Rani

My hands are trembling as I turn on my pager. I've only been waiting for two days, but it's felt like a lifetime. I got two messages while I was waiting in my motel in Wyoming two mornings ago—the motel that is several hundred miles away, because I'm in Idaho now. In a few hours, I will be in Oregon.

Dr. Jansen didn't ask me to go to Oregon. I decided to do that myself. The video stressed me out too much, so much that I wasn't able to read the file attachments he sent after it. I printed them using the motel's printer and then destroyed the printer, but I haven't looked at the pages themselves. I know what they say, the video told me, but it isn't until now that I gather enough courage to look.

I take the three files and spread them on the coffee table. The first thing I notice is that they each have some of his handwriting, and then I notice the faces. Three of them, staring back at me. Jude, Taylor, Lana. Before reading any of them, I load up the video he sent to my pager, and my finger hovers over the play button. I've seen it three times already. A fourth won't change anything, but I press play anyway.

Dr. Jansen's face lights up the screen. He looks so tired, and it makes me sad. In that one week he helped me recover, he was bright. He smiled and encouraged me and I realized that, even though I hadn't known him long, I trusted him with my life. I've been waiting for almost three months for my pager to beep with the signal that it's time, and instead, he sent me this out of the blue.

"Rani," he says solemnly, the audio crackling a bit. "Things have gone wrong. Taylor, the fire Elemental, has become...volatile. I don't understand what's happened, but he's angry." He pauses, looking over his shoulder and into his house. The house. The one that I, and all of us, recovered in.

"I think he's coming for me."

I've heard him say that three times before, but this fourth still sends a chill down my spine.

"He's coming for me," Dr. Jansen repeats. "I don't know what he intends to do, but...he'll come for you next. All of you. He's no longer fit to lead you. He's no longer fit to do anything but be locked up. Please, Rani—it's up to you now. You have to save the others, I've sent you their names. Don't let him hurt you. Please—"

A noise shatters the background.

"He's here," Dr. Jansen says.

His eyes haunt me. I see the fear, the disbelief. Tears prick my eyes.

Dr. Jansen swallows and looks directly into the camera. "I don't know what I've done," he whispers. "I've only ever wanted you to succeed. If the Elementals are to be three, then so be it. If they are not meant to happen at all, then so be it. But whatever you do, Rani—stop him first."

The video cuts off there.

Jude, Taylor, Lana.

Taylor's name, I first heard in the video. A hell of an intro, I would say. Jude and Lana, it's right now, after reading these files, that I learn their names. I've been fantasizing about us for weeks. Four people gifted with some strange power, coming together to do some good. I didn't expect perfection, didn't expect everything to go smoothly, but I also didn't expect one of us to go batshit crazy before we ever got a chance to meet.

I read through their files quickly. It's only basic information and the addresses that Dr. Jansen sent them to. Jude, who is the Earth elemental, according to a sticky note, is an army-brat who never had a home longer than a year, but at the time of his accident, he was in New York state. Taylor is from Vermont. Lana, the air Elemental, is from Colorado. But now, Jude is in Washington, and Lana is in Georgia. I'm supposed to be in Wyoming, and Taylor is supposed to be in Michigan, but I doubt he's there.

And Dr. Jansen is supposed to be in Oregon.

I'll find out if he's still there.

I pick up Taylor's file and study his face. He was the first. I was the second. Fire boy was what Dr. Jansen called him, and since he hadn't yet discovered Earth or air, we called them nothing but hopeful futures. I didn't know, until now, whether he'd found them. But here they are, Jude and Lana.

I was waiting for the signal. Not the beginning of a snuff film.

I pack my stuff and shove everything into the car. There isn't much, but it's enough for me to live on. Oregon takes three hours, and then I'm winding through trees and a gentle downhill slope. When I roll down my window to relish the clean air, I'm hit with it.

The scent.

A burn. It smells like a horrible, horrible burn, and my eyes widen at the road. My foot is pressing harder against the gas, and before I know it, I've arrived at the house. Yellow tape has it blocked off, and I'm forced to park far down the road and walk there. The walk kills me, because I can see it before I'm close, and then I just get closer and closer until I'm confronted with it head-on.

The house has been burned up. What remains is dark, smoky arched structures of what it used to be. The bed I woke up in is gone. The floor upon which I tested my recovery steps, the fountain whose water I learned to control, the windows Dr. Jansen designed because it was the way his late wife liked them, all of it is gone, and I don't need any proof, any obituary to know.

Taylor.

Killed.

Jansen.

My hands fly up to my mouth to stifle a gasp. It's over. The dream I envisioned, the four of us working together, it's gone. Taylor has ruined it. It doesn't matter if the Elementals end up as three, because he will always haunt us. Dr. Jansen's death will be hanging over our heads, forever.

My arms are shaking, and I can barely lift the trunk. I take a camera and begin snapping pictures. I can't see through the camera hole because I'm crying, but I snap away, hoping some of them are clear. I don't know why I'm doing it; who am I going to prove this to? Who cares, aside from Jude and Lana?

I freeze.

Oh, no. Jude and Lana.

He'll come for you next.

I run to the car, but instead of driving to the interstate to head to Washington to find Jude, I drive to the coast. When I'm there I run into the water. It's cold and thrashing and if I weren't an Elemental, I would drown, but I am, so I don't. I swim out as far as I can and then I raise my hands, and the water around me moves, fizzes, bends to my command.

I use it to propel me North. Taylor is ahead of me by who knows how long—I can't risk driving to Washington and finding Jude already burned and dead. The water can take me there faster, because there's no stoplights or speed limits out here. All there is, is me, shooting forward like a rocket with only my head above water, too fast for people to notice or care.

It hurts. My eyes sting but I force them open, and my clothes are tearing up and I'm so, so cold, and I can barely breathe, but I go faster and faster. This is ridiculous. I bet it looks stupid. But Jude cannot die.

I stumble up onto the Puget Sound, and then I'm shooting through a mountain river, and finally, after what feels like forever—but a shorter forever than driving would've taken—I crawl out onto the property of the motel Jude is supposed to be staying it.

I'm drenched, smell like fish, and have hair that would make Medusa jealous,  but I'm here, and the building hasn't burned down.

I run up the steps two at a time, and I knock on room 207, Jude's room. No one answers, and I take my miserable, soggy self downstairs to the lobby.

"Who's in room 207?" I ask.

The receptionist leans back to avoid the drip. "No one," he says. "The last guy checked out already. And you're not supposed to be swimming in that river, there's no lifeguard."

"Checked out?" I repeat. Jude left? But why? "Was he with someone?"

The guy shrugs. "Didn't see, sorry. Would you like to rent a room?"

I hang my head. "I have things to do."

I turn around, my shoes squeaking as I walk away. I'm beyond relieved that Jude didn't die here, but that doesn't mean he's not in danger. He wasn't the first person I wanted to find—no, my main goal is to kill Taylor, but Washington is so close that I assumed Taylor would go to kill Jude after getting to Jansen. Now that both Jude and Taylor are not at the addresses I have for them, the only person I can try is Lana.

Georgia. Damn it. I can't water-propel myself there.

I sit down at the river bank to rest. I'm going to have to go back to where I left my car in Oregon; it has all my stuff, including the files and the camera. By the time I get to Georgia, Lana might disappear, too. The thought crushes me, and I hug my knees to my chest, so angry that I'm afraid my teeth will clench hard enough to shatter each other.

I try to calm myself. I won't know anything for sure until I get there. The three of us still have a chance.

And Taylor is going to pay.