Chapter Twenty-Two

Brae

Cassen left. He walked calmly past the picnic tables and onto the path, disappearing into the patch of oak trees.

I stayed where I was, holding Marley against me, for the better part of five minutes. Well after he was gone.

“Um, Brae?” She moved in my arms, pushing her elbow into my chest and trying to pry herself away.

Realizing she was still on my lap, I quickly let go and we both scrambled away like two repelling magnets. The warmth of her still lingered on my clothes, and the memory of her body’s soft curves made it hard to concentrate on anything.

Earth was spinning. Too fast for me to hold on to something. And hold on to what exactly? I was alone in a sea of meteors, each one hotter and faster and deadlier than the last. One of them would destroy me, I just wasn’t sure which.

Cassen had gotten stronger somehow. I’d suspected it during our last fight, but now I was certain. There was no way he’d just walk away from that lightning strike and three days later be completely unscathed. I didn’t care if he did have the wind oculus, its restorative powers didn’t work that fast. How had he even been standing there? Practically toying with me?

And now he’d met Marley.

I couldn’t think of a worse situation.

Her ridiculous plan seemed to have worked, though. With our bodies so close, it would’ve been exceedingly difficult to tell where the energy of the oculus began and ended. Of course, my heart had almost stopped entirely when he nearly shook her hand. If he had, there would’ve been no way to explain it. He was an oculus holder—he would know the feel of one when he touched it.

Thankfully, he’d bought my bluff. His smug grin told me that he thought it was absolutely hilarious that I had a human girlfriend.

The irony was that about ten minutes ago, I would’ve thought it equally hilarious. Before that final meteor had hit me. A meteor that was soft and warm and smelled like citrus.

A touch on my knee had me reeling back. “What?” I almost shouted.

Marley ripped her hand away, her blue eyes wide, reflecting the fear and stress coursing through me like nitrogen. “I’ve called your name like ten times. You’re freaking me out.”

I stood, my chest rising and falling with panicked breaths. “Good. You should be freaking out. Because we are in deep shit.”

That didn’t seem to surprise her, but her brows creased. “Do you think he felt the oculus in me, then? Guess my fake-out make-out idea didn’t work after all.”

I wiped a hand down my face. “Marley, if your idea hadn’t worked, I’d be fighting him right now.”

Her eyes widened. “He would’ve attacked me? Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

There was a brief, triumphant grin that passed her lips and it floored me. How could she possibly smile when she’d been so close to death just minutes ago? Did she not understand what I’d been trying to tell her over and over again?

She got to her feet and dusted off her jeans. “If my idea worked, then what are you so worried about?”

I let out a laugh of disbelief. “C’mon, Marley. You’re a human. I’ve seen your movies. Read your comic books. You should know villains always use the hero’s love interest against them.”

She cocked a blond brow. “Oh, so you’re the hero here?”

I glared at her. No, I wasn’t. Far from it.

“You know what I mean.”

She shrugged. “Okay, fine. It wasn’t the best plan. But there’s no going back now. So what was he talking about? He wants you on his team for what?”

I turned away, running my hands through my hair, my frustration reaching a tipping point. Enough trying to shield her. Maybe if she understood the danger she was in, she’d be more willing to cooperate and stop fighting me at every turn.

“Cassen is an oculus holder. Just like me. But he controls the oculus of wind. His affinity, and his clan’s, is air pressures, and he’s amazingly strong. The truth is…it’s not that he wants the lightning oculus for himself exactly, it’s that he wants me to join him. And lately he’s been pushing this choice on me: align myself with him, or he takes it for himself. Our last fight…he got very close to taking it.”

Marley stared at me with wide eyes and parted lips. The flush in her cheeks had gone and her skin was ghostly white—like the center of lightning.

“Join him in what?”

I stared at the ground, not yet willing to give voice to Cassen’s plan, especially not to Marley. I remembered his sales pitch from a little over two years ago and it had made me want to strangle him.

Enos here. On Earth.

Let our storms take out the humans and natural disasters will pave the way for a new home where we could live as one people. Not four clans, but one Enos.

That had been the first time we’d really fought on Earth. Why couldn’t he just accept we were refugees? We would survive here among the humans. Nothing more.

“It doesn’t matter, because it won’t happen,” I said finally.

“You just don’t want to scare me…” She bit her bottom lip, her gaze far-off, and I’d have given anything to know what she was thinking. Was she reconsidering her willingness to cooperate? Could I ask to try putting the oculus back into the crystal again without her biting my head off?

“Then you get why it’s so important for me to have the oculus back.”

She glanced over at me, her eyebrows pulling together as she seemed to consider my words. “If you get it back,” she began slowly, “you’re just going to fight again. You both will create more storms that could destroy lives and livelihoods.”

I stared at her. This girl…what was it going to take? “Marley, he will kill you once he finds out you have the oculus. And I won’t be able to stop him.”

She bowed her head, scuffing her sneaker in the dirt. “But you said the oculus would protect me.”

“I did not say that.”

“Not in those exact words, but yes, you did,” she snapped. “Back when Kai grabbed me by the throat, and then again when you tried to put it back into the crystal pendant. That was the oculus. And it was protecting me. Fighting back.”

“It won’t protect you against another oculus holder. Which is what Cassen is.”

She quickly shook her head. “I realize that. I just think it might be harder than you think it is. Look, I-I’m just asking for more time to think this through.”

“Marley, we don’t have time.”

“We also don’t have any idea how to get this oculus out of me. Whatever you tried with the crystal didn’t work! And you say you don’t want to hurt humans, but these are storms. Alien, deadly, supercells!” she exploded. For the first time that day, I detected real fear in her voice.

And that’s when it hit me: she was scared. Maybe really, really scared. She didn’t want to hold on to the oculus any more than I wanted her to have it. Sure, she was being stubborn, and even courageous in wanting to keep it…but it was all an act. Even as scared as she was, she still didn’t back down. Literally standing against thunder and lightning.

It made me wonder what storms had taken away from her.

We stood there for a moment, staring at each other. A cold stalemate.

Then she closed the gap between us. Almost as intimate as we’d been when she’d been on top of me. I felt that unfamiliar tension increase, a thick tangible connection between us. Push and pull—and those blue eyes pulled me in.

“Can you honestly say that your storms have never hurt anyone?”

Another meteor hit, burning me and destroying me until I was nothing more than a pile of ash.

I said nothing.