Power Revealed (The Elementers) (32 page)

She hadn’t even reached the end of the block before a gust of wind hurled her against a chain link fence. Raven scanned the street and saw Alexei running toward her. Not good. Before even standing up, she connected to her element and shot a large pile of rubble at Alexei. He blew away the projectile heading toward his stomach, but he didn’t notice a discarded tire rim that she hurled from behind. It knocked him on his face and Raven got up and sprinted toward the main road hoping it might have knocked him out long enough to reach her destination.

Half way to the museum, her lungs were already beginning to burn. She wasn’t used to such a fast pace, but she knew she had to reach the museum and make that call before Alexei found her or a lot of people might be killed. A loud horn blaring and screech of tires caused Raven to turn around and see Alexei’s car run a red light and rocket down the road toward her. Despite being unable to outrun the car, impulse caused her to turn and run while trying to think of a way to stop Alexei. Pulling another car into Alexei might do the job and would seem normal, but Raven didn’t want to risk a stranger’s life. Throwing some large object at his car could never be explained, unless it was natural.

Raven reached out deep into the earth and just when she was ready to do it she spun around, braced her footing, and faced Alexei’s car quickly closing the fifty feet between them. Then she set off an earthquake and promptly ripped a gap in the road right in front of Alexei’s car and pulled up a massive pile of asphalt and dirt. Alexei braked and yanked his car to the right, but his momentum smashed the front driver’s side of his car directly into the solid obstacle. The earth works were certainly out of proportion to the magnitude of the earthquake, but Raven figured they would just think it was a weakness in the rock or some other explainable reason.

 Not waiting to see if Alexei was trapped in his car, Raven spun around and ran to the museum. Once she neared the main entrance, she slowed to a fast walk to look behind and to catch her breath somewhat before entering. Showing the stamp on her hand, Raven entered the museum and headed in the direction of the administrative offices. Last year, a pilot friend of her dad’s had given Raven a full behind the scenes tour of the museum. Raven had loved it all, but she never thought at the time it would have helped her in this way. Reaching the employee only door, Raven looked behind her to make sure no one was watching and then used the energy to unlock the door and slip into the hallway.

She heard employees on the phone and at work, but she walked past a few of them acting like she belonged there. The threat of being caught kept her heart rate pumping as fast as it had been during the run. Finally, she reached a small, empty meeting room with a speaker phone sitting on the center of the table. Looking up and down the hallway to make sure she wasn’t noticed, Raven then slipped into the room and locked the door. She picked up the speakerphone and tried to pull it over behind the door, but the cord was too short, so instead she sat down on the ground below the window and dialed 911.

“Seattle 911. What’s the exact location of your emergency?”

“It’s at Lannix Chemical Company on Othello Street near the King Country Airport.” Raven tried to talk in a different voice, but the nervousness made her voice crack and she tried to keep her voice down so no one would hear her in the hallway.

“What’s the nature of your emergency?”

“Someone is trying to blow up the factory. They’ve already damaged the fire system. Please hurry, a lot of people are in danger.”

“Ma’am, what makes you think someone is trying to blow up the factory?”

“Because I saw them. Just hurry. Please.” Then Raven hung up. She wasn’t prepared to answer any more questions. Clearly, the woman didn’t entirely believe her, but they’d have to send police and the fire department just in case it wasn’t a crank call. She set the phone back on the table, unlocked the door, and listened to make sure the hallway was clear. Forcing herself to not run down the hall, she swiftly exited the employee area and began walking ahead through the museum with no direction in mind trying to decide what to do next.

At least she knew that Justin would only have to deal with Boris since Alexei had come chasing after her. Raven was confident that Justin could handle Boris, which meant that he would be safe and the explosion should be avoided. But where should she go with Alexei possibly still on the loose? She doubted the car accident would have stopped Alexei for long. He was a snake and had a way of getting out of things. Should she return to the factory to help Justin or had he already taken care of Boris and was on his way to the museum? It wouldn’t be good to be seen near the factory with the police and firemen showing up.

As she refocused on her surroundings and rounded a corner, she gasped and jumped back pressing herself against the wall. After taking a deep breath, she carefully peeked around the corner to see Alexei standing in the crowd searching for her. He was less than ten feet away. She shimmied along the wall a few steps and then pulled herself away from its protection and hurried away in the opposite direction.

She hadn’t covered more than ten feet when she heard her name called out. Looking up in the direction of the voice, Raven saw Nikki waving at her standing on the far side of Alexei. Raven couldn’t resist glancing directly at Alexei to see if he had heard her name. As she glanced in his direction, her eyes locked with Alexei who stared coldly at her less than twenty feet away. That moment of recognition seemed to freeze time. She could feel the deadly message Alexei held in his glare and the memory of his knife pressed against her throat immediately returned. Then just as abruptly as time seemed to stop, it promptly released its grip on her and sped up faster than Raven felt she could keep up with.

Raven bolted for the other section of the museum hoping to lose Alexei. At least she had the advantage of knowing the layout of the museum. People stared at her as she sprinted across the room, but she just dodged her way around them. Nearing a hallway, she sacrificed part of a second to look behind her. A tour group passed through and Alexei had to push his way through them. But Raven thought she also saw Nikki following in their direction. She wanted to yell at Nikki to stay away, but she didn’t have time and she didn’t want to draw Alexei’s attention to Nikki.

Rushing down the hallway, Raven pushed open the door to the stairs. She hurried up the steps, but as she rounded the corner on the stairwell, she nearly ran into a man busy reading a file while heading down the stairs. Raven stepped back, lost her footing, and had to grab hold of the rail to avoid losing her balance and falling down the stairs. She called out a sorry out of habit and rushed up the stairs and down the hallway. After passing a few exhibits, a small hallway cut to the right for the purpose of bathrooms. She spun right, quickly pushed open the door, hurried into the farthest bathroom stall, and locked the stall door. A small level of relief flooded over her as she realized that she had escaped Alexei. Quick, shallow breaths caused her chest to heave as she tried to force her nerves to calm down.

The bathroom door opened and Raven shifted to the left to make it look like she was in front of the toilet in case some woman checked for empty stalls. Her breathing stopped when she heard a man’s voice. “Raven. I know you’re in here. A woman outside told me you just came in. Come on out.”

The door opened again and Raven’s forehead furrowed as she heard Nikki’s voice. “Uh, you have the wrong bathroom. This is the ladies’ room.”

Alexei didn’t even respond to Nikki. “Raven. You can’t get past me. You might as well cooperate.” Alexei hissed the words, reminding Raven of a snake.

“Wait. How do you know Raven?” Nikki said.

“You’re friends with Raven,” Alexei said it as more as a statement than a question. Raven wanted to scream that she had never seen Nikki before in her life. If only Nikki would say no. She had no idea how dangerous Alexei was.

“What’s it to you?” Nikki said. Something banged against the wall. “Ow! Get your hands off of me you freak!”

“Raven, unless you want me to show your friend what real pain means, you better come out now. You know what I’m capable of, so don’t try my patience.”

“Okay.” Raven pulled out her phone and typed a text message to Justin as fast as possible.
Help. Alexei found me in the museum. —Raven
.

“Now!” Alexei barked.

“I’m coming out.” She quickly stuffed her phone back in her jacket and turned the handle to open the stall door hoping Justin had stopped Boris and would find her soon.

Alexei had Nikki pushed up against the wall with his hand pressing against her neck. Nikki kicked at Alexei and tried with both arms to pull his hand from her neck, but he was much stronger than her. Alexei leaned toward Nikki. “Stand still and shut up or I’ll cut off your air supply.”

“Nikki. Please don’t fight. He’ll hurt you,” Raven said.

“Listen to the girl. She knows what she’s talking about.” Alexei pushed hard against Nikki’s throat.

“Stop it!” Raven took a step toward them. “What do you want?”

Alexei released the pressure on Nikki’s neck a little allowing her to breath. “I want to know who’s here with you.”

“It’s just me and Nikki.”

Alexei shoved hard against Nikki’s throat and then finally released causing her to cough. “Don’t make me ask a second time.”

“Okay. Okay. It’s only Justin and I.” Alexei pushed hard again cutting off Nikki’s air supply. “Honest! The others were too busy with—” Raven hesitated to say too much in front of Nikki. “– and they also didn’t think you’d be here.”

“Where’s Justin?” The bathroom door opened but Alexei kicked backward with his foot slamming the door shut again. “Seal the door closed. Now!”

“Okay. Okay.” Raven stared at the handle on the door. It took her a moment to connect to the energy with her nerves frazzled. Someone tried to push the door open again, but Alexei kicked it closed holding it in place.

“Do it!” Alexei hissed.

“Give me a second. I’m trying to focus.” Raven felt the energy flow into her and she directed it toward the door melting a portion of the lock like she had in the school office. “It won’t open.”

Alexei stretched his free arm behind him and pulled on the door handle but it wouldn’t budge. Raven glanced over at Nikki who looked questioningly at her. Averting her eyes she avoided Nikki’s questions, Raven focused again on Alexei who spoke up again. “Good. Now tell me where Justin is.”

Raven had to say something for Nikki’s sake. “He’s somewhere here in the museum.”

Alexei glared at Raven. “You are going to pay for wrecking my car, but first, I want to talk to Justin, and the two of you are coming with me.” Alexei nodded toward Raven. “Over here.”

Raven hesitantly took a couple steps forward. As she neared Alexei, he grabbed her arm and pulled her near him, spinning her around. Before Raven could pull away, he grabbed her in a head lock. He was stronger than she expected. “The two of you are going to listen carefully. We are all going to walk downstairs and both of you are going to behave. No running off. No calling for help. If you act normal, you might even live to see tomorrow. Understand?”

Nikki nodded slowly but Raven could only mumble in agreement due to Alexei’s tight grasp. Alexei released his hold on Nikki’s throat and grabbed tightly to each side of her cheeks from under her chin. “You and Raven seem to be good friends. I’m going to let you go, but if you do anything I don’t like, anything, including just looking at people the wrong way, I will snap Raven’s neck. Understand?” Nikki nodded. “Raven, don’t even think of using your powers. I’ll sense it if you even begin to connect to the energy, and I’ll make sure that is last time you connect or do anything else. Got it?”

Nikki glanced at Raven questioningly but Raven looked away knowing the questions Nikki must have for her. Alexei loosened his hold around Raven’s neck and placed his hand around the back of her neck. She could feel his fingers digging into her flesh. “Are you both ready?” They nodded. “What’s your name?”

“Nikki.”

“Okay, Nikki, open the door—slowly.” Nikki reached for the handle, but the door wouldn’t budge.

“Raven, use the energy, just this once, and unlock the door.” Nikki stepped aside waiting for Raven to reach for the door, but Raven stood still, connected to the energy, and focused on reforming the metal inside the lock.

“It’s ready,” Raven said. Nikki turned and looked at Raven like she was crazy.

“Open the door,” Alexei said.

“The door’s locked.”

“Not anymore. Open the door. Do it now. I don’t like repeating myself.”

Nikki shook her head like she thought it was a waste of time, but she pulled on the door handle and froze in surprise when the door opened this time. Nikki turned and looked at the two of them in confusion, but Alexei nodded at her to move forward. Raven followed Nikki out into the hallway wincing as Alexei dug his fingers harder into her neck. Scanning the empty hallway, Raven searched for Justin, hoping he had received her message. 

Chapter 45