Power Revealed (The Elementers) (22 page)

Grant spoke up. “I don’t know about this. If Alexei learns that we know about him, he’ll make it even harder to prove his guilt in the future.”

“It’s too dangerous to send a boy. There must be an alternative,” Selena said.

“I’m open to other options. What ideas do you have?” Rex stood there with his thick, muscular arms folded across his chest. Raven glanced at all the other adults, but they all remained mute. “That’s what I thought. Justin isn’t much of an option, but he’s the best solution we have right now.”

“Thanks,” Justin said. Raven figured he was too angry about Alexei to bother letting Rex get under his skin.

They spent the rest of the meeting formulating their plan. Justin would contact Alexei asking him to come out and train him. He’d say that he had an argument with Mr. Hamilton and he wanted a new guide. Justin needed to convince Alexei he was fed up with the Council and wanted to know how to get out from under their thumb. Raven figured it wouldn’t be hard for Justin to act the part about the Council since it was basically true, but she wondered if he could pretend he didn’t know that he was talking to his grandpa’s murderer. She worried Justin couldn’t restrain himself from lashing out against the monster.

After the meeting ended, Raven waited till Anya finished talking with the others and then approached her. Raven hadn’t told Mr. Hamilton about Justin’s fight earlier that day. Mr. Hamilton would have noticed the energy, but he wasn’t sensitive enough to be able to tell whether Justin was just Talking or using his powers in other ways. Raven pulled Anya aside because she knew Anya’s healing skills. If Justin was going to face Alexei, she wanted him to be healthy to keep him as safe as possible. She made Anya promise not to say anything to the other Elementers before she told Anya about Justin’s need for healing. Anya insisted Raven tell her how he got hurt. Once Anya learned about the fight, she picked up her bag and told Mr. Hamilton she was taking Raven and Justin for a short walk before they left.

After stopping by Anya’s car to pick up a few things, they found a secluded spot in the forest. Raven sat down on a fallen log while Anya spread a special ointment on Justin’s midsection. Justin was irritated with Raven for telling Anya, so she kept her distance from him to avoid another argument. Justin sat there holding his shirt up near his shoulders, wincing in pain, and glaring at Raven. Well, he could be mad, but she wasn’t going to be quiet if it meant endangering his life.

“Look at the color of the sphere, Justin,” Anya said.

Raven looked closer and noticed a pinkish-red glass ball hanging from a leather strap tied around Justin’s neck. She had never seen it before. She guessed that Justin must always wear it under his shirt. But with his shirt pulled up, she could see it hanging against his tan, bare chest. The thought distracted her for a moment until she looked up and realized that Justin saw that she had been staring at him. Raven struggled to keep her face from turning the same color as the sphere.

“We talked about this, Justin. You can’t let yourself fall out of balance. Red means you’re filling with destructive energy,” Anya said.

“The thing doesn’t work. It was red long before I fought those guys. It’s been getting darker since Friday night, but I didn’t do anything destructive until yesterday,” Justin said.

“Justin, we’re not just harmed by destructive actions. Dwelling on destructive thoughts has the same effect. Thoughts may be slower, but they can weaken us just the same. I know you’re mad at Alexei for killing Henry. I am too. But if you focus on thoughts and feelings of anger and revenge, it can do significant damage to your soul, even if you never act on them,” Anya said.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it? How were you feeling prior to those kids bothering you?”

“Of course, I was angry. I just found out someone I know murdered my grandpa. How do you think I’d feel?”

“I suspect it was more than that. How many times have you been in a fight before?” Anya asked.

“What does that matter?”

“How many times?”

“Plenty of times. I used to get picked on as a kid,” Justin said.

“Did you want to fight?”

Justin clamped his mouth shut and didn’t say anything.

“You wanted to fight, didn’t you?” Anya asked.

Justin pulled back and lowered his shirt.  Raven could tell from the look on Justin’s face that Anya was correct. 

“How...?” Justin didn’t finish the sentence.

“How did I know? Because I’ve been there before. I told you, I had gone off the deep end and Henry pulled me back. Kicking and screaming, at first. When you let the destructive energy become a part of you, it messes up your perspective and you can’t see what it’s doing to you. But I guess I neglected to tell you one thing. It isn’t just doing destructive actions that can fill you with that destructive energy. Thinking destructive thoughts, especially if they are the main focus of your thoughts, have almost as much effect on you. You need to give up those destructive thoughts and trust the sphere.”

“What? I’m suddenly supposed to not care that Alexei murdered my grandpa?”

“No. You care, but you can’t focus on feelings of anger or revenge. If you can’t get back in balance, Justin, you’re too unreliable for us to allow you to meet with Alexei. Either you need to get back in balance or I’ll tell the others we need another plan,” Anya said.

“You can’t do that to me!”

Anya leaned toward Justin her red hair swinging forward. Her piercing green eyes locked on Justin. “You want to make a bet? I can and I will. For our sake and yours. You don’t have any idea how dangerous destructive energy is for Elementers. I do, from experience. And I won’t stand by and let it happen to you. So either you can try to test what I’m willing to do or you can let me help you. But don’t think just because you’re a Multi-Elementer that you can stop me. You’re still learning and I owe it to Henry to protect you from your own foolishness until you know better.”

Raven sat on the log watching the two of them stare each other down guessing that Anya would win this battle. Justin was stubborn, but Raven also knew how much Justin wanted to be the one to stop Alexei and he needed their help to do so. Justin finally glanced down, kicked a rock, and grunted, “Fine.”

Raven watched as Justin unwillingly followed Anya in a combination of meditation and energy training. After about twenty minutes, the sphere hanging from Justin’s neck was definitely lighter in color, but nowhere near clear yet. Anya wrapped up the exercises. “Better. Promise me you’ll do it for thirty minutes before bed and when you wake up each day. Agreed?”

“Fine.” Justin clearly wasn’t thrilled about doing so, but Raven was relieved that he definitely seemed to be in a better mood than he had been the rest of the day. “Can we go now?” Justin asked.

Anya nodded her head and Raven stood up to follow the two of them. Raven was thankful that they were at least planning the event in detail, but Alexei was a dangerous man and Raven’s stomach tightened up at the thought of what could go wrong when Justin would meet Alexei.

Chapter 32

Mist weaved among the trees as Justin followed Alexei through the forest. The narrow path made it impractical to maintain a conversation. Justin was grateful because he needed a break from talking with Alexei in order to reestablish his calm. Making small talk with Henry’s killer didn’t simply make Justin’s stomach turn, it made him want to use his powers in every way Anya warned him against. He seriously wanted to hurt Alexei and it took all the self-control he could muster to pretend to be civil with the creep. He began to question whether he could really pretend to be friends with this monster to get information from him and just walk away risking the chance that Alexei might get away with murdering his grandpa. What if the Elementer Council didn’t vote to wipe Alexei clean? And even if they did, Justin didn’t think being wiped clean was penalty enough for taking Henry away from him.

Alexei needed to pay for his crime. Anya had clearly suspected Justin’s thoughts and warned him this morning that it wasn’t his right to make Alexei pay. She cautioned Justin that if he tried to take justice in his own hands, the Council would wipe him clean even if they voted that Alexei’s punishment was just. The Council dispensed justice, not individuals, and to ensure order, they wouldn’t hesitate to punish anyone for going rogue. But even with the warning echoing through his head, another part of him argued that he needed to make sure Henry’s death was avenged.

Justin’s mind was so buried in these thoughts that he didn’t notice someone approaching him on the path from the other direction. He didn’t have time to move out of the way before the hiker bumped into him. “Sorry,” the guy apologized as he rearranged his day pack and continued down the path.

Justin refocused his eyes on the path ahead of him. “How much farther?”

Alexei turned his head back toward Justin without stopping. “Not far. If I remember correctly, it’s just past this last hill.”

When Justin had asked Alexei to help him train, he had suggested going to Larrabee State Park, but as Justin got in the car, Alexei said that a friend of his had suggested a better place and drove east toward Mt. Baker. Once they parked and started on the path, Justin had sent a text message to Raven to inform the others where he was. Justin planned to get the information from Alexei on his own, but the others had insisted that they remain close just in case something went wrong. With the text message and Raven’s Elementer tracking ability, Justin knew they could find him, but it would take them a while to catch up since none of them drove as fast as Alexei.

After reaching the top of the hill and heading downward, Alexei stepped off the path and headed into the brush. Justin followed him and after pushing aside a few low handing branches, Justin walked into a grassy meadow. “Finally. We thought you’d never arrive.” Justin glanced up to see two men and a woman standing in the middle of the meadow. None of them looked like hikers, but for different reasons. The speaker wore surf shorts and a t-shirt with a large tattoo of a surfboard on a wave covering his fore arm. The woman was dressed more for Wall Street than a nature trail and the second guy looked like he belonged on a Harley motorcycle. His blond buzz cut towered a head above the others and his biceps were probably bigger than the woman’s thighs. He wore all black and the look on his face was equally dark. Justin instinctively backed up a couple steps.

It didn’t take a mastermind to figure out that something wasn’t right. He needed to let the others know. Justin reached into his pocket to grab his phone, but it wasn’t there. He dug his hand into his other front pocket, but it too was empty. Quickly, he shoved both his hands into his back pockets, but his phone was gone.

“Looking for this?” the voice had a heavy southern accent. Justin turned toward the voice behind him. The hiker that bumped into him earlier on the path held up what looked like Justin’s phone. The guy wore a grungy University of Oklahoma baseball cap and looked at Justin with a mocking grin. Justin stepped forward to grab his phone, but the guy tossed it to Alexei.

Alexei caught the phone. “Thanks, Patrick. I’ll remember to be more careful with my wallet around you.”

Justin scanned and looked at all five people in the meadow. They all had the same confident grin like cats that had cornered a mouse. Justin’s stomach tightened and his heart quickened. “Can I have my phone?”

Alexei ignored the question. “Justin. I really wish you hadn’t found out about Henry.” Justin told himself that Alexei couldn’t be aware that they knew about him, but the tightening around his chest suggested otherwise. “We could really use you on our side. You know that the Council is only going to try to control you. That’s no way to live. Especially for someone as special as you are. You could still join us. You don’t have to be Rex’s little pet.”

“What are you talking about?” Justin said.

“We know that Raven overheard my conversation. I realize that you think I’m the bad guy, but I didn’t have a choice. Henry found out what we were up to. We tried to explain it was necessary, but he wouldn’t listen to reason. It’s really all Henry’s fault. If it wasn’t for his stubbornness, this all could have been avoided.”

“Don’t you dare say his name!” A ball of anger ignited in Justin’s chest replacing any fear. Rex’s reminder that they needed information from Alexei voiced itself in Justin’s head, but he no longer cared. Justin reached out to the energy and hurled a nearby boulder at Alexei. Unfortunately, a wind gust intercepted the rock and sent it careening into a tree.

Alexei stood there shaking his head at Justin as if her were a seven-year-old kid. “If we hadn’t found it necessary to remove Henry, or you had never found out, things would have been much simpler.” Justin wondered how Alexei could have found out that Justin and Raven learned his secret. But he pushed the thought aside since it didn’t matter much right now. Alexei took a couple steps closer toward Justin. “The Council is either going to remove you, Wipe you, or control you. We’re alike Justin, so I know you’ll hate the Council.”