A/N: Warning for another long chapter ahead. :P
This chapter's dedicated to @surfoverseas for the awesome new cover! (thanks again :))  

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Rina stared out the window silently, though there wasn't anything much to stare at aside from the other vehicles crowding the avenue, all moving at about the same pace as a family of turtles on a beach on a lazy Sunday afternoon. She squinted her eyes against the glare of the morning sun, which shone angrily from the sky as if it was noontime in December.

It still felt relatively warm inside the car even with the air conditioning on full blast. Her 1996 Lancer had been a gift from her father, customized and restored like a continuous project over the years. It was their father-daughter thing, spending time under the hood covered in oil and grease. Even her brother had had a hand with some of the upgrades installed. But under the summer glare it seemed obvious the car was overdue for another check up. The thought of it breaking down on her on the road didn't sound too appealing in such hot weather.

"Can't you do something about the heat Gale?" Adam said wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. He had been designated as their driver after their short conversation that morning.

"Sorry dude. Can't do anything about air temps." Came her friend's reply from the back seat. The only reason the woman had agreed to sit at the back was because they were dropping her off before the doctor. "It'll still be warm even if I increase the speed. What Rina's A/C needs is more refrigerant."

Rina's brow furrowed at the exchange. They hadn't had the time to continue their conversation from earlier that morning, all of them waking up a bit too late due to the long night they had. Which was what got the doctor in a sulking mood. She had looked forward to learning more about the supernatural world and the lack of follow up information annoyed her a little.

After she'd slept off the shock, what remained was a plain curiosity, and being told she'd have to wait until evening only worsened her crankiness from not getting enough sleep. It came as a surprise how easily she'd come to terms with the perplexing facts. Even the dream she somehow managed to have in the short amount of time she'd closed her eyes had been related to it, though the specifics seemed to dissolve the more she tried to grasp them. Mere fragments floated about in her head - vague flashes - that she had no choice but to drop the impossible task of ever recalling it.

With nothing but a few details to work with in her head, she'd decided she would take whatever opportunity presents itself during their travel. And so she didn't even think twice about asking the first question that popped into her head.

"Wait. You mean-?"

Gale chuckled. "Kinda obvious with my name actually. My dad had zero imagination." Her voice, it seemed to the doctor, was laced with a bit of sadness. She knew about the death of her friend's father, though at the moment she found herself doubting if the story she was told had been the truth.

"I'm just thankful I wasn't named Southwest Monsoon." Her friend said between giggles, an attempt perhaps to mask her emotions. "God that would suck!"

Rina obliged and let out a soft laugh. She wanted to give her friend an escape from the sad memories and she did find the thought of referring to her by something so obvious a bit funny.

"Oh, are you done sulking now princess?" Adam glanced at her from the corner of his eyes.

She felt the heat concentrate in her cheeks. Perhaps she hadn't hidden her disposition quite as effectively as she'd thought.

"I wasn't sulking," she said, refusing to look at the man beside her. "And don't call me 'princess'. I'm too old for that."

"You talk like you're forty." Adam laughed, the sound lightening her mood. "And yes you were."

It took a lot for the doctor not to make face at his reply.

"Okay, how about this." he said. "Since we're already stuck here, why don't we tell you about our Awakening instead?"

Rina risked a sideways glance, her ears perking up at the words. But before she opened her mouth to respond, she gulped, willing her voice to be even like it wasn't a big deal.

"Yeah, sure." She shrugged.

Adam chuckled, though whether he'd seen through her ruse, he didn't say.

"I think I was two when my I got mine," he said. "At least according to my parents."

The doctor had angled her body to face him and he suppressed a smile to hide his amusement over her obvious curiosity.

"Thankfully, the extent of an Elemental's power depends on physiology, so the things I could do then weren't really something to worry about. And it's easier cause I got to grow up mastering it. When I hit my teens and had the whole growth spurt thing, it didn't cause too much problem anymore 'cause I pretty much have it under control. Plus, by the time creatures started coming after me, I could already defend myself."

"Wait." Rina's brow furrowed, her hands automatically going up halfway. "Creatures come after all Elementals?" She tried wrapping her head around it as she asked. It seemed stupid. Why would they risk facing creatures they knew were more powerful than them?

"Well, only before our powers awaken." It was Gale who answered. "Like I said, cases like his are extremely rare. So they usually come after us once we turn twenty-one."

"Why not attack earlier then?" She leaned towards the space between the two front seats. "Most of you don't have your powers yet when you're still kids, right?"

"You know I actually asked my dad about the same thing." Her friend inched forward, her hands gripping the headrest of the doctor's seat for support. "He said it has something to do with trying to harvest our powers or something? Though it's just a theory going around. I think two of the Leaders are doctors and that's their running theory." Her voice had taken a tone of interest.

To Rina it seemed surprising how Elementals didn't know everything about themselves, but guessed that perhaps it came with living under the radar. They couldn't exactly run experiments without rousing suspicion, she mused.

"What about you?" She craned her neck to face her friend. "When did you get yours?"

"After I turned twenty-one. Like two months after."

"What about the creatures? How did you-" She waved her hands around, not entirely sure how they defended against their darker foes. "Do you fight them?"

"Well, we do. We use our powers basically." Gale slid back on her seat, turning her face to the windows.

Rina interpreted the action as her friend not wanting to go into the details, though she was simply too curious to let the conversation end.

"How did you then?"

The other woman sighed, meeting her eyes. Adam answered for her this time.

"Funny story that one," he said, a teasing tone to his voice.

The doctor shifted her gaze and saw that he was grinning from ear to ear, which only made her want to pry even more.

Gale shot Adam a glare in the rear-view mirror, the desire to do physical damage evident in her eyes.

Rina darted her eyes between them as she bit her tongue gently to stop herself from demanding a straight answer like an uncontrollable child.

Finally her friend sighed. "Well, I didn't know about any of this at the time," she said. "There's the possibility I wouldn't even have powers 'cause my mom's human. So, my father had one of his friend's son 'stick with me'-" She quoted the words in the air. "-for lack of a better word. Well, trick me was more like it." She rolled her eyes.

The doctor's brows knitted, facts surfacing from her memories. Gale had told her of only one person who'd been by her side almost all the time when she was still in university. It was the same person her friend never mentioned again and refused to speak of just a few months before she graduated. In comparison to the many hearts the other woman had broken, he was the only one who had broken hers.

"Wait." She turned to her friend who had slid further back in her seat. "You don't mean-?"

"The one and only," Gale said, chin resting on her hand, eyes still turned towards the window. "So naturally when my powers finally awakened and I found out about it, I broke it off."

"That's the real reason you guys broke up?" Rina's voice rose an octave higher.

"Well, he did lie to me." Her friend lifted her shoulders.

"In the guy's defense, he said he really loved you." Adam chimed in, his eyes darting between the road and the rear-view mirror. "Remember?"

Gale scoffed, this time meeting the man's eyes in the reflection. "Please. We were friends for three years before all that happened."

"Your point?" Adam raised an eyebrow.

"There's no way he could've loved me. You know I was actually questioning that the short time we were together? I kinda figured he had ulterior motives from the start, I just didn't listen to my instincts."

Rina watched the exchange with a mixture of amusement and irritation. Where the latter had come from, she could only venture a guess. Perhaps she simply wasn't used to feeling somewhat like a third wheel, especially when she was with Gale.

"Did you know Jon didn't wanna break up with her?" Adam's question made her twist in her seat further to stare accusingly at her friend.

"You said it was a mutual decision!" she said, quickly pushing the uneasiness to the back of her mind and regaining her wits.

Gale groaned, tilting her head up to face the dirty ceiling of the cabin. "This is not the time and place to be talking about this!" She lowered her head again and shot their driver daggers through the mirror. "Stop trying to get back at me for almost blowing your cover or so help me I will hurt you!"

Rina suppressed a giggle at her friend's sudden childishness and settled for the idea of grilling her about the issue at a later time.

"Let's all focus okay?" The other woman turned to her, her gaze still sharp and piercing. "You seem to be a late bloomer of sort. Or there just hasn't been a trigger. I dunno. I've met both your parents and I haven't seen them in any of the meetings. And their names aren't in the rosters either - I checked. Maybe you're some long lost descendant or some weird exception to the hereditary requirement. Or maybe one of your parents is actually an Elemental in hiding."

It took a few seconds for Rina to digest what her friend had just said, her mind seemingly refusing to reconcile the thought of her parents being anything but normal humans.

"Why would either one of them hide though?" Her forehead puckered, face in a deep set frown.

"That's something you'll have to ask for yourself."

Rina pursed her lips, there was simply no way either of her parents would be an Elemental. The idea itself seemed too preposterous - unreal. But everything that had happened so far had been unreal too hadn't it? Would she be able to accept it if it turned out she was like Gale and Adam?

She barely managed to stop herself from shaking her head and looking like a complete fool for arguing with herself. Not that it would matter with only the other two people in car with her to witness it.

She sighed, knowing full well her sanity was the least of her problems right then, however wrong the notion was. How would she even bring up the subject with her parents? Should she just come out and say it? Perhaps her mother would be the best person to ask, she mused. She had, after all, a few quirks of her own they'd never been able to explain.

The rest of the slow drive to Gale's office, weaving through the smaller streets of the metro's center of business, was filled with silence. The doctor continued to be lost in her thoughts and her companions granted her the quiet they both assumed she needed.

Her friend merely placed a hand on her shoulder from the back seat, squeezing it gently and giving her a small smile when she turned her head to look at her, before she slid out of the car. She reminded Adam about dropping her off at the hospital and picking her up later that night like an overprotective mother before she finally walked towards the heavy glass doors of the building where she worked. They, on the other hand, started for her dreadful prison.

It wasn't until they were driving across to the capital that Adam started a conversation with a question.

"Hey Doc, would you mind if I borrow your car for today?"

"You mean I can have my privacy for today?" She didn't think before answering him and somehow ended up replying with a slight jibe.

"Yes?" There was a slight grimace in Adam's sheepish smile. "Have I said sorry for being a creepy stalker yet? I know that must've been nerve-racking."

The doctor couldn't help but snicker at the reaction. Despite how disturbed she'd been mere hours before when she first learned of him trailing her, she found she couldn't muster the annoyance anymore. Perhaps it was because she had rested. Or perhaps because the man himself didn't seem all too bad. Whatever the reasons were, it seemed her irritation towards the fact had all but vanished.

"No it's okay. I was just teasing you," she said, her eyes smiling.

"Really?" Both of Adam's eyebrows shot up, his voice laced with disbelief.

"Uhuh."

He shook his head, a wide grin on his face. "You sure get over things fast."

Rina's brows furrowed. She hadn't exactly thought of it before, but at the moment she couldn't remember a time when she'd held a grudge over anything. Not even over her ex-boyfriend's cheating spree. She guessed she'd long learned to let go of certain things due to the complicated relationship she had with her mother, but she'd rather not try justifying her personality at the moment.

"I guess?" She shrugged, giving up on any attempt at self-reflection.

Adam shook his head again, chuckling.

The doctor watched silently as the man rested one elbow by the window, letting go of the steering wheel. He placed his head atop his lightly closed fist, his eyes fixed on the road. From her seat beside him she could see the five o'clock shadow covering his jaws and chin and she couldn't help thinking how it somehow made him look more manly and handsome in a rugged sort of way. His nose protruded from his face in a triangle with a slight dip just where his eyes were. But what had Rina fixated on his face was the man's eyes that were a slightly darker shade of golden brown, framed by long lashes she reckoned should be illegal for men to have.

Tiny butterflies fluttered in her stomach for reasons she didn't care to cross-examine at the moment, though questions automatically wandered in her thoughts. Why hadn't she noticed he was good-looking until then? Had she really been too preoccupied? Granted the whole thing would've made anybody lost in their own heads, but still-

Rina almost jumped when Adam's eyes darted to her direction, his irises catching the sun's rays and turning a caramel shade. His lips upturned to one side at the sight of the doctor's shocked face and she could feel a blush creeping up her cheeks from embarrassment.

She had expected the man to tease her about her unconscious staring and was surprised when he simply continued their previous conversation.

"About the car," he said. "Can I borrow it then?"

Shaking her head slightly, she flashed him a small smile. "Yeah, sure. But where exactly do you plan on taking it?"

"No dangerous places. Cross my heart. I just gotta get home and change first then I'm off to classes. Unfortunately they start today. Then afterwards I'll go pick you up."

Rina had heard her friend made the man promise at least thrice that morning, but the thought of him chaperoning her still seemed too imposing. She didn't want to argue when she knew she would undoubtedly lose though and had simply decided not to linger on the idea.

"You're still a student?" she asked instead. It came as a bit of a surprise even to herself how she felt genuinely curious.

"Law student. Technically I should've started three years ago but I wanted to work first." He shrugged.

The doctor did the quick math in her head. "You're a year younger than me and Gale then?"

"But we're the same age. I attended a special high school which had an additional year."

She nodded, unsure of what to say next for fear of sounding too intrigued.

Adam gave her a sideways look, a playful smile on his lips.

Rina turned to the window in an attempt to ignore the man's gaze, but a few seconds passed and she could still feel them at the back of her head. She squirmed in her seat, feeling conscious. Admittedly, she had just done the same, and yet unlike him, she couldn't stop herself from voicing out a reaction.

"What?" She turned to him with a halfhearted glare.

"What do you mean 'what'?" The man's smile only widened.

The doctor rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean! Stop staring at me with that smiling face of yours. It's creepy. And weird. You're weird."

Adam let out a hearty laugh, which somehow sounded good to her ears as it bounced around the small compartment of the car.

"Says the girl who just had her world turned upside down and seems okay with it." His voice lilted with amusement.

Rina pursed her lips, her brows furrowing. The man had a point, of course. She herself thought it was weird, though she'd already decided to simply go with her instincts and not question her reactions as long as it made her life somewhat easier.

"I dunno." She lifted her shoulders. "I mean, I feel fine. I'm not panicking or anything. I just kinda accepted it I guess?"

"See? Weird."

She groaned, rolling her eyes again. "I don't lose it easily, okay? Can't you just make peace with that?"

For the second time, the man's laugh moved gracefully through the humid air surrounding them.

"Okay, okay. Sorry." He turned his gaze at her for a second, eyes seemingly sparkling in the sunlight. "Just know that if you ever wanna talk about it, I'm sure Gale will be more than willing to listen. Or even me. You can call me whenever you want to talk." He shrugged.

Rina narrowed her eyes at him. It was the second time Adam had offered his ears to her, which only made the doctor curious.

"Why are you being so nice to me?" The question she hadn't really intended to say came out of her mouth before she could stop herself and the man raised an eyebrow in response. "Not that I'm complaining or anything. It's just-" she quickly added, feeling her face turning red. "We barely know each other and all."

"What? Can't I be a nice guy? Don't I look it?"

"No! I mean- yes! You look nice."

Adam glanced at her, clearly suppressing another laugh, and it dawned on her how her answer had sounded.

"Wait! No! You don't look nice. I mean you seem nice. Not that you don't look nice. You do. I mean-" she said in a rush of panic to save herself from embarrassment and immediately regretted her choice of words. She covered her face with her hands, which felt a few degrees warmer than the inside of the vehicle.

"Feel free to stop me any time," she said in defeat.

Adam finally let out the laugh he had obviously been containing and Rina looked up from her hands to glare at him. Of course the man found the whole ordeal entertaining, she thought bitterly. She'd just made a fool of herself. Her - a twenty-five-year-old resident who was supposedly used to dealing with men. Where had all those experiences disappeared to?

"Sorry. That was just so fun to watch," he said between titters.

"I take it back. You're not nice."

The man remained silent for a few seconds as Rina continued to glare at the swarm of cars in front of them. It was when they stopped at a red light at an intersection that he faced her before speaking.

"To answer your question - I dunno. Not really. I just feel like I already know you from Gale's stories." He shrugged. "You're easy to get along with Doc."

Rina didn't trust herself to meet the man's smiling eyes and simply resulted to looking at him from her peripheral vision. She felt heat rise up to her cheeks again and she turned to face the window, resting her chin on her hand.

"And you've been hanging out with Gale too much," she muttered to herself, referring to his bluntness.

"Did you say something?" he asked from behind her as he slowly drove the vehicle forward again.

"Nope. Nothing."

The rest of the ride was filled with comfortable silence, though slight unease turned the doctor's stomach in knots. It had been awhile since she'd been alone with a guy. She didn't really have the time to date anymore. Perhaps that was the reason she fumbled through the conversation. There was really no point in fixating on such an embarrassing moment.

They finally made it to the hospital after a few more minutes of crawling through crowded streets, jam-packed not only with cars but with pedestrians giving up on the whole idea of transportation altogether. Rina had thought of doing the same thing, seeing the time glaring at her from her wrist. It was almost nine in the morning and she was already an hour late for her shift, but the sun scorching her skin seemed less appealing than having to explain her tardiness to a senior resident.

The car rolled into the parking lot first and the sight of it triggered a rush of memories in Rina of the night before. The streets had looked different with the swarm of weekday activities, which was perhaps what shielded the doctor from an earlier flashback. The rows of cars occupying the lot though did nothing to stop the vivid details of the Ekek's feral glares and unnatural physical alterations from flooding her mind. She could practically hear the high-pitched scream that'd come out of its beak at the sudden recollection as her eyes sweep the expanse of the brightly lit space. She had walked across the uneven concrete many times but the familiarity she used to feel before seemed to have vanished along with the swirls of hot air she could see rising from the ground.

Despite her attempt at suppressing it, a shudder made her body tremble slightly. She would never look at the place the same way ever again, would never again dare to walk in the darkness for fear of another creature jumping at her from the shadows.

"Hey, you okay?" Adam's voice broke through the nightmarish thoughts.

She turned to him with a jolt and only then did she feel the cold sweat beading on her forehead. She rapidly blinked away the haze from her eyes, slowly bringing the sight of the man's concerned expression into focus.

"Y-Yeah. I'm fine," she managed to say, giving him a weak smile.

Adam simply nodded, though his brows remained drawn together, his lips pursed to a frown.

Rina ignored the the man's piercing eyes as they narrowed at her. She could feel them trying to read her disposition but she didn't want to linger on the ghost of the fear that had just coursed through her by voicing it out loud.

Without another word, she opened the car door and slid out into to the burning hot walkway by the double glass doors of the hospital where Adam had stopped. She turned to the man with a slightly bigger smile as she leaned on the window he had opened from his side. She could see the question dancing in his eyes though the way his lips pressed together in a thin line told her he wouldn't ask any of them and she was grateful for it.

"I'll see you later when I pick you up?" Adam said instead. "What time does your shift end?"

"Midnight."

"Will be here before then. At least the traffic won't be as bad." He gave her a lousy salute with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"Please take care of my car." She could feel her lighter mood returning, the memories shoved back to her subconscious. "One scratch and I will hunt. You. Down."

The man let out a breathy laugh, nodding. "Got it."

Rina was about to make her way towards the door when she heard him call her again.

"Hey Doc?"

He waved for her to come closer and so she did. Her brows came together in wonder when he motioned for her to lean further inside through the open window.

"Just don't go out alone, okay?" he said in a lower voice. "They won't risk attacking you inside the hospital with so many people around."

She nodded her understanding before finally leaning away from the car. Though she didn't exactly need the reminder. She didn't think she could walk out into an empty parking lot alone for any reason short of life-threatening for at least a few more months.

They waved their goodbyes silently. Adam shot her a playful wink before he steered the car away, which made the doctor smile, her heart skipping a beat. She shook her head as started for the door, all the while cursing the man's boyish charms and her recent lack of practice interacting with the opposite sex.

She went inside and headed straight for the locker room to change into her scrubs. She was instantly scolded by one of the senior residents who'd passed by the moment she stepped out into the hallway, though the whole ordeal didn't seem too important anymore and she found herself merely mumbling half-meant apologies and nodding at moments she deemed right for an acknowledgement. If it had been any of her previous days at the hospital, the depression would've surely eaten away at her for the rest of her shift, but right then she felt that being late was truly the least of her concerns.

Brushing the whole thing off rather easily, she went about her day with relative peacefulness. She found her routine tasks didn't tire her like they usually did and couldn't help but wonder if it had really been just the night before that she felt like being burned to the wick. She moved about the busy hospital with efficiency, something she hadn't accomplished in a while. And though she still couldn't find it in her to enjoy it the way she used to, at least there had been no haunting thoughts hovering over her mind that day, none of the familiar heavy weight making her drag her feet through the hallways.

The rest of her day ended in a blur of bloody sheets, clipboards, needles, and the strong smell of antiseptic that dug deep into her senses, staying with her long after she'd scrubbed out of the operating room. The only time she'd been able to afford a quick break was during lunch, but even so, as she sneaked out to the rooftop half an hour before the end of her shift, she felt none of the knee-buckling exhaustion she'd grown accustomed to feeling. Thankfully the surgery department wasn't as busy unlike the previous nights that she reckoned she wouldn't be missed.

She stared down the relatively empty streets below her as she leaned on the gray metal railing surrounding the perimeter of the rooftop, glad for the warm winds blowing the few strands of her hair that managed to escape from the unkempt bun she'd hastily put it into. Adam's reminder not go outside by herself replayed in her mind, but then she hadn't really gone out; she was, technically, still inside the hospital. Surely no creature would dare approach her there, even if she was out in the open. The breeze felt good against her skin, better than the crisp cold air inside, and she needed the silence to contemplate.

She pulled out her phone and stared at the blank screen. Should she call her mother now to ask what she knew about Elementals? She sighed, tucking the device again in the pocket of her scrubs. The topic was too complicated and weird to bring up over the phone, she decided. Besides, she wanted to be able to tell if she was lying. She needed to confront her personally so she could read her expression when she answered her.

Between her parents, she felt it would be her mother who'd know something. Her father showed no signs of ever having any supernatural powers. He was a normal balding man, she was sure. Her mother on the other hand had always leaned towards crazy with her frightening intuition and being able to see ghosts and spirits. Perhaps her intolerable mood swings and her episodes of lashing out, which had brought her to tears on more than one occasion and had formed a subtle rift between them, could be blamed on the supernatural as well. She couldn't consider them a normal happy family, her relationship with her mother a complicated mess, but perhaps it was because of something else and not the older woman's unstable hold on her sanity.

The metal door to the rooftop opened then, pulling the doctor out of her musings. She raised a hand to keep the flying strands of her hair in place as she swiveled to face whoever had just come in. She squinted her eyes to better make out the person's features under the incandescent lighting of the rooftop, and smiled when she recognized her friend along with two other nurses.

"Hi, Lynn," she said, resting her lower back on the railings and grabbing on to the warm tubes with her hands on both sides for security. "What're you guys doing up here? Were you looking for me? Sorry, I just needed some air."

Her smile turned to a look of confusion as she watched the three nurses walk towards her in silence. She couldn't see them clearly in the orange light but she could tell there was something different and out of place in their blank stares.

Rina's breaths turned shallow and quick as an unsettling feeling formed in her chest. She could feel her heart beating twice as fast, her mind running through unpleasant scenarios in her head.

Lynn couldn't be one of the creatures, the thought simply refused to make sense. But her frantic gaze was met by glazed eyes as she continued to search her friend's face for signs of awareness.

Her hands gripping the railing tightened as a new wave of panic washed through her. It couldn't be true. No. Perhaps it was just remnants of her paranoia triggered by the same eerie atmosphere of the rooftop. Perhaps she had developed some trauma and was merely having an attack. Though she shouldn't take suffering from episodes so lightly, she knew at least it would be something she'd be able to handle if she could get herself the proper treatment. She should've just stayed inside the hospital, she chided herself, and avoided such trouble.

"Lynn?"

Bracing herself, she released her hold on the railings, her eyes never leaving her friend who'd by then closed the gap and was only a few more steps away from her. She took one step forward, her knees slightly shaking.

"Lynn, come one. What's wrong with you?" Her voice had taken a pleading tone.

Rina could see the nurses' expressionless features clearly from the remaining distance, a faint red surrounding their irises like accumulated blood unnaturally glowing in the darkness. Her eyes widened at the sight of them, a lump instantly forming in her throat.

What came next happened too fast for the doctor to comprehend. Familiar faces suddenly sneered at her, the red in their eyes intensifying like a dimmer switch had been turned up. Her feet refused to move as she watched her friend take the last remaining steps in long and quick strides.

Under the poor light, Rina's eyes caught the glint of something seemingly polished clutched in her friend's hand. She could only hold her breath in anticipation as it rushed out from the other woman's side and straight for her chest.