ELEMENT

Chapter Ten: Dark Blazing

The dungeon was calm, cold and quiet. Meadow hummed softly to herself, continuing to pass the time. Footsteps followed a shadow down the hall.

"Hello." Meadow saw the face appear. A woman.

Meridian squinted. "You."

"You're Meridian, huh?" She clicked her teeth. "I would have thought you'd be more menacing."

"You expect me to live up to your legend?" Meridian laughed in her voice. "Think again."

"So, what?" Meadow shrugged, standing up and coming closer to the bars separating her from Meridian. "I get why I'm here. But what are you going to do with me?"

"Absolutely nothing." Meridian snorted. "Your friends are going to come here, I'm counting on it. And your brother, may his soul rest in peace."

"Don't joke like that!" Meadow hissed. "No wonder no one has any respect for you."

"Quite the contrary. Harry does."

"It's a perk of the job." Meadow turned away. "I see through you. Louise. You've got no real friend in this world, and you're prepared to turn away from it forever if a single thing goes wrong. Suicide was always an option for you."

"You're begging for your own suicide, you little shit." Meridian's tone shifted, suddenly more defensive. "I see through you too, Meadow Keynote. Or is that even your name?"

Meadow turned, her hair flipping just over her eyes. "It is."

"Sure."

"What are you trying to say?" Meadow grabbed at the bars, gritting her teeth. "That I'm not who I say I am? At least I'm not an evil totalitarian who's killed more people than I've met in my whole life, including the fucking royalty!"

"Sage has fucked with your head." Meridian's eyes went flat. "And I guess you don't know that I've killed their family, too."

"You..." Meadow trailed off. "You did what?"

"Her aunt, her best friend. They're dead. Their bodies are still sitting in that old cottage, rotting up the place." She flapped her hand, lighting another cigarette. "And you're here. When Sage and Ethan arrive to rescue you, they'll be getting a double betrayal now. You can't say they know everything about you. Who you are to them is a fabrication."

"To protect them!" Meadow yelled, her sharp voice echoing through the stone walls. "I'm lying to protect them! I'm going to make sure they survive if it's the last thing I do!"

"I would choose your next words carefully." Meridian smiled. It sent a chill down Meadow's spine to watch her face curl into a sinister smile. "I know who you are."

Meadow balled her fists up, tiptoeing around what the queen could say next. "...Not entirely. You don't know me."

"Try me." Meridian snarled. "Your friends, if you could even call them that, are trying to get to your level. So I guess you didn't bother to tell them you're a Celestial."

Meadow gasped softly, stepping back as Meridian opened the cell door.

"A Celestial. That's right." As Meridian stepped in, she threw a file on the ground. "A god on earth. The last one alive. Maybe you weren't always that way. But it's so thrilling to look you in the eyes. Into those defiant, misplaced eyes."

"Leave me alone." She'd nearly started crying. She wasn't prepared for a confrontation like this.

"You shouldn't be alive." Meridian smiled. She knew she'd had her cornered. "You're a freak of nature, Experiment 193."

Meadow's face dropped. All the words in her mind, the breath in her lungs, the beat in her heart left her body. "...How? How did you—"

Meridian laughed. And she couldn't stop. Maniacal, persistent laughing, in the face of her greatest adversary. In her hand, a flame materialized into a blade. "The prophecy says I can't kill you. So I won't. I'll just make sure you suffer, so you won't dare to fucking try me again."

"Go away!" Meadow held her hands out, channeling energy, and as she did, a shock surrounded her body.

"Oh, good! Harry's charm still works. This will make this a lot easier."

Meridian stood over Meadow, who was leaning up against the wall, powerless to do anything except hold her hands up in defense.

And a rumbling shook the castle.

"What...?" Meridian turned, looking out a window. "Oh, shit!"

A rumble. A bang. Walls collapsing.

Meadow broke a sweat, trying to stand up, but the shock coursed through her body like it had replaced her blood. "That would be my brother."

Meridian ran from the cell, as Meadow's vision started to go blurry, but before she left, she pointed her fingers and a great blaze broke in the dungeon, engulfing it in flames.

"Wait, no!" Meadow yelled, unable to move away from it. And it took moments for her to finally break consciousness.

-

"Meadow!"

She inhaled, shooting up from the ground. She was outside, skin stinging and burning on the grass around her.

"Oh, my God. I'm so glad you're okay."

As Meadow's vision finally focused, and she got a good look at the person who'd saved her, she didn't care so much about her injuries anymore. "Cole!"

And she jumped into an embrace, with her brother.

Cole Daley, the second-in-command of the Dark Elements, pushed away her hair to look at her face. "Your skin is peeling."

"I'm alright." She brought a hand up.

"And your fingertips!" He grabbed her wrist, looking closer at her hand. It had grown ever blacker.

"Yours too." Meadow breathed heavily, still not exactly awake.

"I'm so sorry this happened, I shouldn't have changed the plan." Cole gently let his grip go on her. "Peter's waiting for us."

"Ugh." Meadow rolled her eyes. "Meridian was right."

"God, when is she ever right?"

Meadow's thoughts went absent.

She was right in the way that Meadow shouldn't be alive. That she and her brother should have died a long time ago.

"...You're right." Meadow nodded. "Let's go see him."

"Fucking family reunions, man." Cole tsked.

"They've always been unavoidable." Meadow tried to find humor in the situation. But it was a reach.

"What are we going to do about the Light Elements?"

Meadow's lips tightened. "Let's make sure we survive a visit with out father first."

To Be Continued in Chapter Eleven