Frost Fire (Tortured Elements) (24 page)

Drake felt the last remaining blood rush away from his face.

Dad laughed. “What’s this? You look pale.” He shook his head, a smirk slowly forming on his lips. “Did you really think I wouldn’t have an informant in the Sentinel? They called me hours ago and told me you failed your task. Oh, come now, don’t look so shocked. It’s only common sense to have an insider in the Sentinel. And that’s one thing I have that you never will: intelligence.”

Drake looked back down to the corpse. Dad’s previous words echoed in his mind: ‘Kill the girl, and I won’t lay a finger on your mother. Otherwise, she’ll be dead before you can do anything about it.’ Drake’s voice trembled as he said, “This isn’t my fault. It’s not my fault you killed her!”

Dad scoffed. “Nothing is ever your fault, is it?” He made a vague gesture to the body. “Clean this up. Then we’ll talk about your punishment for failing.”

Drake froze for a moment. Then he nodded. “Alright. But I’m going to step outside. Just to get a fresh breath of air for a minute.”

“Only for a minute,” Dad snapped. “Then I want you back in here.”

Drake’s legs carried him back out the door he’d just walked in. Numbness set in, and he didn’t notice anything around him. He just patted the keys to his truck, feeling that they were still in his pocket. And his truck was still parked in the driveway. He walked up to it and climbed in, starting the engine without really realizing it.

He made it a quarter of the way down the driveway before he heard Dad’s hunting shriek calling after him. And only a few yards further before his first tear hit the steering wheel.

Allai didn’t want to open her eyes. Her senses had returned, and she could hear the faint droning of the nearby highway, and feel Drake slipping his fingertips away from her cheek. But she didn’t dare open her eyes and face him.

“Little Nox?” Drake asked quietly. “Are you okay?”

Allai shook her head. “I’m sorry.” She swiped at the trails of tears dampening her cheeks. But then she dropped her hand and just let the tears come. “Drake, I’m… I’m just sorry.”

“I shouldn’t have showed you that memory.” He cleared his throat. “That was rude of me.”

He sounded pained. Not sad or horrified, like Allai expected. Just pained. She wondered if he’d seen the memory as he transferred it, but then she realized that was a pointless question to ask. He probably saw that memory dozens of times every day.

Allai opened her eyes. Drake was still holding her close to him, but he wasn’t looking at her anymore. He stared out the window, his lips set in a tight line and his expression serious. Allai wondered why he wasn’t crying. Because she was crying, and it wasn’t even her memory.

Drake rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, you wanted to know what happened afterwards. And, yeah. That’s what happened.”

“Rhaize killed your mom because of me,” Allai murmured. Her mind spun, the world spun, and she wanted to close her eyes again. But she couldn’t. Not while facing Drake. “It’s my fault. If I’d died, if you’d killed me, he never would have—”

“Stop it,” Drake snapped. “You’re being ridiculous.”

She met his eyes. He made it difficult, casting his gaze out the window and away from her. But she still managed to catch the pangs of guilt in his expression. “Am I really?” she whispered.

He closed his eyes for a moment. “I blamed you for a while. Both of us, really. Me for not killing you, and you for not dying.”

“I can understand that.”

“You shouldn’t,” he said. “Because it’s not your fault. It’s Dad’s fault. He killed her, and he’s responsible. No one else.”

“You truly believe that?”

Drake dropped his head back, his closed eyes staring blankly at the ceiling of the truck. “I walked in on my mom’s corpse,” he murmured. “I don’t have faith in a lot of things after that. But I honestly believe you didn’t do anything wrong, little Nox.”

“And what about you, Drake? Do you think
you
did anything wrong?”

She knew it was a bad question to ask the moment he opened his eyes and focused them on her. There was anger in them. Not anger towards her, and not violent anger. It was the simmering kind of rage she’d seen in the eyes of some Sentinel warriors. Luke used to say that was the most dangerous kind, and that it ate away at a person until they did something either stupid or deadly. Or both.

“I don’t think I’ll ever do anything right, little Nox,” Drake answered, his lip lifting into a smirk. She didn’t know what was funny. She wasn’t sure he knew, either. That smirk just seemed to be his way of flipping off the world.

“You saved me from that Trident,” Allai said. “And you’re helping me get to the Chimeras. Isn’t that the right thing to do?”

He just shrugged and looked back out the window. She thought she understood what he was thinking: He was helping her, and maybe it
was
the right thing to do. But she was still going to die. And that wasn’t right.

“I still have one more question left,” Allai said softly.

Drake nodded and absently brushed a strand of hair away from Allai’s face. He let his fingers trail over her neck as he tucked the strand behind her ear, causing a shiver to run along her skin. “Yeah, you do,” he said. “What’re you going to ask?”

She reached up and cupped his jaw in her hand. Then she tilted it down, so that he had to look at her right in the eyes. “Why aren’t you using my name anymore? You just keep calling me ‘little Nox’. You used my name yesterday. Then you just stopped.”

His eyes widened a little, like he hadn’t been expecting the question. “You…” He trailed off and bit at his lip. “You were always just the girl. I mean, back then, you didn’t have a name. But that didn’t matter; I still kept you safe, and you kept me sane. But now you have a name, and… I guess I just don’t want things to change. I don’t want
us
to change.”

Her breath caught in her throat. She titled his jaw down more, so their eyes were almost level. “Drake,” she murmured, “I’ll always be that girl. I’ll always need someone by my side, no matter what happens. And you’ll be that someone, for as long as you want to be.”

His lips pressed against hers. Allai wasn’t expecting the kiss, and she froze. But she quickly recovered and gave into it. Drake’s lips were gentle, almost like he was afraid of hurting her. But his kiss became more possessive as she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing herself closer.

She’d never felt so close to someone. With the warmth of his arms around her, and the feel of his heartbeat beating with hers, and his lips pressed against hers; she wanted the moment to go on forever.

Drake was the one who finally drew away. He rested his forehead against hers, so that he could look directly into her eyes. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you,” he whispered. “Okay, Allai?”

She took a deep breath and leaned into him. “And I’m not going to leave you. Not until you stop telling me that.”

He smiled that lopsided smile he had. “Then you’re going to be sticking around for a long time.”

She closed her eyes, silently hoping he was right.

Drake stared down the road, watching as the white lines of the pavement whipped past the truck. They were making him nauseous, one white line after another, after another, after another. It was like some form of visual Chinese water torture.

But he kept driving. Allai was fast asleep next to him, her head resting in his lap. Every time he glanced down at her, he had to force himself to grit his teeth, take a deep breath, and just look back to the road. It was the only way he could keep his panic from taking over.

He didn’t know how he was going to save her. A day and a half had passed since Tanner had told him about the splintering. Thirty-eight hours, to be exact. And he still didn’t know who her parent was, or how to even begin searching for them.

So he just kept driving. Every few hours he’d try calling Luke, but the damn viper wasn’t picking up, and the cell phone was almost out of battery. And Allai was getting worse. He could hear her voice weakening, her breaths becoming shallower. That spell was sucking the life out of her, and all he could do was just drive down this damn highway and curse her allusive parent.

Drake shook his head and tried to focus on driving. Fields bordered the highway, and fog rose up from the rows of crops. He’d always hated fog; it gave him this nagging feeling that a monster was going to come bursting out of it at any moment. He probably wouldn’t have even noticed if one did; he was too tired. And everything hurt. His arms trying to steer, his foot on the pedal, and especially his neck.

He took one hand off the wheel to rub at the throbbing scars on his collarbone. He tried not to think of the clan tattoo his fingers brushed over. He always tried not to think about that.

The jagged edge of his thumbnail scratched one of the scars, and he bit back a scream. He’d always wanted to kill someone for the pain the old bite-marks caused, but even now that Silas was dead, he didn’t feel any better. Dad had always hated it when he complained about those bite-mark scars.
‘Shut up and quit whining. They’re just scars, and they’re healed,’
he’d snarl. But Dad didn’t get it. The pain of the Persequor bites never truly went away; it lingered like a bad bruise, on some days flaring up and spreading across his entire body.

Today was one of those days. A small part of him hoped the girl slept for a really long time, because he didn’t feel like company. And he didn’t feel like driving, or running from Dad, or trying to reverse the spell. He just felt like curling up in a ball and growling at anyone that came near.

But he had to do those things. He had to for the girl.

Allai dashed his hopes of peace and quiet at about six in the morning. She jolted awake, her lips forming a silent scream. It took her a moment to recognize her surroundings. When she did, she wrapped her arms around Drake’s neck and buried her face in his chest.

It hurt. Damn, it hurt. But then she gave out a little whimper, and he didn’t have the heart to ask her to take her arms away from the scars.

“You okay?” He seemed to ask that a lot more than he should have to. If he was any good at protecting her, then he would never have to ask her that. But he was a terrible protector. He was a failure.

“I just…” She took a shaky breath. “I had a bad dream.”

“A flashback?”

“Yeah. About the other night. I mean, I’ve had flashbacks before, about… well, you. But not like this. This was like real life.”

He nodded. “Yeah, those kinds happen.”

She shivered, and Drake reached over and cranked the heater up. It was already warm in the truck, and he knew it was useless, but he just hated seeing her shiver.

Allai stared out the window, her eyes watching those sickening white lines. “Do they ever get better?”

“No. Less frequent, yes. But better? No.” He might as well be honest; she was getting better at discerning a lie from a truth. And at least he was kindly keeping the worst part from her: The flashbacks just got worse. He didn’t know why. Maybe it was because the guilt gradually increased, or because memory faded and imagination filled in the blanks.

Allai shivered harder. He reached to turn the heater up, but it was already on full blast. She didn’t even seem to notice.

“What’s the matter?” Allai asked after a minute of silence. “You look angry.”

She sounded concerned, which just made him feel selfish and useless. She was worried about him, when she could barely survive her own problems. He shouldn’t give her any reason to be worried.

“I’m not angry.” It was a lie—he’d give anything for a brick wall to punch. But he wouldn’t let her know that. “It’s just the Persequor bite. It’s not a big deal.”

He didn’t feel like explaining that it was the
bites
and not the
bite.
Just one bite wouldn’t make him feel this terrible. It was the dozen or so scars he had and the hundreds of painful memories that made him so sick.

“But you’re smirking,” Allai said. “That’s not a good sign. It means you’re pissed.”

“I’m fine,” he snapped. “You can just go back to sleep.”

She scoffed. “You’re kidding, right?”

He rubbed his thumb against the steering wheel. Back and forth, back and forth; up and down, up and down. He’d worn a little smooth spot in the leather over the years. Years of late-night drives and recklessly speeding down backroads, hoping not to run into any cops. And hoping to escape the memories. “Your flashback was that bad?” he murmured.

“Like real life. Only worse.” She quickly changed the subject. “You look like absolute
hell
.”

He grunted. Maybe he should tell her to be quiet and just
pretend
to sleep. She wasn’t helping, just sitting there and stating the obvious. But then, was she doing any harm? Not really.

He shifted the truck into the next lane. He didn’t really have to, but he tried to tell himself it was mildly productive. It was at least movement, and what was it Dad had always said about that?
‘Movement is key, Drake. Especially for idiots like you. If you keep moving, and keep reacting fast enough, people might not even have the time to realize how inept you are.’

He wondered how true that was. Did the girl realize how badly he was failing? He hoped so. He didn’t want it to dawn on her right as she died.

“You know, you can’t just keep your anger all cooped-up,” Allai said softly. “I’ve seen some Warriors try to do that. It never works. It’ll just destroy you.”

Drake could feel her gaze on him. He knew she expected him to look back and give some kind of acknowledgement of what she’d just said. So he didn’t. He just ignored her and rubbed his thumb against the steering wheel. Because the girl was wrong. Anger wasn’t something that would break him down. Anger was what kept him alive.

A tense moment passed, and then Allai said, “Tell me more about the Chimeras.”

Drake closed his eyes in relief for a single second. At least Allai had the common sense to know when it was time to change the subject. “The Chimeras aren’t what you’d expect. They’re just a group of normal people who happen to have magic.”