War of Elements

Two

When I woke up the next morning, Autumn was on her side, her head propped up with a hand, staring down at me intently. "Morning baby girl," I said though a yawn, blinking my eyes in an attempt to wake up. "What're you thinking?"

"Nothing. Zima's here. Daddy told me to tell you when you woke up." She replied, sliding out of bed and walking towards her door. "I'm gonna go brush my teeth."

"You do that," I said, reaching for my phone on the floor next to me and looking at the time. 11:30. Shit, I had slept in. I stood up, feeling a few joints popping and cracking. My neck was sore from spending the night on Autumn's floor. I guess Mitch hadn't woken up for his shift. It didn't matter much to me; he was tired from planning and deserved to have at least one night of rest.

I shuffled out into the kitchen, finding Zima and Mitch standing over our table, looking over a map and a few lists. "Morning," I mumbled, walking over to the coffee machine to find some already made. Thankfully, I pulled out a mug and some creamer.

"Good morning, Ice. Did you sleep well?" Zima asked, and gee, she was fucking perky.

"I slept on my daughter's floor, waiting to see if a millenias-old man who can control the fucking sun would come sneaking into her room to kidnap her to perform some weird tests on her because she has special powers and he wants to fuck around with her psyche." I deadpanned, turning around and taking a big gulp of coffee, ignoring the fact that it was no longer even remotely hot.

"I will... take that as a no."

"She's not a morning person." Mitch said, still looking at the lists and maps and bullshit. "Here. A weak spot, we can infiltrate here."

I tuned them out as they went back to their planning, walking out of the kitchen to check on Autumn. Her toothbrush was sitting back in its cup on the sink, but it wasn't dry so I assumed she had actually brushed her teeth. I didn't feel like playing investigator when I felt like I was swallowed a bucket of sand and had the life sucked out of me.

Now, she was standing on her step-stool, staring at her contacts with distaste. "What's up, lovely?" I asked, resting a hand on her shoulder and taking another drink of coffee. I pushed some hair behind her ears, looking at her eyes in the mirror.

"I don't like these," she said. "I'm used to them. But I don't like them."

"I know. I don't like them either." I said, and her reflection smiled at me. "It's what we do to keep ourselves -"

"Safe." She cut me off and I became painfully aware of how grown up she had become in only six years. She shouldn't have to live like this.

Nobody should.

"I know, mommy," she said, and then she set the contacts down, stepped off her step stool, and walked past me into the kitchen. I couldn't find it in myself to scold her for brushing me off. It wasn't that big of a deal, anyway.

I downed the rest of my coffee and left the mug in the bathroom sink, figuring I could just wash it later. Instead of going back out to the kitchen to talk about planning, however, I walked over to Autumn's room and opened the door.

Her room was colorful, with pastel pink walls and her twin bed covered in pink sheets and overflowing with stuffed animals. Plush white rugs dug in between my toes as I crossed over and sat on her bed.

I sat for a moment in silence before reaching down, under her mattress, and pulling out the stash of photos and doodles. I looked through the pile that Autumn didn't know I was aware of, finding little scraps of paper with unicorns and rainbows drawn onto them. There were pictures of Mitch and I, some with either of us alone or together and some with Autumn in them. There were pictures of Scott, Esther, Avi, and Kevin, all stashed under her mattress. And then I got to the last one, the one that made my gut wrench and came to haunt my dreams, making me toss and turn and wake up in a cold sweat.

There, in that pile of scraps and doodles, were a pair of smoldering, flame-orange eyes. Heat's eyes, oddly lifelike, drawn by my daughter and kept under her mattress.

I stared at them, and they stared right back at me.

-

A/N: This is technically a filler chapter but don't tell anyone.