Inferno : Elements Series Book One

Derek

Thankfully Hank and Jasper clear Jillian without too much drama. She’s pissed at us for suspecting her, but she seems to understand.

“So, now that you’re done grilling me,” she gives us all pointed looks. “What, exactly, do you want me to do?”

Hank and I discussed this on the way over.

“We want you to put feelers out and tell us what you find out,” says Hank.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning,” I say, stepping away from the wall that I’ve been leaning against during Jillian’s interrogation. “We want you to sneak into everyone’s minds as subtly and efficiently as possible and try and find out who the traitor is. You have to be careful about it, whoever it is can’t find out that we’re onto them.”

“Yeah, Gwen and I should be able to do it pretty easily…” she trails off as she sees our expressions. “What?”

I sigh and sit in a nearby chair, my elbows on my knees.

“Gwen can’t help you,” I say.

“Of course she can, she’s amazing with this.”

“No, you don’t understand,” I respond. “It’s not that she can’t, we all know that she’s more than capable. It’s that she won’t. We all lost Gwen’s trust the moment she found out about a traitor and the information that they’ve been passing along. She suspects everyone. She’s shut us out completely.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” says Jillian in shock.

“Not at all,” I don’t even bother trying to hide the hurt and the frustration. If my feelings for her are so damned obvious to everyone, then why waste the energy?

“Shit,” she runs her fingers through her long hair in annoyance. “Without Gwen I won’t be able to spy.”

My head whips up and my neck cracks as I stare at Jill.

“What are you talking about?” I demand.

“I’m not as powerful as her. There are only a small percentage of minds that I’d be able to get into without their knowledge and the rest I’d be able to get into but they’d be fully aware of it. It takes a lot of strength to break down someone’s mental defences and even more power to go unnoticed whilst doing it.”

“Well that’s just fan-freaking-tastic!” exclaims Oliver, throwing himself unceremoniously onto the couch.

“Is there anyone who can help you? They could boost your power so that-” Jill is shaking her head before Hank can finish.

“That’s not really how mentalism works. In the other elements it’s possible for someone to channel their energy into another person, boosting their power and their impact. But with mentalism it would just register as two people trying to get into one mind. We’d get caught out almost immediately,” she explains.

“Then what are we supposed to do?” asks Anya. She’s so sad about all of this.

“We wait,” I say, much to everyone’s surprise.

“Patience is not one of my virtues,” says Jasper.

“And it’s not like you to play the waiting game either,” supplies Hank.

“This time we don’t have a choice. We have to wait for Gwen t-” I say.

“We can’t just wait for her to decide to trust us again,” interrupts Jasper. “We just don’t have that kind of time. She needs us to save her.”

Needs us to save her? Like she’s some sort of pathetic damsel in distress? Bullshit!

“Why don’t you let him finish,” chides Anya.

She’s angry which is unusual for her. Today must have taken a greater toll on her than I expected. She turns back to me, waiting.

“We don’t need to wait for her to trust us, we just have to wait for her to eliminate us,” I say.

“Eliminate us, like take us out? How is that going to help?” demands Jasper.

“Would you shut up! You’ve met Gwen, so tell me, in all the time we’ve spent with her do you truly believe that she’s just going to sit back and wait for someone to save her?!” My frustration is showing but I really don’t care. “She isn’t a helpless little girl; she doesn’t need to be saved. Gwen, I guarantee, will be using whatever power she has to figure out who has it out for her. She will be sneaking into people’s minds and analysing every ounce of magic that she feels, every small vibration or nudge against her aura until she figures out who it is, what they want and how they plan to get it. Get it yet?”

They’re looking at me like I’ve grown a second head, and both heads are shouting at them.

“Yeah, I do,” says Hank. He doesn’t seem too surprised by my outburst; he even has a knowing smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “You’re saying that she will come back to us once she’s confident that none of us are the traitor.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. In the mean time we still need you Jill,” I say, turning to face Jillian. “We still need you snooping. Only the minds you can get into unnoticed.”

“I’m on it,” she nods and leaves the room.

I’m exhausted. Today started out fun and now our whole world feels like it’s been set on fire. I hear the door close and Anya sits in the chair next to me.

“What do we do now?” she asks.

“First, we cancel her training sessions for the rest of the week. We need to clear everyone she has contact with,” they agree and I sigh, rubbing my eyes. “Then we go get some sleep. It’s late and we have enough to do without fighting exhaustion along with it,” I reply.

Without another word I just get up and walk away. I’m too tired for more brainstorming and I have an idea of my own. I need to talk to Gwen. There are still people in the corridors just wandering around, going about their own business. They have no idea that someone here is trying to destroy us.

It feels like it takes forever but I finally reach Gwen’s apartment. I raise my hand to knock and put it down almost immediately. What am I doing here? What am I even going to say? It’s not like I can just walk into her place and say ‘Hey, so I’m not trying to kill you. Glad we cleared that up!’ and walk out again. And I just realised that I’m skulking by her front door. That’s not at all creepy or weird. It’s time for me to leave. I only manage to take a few steps before her door opens.

“What do you want Derek?” she demands. She knew I was here.

She looks exhausted and angry. Her eyes are squinted against the light in the hallway, clearly she still has her migraine.

“Uh...um…hi,” I say. You really know how to utilise the English language to full effect, don’t you Derek!

“Yes, hello, what do you want?”

Okay, let’s see if you can actually say a complete sentence this time.

“I just wanted to see if you were okay. You ran out so fast before that none of us had time to ask.”

“That was deliberate,” she replies. Her voice is flat, trying to hide whatever she’s feeling. It’s scary to see her so quiet and closed off.

“I noticed,” I say. “Andrew told us everything.”

Maybe I can get her to talk about all of this and see where her heads at.

“And?”

That’s it! She’s going to drive me insane!

“And, I was wondering where you were at with all of this.”

“No, you want to know if I suspect you of betraying me. That’s why you’re here, no need to be subtle about it,” she says. Not in a mean way, just a matter of fact way. She’s quiet and she sounds tired but she’s still dominant.

“I won’t deny that,” I reply. “I wanted you to know that we’ll do whatever we can to find out who it is and that your training sessions have been cancelled until further notice. We’d like to put all our energy into finding the traitor.”

She looks at me with an intense expression.

“You’re analysing me, aren’t you?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Care to tell me what you’re looking for?”

“Things like honesty and sincerity. I’m looking for anything to tell me that the last few weeks of my life haven’t been manipulated by you.”

I feel like she’s punched me in the stomach…or hit me with a truck.

“I’ve never lied to you, Gwen. I know you don’t believe me, and I know it won’t mean much right now, but I give you my word that I’m not trying to hurt you. Neither is Hank, Anya or Oliver. We’re going to do everything we can to find out who’s been spying on you.”

Her face didn’t as much as twitch. She doesn’t believe me at all.

“You don’t believe me,” I feel my shoulders slump and all of a sudden I feel completely drained.

She finally shows some emotion. Her face falls and her eyes become so, so sad.

“No, I don’t believe you.”

She closes her door and leaves me standing in the hallway, feeling kind of numb.

I move off to my apartment, feeling completely deflated, and looking forward to throwing myself onto my mattress and sleeping for a decade.