Chapter 57

Gray

Fire tore through my insides from the poisoned blade. My Elemental power stuttered, winking out.

“She’ll die from that,” Amethyst said with a shrug. “And you’ll die from this.” Her lip curled back as she raised her palm toward Chrome. “I know you’re poisoned and can’t use that vile Elemental magic of yours to protect you.”

Chrome stumbled back, groaning in pain. He clutched his sword tighter. She was searing him alive with her magic. I cried as I dropped to one knee, weakened by the poison spreading through my veins and engulfing them in white flames. “Chrome!”

Chrome continued to back away, his free hand going to his burning face. An anguished, raw scream echoed throughout the hallway. His legs, growing too weak to withstand his weight, collapsed beneath him.

Amethyst advanced on him with calculated prowess. Despite the pain and my better judgment, I noted he’d inherited that trait from her. “You think this is bad?” she said and then smirked at me. “Just wait until your father gets a hold of the two of you.” I couldn’t think past the pain. It was unbearable. I collapsed on my side, hugging my torso in the fetal position as I curled in on myself on the filthy, cold floor. I couldn’t breathe. And I could imagine Chrome was in the same condition as I.

I opened my eyes to find a blurry pair of black, polished loafers almost touching my nose. Then, I was hit with the poisonous magic of gamma rays. My organs felt like they were being soaked in acid.

Tears streamed down my cheeks. Only one person that I knew of could wield that form of magic.

My stomach twisted with intense nausea, adding to my agony. I didn’t even try to fight it. I couldn’t.

I vomited, my cheek pressed against the cold, dank floor.

My insides felt flayed to shreds. Dissolved.

“Finally, you learn your place, Daughter. Face down in a puddle of excrement. Weak. Dribbling at my feet like the useless whore that you are.” He lowered himself to a squat, a dark chuckle reaching my fading mind. “I knew you’d be back.”

I lifted my head from my chest. It was so fucking heavy, but the pain receded with each passing second.

We sat in the interrogation room at the end of the prison corridor.

A deep rumble growled from beside me. I lolled my head to the side to peek at Chrome in the same condition, glaring under a hooded brow. I followed his glare, feeling my body lighten from the agony, easing up on the strain of my neck.

My father stood in his immaculate glory, his vibrant green beard manicured to perfection and not a hair on his coifed head out of place. Forest swiped the dark sleeves of his suit so no speck of dirt was to be found.

I tested my body with the shake of my arms. Cold, magnetic cuffs bound my wrists to the bolted-down metal chair while the dented table pushed against my belly, leaving me no wiggle room.

My mind snagged on Cotton and Scarlett. I hoped wherever they went, they were safe and that Scarlett would recover. I couldn’t handle losing her after Hazel.

“Finally.” Forest’s refined voice broke through my confused state. “Now, we can get started. Unfortunately, we needed you two to be healed in order to proceed.” I noticed two empty syringes sitting beside two full ones, presumably the antidote to the redfern in the Kinetic blades.

Chrome jerked his arms in the chair, unable to contain his seething rage. He tried to lunge at the king but was instantly jerked back in his seat. “You have no fucking idea what the consequences could be if you succeed!”

Forest leveled him with a blank expression. “I don’t care. This world has always been fucked.” He looked down at his navy suit jacket, straightening the lapels as if that was the most important thing.

“What if nothing is left?” Chrome asked through a clenched jaw.

“Well, let it burn, then,” Forest said with a shrug. “It’s not like I’m the one who caused the EMP. Isn’t that right, Chrome?” He turned to me with an arrogant, knowing smirk.

Aside from the heaving breaths, Chrome stayed silent. I’d never seen him look so pissed.

It took a second for me to process what my father had just said, my brain skidding on the brakes. “What?” My dry mouth turned to sandpaper.

Forest’s face lit with a bright grin, his deep brown eyes sparkling with wickedness. “Ah, she doesn’t know, does she?” he scoffed. “Of course she doesn’t. She never was bright enough to see the truths right in front of her.”

I ignored the condescending jab and furrowed my brows, turning my head to face Chrome. “What is he talking about?” My voice was almost unrecognizable. No doubt I’d shredded my vocal cords with my screams.

Forest chuckled. “All the time you’ve spent with Chrome, and you have yet to discover the truth behind Devolution Day? My gods, you are fucking dense, Daughter. Must’ve been a trait from your mother.”

“What the hell are you going on about? No need for theatrics, Father,” I snapped. I’d had enough.

Forest crossed his arms and stood at ease on the other side of the table, a satisfied grin on his features. “It seems Chrome only divulges the truth when it benefits him.” He stroked his beard in thought. “Well, since he won’t be forthcoming himself, I’ll spill the tea instead. Chrome here is the one who—”

“I did it,” Chrome said, interrupting. His lip twitched as he bore his glare into Forest. “I am responsible for the EMP on Devolution Day. I was the EMP. But I did it to stop you to spare Elementals from being eradicated. You had the human military set to wipe us out with their technology. And if that wasn’t enough, you had the worldwide help of Kinetics. I had to take down the grid to stop it all. And it worked. I don’t regret it for a fucking second.”

I gawked at him, not understanding how I hadn’t put that together. EMP, electromagnetic pulse. The ability to control and manipulate electromagnetic waves. The memory of his pulses during the battle surfaced. How he kept saying his magic was unstable.

Holy gods. Chrome wiped out three-quarters of the human population in a single pulse.

I felt like a dumbass for not figuring it out. Even so, for him to take down all the power grids worldwide in a singular pulse required an unfathomable amount of power. So, it never crossed my mind that he could’ve been capable of such a feat unless…

“You had to deplete a second time to do it, didn’t you?” I asked, the rest of the pieces falling into place. He’d told me he’d depleted twice. Once, when he depleted Peri, but he never divulged about the second time. It must’ve been to take down the power grid in a last ditch effort to save his people.

Oh, Chrome.

Chrome dropped his head to his chest in silent admission.

Why hadn’t he told me this? He could’ve told me, and I would’ve understood. The fact he’d kept a monumental secret like this from me said he still didn’t trust me. Not the way I’d come to trust him, and that hurt.

“I’m sorry, Rainbow,” Chrome mumbled from beside me, still bound to his chair.

I didn’t respond; I just stared at the madman who reveled in our discord.

“Now that we have everything out in the open, let’s get on with it.” The king pushed to his feet and walked to the other side of the room to a table pressed against a wall. Placed on it were various items, but it didn’t look promising. A hand-crafted bronze bowl the color of Hazel’s hair—marked with uneven indentations around the sides—sat next to a sharp knife and an old tome.

The cracked, black text was ancient. Dark energy seeped from the book, its noxiousness poisoning the air in the confined room.

Forest retrieved the book with care and flipped through the pages until he must’ve landed on the one he sought. He came before us, holding the tome sprawled across his hands with the air of a pious leader gracing his disciples. “Isn’t this gift so lovely?” he asked with a maddened grin. “It was a precious gift from a sweet little sorceress before you two were thought of.”

“You mean a Tempest?” I asked, my brow raised, taking note of the fact he’d apparently been working with the Tempests from Arcadia for over two decades.

Forest sneered. “Yes, Daughter. A Tempest, those lovely little sorceresses in Arcadia. Maybe you’re not that daft after all.” He shrugged. “This book has been great for weakening the veil over time. But when you two came together, your powers weakened it that much more, allowing for the portal to open. But there are other useful spells.” Forest lifted his gaze to land on me. “Such as a nice, little protection spell that will keep your harmless little blasts from touching me once I activate it.” He smirked as he returned his attention to the book.

From the back of the room, Amethyst swayed toward the table, no doubt observing it all with barely concealed glee. She grabbed the bowl and the cloth beneath the knife before taking her place at Forest’s side.

Skimming his eyes between Chrome and me, he began reciting a passage in a foreign tongue.

Amethyst walked to my side and dropped into a crouch; the butcher knife in her hand glistened with malice. I thrashed in my seat.

Amethyst leaned into my ear. “I’ve always found your eternal shortcomings so amusing. This one, though? Definitely tops the list.” She snatched my handcuffed arm to expose the veins on my wrist. I writhed in my chair, tossing a stream of colorful curses as I did.

Amethyst’s elongated, plum nails dug into the joints of my wrist with an unyielding, sharp pressure, causing me to lurch forward with a cry. The edge of the table jammed into my diaphragm.

Forest never ceased the chanting, even when Amethyst carved a deep gash along my vein. I gasped as my blood cascaded to the dark, gray floor.

Amethyst reached for the bronze bowl from the tabletop to catch the flow of blood in its belly. I could feel my life force fleeing my body, but just as quickly, the cut stitched itself back together now that the redfern was being cleansed from my system.

Once the wound healed enough to the point it no longer provided a strong blood flow, Amethyst stood. Although, not before she swiped the blade across my cheek in a stinging gash.

With a victorious smirk, she sashayed with her cunning prowess to her son’s side. I grunted and nursed the cut she gave me, letting out another slew of curses her way, knowing she did it for no other reason than simply because she could.

Feeling an unfathomable rage set my body alight, I cast a sideways glance at Chrome. He fumed with a deadly silence, never veering his furious gaze from my chanting father. He knew they had us at a disadvantage and was simply biding his time until we could get out of the cuffs. Chrome didn’t put up a fight against Amethyst. He sat there as she sliced open his arm like she did mine, refusing to let her see him struggle.

When she stood, she stared at him, her expression trained on her son longer than expected. The tightness around her eyes softened, and her throat bobbed as if to swallow a fleeting emotion.

I narrowed my eyes at the momentary lapse I didn’t think she was capable of feeling. But she had. Rage burned through my body. Now she felt remorse for what she did to her son?

Fucking bitch.

As if she knew I’d caught her, Amethyst cut her eyes to me and curled her lip into a wicked grin before spinning to join Forest. He continued his chant, dropping a few small items from the table into the bowl. One by one, stones of varying shapes and colors, along with herbs I couldn’t identify, thunked into the bowl of our blood.

Smoke billowed from the surface, and my panic set in. Whatever he was doing couldn’t be good if it included our blood and began to smoke like that.

I didn’t know what else my father needed in order to complete this ritual, but my mind raced with potential escape plans.

My thoughts immediately went to the bond that Chrome and I shared. We didn’t know much, just that it connected us on a spiritual level and allowed us to do what other Kinetics and Elementals couldn’t, such as feeling one another’s emotions and taking control of one another’s magic. Oh, and opening a portal to an entirely new fucking world. No one really knew the full extent of the bond’s power yet, but maybe it could help right now.

Perhaps our bracelets only suppressed the magic within our bodies? The magic never left, it only laid dormant. But what if there was a literal tether connecting our souls? And what happened to that tether once we had sex and our magic seemed to intertwine?

I stared at Chrome’s devastatingly gorgeous profile as an idea formed. It was a long shot, but maybe it could work just this once. If I could free him somehow, then he could wield his metal element to set me free in return. I closed my eyes, trying to find a place of peace in the chaos.

He’d told me when he took control of my magic that he’d latched onto my aura, so that’s what I planned to do. I opened my eyes, ignoring the gut-wrenching signs of him accepting defeat, and focused on seeing the faint light surrounding his body instead.

Feeling the energetic fields around others had always been easy for me since I awakened my magic, but seeing them wasn’t common. Even amongst our kind, my vision had been superior. Now, knowing that I was a hybrid, I understood why.

The energy was bright around Chrome, yet swathes of shadows on the edges swallowed that light. My heart sank. He was on the edge, so close to letting the Endarkening process consume him and take what it was owed.

I shoved the fear away as I searched for a tether binding the two of us. Forest’s chant wound down as his voice rose in volume. I focused on the space between us, desperate to find something.

There was nothing at first, just air. The more I focused, the more frustrated I became. So, I pivoted to a different tactic. I remembered a technique I’d learned while meditating. Exhaling a heavy breath, I closed my eyes again and searched for the inner peace within me, grounding me while waiting for the anxious thoughts to move along.

I released all resistance and shut out my surroundings.

Opening my eyes once more, I held onto the blank state I was in. Without the energy of my thoughts and emotions clouding my sight, I spotted a faint chord of light connecting our heart chakras.

I dove back within myself and sought my well of magic. In my heart’s center, it sat nestled in a shimmering ball of blue-and-white light. I guided it to the entry point of the chord and gave it a sharp nudge, sending it down the bond to Chrome, shocking him from within with a pulse of my electrical energy combined with my air element.

Chrome gasped and jolted upright, his eyes wide with confusion. By sending a bit of my magic through the bond to him, it shocked his well of slumbering magic awake, even with the magnetic cuffs on. I could see the euphoria set in as he tried to hide the effects of feeling his magic return. It would be temporary, so he needed to act fast.

He turned to face me. A mixed expression of surprise, gratitude, and determination settled on his defined features as relief washed through him. His customary dark grin inched up the sides of his face as the cuffs connecting his wrists to the chairs clicked open.

Then mine followed.

Forest chanted, lost in a trance to whatever perverse language he guttered out with harsh breaks. Amethyst….

Amethyst was gone, no longer standing at his side.

Chrome rose to his feet with calculated restraint. No doubt, he’d already concocted a plan the moment he arrived at consciousness.

His black hair had returned to its natural chromatic state, as had the golden skin and the ignition of his silver currents.

Standing from my seat, I startled as a sharp point poked the skin on my neck, right above my carotid artery.

I stilled. Icy fingers slithered around to cup the back of my neck. “You do anything stupid, son, and she dies. It’s a full syringe of redfern and black crystal combined.”