Enemy Fire | J. Saltzman - Legacies [3]

T H I R T Y - F I V E

The rickety old house is a maze. Something tugs at her heart, guiding her through the labyrinth, but Josie doesn't feel any better. How long had they been running? A few minutes? An hour? The snake chases after them, his hiss echoing through the air which only prompts Josie and Aaron to run faster.

"Do you know where you're going?" Aaron shouts after her.

"No idea, but it's better than being snake bait," she snaps back as she rounds a corner. Her limbs burn with each step she takes, but she keeps pushing forward. If not for her own sake, then for Stella's. "Where the hell is the basement? She's down there."

Aaron nods. "Ok, then—"

He flies back, falling through a wooden door. Spinning around, Josie holds up a ball of fire as she faces JJ who casually leans against the broken wall. "We have much to discuss."

When Josie throws her fire forward, JJ simply wraps a hand around her wrist and tugs. The fire dissipates as her stomach drops, her body falling through air that shouldn't be there, clouds surrounding her. The house is gone; all that's left is the open sky.

With no ground to stand on, Josie does her best to right herself even as she screams in fear. Clouds pass by her eyes like streaks of white against the light blue surrounding her with no end in sight. Eventually, something finds itself beneath her feet—a solid cloud that cushions her fall—and her stomach moves back into place while she looks around the open expanse surrounding her.

"Peaceful, isn't it?"

This time, she turns slowly. JJ stands behind her with his hands clasped behind his back, armor adorning his skin as scales peek out from beneath his collar, a deep grey mixed with dark pine shimmering in the light Josie cannot find a source for. Just the sight of him makes her recoil, rage flickering in her gut at that stupid smile.

"I wouldn't try to hurt me," he says. "Neither of our magic works here. In fact, neither of us are getting out of here until I want us to."

"Where is my girlfriend?" Josie demands, clenching her hands into fists.

"It's odd, you know," JJ tilts his head as his slit eyes drag over her skin like sandpaper. "You should have felt it, but you didn't. As an eljun, you should have felt that spike of fear when the gremlin took her and brought her to us, when her magic was suddenly cut off. But you didn't. It took you days."

She refuses to acknowledge the guilt weighing on her, how the clouds grow darker in their centers, that darkness spreading through them. "Where is she?"

"Neither of you gets it, do you? You still believe we're the bad guys."

"You kidnapped my girlfriend and manipulated us ever since you came back. What about you isn't the bad guy?"

"If you would just listen—"

"Why?" Josie shouts, throwing her hands out. "Why listen to you? You have done nothing but scare us."

The smile falls off his face, his expression going slack. "Then I am truly sorry for our tactics," he says, the bite no longer present in his voice, leaving a hollow shell. "We are meant to work together, yet we are at odds. It does not excuse our behavior, but you must understand, we are angry. Not at you. At them."

"I don't care," Josie shakes her head with a bitter huff. "All I care about is Stella, so tell me where she is, or so help me, I'll be the last thing you see."

~~~~~

Aaron tumbles down cold stone steps, jagged rock cutting into his skin with each fall. When he inevitably reaches the end, he opens his eyes to find a blurred ceiling with swinging light fixtures above his head. Something sticky presses against his forehead as he pushes himself up, ignoring the queasiness in his gut as he presses a finger to his head.