Episode 54: Weird Reactions and Woken Elementals
- Crystal Crawford
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
My ears were still ringing, and I was flat on my back on the hard floor with no recollection of how I got there, but other than that, I felt fine again.
“Can you sit up?” Mom asked.
I nodded, and she helped me sit. The pain was gone, but there was a weird haze over my vision, like the room had filled with a thin fog.
Collin and Lockley were right behind Mom, watching me with concern. The cheer hawks were a few paces behind them, next to Chloe, who was as close as her locked cell door would let her get.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Chloe asked.
“How are you feeling?” Lockley added.
I assessed myself. “I’m okay, I think. For a moment, I had the worst pain in my head… but now it’s gone.” I looked around. “It’s hazy in here. What happened?”
Trenchcoat Man moved toward me. “You dropped like a rock the moment I mixed in the last drop of blood… but it’s not hazy, at least not to me.” He looked up at the others, but they all shook their heads. He stared at me again, looking contemplative. “Could be a residual effect of the pain in your head. You’re sure you’re okay, now?”
I nodded again. “Yes.” I looked around. Other than the haze, which had faded to the point it was barely noticeable, I felt normal. “The pain didn’t happen to anyone else?”
Everyone looked at me with concern, even the cheer hawks.
“No,” Chloe said from the door of her cell. “Just you.”
That was odd.
I drew a breath. “Okay, but I feel fine now.” I glanced around. “Did it work? Did the magic do anything?”
A low grunt came from the cell behind me.
I spun and scurried away from it, but Trenchcoat Man rushed toward the cell.
“It worked!” he said, leaning against the bars. He gave us a grin, then moved to the next cell, still grinning. “They’re waking up!”
The elementals were indeed stirring and waking… even the one whose blood Trenchcoat Man hadn’t taken.
The twenty-something dark-haired guy in the cell nearest me blinked his eyes open.
“Wha—where am I?” he said, then saw me. “Who are you?”
“I’m Aubrey Lance,” I said as his ice-blue eyes locked on me. His skin was pale but remarkably flawless, except for the thin layer of stubble grown there—they clearly didn’t provide razors down here. “We’re here to help you.”
The muscle in the guy’s chiseled jaw ticked, like he had clenched his teeth, and for a moment, we just stared at each other.
Then Collin dropped next to me and shoved his hand through the bars. “Collin. And who are you?”
The guy tore his eyes from mine, and after a moment of hesitation, shook Collin’s hand. “Reese.”
Reese looked down and noticed the glowing tube connected to his forearm with an IV.
He yanked it out with a look of panic.
A shrill, piercingly loud beeping pulsed through the room.
I slammed my hands over my ears. “What is that?” I yelled over the pulsing beeps.
They were long—two to three seconds each, with only a second break between them.
And deafening.
Everyone else had their ears covered, too, even the elementals in the cells.
“Something must have disturbed the—” Trenchcoat Man shouted, but his last words drifted off.
The beeping was getting faster.
We all looked around, then Trenchcoat Man pointed. “The orb!”
Sure enough, the orb’s light was pulsing faster—a pulse for every beep.
“That can’t be good!” Collin yelled.
I looked at Reese. “Do you know how to stop it?”
He shook his head briskly. He looked just as scared as the rest of us.
“Does anyone know how to stop it?” Trenchcoat Man asked as loudly as he could, but all the elementals just shook their heads.
“Could it be because of that?” I yelled over the noise, pointing at the tube now lying on the ground of Reese’s cell.
Trenchcoat Man rushed up, looked at the tube on the ground, then spun toward the other cells.
His eyes widened, then he spun toward the others. “Pull out your tubes!” he yelled, running from cell to cell to make sure the elementals heard him. “Disconnect yourselves!”
They listened, yanking their tubes out as quickly as they could.
“He’s going to make the whole thing blow!” Collin shouted.
But as soon as the last tube disconnected from the final supernatural, the beeping cut off.
“Thank goodness I was right about that,” Trenchcoat Man said.
I stared at him. Had he just told the elementals to pull out their tubes, not knowing what would happen? He’d just taken a guess?
He was crazy, but at least it had worked.
We all breathed a sigh of relief in the blessed silence, then—
Beep-beep-beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep
The orb resumed pulsing even faster.
“Shoot,” Trenchcoat Man yelled. He turned to the elementals. “Anyone know how to get out of here?”
One of the elementals—the only female, a teenager with red hair—flicked her palm up. “I’ve got fire?” A small flame shot up from her palm.
“You’ve got—” Trenchcoat Man gasped. “We busted the dampener!” He snapped his fingers and stared down at them, then whooped. “It worked!” He spun to the nearest elemental. “Stand still.”
He clapped and flashed into the cell, then right back out with a now-freed elemental.
“Yes!” Collin threw his fists up and yelled over the screaming beeps. “Yes!!”
Trenchcoat Man flashed in and out of cells until everyone was freed—even Chloe—then turned to face us all.
“Gather in!” he said. “I’ve never traveled this many at once before, but there’s a first time for everything, right?” He glanced back at the orb, which was pulsing so fast it was nearly one continuous, flickering beep. “No time to waste. Let’s—”
We all hurried toward him.
“Wait!” Lockley yelled with a note of panic. “Aubrey, quick. Come look!”
She was standing on the backside of the orb, where she’d been near Chloe’s cell—and her face was as white as if she’d seen a ghost.
My stomach dropped to my toes at her expression, but I ran to her. “What is—”
She pointed with a shaky hand. “Look. The orb cracked or something—” Her voice caught.
“What?” my dad yelled over the deafening beeps. “What did you say?”
I looked where she was pointing, and my heart lurched. There was a person inside the orb, and though the smooth, transparent surface of the orb hadn’t cracked open more than a couple inches wide, it had cracked even further internally, rupturing some kind of inner barrier that revealed what the orb held within.
I moved closer. Through the crack, I could see part of the fabric covering a shoulder, some hair… and most of a human face.
I could hardly breathe.
“There’s someone in there!” Collin yelled, coming up behind me. He stopped short. “Is that—”
“Aubrey, that thing might be about to explode! We need to go!” Mom yelled over the beeping. She ran over to us.
I turned to face her.
“What’s—” She stopped, the blood draining from her face. Her hands flew to her mouth. “My baby!” she let out in an anguished cry.
Emery was inside the orb.
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