“I’m not your enemy,” Brody swears. “Aside from my impossible to ignore orders, I don’t feel tempted to—”
“Eat me or something,” I finish for him, circling back to the beginning of our conversation.
“We don’t call it eating. We eat ordinary food. We call it augmenting or supplementing. Since you’re a different element than me, it’d be supplementing.”
“Nice. I’m like a vitamin…or seasoning. Do you suppose I’ll taste bad?”
“You’re nuts.” He crinkles up his nose. “No, you wouldn’t taste bad. Spicy, for sure.”
“Well, what kind of spice? Jalapeño powder or cinnamon?”
“Definitely more like cinnamon.” He nods approvingly. “Why do I feel like you’re trying to redirect me from what I came out here to tell you?”
“Because I am. Is it working?”
“Surprisingly well. I get why they didn’t tell you.”
I sigh. “Tell me what?”
“What they didn’t tell you. I thought you didn’t want to know.”
“Could be I’m scared to know,” I admit. “All the things they told me, they were very careful to avoid anything negative. That leads me to believe the things they avoided telling me are more sordid than the things they did tell me.”
“You mean you don’t like the benefits you get with your gift? That’s the only thing I’d hate to give up.”
“Yeah, everyone wants to invade people’s privacy, see every visible fault in things we once thought were beautiful, and categorize people by their scent. Some people seriously stink, Brody. I mean that in a very literal way.”
He laughs again, and even though my stress levels are rapidly escalating, the sound ebbs the intensity.
“So, you want to protect me, have to protect me, meaning you won’t eat me,” I reason, “and you’re fixing to tell me something you don’t want to tell me, just like they didn’t want to tell me. No doubt this lovely piece of information will do wonders for my existing desire to find someone who will eat me.”
“You mean we didn’t effectively scare that out of you?”
“Fear is temporary.” I shrug. “Fear for me is second to my fear of hurting someone.”
“You really are special.”
I roll my eyes. “Apparently, fire is a rarity.”
“Not in the way you think. Most of your kind are all too eager to transition. There isn’t a big gap from when their powers manifest to full transformation. A few days at best.”
“They had indicators before the two-day timeframe. Declan, for instance, had breathing issues. Ryan had a will to take care of people. To me, that would demonstrate there was always something lurking under the surface, waiting to crawl its way free.”
“Maybe, but I’m not talking tiny indicators. I mean big ones like a tornado, flood, or earthquake.”
“Or a volcanic eruption,” I mutter.
Or a ticking time bomb, Superego goads. ka-BOOM!
He cracks his knuckles. “In your case, you’ve figured out a way to hold things in. That’s a good and bad thing. It’s good because you haven’t transitioned yet, meaning there’s hope. It’s bad because it means the energy inside you will continue to grow. When you finally transition, it won’t be a small thing. Have you ever shaken up a bottle of soda and waited for someone to open it?”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“If you open the bottle slowly enough, releasing a little gas at a time, you can do it without a foam-plosion.”
“Exactly.” He folds his arms across his monstrous chest. “Their demise doesn’t come from withholding. It comes from releasing something they have no ability or will to control. The control pitfall won’t be a problem for you. Your self-restraint is on point.”
I snort in response.
Credit where credit is due, Superego chastises.
His expression turns stern again. “You won’t like what I’m set on telling you.”
“Then don’t tell me.”
“I don’t have a choice. The thought of one of them telling you, of altering the truth of it, could change what you have the potential to be. We can’t let anything happen to you. You’re far too important. I get that now.”
“I’m dangerous. I’m either imploding or exploding. The imminent catastrophe will be the same. It’ll mean the death of too many people.”
He lifts an accusatory brow. “You’d rather me have your death on my hands?”
“That’s what you do,” I counter, frustrated at needing to reiterate his nature. “You feed from those like me.”
“I supplement from those like you,” he repeats, “but I can’t consciously choose to supplement from you.”
“Why? Is it our low numbers, or are you just not into me like that? I’m willing to bet the aftertaste won’t linger. You should give it a try.”
“This all stemmed from them developing a conscience.”
“What did?”
“Us. Sumairs. Scouts. Land-walkers.”
When he starts to pace, I stand my ground. If I get him worked up enough, he might bring out the monster to play. Bet I’ll have less trouble convincing the monster to take a bite out of me.
“What would Solathairs developing a conscience have to do with you?”
“If they would’ve let me die, I wouldn’t have become what I am.” He halts unnaturally. It isn’t a gradual decline. It’s a full stop.
“There’s a Solathair that can transform regular people into what you are?” I scoff. “That’s handy, isn’t it?”
“More than one.” He stares at the ground like something is skulking in the snow.
“How many?”
“All of them.”
I take a step back. Tally wasn’t joking. They made them, but how?
“Why would they do that?” I take another few steps back, hoping when the information settles, I’ll discover my interpretation is wrong.
“To keep from killing us,” he claims, his dark eyes glistening in the moonlight. Is he crying?
“Why would they want to kill a human in the first place? Yes, Tally has a huge complex, but it’s over wanting to be human. She’s not crazy enough to kill one, though.”
“They don’t kill humans for sport, Sheyla.”
I walk around in circles, rubbing my thumbs and index fingers together. I grow even more frustrated when the heat doesn’t come. The more I pace, the angrier I get.
Sumairs feed on would-be-Solathairs, human mixed with magical blood. Sumairs used to be humans until they were almost killed by Solathairs and turned into something else. I feed from myself, essentially, producing more energy due to my human blood, which is the key to the food cycle somehow. What do Solathairs feed from?
“No!” I bellow. “No. No. No. NO.”
Solathairs get their energy from the blood of the humans they kill. They’re energy vampires. If they don’t kill the human, the human becomes a Sumair.
“You have to kill me! Please, Brody. I can’t, won’t, do anything else to hurt anyone. It’s already too much. I’ve already done too much.”
“What would you have me do? Drain you?” His voice raises even more.
“Yes, that’s precisely what I need from you.”
“Sheyla, I’m charged with protecting you. Even if I wasn’t, I can’t end your life. You’re worth saving.”
I’ve spent my life believing I’m a murderer. Despite maximum effort, I couldn’t prove my guilt. My continued life, something until recently I’d lost the will to fight for or against, meant the onset of a series of events further proving I don’t deserve to exist.
The one person who had the means to end my life, the one person who surely knew what she was getting herself into by allowing my life to continue, is the person I’m bound to keep on hurting. It all started with me killing my mother. If I transition, I’ll end up killing her all over again.
I open the floodgates, and the guilt washes over me in a drowning heat. I welcome the flame. I want it to burn away every last fiber of my being. My body fights my decision. It fights against everything I know is right. My instincts are stronger than me, as they were in my infantile need to survive.
When the fire rises from its temporary slumber, I want it to consume more than me. They join us, the Solathairs who found me, the people I’ve come to think of as friends. They aren’t my friends. They’re murderers just like me. Worse, they’re murderers by choice.
I don’t just want to destroy myself. I want to destroy every elemental magic wielder in my presence, too. They’re equally dangerous, and I’d succeed in that destruction if not for my conscience being stronger. It flips the emergency shut-off switch, incapacitating me.