The Elementals : The Dawn of Darkness

Chapter 38 - Reunited And It Feels So Good!

"Nick?" The sound made tears press hotly against the backs of my eyes. Her voice was hoarse and weak but it was her. It was her! "Nick! It's you, oh my god, it's really you!"

Screw caution, nothing was going to hold me back from this. I ran at her, throwing my arms around her shoulders, meeting her for the best hug I'd had in my life (Sorry Sheira). Mum held me tight, tight enough to achieve that feeling like you're about to be crushed to death even though she had almost no strength left. Ah dammit, there go the floodgates.

I'm not sure if those tears were from relief though. She was so thin. I could feel every bone digging sharply into my skin. Rage flickered within my chest, a sudden urge to snap Molly in half like a twig. I had this insatiable desire to kebab the Lovecraftian reject, grill her to medium rare and feed her to a great white shark. There are great whites in this country, right?

Mum stepped back, claw-like hands clutching at my arms, either for stability or shock it was hard to tell and gazed at me with shiny eyes. Her hair hung limply at her cheeks and her eyes were sunken into her head like a Halloween pumpkin but she when she smiled her face lit up and the pain simply faded away. My beautiful Mum was right in front of me again.

"How?" She choked back a sob. "How are you here?"

She wiped the tears from my eyes with a ragged sleeve. She hadn't done that since I was really little. Wave two, activate. "I promised Dad I wouldn't let anything happen to you. I wasn't about to fail on that. Besides," I shrugged, "no one messes with my family."

Mum smiled sadly, "You're so like him...Too stubborn for your own good."

Never had a truer statement been said. I laughed weakly, "you have no idea."

Mum pulled me close again and I closed my eyes, just for a moment so I could picture the shabby flat kitchen. I could hardly remember it, it seemed like aeons away. Like another world. Well, technically it was another world if you really want to be pedantic.

Wiping her eyes and her voice cracking, Mum turned to the raggedy bed and called out, "Maxie! Lilah! Come see who it is."

With my heart pounding like a drum the bed shifted and from under it crawled two tiny figures. Great, and I'd just stopped crying too. They were both filthy, like a day after playing in the flower beds of Hyde Park, but luckily didn't appear to be hurt. They were still wearing their school clothes. They weren't as skeletal as Mum either, which could only mean that she'd been giving them her meals instead of herself.

Lilah, pushing her matted hair out of her face, gasped and shrieked, "Nick!"

She ran to me arms outstretched, tears streaming down her face. The rage sparked again. She was limping. A sobbing Maxie stumbled on the uneven cobles, his knees were already scraped red and raw, but still ran, jumped and wrapped his spindly legs around my waist. I scooped up my baby sister and held her tight too, willing my body temperature up. They were both freezing. But they were alive, and at the end of the day, that's all that mattered.

Maxie had buried his ice-cold nose into my neck while Lilah clutched at the fabric of my jacket like a baby joey clinging to its mother. They were both howling their innocent little hearts out, a sound that made my flaming one shatter into a million pieces. Maxie stirred and flinched. He'd caught sight of the two figures in the doorway.

"Hey! Don't worry, these are my friends." I set them both down but they still cowered behind my legs. Mum observed the two strangers with curiosity. I smiled reassuringly and gestured to the two of them, "this is Shadow and this is Sheira. They helped me get here," I explained to my family. They were still petrified though as when Sheira carefully and slowly stepped into the cell the two kids recoiled into a corner. Considering what they'd been through, who could blame them?