The Last Elementalist

Chapter 25

Blurry figures stood behind a sheet of glass the moment she opened her eyes. Quickly sitting up and putting on a face that was meant to show pure anger, she raised her hands and focused on a blast of wind strong enough to shatter it. Nothing happened and for a moment Lielle panicked before she heard a scratchy voice stating, "It's ganaitium, girl. No powers in there."

Well at least these people have the sense to recognize that these are powers and not 'abilities,' she thought sullenly.

While the men chatted they hardly moved their lips leaving Lielle clueless to what they were silently saying. She slid down the wall and stared into its dull grayness. She imagined Connor's terrified face, Evie's teary eyes and the twins' pouty expressions. They seemed to think she was indestructible, the best fighter out there, but clearly they were wrong. Clearly there was someone better than her, that man with the blue eyes that seemed so familiar and the same tangled hair that Cassidy always seemed to have no matter what she did. It hit her like a punch in the gut and her mind carried her back to six years ago on that roof in Sierra Vista.

* * * * *

Tangled hair surrounded the girl whom she had caught in a headlock after catching her peeking through a window in her family's small house. Lielle had to keep her strong arms hard as rocks to keep her from fleeing.

"Tell me who you are and what you're doing," Lielle commanded, unsure of how to act during her first interrogation.

She strained against her arms that suddenly seemed musclier before snarling, "Nothing that concerns you."

Lielle squeezed the girl harder making tears spring into her eyes. "Now!" she badgered.

"I'm loyal to my father! Especially now-"

"What's now?" she growled.

"My brother went missing," she squeaked.

"And this has to do with why you are here because..."

"Because- because I trust my father's instincts and he told me that he would be here."

Judging by the break in her voice at the end she was lying, so she spat, "Lies!" and all at once the girl spun around and sent a kick into her chest sending her to the tip of the roof, but at the last second, the girl grabbed her by the shirt, giving her a clear view of the jacket she wore with "Cassidy" written in curled reptiles.

"Never speak of this," she hissed. "I have the upper hand on your family."

She pulled Lielle over so hard that she blacked out, and when she opened her eyes, the girl was gone, leaving her disoriented and unsteady on the building. That is when she made a silent oath to herself to master mixed martial arts.

* * * * *

Looking back out of the ganaitium, Cassidy looked exactly like her father with their identical hard eyes and straight, unmoving lips. She wondered if that was how she was told to talk to avoid anyone reading them.

"Mr. Allen?" she called pleasantly.

"Callahan to you. Though my daughter must have you thinking otherwise."

"Have you seen your daughter anytime recently?" she asked, trying again for pleasantness and innocence.

"The other day when your friends were kind enough to bring us a gift with little leverage from my daughter."

"How about your son? See him at all? 'Cause I thought I saw someone in Boston who looks identical to what Cassidy described-"

"Lies. He's missing and out of the country. This is how we're going to do this," he continued, folding over his sleeves. "We are both going to be completely honest. Why were you here?"