brother’s face on the screen. “I’m calling my brother to come and pick me up. We’re done.”

“Of course I tried to put the oculus back in the crystal,” I growled. “You cannot keep it.”

Her blue eyes narrowed. “That’s not the point, is it? You lied to me about your experiment.”

I sighed, digging my knuckles into my forehead, then winced. Apparently there were blisters on my knuckles, too. “I didn’t lie to you. I flexed the truth.” I gestured to the crystal still on the table. “This is a material from our planet.”

Marley let out a frustrated noise from the back of her throat. “Are all aliens this pedantic?” Then she moved her hand to grab my wrist. Not having been expecting her touch, much less for her to seize me with such conviction, I nearly jumped out of my skin.

“You’re hurt,” she said, her blond brows pulled together as she turned my wrist to inspect my hand and the dark purple-ish wounds. If she thought it weird that my blood was violet, she didn’t mention it. “I thought that the lightning couldn’t hurt you.”

Her voice had changed from the angry, waspish tone to something between gentle and fascination.

“Oh, it can still hurt me.”

“But the times before—”

“I was absorbing the power into me. This time I was trying to use it against its will,” I flexed my hand and the blisters glistened in the morning sunlight. “It attacked me like it would any enemy.”

“With that much heat, your hand should be charred,” Marley said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I’ve got tough skin.”

“I’ve noticed.”

I looked down at her and saw the pinkness of her cheeks. Her grip on my wrist slackened, and somehow I felt that same strange sensation zipping up and down my arm, orienting directly from her touch. Like when she stroked my palm. It was oddly pleasant and…unsettling, but I didn’t move away.

“Should we get some first aid for you? We’ve got a kit back home,” she asked, finally dropping her hand. “Not for me. Patrick is the klutz in the family.”

“Human medicine doesn’t work well with our bodies. Besides, it’ll heal fine anyway.”

It looked like she wanted to argue, but instead she only folded her arms and frowned. “Whatever you say.”

A twinge of guilt that I hadn’t been expecting hit me in the gut. She’d trusted me and basically I’d thrown it back in her face. She should be calling her brother to take her home, but instead she was standing there worrying about these wounds that would probably heal by the evening.

“Sorry I tricked you.”

Marley shot me an irritated glance then nodded at my blistered, smoking hands. “You got yours, so I guess we’re even. If you think about it, maybe your all-powerful weapon is really trying to tell you to leave it where it is.”

I took a very controlled breath, each next word packed tight with restraint. “You have no idea what’s at stake. My people are counting on me. I don’t want to hurt you, Marley, or force you, but I need the oculus back.”

“Why? What’s at stake? What’s so important that you must have a mega powerful weapon at your disposal at any given second?”

It was the one question I didn’t want to answer. Telling her about Cassen, about the truth of our clans and the fate of our planet…it would make her even less likely to help us. Not just that, it would scare her out of her mind.

“Is it because of those two enlil from yesterday? It’s not just about protecting me, is it? The clan they belong to have been fighting with yours for a while, huh?”

It was truly surprising how much she’d picked up just from that one interaction. And I’d tried to give her short answers, too.

“How did you…”

She shrugged. “Alessi might’ve hinted there have been issues with other clans.”

I made a mental note to get on my lieutenant about that. Even though she saw Marley as a friend, she trusted humans far too quickly and readily.

“Fine. Yes. There’s a clan leader who wants to take me out. He wants my oculus. The oculus inside you. That’s why they will kill you to get it if they find out about you. And then my clan and I will be defenseless.”

Color drained from her face. With wide eyes, she looked down at the ground and then placed a hand to her mouth. For a second, I thought she was going to be sick; instead she spun around and headed back toward the path that led to the parking lot. In four long strides, I was right behind her, gripping her right above the elbow.

“See? This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” I said, waiting until she stopped fully before dropping my hand from her arm. “You’re scared.”

“Scared? Why would I be scared? Just some ruthless aliens with tornado powers could want me dead. No biggie.” Her voice was breathless. Somewhat strangled.

“Marley, I told you, I won’t let anything happen to you. But we’ve got to work together.”

“Yeah? Well, you haven’t exactly been the team player here today.” Her blue eyes blazed a bright sapphire and her cheeks were flushed with rage. Wisps of her blond curls escaped her ponytail and brushed her skin with a strong breeze. Much against my will, I noticed how beautiful and fierce she was in her passion.

I closed my eyes so I could stop noticing. I dropped my forehead into my hand and sighed. “It’s not like you would’ve let me put it back into the enelia crystal even if I’d asked nicely.”

Marley opened and closed her mouth, then she let out a growl. “That’s beside the point. You still lied to me. What a great way to get me to trust you. You can keep your little enela crys—”

“Enelia.”

“Enos. Enlil. What is it with you guys in words that start with en. Does that mean something in your language?”

I shrugged. “Not really, just more of a derivative of the name of our planet. But Enos does have a translation in English.”

“Which is?”

“Born of Storms.”

Marley’s eyes widened and she opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment the wind picked up.