ICE (The Benders Series) (21 page)

Kenna said nothing, but glared intently at her uncle.

“Here, this’ll help.” With that said, he reached for her leg again. In the same place as before, he gave her leg a tight squeeze. But Kenna did not give in immediately. Instead, she bit down on her lip as hard as she could, using all of her will to keep her mouth shut.

But it was useless. Suddenly the pain overwhelmed her, and she was forced to let out a series of blood-curdling screams.

“That’ll do, Kenna. That’ll do,” he mocked as he patted the girl on the head. Kenna tried to bite at his hand as he did it but wasn’t quick enough to land a blow.

Kenna hollered in fury as he laughed at her futile attempt. In a state of unimaginable anger, Kenna tried again to bolt and lunge from the chair but was once again met with a hit from the hard floor.

“Pretty boy should be here shortly. I think that’s a good place for you,” her uncle noted with a smile that was followed by his continuing laughter.

“Why?!” she shrieked back at him.

There had never been a laugh that she despised more than the one she heard at this moment. Not Chelsea’s, not Jason’s, not anyone’s.

“Well, I suppose I could let you in on the secret. After all, there’s a good chance that this will be the last time I see you,” he said with a sneer. “Tonight will mark the beginning of a new era in bending. It won’t only be Jon and Elisa that perish tonight, but almost fifty of the few full-blooded ice benders still left. In one assault we will wipe out the future of ice bending, or at least most of it. Tonight, a new war begins.”

Kenna’s breathing was fast and loud. “But why? What did they do to you?” she argued as best as she could, still hoping to buy some time.

“They existed Kenna. It’s like light and dark. Do we really need darkness?”

“Yes!” Kenna said off the cuff. “Without darkness-“

“There would just be light!” he shouted. “And it is time for our little light show to begin.”

Before Kenna could further her argument, the man backed himself into the doorway and began to move his arms in a very fast and powerful motion. His knees started bent with his arms hanging rigidly downward.  And as his knees began to straighten, his fists opened, and his shoulders flexed his arms upward so that they seemed to make a giant circle around him. And when this happened, enormous flames began to shoot from his extended limbs so that the entire doorway was engulfed in orange fire.

Kenna could instantly feel the heat of the flames as her chair lay only a few yards their blaze. Thinking that he might have been done, Kenna opened her mouth to speak, but before words came out, flames shot once again from the man’s palms and set the opposite wall on fire.

Though only seconds had passed, smoke began to fill the room as Kenna had become completely surrounded by the intense fire.

“Make sure you scream,” the man laughed as he walked away. “We want lover boy to know exactly where you are!”

With that said, her uncle walked slowly and confidently through the burning doorway, the flames having no effect on the man.

“No!” Kenna screamed. She began to fight her chair again as the smoke began to fill her lungs. “No!” she hollered again though she knew it wouldn’t accomplish a thing at this point.

She was alone, and the flames were only getting larger.

For several minutes, she lay there, fighting her chair, not knowing how she might escape.

And then, footsteps. Loud, fast footsteps.

No,
her internal voice said.
It can’t be him, please not him.

She thought about staying silent but knew that if it were Jon, surely he wouldn’t give up until he found her.

“Help!” she heard herself call into the flames, praying it would be her father who shot out of the fire, and not her cold-blooded Colewell.

But it wasn’t.

Suddenly, Jon burst through the doorway. Without a word, he sprinted toward her and bent down and picked up both her and the chair that held her captive. Kenna heard nothing but his heavy steps and the loud flames as he tore through the building, dodging the falling boards and crumbling walls and floors as he did.

She’d never been so thankful for his coordination as he weaved in and out of the fire, managing to keep them both as safe from the blaze as possible.

Though it seemed like hours, in less than a minute, they were out of the building as Jon fell to the ground, only yards from the firestorm.

“Jon,” she breathed. She was still tied to the chair and lay there helplessly against the grass. “Untie me,” she demanded as her hands began to wrestle the knots behind her.

With the adrenaline surging through her body, Kenna hadn’t taken the time to observe Jon. His breathing was fast and crackling as he lay there when she finally turned her eyes to him.

“Jon!” she screamed as she realized why he hadn’t bothered with the ropes and why he’d collapsed on the ground in the first place.

The Colewell was on his back. His eyes were completely white, and she could see where his skin seemed to be melting from the inside out. He was burning alive, and right in front of her.

“Jon!” she screamed again, praying he would be able to respond.

He couldn’t.

His back was beginning to arch until he was almost only on his toes and shoulders.

“Help! Somebody help!” Kenna yelled at the top of her lungs. Despite the smoke intoxication, her words were loud and clear as she called. “Jon!” she screamed at him again, still hoping he might suddenly come out of his shock.

Instead, things went from bad, to worse. Suddenly, his back shot to the ground and his body began to seize.

“No! Someone help us!” she hollered as she began to attempt to free herself even more frantically than before. “Help us!”

When she began to survey her surroundings, it became apparent to her that help might never come. They were laying a few body lengths away from a blazing, old building. The place itself seemed surrounded by trees and fields. It was like they were in the middle of nowhere.

As she continued to scan the abandoned lot, she began to hear voices from what she assumed was the other side of the building…and they were getting closer.

In a matter of a few short moments, Elisa, her uncle, and several other benders came into view. From what she could make of it, the main battle was between Elisa and Ray, a battle that was almost too intricate and fast to describe.

The man was shooting fire at the Colewell as she backed away, creating giant and powerful ice shields to defend herself. Her uncle was clearly on the offensive as were all the other fire benders present at the battle. Kenna couldn’t say who was winning, but it didn’t seem in favor of the ice elementalists.

“Help!” she screamed again as loudly as possible. The flames were getting closer, and the girl was inhaling more and more smoke as she lay there.

Then Jon abruptly stopped seizing. Turning quickly to the boy, she began to immediately panic as his breathing had also stopped.

“Jon!” she cried as she tried to scoot herself closer.

As she did, Bryce and another boy about his age appeared seemingly out of thin air.

“Get her to the hospital,” Bryce instructed as the other boy began to work at her knots. Bryce bent down near his brother. “Stay with me, Jon, stay with me,” he whispered as he began his examination.

“Bryce, he had a seizure, he isn’t-,” But as she spoke, she began in an intense bout of coughing that she could not control. As she sputtered and tried to gain control, she felt the ropes loosen, and she fell away from the chair.

Using what strength she had, Kenna crawled her way closer to Jon. Bryce had just begun chest performing rescue breaths, but she realized that Jon still wasn’t breathing.

“Jon!” she cried as she touched his brown hair. But her words were strangled by the smoke, and she was unable to say anymore.

“Get her out of here!” Bryce hollered to the other boy. He was swift and obedient as he grabbed Kenna and began to haul her away from her dying hero.

“No!” she screamed and fought as he pulled her further and further away.

But as she struggled, she felt herself growing weak and dizzy.

And before she knew it, everything once again went black.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Sound.

“Kenna?”

Her father’s voice was the first thing she heard.

Kenna’s eyes remained closed as she lay there. Her senses were slow to come to her. She could hear an annoying beeping and a few distant shuffling sounds.

“Kenna?”

At this point, it registered in her brain that her father was indeed trying to communicate with her. The girl thought she opened her eyes, but there was only black. Black, and pain. Her eyelids closed immediately from the irritation. But as she blinked, the room began to make itself clearer and the pain began to lessen.

Above her were several large, rectangular lights. They were so bright that they almost made her just as blinded as she originally was upon waking. The rest of the room was white except for a few cool-colored decorations and a window that gave view to a few neighboring rooftops.  And it was clean. Not just in looks either, the room smelled fresh with subtle hints of some kind of fruity sanitizer.

As those first few seconds passed, Kenna suddenly realized where she was.

In a hospital room.

At the realization, her memories began to flood her mind.

Her uncle.

The fire.

Jon.

Where was Jon?

Her eyes suddenly went wide with fear as she shot up to a sit from her reclining position on the hospital bed.

“Jon!”

Her voice was hoarse, and she could feel her chest muscles using every effort to spit out the word.

“Shhhh!” the man instructed as he placed a calming hand on her shoulder to indicate that she should rest.

But the adrenaline in Kenna’s body had begun to flow again. She quickly whipped off her blanket and made a move to stand. To her displeasure, her father caught her and held her firmly on the bed.

“Kenna! You inhaled too much smoke. Your leg is covered in third-degree burns! You are dehydrated! The doctors are monitoring your oxygen. You need to stay put!” The man did his best to explain as she fought him for a moment. But the brief struggle made her become very weak, and she felt her consciousness drifting once more.

At this time, a loud beeping began, a beeping different than that of the heart monitor that she’d first heard. And in no time at all, a nurse had rushed into the room and with her father’s help, forced the girl back into her reclined position. The male nurse also placed an oxygen mask over the girl’s face as her eyelids began to flutter.

“Kenna, this is Josh, and I am your nurse,” his voice was deep, soothing, and sympathetic. “We know you’ve been through quite an experience, but for the moment, we need you to rest and recover.”

She felt her head nod just slightly, her body otherwise too weak to respond to the matter.

After several minutes, she felt her consciousness returning though this time it came with fatigue instead of a surge of adrenaline. It was just her and her father in the room again.

“Dad?” she whispered. Realizing that there was an intense pain in her throat, she reached for her neck as if it might provide some relief.

“Careful of your IV,” he warned as he came close to her bedside. “Do you need more pain meds? They said your throat would be sore after intubation.”

Kenna felt her face form a countenance of confusion.

“Dad? What’s going on?” For a second, she thought maybe it was all a bad dream and that none of what she was experiencing was real.

“Kenna, you are in the hospital. You’ve been unconscious for two days,” he explained as he took one of her hands in his. “I was so afraid, Kenna.”

“Where’s Jon?”

Kenna’s eye’s focused right on her father’s.  But as they did, the man began to break into a cry.

“Kenna, I thought you were dead.” He wept as he squeezed her hand tightly. “Seeing them put those tubes down your throat…you just lying there…I just…”

Kenna felt tears begin to sting her eyes at his dodging of the question. “Where is Jon?” she repeated unsympathetically.

The man let out a few sniffles as his cries came under control.

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “I haven’t heard anything.”

Kenna felt her lower lip begin to quiver. “Dad,” she whispered as the emotions began to overwhelm her. “I think he’s dead.”

Her father’s head hung as he shook it. “I’ve tried reaching out to few old friends, but no one has responded. I’m sorry, honey.”

At the words, her whole body began to shake. “He wasn’t breathing, Dad. He wasn’t breathing.”

He came closer now and removed the oxygen mask from her face being that her levels had steadied again. With one arm wrapped around her, the man pulled her in for a soft but sturdy embrace.

“It’s too soon to know for sure,” he comforted as she wept into his chest. “I don’t want to jump to any conclusions just yet.”

But as she recalled the details of her last encounter with Jon, the tears only came faster and harder. When she last saw the Colewell, he had just stopped seizing, and his chest had stopped moving up and down to indicate life. His whole body was scalded, even worse than when he’d been on his couch after their brief intimate experience.

In her mind, there was no way he could have survived. In her mind, there was no way that any of the ice benders had survived.

“They’re all dead,” she heard herself say. “Dad, they are all dead.”

At this, he shook his head in disagreement. “Kenna, there’s not a lot that I know right now, but I do know that your uncle is no longer alive,” he said. She could hear the anger in his voice at the forced mention of his vile brother.

“But how?” Kenna asked as a few more droplets trickled down her cheeks and into the fabric of her father’s shirt.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know much of anything except that that monster is dead.”

“I don’t understand,” she acknowledged as she pushed herself away from her father to look him in the face. “I thought you and Ray were friends?”

He paused for a moment. “That’s what I thought too.” A brief stare down commenced as she tried to search for answers in his eyes, but she found none. “I’m sorry Kenna,” he broke down again. “This is all my fault.”

The girl let him catch his breath before she spoke. “I still don’t understand. What happened?” she questioned as she wiped some of her snot on her hospital gown.

Her father caught his breath and let out a long sigh. “It’s difficult to explain.”

“Well, I need answers, Dad. And lots of them,” she said firmly, her eyes never leaving his. But her questioning and confused expression was too much for the man as he turned away from her and took a stand near the window. “Dad? What happened?” Kenna asked again.

He shook his head slowly as he stared out the window, his hand wiping away imaginary sweat as he pondered the question.

Finally, he opened his mouth.

“A long time ago,” he started, and Kenna knew an extended explanation was about to begin, “I worked with your uncle. We were…good…at bending. We were very good. Well, I was very good.” He paused as he folded his arms across his chest. He still wasn’t facing her, clearly uncomfortable, or maybe ashamed. “I was one of the best of the best for a period of time. I was so good that I was even in the highest of the inner political circles of the flame elementalists. Your uncle wasn’t as good, but having the same last name as me did win him some favor.”

“I get it,” Kenna interrupted. “You were really good. But what does that mean?”

“I’ll get there,” he replied quickly. “There’s a lot you don’t know.” Kenna took the deepest breath she could manage as she prepared for whatever was to come. “As I was saying, I was high up there. If there were plans or weren’t plans, I certainly knew about them, even came up with some of them or followed through with some of them.” He paused again as his eyes found the floor. “I did a lot of bad things, Kenna. And if I didn’t do them, I planned them. And if I didn’t plan them, then I certainly knew about them and did nothing to stop them.”

Kenna nodded as she remembered her uncle’s words. “Ray said that you were a deserter. A traitor. But I feel like you were a lot worse than that,” she confessed in a hushed tone. “Did you kill people, Dad?”

Silence filled the room, and it was enough to answer her question.

Finally, he spoke again. But Kenna had pivoted away from him as tears began to fall again. “Kenna, I’m sorry every day for the things I’ve done. I pray every day that Jesus forgives me,” he said. “And I know that’s not enough, and I know that it doesn’t make up for anything. But you have to understand, it was a different life. I was brainwashed into thinking that there was an enemy where there wasn’t. I mean, you believe what the media tells you about terrorists, don’t you? You just believe them.
I
just believed them. I was naive. And stupid. And I can’t take it back.”

Kenna could hear the regret in the way his voice shook. But it wasn’t enough for her to forgive him off the bat.

“How could you kill people?” she interrogated as angrily as her pained throat would allow.

“Eventually, I asked myself that same question. But it wasn’t until after I met your mother. She saved me,” he confessed as his eyes turned back to the window.

“That dirty cheater?” Kenna mumbled, her resentment clearer than her words.

“What?” her father inquired. “Your mother never cheated on me, Kenna. She never wanted to divorce in the first place.”

Their eyes met again. This time, Kenna’s eyes were positioned in a deep glare. “Well, then you are still naïve. She had a different dude over a few months later,” Kenna shot at him without mercy.

“I suppose that’s how it looked to you. You mother never told you the truth?” He seemed perplexed. Kenna shrugged her shoulders, not sure how to respond. “Kenna…I should have told you.”

“Told me what? Now you’re gonna tell me that all the hatred that I’ve thrown at mom should have been directed at you?!” Kenna felt her blood begin to boil, and her face begin to redden.

Her father sighed again. “Maybe,” he admitted. “Kenna, I did a lot of bad things. They were catching up with me. I loved your mother. Still do. But from the moment she and I began seeing each other, I was met with a great deal of disapproval by the other benders. A full blood with a regular old human? The only thing worse than that would have been dating an ice bender. But I didn’t care. I hid that life from her and continued to fall in love with her. She was so perfect. She was funny, her wit would have matched yours. She was beautiful, smart, she was everything and then some. Even with the threats I was receiving, I went ahead and married her. And then we had you.”

“And they still didn’t throw you out?” she asked with an irritated roll of her eyes.

“No, I was still way too good to let go,” he answered. “But having you changed things. It put things in a different perspective. Having kids just does that. I started to want different things. I didn’t want to do the traveling anymore. I didn’t want anything to do with any of it. But there was also the possibility that you would bend. And then what? I had to maintain my status just in case you were a bender. They all joked that you’d be the best flame moiety of your time.”

Kenna let out a half-laugh half-snort. “Well how disappointing for all of you.”

“A relief,” he corrected instantly. “Do you have any idea how relieved I was when I officially realized that you were not a bender? It was my out. It was our out. Our family could move on. Or at least that’s what I thought.”

The room was quiet again for a time before Kenna forced herself to ask, “But what? What happened between you and mom? Or you and the flame benders?”

The man began to pace the room slowly as he spoke. “I began to realize that getting out wasn’t that simple. And all this time I’d been hiding it all from your mother and I was beginning to realize that I couldn’t do that anymore. And so one day, I just told her everything. And it broke her.”

He had begun to bite his nails in an attempt to hold back the tears. “And I loved her Kenna, but it broke her heart. And I realized that we could never be the same and that she could never heal as long as she was with me. I loved her, and so I had to let her go.”

“So you told her everything that you did? But you criticized Jon for telling me the truth right off the bat? You are such a hypocrite,” Kenna said, the passage of Jon’s name forcing more tears to leave her eyes.

It took several moments for him to come up with a response. “Maybe you are right. But I didn’t have a problem with Jon telling you about Jon, I had a problem with Jon telling you about me. You just don’t understand what it was like to watch you date a boy who I had deemed an enemy and a threat for decades of my life.”

“But you already said that that was all a lie so why would you have been so terrible to Jon?!”

“I would have been terrible to any boy you brought home. And every day that you got closer to Jon, you got further from me. Jon was young and dumb, just like I was. And the last thing I wanted was for you to end up with someone who was like me,” he shot back at his daughter as his calm voice went a little angry. “He still tried to rape you, Kenna! That’s how out of control he was!”

“Well lucky you! Now he’s dead, and you have one less ice bender to worry about!” Kenna hollered despite her pain and weakness.