Children of the Elements: Prey to Him

Chapter Eight: The Insider

Chapter Eight: The Insider

Ash glanced nervously around the room at the three figures. Eva was still biting her lip, a give-away to her inner anxieties; Chris’s face was dark and solemn, staring down at the dead girl in the middle of Georgea’s living room with folded arms; Georgea looked upset herself, her eyes wavering and watery as she met Ash’s gaze.

“What do we do with her?” Eva asked apprehensively, her eyes flitting from Chris to Georgea.

“Get her out of here for starters” Chris answered grimly. He seemed unfazed by the corpse lying in front of them.

“And put her where? It’s not like there’s a pre-prepared storage area for dead bodies. We’re not that much of a liability.”

“We should bury her,” Georgea cut into Eva’s panic. “Nathan would want that.”

“Why don’t we actually ask him what he wants?” Ash suggested.

“Because, smart-ass,” Eva retorted, her eyes wild. “If you haven’t noticed he’s not exactly in the best frame of mind at the current moment. I doubt he’ll want to be planning extensive flowery funerals for his sister, will he?” Ash frowned a little and dropped her eyes from Eva’s accusing scrutiny. Clearly she didn’t deal well with death.

“Eva, calm down. We’ll sort it out” Chris’s calming voice interrupted.

Eva turned from panicked to angry. “Fuck this. This,” she gestured Nathan’s sister, “this should not be happening to us. People dying because of us? What happens when they start going around murdering people just to weaken us? Nathan’s clearly not in a state to do anything: Craig’s just trying to break us in the best way he knows possible. I won't be Craig’s fucking experiment to abuse like this. Maybe you lot are too weak to rebel against him, but I’m out of here!” With that, she stormed out of the room, Chris on her tail. Ash and Georgea heard the two of them arguing in the kitchen behind the shut door.

The stairs creaked, and Ash’s head whipped up to look. Nathan was striding down the stairs, holding something in his dangling left hand. His face was a mask: white and blank as though someone had gone and wiped all emotion off of it. Georgea immediately stood up and went over to him. “What are you doing?” she asked gently.

Ash followed her, standing by Georgea’s side as Nathan didn’t stop at the bottom of the stairs, but made his way towards the front door. “Out” he stated firmly. He didn’t make eye contact with either of them. Ash stared down at the object hanging lazily from his hand. Her eyes widened as she realised: it was a gun.

Georgea gave Ash a quick nervous glance, but didn’t move from the bottom of the stairs. On an impulse, Ash sprinted down the corridor, whipped past Nathan and slammed into the front door. She turned around with quick breaths, blocking the door, to face him as puzzlement flashed in his eyes.

“You can’t kill him. That’s not the way to deal with this.”

At first, Nathan seemed disappointed, but he cleared up his face of emotion quickly, as though wiping a drawing off a whiteboard. “You can’t stop me.”

He took a step towards the door and Ash opened her hand in front of him, a flower of fire blossoming in her palm. “Please. Not now. You’re not thinking straight. I know you’ll regret it later. You're not a killer, Nathan.”

The flame glowed in his eyes like sparks of anger. He grabbed her wrist forcefully and took a threatening step towards her. Leaning down to her ear, he hissed “I will cut you down. Don’t try me.”

Something in Ash’s head broke. He was pulling away from her, his eyes hard and emotionless as he let his words sink in. There was nothing left of her Nathan, the boy she’d once felt something for. This was someone else. Weakly, she still tried to change his mind. “At least let me come with you.”