Power Revealed (The Elementers) (34 page)

Justin walked down the stairwell from the last plane when he felt someone’s wind energy and Alexei’s voice sounded in his head. “It’s still not too late to join us.” Justin scanned the tarmac for Alexei, but the thick, grey fog obstructed his view. “The Council fears you. They’re going to do everything in their power to control you.” Justin was disgusted by Alexei’s voice and wanted to brush away Alexei’s lies, but deep down Justin knew there was some truth in his statement. The Council did fear what Justin could do and they would try to control him. But he wasn’t going to resort to joining Alexei to maintain his independence.

“Justin, this is your last chance to enjoy real freedom,” Alexei said.

“Freedom?” Justin spat out the word. “Freedom to commit mass murder?”

“I didn’t want to do it, but sometimes you have to do what is necessary to maintain your freedom.”

“How would killing those people help you keep your freedom?” Justin responded while searching for Alexei through the fog.

“It requires money to live my lifestyle.”

“So it’s true. You were going to kill all those innocent people just because you wanted more money!”

“Without money, I don’t have the freedom to do what I want.”

Henry’s saying returned to Justin’s mind. “Freedom is being who you really are, not doing what you want to do.” For the first time, the words finally seemed to make some sense to Justin. No one could take his freedom away. Not his dad. Not his teachers. Not the Council. Not Alexei. They might be able to affect what he can do sometimes, but no one, not anyone or anything, could tell him who he had to be. That was up to him. He wasn’t even going to let his powers define him.

“Becoming a murderer like you isn’t going to free me. No one can take my freedom away.”

“If you can’t be reasoned with, then there’s only one thing left to do,” Alexei said.

Justin felt the wind energy intensify in the air around him. He spun around still scanning for Alexei in the mist, but a powerful burst of wind knocked Justin off his feet and up into the air. His stomach lurched from the sudden elevation change and his heart raced as he rose higher and higher. The ground disappeared below him in the fog. Justin shot a wind gust to send him back down to the ground, but his feet hit the tarmac so fast that his legs couldn’t keep up with the speed causing him to stumble forward. His arms instinctively reached out to break his fall. His hands hit first and then he rolled to the side. His wrist stung and a shooting pain in his ankle suggested a strain, but it could have been much worse.

Rather than try to catch sight of Alexei, Justin sent a wide, powerful gust in the general area where Alexei’s energy originated. Justin heard a crash, groan, and some cursing in Russian coming from the direction of the Concorde. Justin limped in that direction searching for his opponent. An outline of a man getting back up came into sight. Justin didn’t wait for him to recover. Connecting to the water and wind elements, Justin reached into the sky, combined the rain droplets, slowed their vibration, and sent a barrage of hail the size of golf balls at Alexei.

The first volley of hail stones hit their target, knocking Alexei to the ground, but then a wind gust blew the rest of the oncoming projectiles back toward Justin. The white objects were camouflaged in the mist and Justin didn’t see them coming until they were almost on top of him. He held up his arms to protect his face as the ice pellets stung his arms and stomach. One of them nailed his injured wrist. Justin closed his eyes for a moment while dealing with the pain. When he opened them again and looked through the fog, Alexei was gone.

Justin thought he heard the sound of steps running to his left, but it was hard to be sure over the roar of the wind. Bolting forward, pain erupted in his right ankle causing him to favor his leg as he pursued Alexei. Air Force One loomed above as Justin heard the hollow clatter of what must be Alexei running up the portable metal stairway to the front part of the plane. Justin hurried behind him and up the steps, but two-thirds of the way up the ladder Justin saw Alexei appear at the top of the stairs with a sadistic grin. “Enjoy the ride!” Alexei hollered over the storm.

Justin grabbed onto the railing as a blast of wind collided with the stairway. The portable staircase was pushed off its four stabilizer footings knocking Justin to his knees. He avoided falling down the steps, but before he had a chance to attack back, a twister collided with the staircase wrenching it from the plane and spinning it in circles multiple times. The stairway toppled over, slinging Justin down onto the tarmac. Justin lifted his hands, surveying the shredded skin and blood on his palms from the road rash. He felt other injuries beneath his clothes, but he didn’t have time to worry about them right now.

Rolling over, Justin shot a volley of wind at the door to the front of the airplane but Alexei had retreated inside for protection. Justin picked himself up and hobbled over behind the nearest plane to avoid being an open target. While he could use the wind to lift him up to the plane, Justin wasn’t confident in his aim and suspected he might miss and throw himself against a metal wall.

Justin was ready to end this. He closed his eyes for a moment to concentrate. Focusing the energy, he could feel it resonate within and all around him. It felt like the edge of his body had expanded to include the entire Air Park. He wasn’t connected to the energy. It was a part of him. He reached out and ripped off the back emergency exit door of Air Force One. Then he amassed a ferocious gale and sent it blazing through the aircraft shooting out of the aisle anything in its path that wasn’t bolted down. A typewriter, office chair, and other debris shot out the back exit door followed by a human body. Justin redirected the wind and dropped Alexei to the ground in front of him.

Alexei lifted up his head and tried to attack using his powers, but Justin cut off every attempt Alexei made to connect to the energy. Instead of hijacking Alexei’s energy, like he had before with Rex and Steven, this time Justin was one with all the energy and simply blocked Alexei’s attempts to connect.

“Is something wrong?” Justin smirked at Alexei.

A primal growl came out of Alexei’s throat.

“You’re done, Alexei. I’m not going to let you kill anyone else ever again.”

“See. You’re just like me. Forced to kill when necessary.” Alexei glared and pushed himself to his feet, and as Justin took a step closer, Alexei launched himself at his opponent. Rather than flick Alexei aside with the wind, Justin reached back and swung his fist at Alexei’s face with the help of the wind, sending Alexei sprawling to the ground.

“I won’t be forced into being a killer. No one can take my freedom away. Not even a murderer like you.” Alexei tried to get up, but Justin held him down with the wind. “But there are other ways to prevent you from hurting people.” Justin opened himself to all four elements and shot the energy into Alexei causing Alexei’s body to jerk and stiffen in resistance. Justin’s anger at Alexei tried to take over and flood Alexei with more energy, but Justin refused to give the Council an excuse to try to extend their control over him. Especially since Henry was relying on him.

He tightened the energy flowing through him, creating something of a bottleneck to prevent overloading Alexei too much. But he could almost taste the energy pushing against him, wanting to be freed. A hint of honey saturated his tongue. The immensity of power seemed to almost sing to him, promising anything if he would let it wash over him.

Justin searched for his center like Anya taught him and found his focus. Once he overloaded Alexei enough, with great effort, he unplugged his connection to the elements. Letting go was similar to pulling on a thick extension cord that wouldn’t disconnect from the wall outlet. The rush of energy flooded out of him and he felt an unnatural emptiness. He stood there a moment, aware of only the allure of the energy. It was like standing in front of a bowl of M&M’s and eating only one. The energy called out to be consumed.

The ring of a phone jarred Justin out of his trance and in surprise, he scrambled through his pockets for his mom’s phone. “Yeah,” he mumbled into the phone.

 “Justin. Are you okay?” It was Raven’s voice.

“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s done.” Justin shook his head to clear his mind. “But now I have to figure out how to get Alexei out of here.”

“I’ve already taken care of that. Just give me a minute and I’ll be out there.”

Chapter 47

The fog began dissipating and Justin smiled as he saw Raven’s face emerge through the mist. But the next person he saw wiped the smile right off his face. Rex marched toward Justin with Grant at his side.

“You two are lucky to be alive!” Rex stopped right in front of Justin and glared at him.

“We’re lucky? Alexei and Boris are the incapacitated ones,” Justin said.

Rex stood over Alexei who laid still on the ground. “What did you do to him?!”

“I did a partial overload.”

“You did what?!” Rex stepped toward Justin placing them nearly toe to toe. “You have no idea how to do an overload. You probably fried them.”

Justin refused to back up in response. “They’re just fine. I saw and sensed how you guys did it in the meadow.”

“All four Elementers have to keep the energy in perfect balance,” Rex said.

“Yeah, and for those of us who can use all four,” Justin paused for emphasis, “it’s easy to do. Besides, it’s not like I had another choice. I needed to stop them from blowing up the factory and escaping again.”

Rex took a step back, but didn’t back off on his glare. “The two of you never should have come here on your own.”

“Raven tried to convince you to do something, but you all said there wasn’t enough evidence. If we had listened to you, over a hundred people would be dead at the Lannix factory. So don’t tell us we were wrong to come.”

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Rex said.

“I beat Alexei, which is more than you can say,” Justin said.

“Being able to access the energy and understanding it are two very different things. You’re an impulsive, foolish kid that clearly doesn’t grasp what he’s involved in,” Rex said.

“You don’t know anything about me,” Justin said.

“I know that you can’t go around wielding this much power so irresponsibly.”

“You, and the Council, can’t tell me what to do. Alexei was wrong to think he can do whatever he wanted, regardless of its effect on others. But you and the Council can’t decide how I live my life. Just because it scares the Council that I can access all the elements, their fear doesn’t give them the right to control me,” Justin said.

“You’re not above the rules. You broke both of them,” Rex said.

“I did not!” Justin was the one this time to take a step toward Rex. “I’ve kept it secret. I drew Boris into an abandoned building just to the north of the Lannix factory to stay out of view. You’ll find him partially overloaded in that building. In addition, I made sure this area was cleared of people first and then created the fog so no one would see me fight Alexei.”

“Even if no one saw you, you still overloaded two Elementers by yourself,” Rex said.

“You guys did it to Alexei’s friends. As long as it’s necessary, which it was, and it’s only a partial overload, it’s allowed.”

“No one is allowed to do it by themselves,” Rex said.

“There’s no such rule,” Justin said.

“There hasn’t needed to be such a rule until you came along,” Rex said.

“I’ll keep your powers a secret and not destroy life, but the Council has no right to do anything to me just because I’m more powerful than any of you.”

Rex opened his mouth to argue, but Justin cut him off. “And if you try to control me, I’ll show you what I can do.”

“Justin?” Raven’s voice interrupted. Justin turned in surprise because he forgot for a moment that she was there.

“What?” Justin said.

Raven nodded her head in the direction of the museum. Justin looked through the clearing fog and saw Nikki and Lewis walking toward them. Nikki halted when she saw Alexei lying knocked out on the ground. She looked up at Justin. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Justin said. “He came up and threatened me so I ran and hid in one of the planes. He thought I was in Air Force One, but as he climbed the stairs into the plane the storm toppled the stairway. It looks like he hit his head hard when he fell. He’s been out since.”

“He’s still dangerous and needs to be reported to the police,” Nikki said.

“This is our patient,” Rex said.

“Who are you?” Nikki looked up at Rex.

Grant took a step toward Nikki. “Miss, we work at a nearby mental hospital. This man escaped while we were taking him to a medical appointment. We’ve been searching for him for the last couple hours.”

“How did you know to come here?” Lewis asked.

“When we couldn’t find him near the doctor’s office, we finally came here looking for him. It’s his favorite place. He normally isn’t harmful. But he’s been off his meds for the last two days to prepare for the lab tests and without the pills, it really messes him up and causes hallucinations. It’s our fault he escaped and if you report it to the police we’ll lose our jobs. My wife is fighting cancer and if I lose my job we’ll lose our health insurance. She’ll die without treatment. Please don’t say anything. He really is harmless normally. We promise to take him away. This will never happen again.”