Chapter six

[Val’s POV]

Malum’s cackle echoed around the room and soon mixed with my own screams of anger and Cara’s helpless sobs while Medusa simply stood rooted to her spot. Her cold, metal hair barely stopped cutting into my skin and yet small drops of blood continued to drip from my fingertips. I felt useless, helpless and I hated that once again Malum was the one to make me feel this way.

“Let her go!” I shouted angrily, kicking at the air. “Keep me, but just let her go! Please!”

Malum smirked and shook his head. “Why Valerie, why would I want to do that? As it is, I already have the two of you and... if you both survive, I plan on keeping it that way-”

“But you tried to kill her before! You left her down in the caves with the others to die! You didn’t want to keep her then, why would you want to keep now?” It didn’t make sense that he would try to kill her before and now wanted to keep her.

“Ah yes...” He paused. “One of the few things I regret. Unfortunately young Chaos here showed too much humanity – she cared too much and didn’t follow commands properly, much like the others. However, she had potential, oh yes. Her abilities were none that I had imagined from my experimenting and it was such a shame that she had that weakness”

“So why come back for her now?” I asked through my tears.

“Let’s just say that making sure my Elementals follow commands has been perfected... it takes much longer, yes... but in the end they will always give in. In the end, I own their soul”

I sucked in my breath and my eyes darted to Cara. She looked absolutely petrified! “Don’t give in Cara” I whispered frantically. Malum’s success in ensuring his experiments are completely under his control must have to do with freely giving in to him somehow. Why else would he have spent this long trying to torture me into giving in to him? “Hold on... I don’t know how but we’ll get out of here Cara, okay? I promise-!”

“That’ll be enough” Malum’s voice cut mine off sternly. “Take her back Medusa. I have much more work to do to Chaos here”

Once again I was lifted into the air by the metal strands of Medusa’s hair while I screamed profanities at Malum and half hearted words of encouragement to Cara as I was carried out of the room. Hate bubbled within me and I tried to feel for any little bit of moisture in the air, tried to collect it and assemble the molecules tight enough to form something... anything! My mind was still weak and I had a feeling it had to do with Malum reaching into my head every time I’d had a dose of persuasion but I focused hard enough that the best I could do was form an ice dart.

I was nearly out of the room when I sent it hurtling towards Malum but he’d seen it coming a mile away and simply whipped his head to the side to avoid it. The dart flew past and splintered against the stone wall behind him and just as Medusa turned the corner my heart broke when Cara gave another muffled scream into her gag.

[Derrek’s POV]

I squeezed my eyes tightly again as the dry pain shot through my tired eyes. I’d been driving for hours straight. I wasn’t even sure how long I’d managed to keep driving this time. After escaping the grasp of The Control I’d driven for almost ten hours, stopping once only to let everyone have a bathroom break, before Helena took over. She’d driven for another five before I decided to take over again and I’d lost count of how many hours it was now.

Everyone in the car was asleep and the sun was already starting to set. I’d suggested that everyone try to get as much rest as possible during the drive because we had no idea what was waiting for us when we reached the first Stinger hideout. The road we’d turned off on to was filled with pot holes and tall grass swayed on either side of the road. The grass swayed back and forth and soon I began to focus more on it than the road. I was so exhausted...

“Derrek...Derrek, pull over I think someone else should drive. You’re exhausted” Helena tapped my shoulder and the car veered off a little when I jerked back awake. I turned to see Helena looking at me with a concerned face and I pulled over to the side of the road dragging a heavy hand over my eyes.

“Yeah... yeah I think I need a rest” I finally gave in. I looked around, and didn’t see the shadow anywhere. It had an annoying habit of disappearing and reappearing whenever it wanted.

“I’ll take over” Cameron volunteered from the passenger seat and I nodded unbuckling the seat belt and pushing the door open to swap sides with Cameron. “Everyone should probably get another bathroom break before we head off again”

I heard Helena sigh. “I hate these stupid bathroom breaks” She sulked. I blew out a tired breath and though how much easier it was to be a guy during these sorts of moments when there were no bathrooms around.

“Ladies first” Blake nodded to Helena and she blushed before sighing deeply.

“Alright... everyone turn away!” Helena hopped out of the car and stalked towards the tall grass before walking into it. The grass was dry and reached almost to her shoulders and as we did the other time we had to stop over Cameron, Blake and I turned our heads to give her some privacy.

“Soo...” Cameron filled the silence awkwardly. “Do you think this first hideout will be the one they’re using?”

I slowly shook my head, “I have no idea. I’m just hoping that these two I narrowed the hideouts down to are even the right choices. We’re all working on blind luck pretty much aren’t we? At least we’re actually out trying to do something than sitting around-” I was cut off by Helena’s high pitched scream and a large circle of tall grass growing taller and swooping down to writhe like an angry octopus with a multitude of arms.

“HELENA!”

Blake was out of the car in a matter of nanoseconds and running through the tall whipping grass with Cameron and me close behind. I jumped down from the road and into the sea of tall, dry grass and stumbled as my feet met the rocky ground before I was off sprinting after Blake and calling for Helena. The deeper we ran the more Blake’s shouts to Helena were the only thing I had to concentrate on because soon the grass was the only thing I could see. It had grown taller and the dryness of the grass had them cutting into my skin as I dashed past.

“Helena! Helena, where are you?!” I shouted along with Blake and Cameron, who had disappeared somewhere ahead of me.

Suddenly without warning, a few metres ahead of me, the grass shot upwards like a giant worm. The multitude of strands weaved together and twisted tightly in intricate knots, growing taller and taller before the top curved and shot straight down like a sledgehammer shaking the entire ground below my feet.

“Helena!!!” I cried out, though it seemed to be drowned out by Blake’s shouting.

I was growing angrier at the tall grass around me when it seemed as though I was stuck in an impossible maze. I had half a mind to torch the entire grassy field but I already knew that would end up being dangerous for the others rather than helpful. As the bitter thoughts raced through my mind I fell through a gap in the grass and landed in a flattened meadow just in time to see Helena swirling her arms above her head in a double handed fist as though she was holding an invisible weight on ropes. I watched as she threw her arms down and the giant grass ‘worm’ reared its faceless head again and slammed heavily to my right.

It was only then that I realised there was another person here.

Though, ‘person’ was putting it lightly...

“Helena! Helena, are you alright?!” Blake called worriedly from the edge of the meadow as he ran towards her.

It turned out that Blake, Cameron and I had been standing around the edge of the meadow as Helena attacked whatever was now unconscious and lying on the matted dry grass. Cameron and I ran over to Helena and Blake and I could see the sweat cover Helena’s face and neck while she panted heavily at the effort she’d just exerted from her attack... or defence.

“What in the hell happened?!” I gasped confusedly.

“That... that thing... I think it’s an Elemental? I was in the grass, you know... trying to do my business, when I saw something in the grass. I didn’t think anything of it at first but I just... couldn’t... go...” Helena started to explain, blushing in embarrassment of having to talk about her ‘bathroom time’, “I felt like I was being watched so I was about to walk back when something touched my foot. I looked down and saw a snake so I screamed-!”

“Wait, wait, wait...” Cameron interrupted. “You screamed because you saw a snake?”

Helena blushed again but nodded. “Yes... we may be on a road trip in search of possibly the deadliest Abled in the world but snakes can still kill you know!”

I hid my smirk but nodded at Helena encouraging her to continue. “Go ahead. So you saw a snake and that’s when you screamed...?”

“Yes, right, well... I screamed and backed away slowly but the next thing I knew a sort of... person? A-a being came out from behind the grass and I felt something coil around me so I couldn’t even make any other sound. I was pulled through the grass, but luckily I was in my element and managed to get out of its hold. It kept trying to attack me but I fought against it and... here we are”

I blinked, and then looked back over at the unconscious being.

“So what was it?”

“Something similar to a snake, I’d say” Helena dropped her voice as she eyed the unconscious heap wearily.

Having done the job of knocking the thing out pretty damn well, Cameron, Blake and I stepped cautiously forward until we stood next to it and what I saw scared the wits out of me. At first I would have thought it was a giant snake – and by ‘giant’ I meant that the body was as thick as the width of my shoulders; but then I noticed the head. It took me a minute to realise that the ‘snake’ was a sort of half human-half snake. It was as broad as a full grown man and even had the shoulders, arms and head but from the waist down it was nothing but tail, not to mention that it was completely covered in olive green scales.

“What the hell is that?” Cameron whispered using his toe to nudge at the ‘snake man’s’ shoulder.

I didn’t have enough time to warn him before the snake man’s yellow eyes opened and his arms lunged at Cameron’s ankle, grasping it tightly. Cameron cried out and as quick as lightening I whipped my wrist towards it and a thick flaming lasso rushed out and encircled around the snake man’s neck. He hissed and writhed, one hand immediately letting go of Cameron’s ankle as he clawed at his neck. His other hand still gripped tightly to Cameron and I yanked on the flaming lasso, tightening it even more.

His yellow slits for eyes narrowed onto me and I glared back as he hissed angrily at me. “Let. Him. Go” I growled, slowly pulling it tighter and tighter.

Smoke began to billow lightly around him as the sound of sizzling caught my ears the same time as burning snake scales met my nostrils. He never relented, however, and soon with another cry out from Cameron I pushed my anger out and a surge of furious scarlet flames flew down the lasso until the life in the snake man’s eyes died and his head tilted before falling off.

The clawed, scaly hand of the snake man immediately released Cameron and he growled before falling backwards to grasp at his slightly bleeding ankle. I looked up, my lasso dispersing as I did, and noticed Helena’s wide open eyes. “Ah crap” I heard Blake mutter before walking over to her.

“Thanks man...” Cameron nodded to me.

“S’ok... why didn’t you just tear your leg out of the thing’s hand?”

He shook his head slowly, “I felt sort of... paralysed, when he was digging his claws into me. I couldn’t do it”

I nodded silently. “So... definitely an Elemental then?”

He puffed out, massaging his leg. “Seems to be. Looks like we’re on the right track to finding the girls and Malum”

“Looks like it” I agreed.

I turned partially to look over to Helena and Blake, “You okay, Helena?”

“You... you just...just-“

“Decapitated the half snake- half human...” Blake finished for her.

I just nodded and saw her gulp twice before nodding. “Good job, Derrek. It was completely crazed... it didn’t look like it had a simple shred of human thought in it”

That was what I had had been thinking as I stared into its eyes. It was completely animalistic. Not a single shred of anything that could’ve made it seem capable of thinking rationally and I wondered if that was why it was out in this field. Did it escape, or was it a guard for Malum’s hide out?

A light wind picked up and I shivered, noticing that the sun was burning at the horizon. “Come on... let’s get back to the car. It looks like we’re getting close”

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A/N

Thanks for being so patient you guys <3

For teasers of the next chapters go to my facebook page --> www.facebook.com/WattpadVovNix <--

For an insight of my life (just because you’re bored) follow me on instagram --> vovnix J

So yeah, I’d been finding it hard to find enough time to sit down long enough to write, but I injured my hamstring yesterday and.... that’s not good lol, so the silver lining would be that I found time to write haha!

Nix <3

PS. This is dedicated to @XylzeZinx , I promised I would (and I couldn’t remember if I’d already dedicated a chapter to you :P)