Awakening (Elementals Book 1) Read online

  Elementals

  Book One

  Awakening

  Sara Preucil

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Part One

  “Among animals there are those who have affinity with fire, others with water, others with earth, others with air…”

  Kore Kosmou

  Chapter 1

  Venezuela, 1714

  Mama, look!” Kenna held out her small hands. Cupped carefully within her tanned, chubby palms, hovering about an inch over her skin was a tiny, flickering, orange flame. She cradled the delicate flame as her bare feet padded over the soft grass toward her mother who sat on the bank of a narrow, lazy river.

  “Very good, Kenna.” Her mother turned away from the pot she was scrubbing to examine the little flame; the delight that shone in her chocolate eyes caused Kenna’s five-year-old chest to puff with pride. Drawing from this surge of emotion, the responsive flame suddenly grew, and Kenna let out a startled squeak. Instantly, the flame extinguished.

  “Hahaha!”

  Cheeks burning with embarrassment, Kenna glared at her older sister who had burst out laughing; the flame she was manipulating continued to trace intricate designs in the air in front of her.

  “Codi,” their mother reprimanded, sternly.

  “Sorry,” Codi mumbled. Her flame evaporated into the air as she left to join her friend who was doing some washing of her own farther down the river.

  Stinging tears of shame pricked Kenna’s eyes; she wiped at them hastily and plopped down on a damp log. Her mother abandoned her scrubbing and came to sit on the log next to her. She pulled Kenna into her arms.

  “Do not be discouraged little one.” She wiped Kenna’s chubby cheek. “The fire deep in your belly just needs a little more coaxing to grow.” Gently, she poked Kenna’s stomach, producing a giggle from the child. “Soon, controlling your flame will come as naturally as breathing.”

  Consoled, Kenna pondered her mother’s words as she began to rock her, humming a wordless tune. Kenna stroked her mother’s long, black braid that draped over her shoulder. Her raven hair felt like silk under Kenna’s tiny fingers.

  ✽✽✽

  Flames surrounded Kenna, but they were wrong.

  They were not warm, but scorching. They were not life, but destruction. All around her, the fire grew, consuming and burning everything it reached.

  The screams of the villagers rang in her ears. Smoke burned her throat, choking her, stinging her eyes.

  She had woken to the distressed yells. Rolling over, she shook Codi who was lying next to her on their shared pelt. Kenna glanced frantically around their small hut.

  “Where’s Mama?”

  “I’ll find her.” Codi stood and hurried to the doorway. “You stay here.” She pushed the flap aside and disappeared into the night.

  Kenna waited. She hugged her legs tightly to her chest, propped her chin against her knees, and stared at the woven flap through which Codi had disappeared.

  Soon the glow of approaching flames cut through the darkness, casting menacing shadows against the walls of their small, grass hut. Panic overwhelmed Kenna’s better senses, and she bolted, pushing aside the woven flap and running out into the chaos.

  In every direction, the village’s huts were on fire, the flames quickly eating away the dried foliage that made up their walls and ceilings. The jungle around them burned as the flames caught the dense, overhanging branches and vines.

  “Mama!” Kenna yelled, inhaling the thick smoke. “Codi!”

  Kenna now ran, zigzagging through the crackling bonfires. She rounded a hut that had not yet been touched by flames to see one of the village men fighting what appeared to be a shiny monster.

  It was taller than most men from the village, and plated in a shiny, hard substance that she recognized as a type of metal. It was a rarity among her people, but the monster was covered in it, he was even wielding a long weapon of the same substance. The weapon looked to have a razor-sharp, pointed end; the length of the shimmering metal ran about the stretch of a grown man’s arm and into a spot where he gripped it. The light of the flames sparkled and danced off it as it spun through the air and plunged deep into the chest of her kin.

  Kenna screamed.

  The demon turned toward her. His face was that of a human’s, but his skin was pale, his eyes a strange light blue that belonged to the sky. He crossed the distance between them, the armor he wore clanking nosily. Kenna turned to run, but collided into something hard. She caught a brief look of her own distorted, terrified reflection before two strong hands closed around her.

  ✽✽✽

  Caracas

  Kenna blinked, momentarily disoriented in the bright sunlight as an itchy, thick hood was pulled off her face. The cacophony of sounds surrounding her was overwhelming. People were engaging in loud discussions, animals were mooing and baying, and a loud banging nearby pounded against her sensitive eardrums.

  Kenna’s eyes slowly adjusted, and she found that she was standing on a large, wooden platform in the center of what appeared to be a village. Although, it was unlike any village she had seen before. The platform was raised about a man’s height above the ground, giving her a decent vantage point. Buildings around the square were being erected from fallen trees. Men worked at them, pounding the wood beams together with strange tools. Other structures housed what appeared to be places of trade—one of which held the complaining animals.

  The pale inhabitants that moved about the village looked much less demon-like without their metallic armor, and more akin to regular people. Women moved from stall to stall, carrying baskets that they slowly filled with goods. Children ran around their feet, tugging at their mother’s long skirts.

  As Kenna watched, some of the pale people began to draw nearer to the platform; others slowly trickling behind. Soon, there was a crowd gathered. Eyes in a weird mixture of light colors that Kenna had never seen, stared up at the platform.

  A booming voice, immediately to Kenna’s right called out, startling her, tearing her away from her curios inspections.

  A large, fat man also stood on the platform. Kenna blinked, taking in his enormous size. She had to lean to look around him, and saw that about twenty children—varying in ages as young as herself to
young adults—were lined up on the platform.

  They were all children from her village. Kenna searched the line as one after another, the fat man pulled the hoods off their heads as well. The second to last hood came off and underneath it was—

  “Codi!” Kenna yelled, trying to run to her sister. The man stepped in between them and without warning, swung his meaty hand back, and smacked Kenna across the cheek.

  Kenna was nearly knocked off her feet, and had to take a couple of steps to keep herself upright. Specks of light danced briefly in front of her eyes as she stood frozen, stunned, while her pulse thundered painfully where he had struck her. The man barked something at her in an unfamiliar language. When she didn’t move, he raised his hand again in a threatening gesture. The only thing that made sense was to return to her spot in line where no one had hit her. Quickly, she skittered to her spot on the edge of the line. Once she had done so, he turned to the crowd that had gathered, said something unintelligible in his slurred, thick voice, and they all laughed.

  Tears pricked at Kenna’s eyes, threatening to overflow, but she refused to let them see her cry. The fat man walked to her end of the line, still talking to the crowd. He came to stand behind a boy to Kenna’s right, holding out the child’s arms, pointing to his legs, clapping him on the shoulder as he spoke to the crowd. Some answered in clipped sentences. They seemed to be arguing back and forth among themselves, until the fat man pointed at a person, an elderly man that had been the last to speak.

  The crowd parted to let the older man through. He ascended the few stairs at the far end of the stage, took the boy by the arm, and handed the fat man a small pouch. He then led the boy off the platform.

  Kenna’s heart began to pound. The fat man now came to stand behind her. His horrible body odor filled her nose as he addressed the assembly once more. He began to poke and prod her as he had done with the boy. And Kenna finally understood. She had accompanied her mother while trading with a nearby village. This was how the hunters, fisherman, and craftsmen would display their goods.

  Kenna was being sold.

  The fat man’s sharp bark of laughter brought with it the stark reality of the present. A young man, followed by a young girl and an older boy, was walking across the platform. He smiled encouragingly down at her, offering his hand.

  Kenna took a few steps back, but he reached out and took her by the wrist. Fearing another beating, Kenna allowed him to lead her toward the edge of the stage. But when they reached the stairs, she glanced back. Her sister was staring after her, her eyes wide and brimming with tears. Her fear of punishment vanished.

  “Codi!” Kenna shrieked. She struggled against the stranger’s hold. “Codi!”

  “Kenna!” Codi yelled, starting to move forward. The fat man was quicker; he moved to block Codi from Kenna’s view. The sound of another smack resonated through the square.

  “Codi!” she screamed, her throat thick with panic. The man holding her wrist mumbled something, and scooped Kenna up. She squirmed in his arms as he walked down the stairs, away from the platform, and through the crowd. People made way for them, then hurried to fill the empty spaces.

  Kenna managed to turn around in the man’s arms so that she could see over his shoulder. A blast of orange flame erupted on the stage. The fat man yelled, jumping back as screams burst forth from the crowd. Men rushed the stage, two of them tackling Codi to the ground, others advancing on the older children.

  “Codi!” Kenna sobbed, her voice forming no louder than a whisper as throngs of pale people frantically pushed against one another, swarming, blocking her view of the platform.

  Chapter 2

  Present-day

  The sound of raindrops and raven calls—a nearly constant symphony in Bellingham, Washington—woke Emmy early Wednesday morning.

  Reaching for her refurbished cellphone, she glanced at the clock on its screen. She had woken ten minutes before it would have released its chatter of harmonized beeps, so she took that time to lazily scroll through the happenings on social media.

  Her peer’s posts were more of the same. There were the typical selfies posted by girls who were obviously fishing for complements but have captions like, “Ug, bedhead. So embarrassing!” In reality, they are fully aware of how un-embarrassing those photos are. Then there were the morose quotes posted by the “deep” thinkers, such as one boy’s borrowing from Hobbes’s words: “The life of man (in a state of nature) is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Emmy knew full well that this particular boy liked to play up the brooding look to score dates. And then there were event posts, such as Friday’s football game, to which Mariah—Emmy’s best friend—would force her attendance.

  Swept up in her peers’ online personas, Emmy spent more time than she had intended on her phone, and when she checked the time again, realized that she was running behind schedule and now needed to hurry to get ready for school. They were only into the first week of the new school year, and she couldn’t afford to start racking up tardies yet. She pulled back the old patchwork quilt that was draped across her bed and, grabbing her robe, headed to the bathroom for a quick shower.

  Ten minutes later, the rain had lost its gentle touch and was now pounding ferociously against Emmy’s window as she reentered her room. Calling it her room was a bit of a stretch; in actuality, it was the room she most recently occupied in the home of her latest foster family, Brad and Dianne Lewis.

  As far as rooms went, this one was nice enough. It was painted a bright sea-foam green, with a seashell wallpaper frieze running along the top of the walls. In one corner was a desk, its white paint slowly chipping off with age, and on top was an older computer the Lewises provided Emmy for her school work. Along the far wall was a dresser, also painted white, next to a full-length mirror that sat propped against the wall. Under the double windows along the left side of the room, was the quilt-covered bed and a short nightstand with a lamp adorned with seashells.

  Emmy’s bare feet padded against the old wooden floor toward the dresser. Quickly, she pulled on a pair of dark skinny jeans and a black-and-white plaid flannel shirt. Opening the top drawer of the dresser, she pulled a comb from a basket of miscellaneous haircare items, and headed over to the mirror. She ran the comb through her long black hair, working out the knots as swiftly as possible, taking little care to save herself from the pains of detangling. She left it wet, not needing to bother with a hairdryer or styling tool; her hair fell stubbornly straight no matter what she did. To give it some flair, however, she had dyed the tips a candy-apple red—much to her previous foster family’s disapproval.

  She had known that her stay with the Dawson’s was temporary, as social services tried to fix her up with another family in town that was capable of a more permanent arrangement. Even though, she couldn’t help but think her dying her hair had spurred the tight-laced Dawson’s into a quicker handover last fall; she had only been with them for two months after all. A record short for Emmy.

  Emmy returned the comb, and pulled from the same drawer a small makeup bag. Standing in front of the mirror, she applied a small amount of mascara to her already black eyelashes, appreciating the way the added volume made her dark, nearly black, eyes pop against her pale skin. She added a red-tinted balm to her small, bee-stung lips, but that was all for her beauty routine. The humid Pacific Northwest air made any amount of makeup on her skin feel unbearably thick and sticky.

  Emmy returned her makeup bag to the dresser, and grabbed her backpack from where it was slung across the chair at her desk. She pulled on a pair of black ankle boots that had been haphazardly tossed to the floor next to the desk before heading out her door.

  Emmy headed into the hall, walked down the stairs, and into the kitchen. The house was silent. Brad, who worked night hours as a gas station manager, would still be asleep upstairs, and Dianne’s job as a nurse at St. Joseph’s had her working early in the morning. Emmy grabbed a bag of strawberry-filled toaster pastries from the cupboard, grabbed her
black raincoat from its hook at the back door, and headed out into the rain.

  Parked in the gravel alley behind the house was the rusted Geo Metro that Brad allowed Emmy to drive. The passenger door and hood were both a flat black, and had obviously been part of a repair job, since they clashed brilliantly with the flaking red paint that decorated the rest of its tiny body. Brad had purchased it from a WWU student for a whopping four hundred dollars. This gesture was not done out of generosity, but out of a strong desire to not have to drive Emmy around. But Emmy wasn’t about to complain, this was the first vehicle that was somewhat her own, and she loved it.

  Emmy tugged open the reluctant driver’s side door which ushered a loud, petulant squeak, tossed her already drenched bag into the passenger seat, plopped down, and turned the key. The engine coughed and sputtered until finally coming to life.

  The wipers smeared water across the windshield, smudging the gray sky and vivid green flora as Emmy drove the short five-minute drive from I Street to Bellingham High School.

  On campus, she parked her Geo amidst the other weatherworn previously-owned cars that, between the hours of eight and three, made the high school parking lot their own. Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she pulled up the hood of her jacket and stepped out into the rain.

  “Late start?”

  Emmy, still working on her breakfast of cold toaster pastries, was depositing her things into her locker when Mariah, appeared.

  “Yeah, lost track of time.” Emmy fished out her biology book from the bottom of her locker before closing the red, metal door with her elbow as she turned to face Mariah.

  Although Emmy was about average height, Mariah still stood a good few inches taller than her. Mariah’s long legs were clad in black leggings that she wore under a pair of black shorts. Around her slender neck, she tied a plaid fringe scarf that laid on top of a long, gray cardigan. Her curly orange hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun that only added more inches to her height.