The Elementalists

ANGEL

                  

I am furious. As soon as my eyelids open, I am on my feet, up the nearest tree, and jumping from tree to tree using the branches. Now I know why Daemon didn't tell me the boy's element. He knew that if I knew that Mark was the Fire Elementalist, I wouldn't go.

   Daemon tells me to let it go, but he doesn't understand, and I don't expect him to. Yes, he lost a loved one too—his sister Lilly died, and he blames himself—but he didn't lose his entire family to the last Fire Elementalist. He'll never have the feeling that he could've—should've—tried to save them, or died trying.

   I shake the thoughts from my mind, an hop down to the forest floor. Daemon is leaning against a tree, and as I approach, he asks, "So, I'm assuming you found out?"

   I walk right up to him and stand on the tips of my toes so that my eyes look straight into his--it helps that we're on sloped ground. "That wasn't very smart of you," I hiss, "because now it is my personal mission to kill that kid! I hate him! You know what his kind can do! You saw what she did to my family!" Tears threaten to emerge, but I blink them back. I'd promised myself that I would never cry again after Xander's and my mother's deaths. I knew that I would have nothing to cry for that would ever outrank their deaths.

   "She had a name. Her name was Alisha," Daemon says calmly. "Look, that happened a long time ago. Get over it, it's the past."

   I narrow my eyes. "You know very well," I growl, "that one cannot simply 'get over' the past. I've seen the way you act when someone mentions your sister." I clench my fists and say, "It's her fault that they're dead, you know! If she hadn't died, and if Alisha hadn't wanted to bring her back to life... 'A life for a life,' she'd told me! She'd said, 'Sorry, boy, but you have no mother anymore. It's a life for a life, and now Lilly will return and Daemon will love me.' And then you were there, yelling at her, telling her that Lilly wasn't coming back because she was in a better place! What the heck did that accomplish, Daemon?"

   "It gave me you," Daemon says, looking me right in the eyes. "I swore to myself I was going to protect you, which was one thing I couldn't do for Lilly. Angel, I left for one year to gather up all of the Elementalists. I returned home three months early, and I left Wayne in charge of her. Wayne was the Water Elementalist; I trusted him with Lilly. I went looking for the last Elementalist I needed to find—and that was you, Angel. I couldn't find you, but Alisha did, and I'm sorry that it had to happen that way." He chokes out the words, "Lilly died the day after I left. The very next day. I returned home, and I asked, 'Wayne, where's Lilly?' He'd said, 'Oh, follow me, Daemon...,' all quiet-like, and he'd led me to a grave. Can you even imagine that feeling, Angel?"

   "I had to bury my own mother and brother," I whisper. "I buried them underneath the willow tree, the tree that survived the fire. I, a six year old boy, had to bury them by myself. Daemon, I am going to kill the Fire Elementalist, and you can't stop me!"

   "No," Daemon says, "I can't. But you wouldn't kill him."

   "Why not?" I ask.

   "He's Robin's friend," Daemon says, "and a close friend at that."

   I open my mouth to argue, but all of a sudden, I'm overwhelmed by images, names, and places. I gasp, and blink my eyelids rapidly. The images are gona almost as soon as they appeared, but I know what I saw.

   "Daemon," I say, "we have to go to the entrance of the woods. Now."

   Daemon looks at me, and then he nods. All he asks is one word, "Vision?" I nod, and he begins to run alongside me.