Atlantis Academy: The First Element

CHAPTER TWELVE

"We're accepting applications," he says with a scowl.

I sprint faster, faster than I ever knew I could.

I'll be on milk cartons!

Do they do that anymore?

I'll be on one of those unsolved murder shows!

They'll find my remains buried in the woods somewhere. Chloe and Ethan will get away with it all because no one knows where I went last night.

I have to find help!

Desperation rushes through me as I glance up at the cliff, covered in fir trees that are barely hanging on... and at the empty bridge. I've never been down here before, but it looks like a steep, hard climb up a harrowing dirt path to get to that bridge.

What hope do I have of making it all the way to the top, outrunning Ethan and Chloe, in my condition? I'm already slowing, pain shooting through all my limbs.

Ethan tackles me, and we go down hard.

I try to crawl forward, but he's too heavy. He flips me on my back and pins my arms to the sand. His brown eyes are dark with anger, and he says something, but I can't hear him over the wind and rain and my own pounding pulse.

We're right below the storm cloud, and rain is pouring into my eyes, blurring my vision. I swear I can feel the electricity crackling through the air around us, feel the power of the storm overhead. Desperation surges through me, and I kick my legs, trying to get him to let me go.

An electric hum dances through my cells as lightning sparks overhead.

The wind suddenly picks up, blowing so hard that Ethan gets a face full of sand and rain.

I knee him in the groin.

He falls to the side, giving me a brief window to scramble away from him. Then I'm off and running again, pushing through the intense wind and rain.

I glance behind me. Ethan's got one hand on his crotch and is using the other to shield his eyes from the wind, rain, and grains of sand flying through the air.

Around me, the wind has died down to almost nothing.

Ethan's reaching into his jacket for something. What is it?

He pulls out some kind of... stick.

No time to wonder what the hell he's doing with that. I take off sprinting again.

A high-pitched ringing hits my ears and reverberates through every inch of my body. Golden light swirls around me.

What. Is. Happening?

My legs turn back into jellyfish, and I collapse to the ground.

Ethan's there a second later, hauling me up by my arm. "Calm. Down." he says in my ear.

The tone is still ringing in my ears, and I swear the light is off here. Yellowish, when the world around us is gray and full of rain.

"Calm down and come with me," he says.

All my anxiety just... floats away.

All the fear drains out of me, and my shoulders relax.

"Calm down and come with me," he repeats.

I'm going to be calm. And go with him.

Weird. My heart slows. My nausea vanishes. I can only feel my scrapes and bruises and battered muscles a little bit. I don't even have a headache anymore.