Page 34 of Rising

His fire roared loudly and I could barely hear my own voice. I coated myself in my own flames, knowing they wouldn’t dare hurt me and preparing myself to rein them back in once I tackled him. But his fire soon turned to water so blue no photo or art could do it justice. My magic fizzled back beneath the surface.

I thought his flames had been loud, but his water echoed a freight train, hitting the wall with ear shattering thuds. He let out a feral yell before falling to his knees, panting.

My body went still as I glanced down at the results from the machine. “Who are you?” I demanded.

Ninety-seven Ignis, Ninety-eight Aqua.

“Get up,” I said. “Impossible. Get the fuck up.” I moved to pull him to his feet, and he shoved me off him. Disgust and shock on his face as he took in his results. He had surprised even himself.

I tried again. “You.” It wasn’t a question, not an interrogation. This was just me pissed off at him, the world. “Where did youreallycome from?” I captured his face, forcing him to look me in the eye. I couldn’t keep holding onto my anger. I could feel it fueling my fire, threatening to bring it back to the surface of my skin.

He shook his jaw from my finger. “Ialreadytold you that. Outside of Minneapolis. That not good enough for you?”

“I don’t believe you.” I glared.

“The hell does this have to do with anything?” he said, tossing his hands in the air in frustration.

“It haseverythingto do with it all. You show up here—”

“In the middle of an attack.” Mocking me, he turned his back towards me and moved to the other side of the room, taking a seat against the wall.

“Yes. In the middle of an attack, swear your innocence and claim to be from ‘The Expanse,’ yet nothing in your pack indicates that any of that is true. Your maps are unmarked. You have nothing substantive that could have supported you for the miles you claim to have traveled. You don’t even have a proper winter coat,” I countered.

He tilted his head as he scoffed in disbelief. “My pack? The ‘little lie’ is about my pack?”

My only answer was to hold his stare, feeling like I was about to be made a fool of.You know what they say about assumptions.

“Just curious.” He said, getting up, “have you ever thought about taking your head out of your own ass for a change and consider thatmaybesomeone new and not exactly welcomed with open arms might not feel comfortable enough to come in here, secrets exposed?”

I scoffed, still having nothing to say to him, not wanting to apologize or trust what he had to say. Not only did I not believe a damn thing he said. I didn’t have to. All I had to do was keep the people I cared about safe, and the only way to do that is to keep my eyes on him.

His power made him a liability. While executing him on the spot certainly wasn’t off the table for me, Prescott wouldn’t ever agree to it. There wasn’t anything I could dobutwatch him closely. If I were to order his release, even drugged up and ditched in the middle of the night, there was no telling he wouldn’t come straight back here with an army in tow.

It was becoming clearer each day that the attacks were orchestrated with the help of someone within, and we had not a damn clue of where to start looking. The least I could do is start with the most obvious culprit, watch him, see who he chose to interact with, where he spends his time. The answers would follow.

Uncomfortable under the weight of my silence and obvious display of disbelief, he added, “I have the rest of my belongings nearby. Despite what your fragile little mind thinks, I’m not dumb. I know better than to bring the things I care about into unknown territory.”

A glimmer of hope filled me at the opportunity. “We’ll go get it tomorrow then.”

“I don’t want it here,” he said firmly. He stepped close to me, once again leaving nothing but a small breath of air between our bodies.

I wouldn’t let him intimidate me. “I don’t care what you want. You want to be cagey, you don’t want to share information willingly, therefore it’smyjob to protect the people here until you can be trusted. If that means going through your shit, then so be it. You see this here”—I pointed back down to the results—”take a good fuckin look, bud. All you showed me is that you havepreciselythe amount of power to pull off stunts like yesterday. Like what killed Jax.”

My voice trembled as I forced myself to maintain my composure, holding my head high, wishing I could be eye to eye. “I’ll be damned if I let it happen a third time.”

He brought a hand to his face, gripping at his skin absentmindedly. “And I have no other options?”

I shook my head.

“You’re insufferable,” he leveled.

“Hell yeah, I am.”

He started pacing, flustered and red in the face, just as a knock came to the door before it cracked open.

“General,” a soldier said, clearing her throat, “Lieutenant Moore sent me. He’s waiting in your study.”

“What time is it?” I asked, caught off guard.

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