I was so out of my league here. I held up my hand and tried to look braver than I felt. “Leave me alone or I’ll take it all.” My voice trembled, part fear but part longing. My fingers tingled, my body yearned. A taste wasn’t enough. I wanted the rest.
No, I didn’t. I couldn’t have it. I didn’t want it. I wasn’t that person. I’d give it back if I could, but I didn’t know how.
Cloud Freak narrowed its large, flashing eyes at me. The air between us was dry and hot, charged with crackling electricity. It was going to kill me. I took a deep breath, wondering how much it would hurt, when the thing shot back up into the sky with a shrill blast of air. I watched as it went higher, occasionally veering to the side or losing altitude before climbing again. And then it was gone.
Letting out a trembling breath of relief, I leaned back against the tree. When I daydreamed about something happening to make my life more exciting again, this wasn’t what I had in mind. Clearly I forgot what being involved with paranormals—real, uncontrollable paranormals—entailed.
Fear.
Lots and lots of fear.
And now I didn’t even have Tasey with me for comfort. I stepped forward resolutely, taking stock of my situation. I had dropped my bag when Cloud Freak snatched me, which meant no cell phone. And while I was pretty sure we had been close to home when we fell out of the sky, who knew how far off course our fall had taken us? Still, how big could a forest be in the middle of Virginia?
No doubt I was going to find out.
By the time I hit a road an hour later I was tired, sweaty, and depressed. What were the odds that Raquel showed up the exact same time a paranormal tried to snatch me? What was she playing at, pretending to let me off the hook with IPCA and then coming back for me? I found it hard to believe that her goal had been to lure me out of the school so Cloud Freak could grab me, but it seemed the likeliest explanation. The idea that Raquel—who had been like a mom to me during my years at the Center—would do something like that broke my heart.
Fine, though. If IPCA wanted to play it like that, so be it. I stretched my hand and smiled, a vicious, smug thing. I could take care of myself now.
I shuddered, shaking out my hand to get rid of the tingles. No. I was never doing that again. Ever. I liked it too much.
My inner compass was better than I gave it credit for, because I managed to pick the right direction on the road. Practically crying with relief, I saw the turnoff to Lend’s house. My old house, before he moved out and I moved in with Arianna to avoid the awkwardness of living with my boyfriend’s dad. I ran up the long, winding drive and burst through the door into the family room.
Raquel was sitting on the couch.
“What the crap?” I shouted.
She jumped up and grabbed me before I could think to block. I tensed. And then I realized she was hugging me.
“I haven’t seen you in months and you go and get kidnapped first thing! I thought you were trying to be normal!” She pulled back, looking at me with tears in her eyes.
“You mean you didn’t send that thing?”
“Goodness no!”
“What was it?”
David stumbled into the room, a phone in his hand and a relieved look on his face. “You’re okay!”
“Besides being kidnapped by a living cloud and dropped thousands of feet to the ground? Yeah, I’m peachy.”
“So it was a sylph!” David pointed triumphantly at Raquel. “I told you they existed!”
Raquel’s lips tightened, and it was all she could do to hold back a sigh. “Yes, it would appear you were correct.”
“Wow.” David ran his hands through his thick, dark hair, eyes lit up with excitement. “Wow. A sylph. I think that’s the first confirmed contact ever!”
I raised my hand. “Umm, hello? Girl who was kidnapped by said sylph? Anyone want to fill me in on what it is and why it decided to give me an aerial tour of our fine state?”
“Sylphs are air elementals.” Raquel spoke quickly, shooting a perturbed look at David, like she wanted to prove that even if she hadn’t believed in them, she still knew more than he did. “Thought to be distantly related to faeries. It was commonly believed that they either never existed or had simply ceased to be, but this is because a sylph would never willingly touch the ground, thus making finding one impossible and looking for them an enormous waste of time.” She shot another one of those looks at David.
“Oh, come on, just because my specialty was elementals and you focused on common paranormals like unicorns and leprechauns.” David winked at me as if I were somehow in on this joke. “She’s always been jealous that I know all the really cool ones.”
Now I was the one holding back an annoyed sigh. “Air elemental, got it. Great. Now does anyone know why? You said they were related to faeries maybe?” All my annoyance squished itself into a ball of fear. I didn’t want the fey back in my life.
Neither one of them said anything. Then Raquel cleared her throat, her voice strained. “We could always ask Cresseda if she knows anything.” She said “Cresseda”—Lend’s mom and the resident water elemental—with a strange emphasis.
“No, we can’t, actually.” David shuffled his toes into the carpet. “I haven’t been able to get her to surface for a couple of months now. Ever since Lend moved out.” His voice was soft, but the pain underlying his words was obvious. I wanted to hug him. It was bad enough that he fell in love with an immortal water nymph, worse still that she only stayed human with him for a year. But now for her to abandon him entirely because Lend was gone? I couldn’t imagine the pain.
Actually, I could imagine it. I frequently imagined it. Some days it was all I could do not to imagine it. Being the mortal in a mortal/immortal duo was something I understood all too well.
I still hadn’t told Lend he was never going to die, though. The thought that he might give up this life—the one here, with me—to figure out how to be an immortal terrified me. I’d tell him, though. Soon. Soonish.
Eventually.
Raquel straightened, looking pleased. “Well then, this is something I can help with. I’ll get all my researchers on air elementals. It’s strange that it would show up now, especially given recent upheavals in elemental populations. We’ll figure it out. But it’s not why I’m here.”
I frowned. “Exactly why are you here?”
“IPCA needs your help.”
“I told you, the situation is different now.”
I held up my hand again, tired of them talking around me. “I can take this one, thanks. I miss you, sure, but I don’t want to come back to IPCA. You sterilize werewolves!” That was one of the many crimes I had discovered the International Paranormal Containment Agency committed in the name of keeping the world a safer place.
Raquel got a tight look around her eyes. “That practice is no longer in effect. As I’ve already explained to David, things have changed drastically in the time you’ve been gone. Our policies toward nonaggressive paranormals have undergone serious revision, including greater werewolf rights. Any and all eugenics have been done away with entirely. There was a lot wrong with