Finding ELE (ELE Series #2) Written By: Rebecca Gober and Courtney Nuckels (14 page)

I can't hold back the shiver that runs up my
spine. "I've seen them kill but only with weapons. I'm sorry you
had to witness something like that."

She lightly squeezes my hand. We both look
down at the ground and walk silently as we leave the forest. One
can't help but feel immensely vulnerable out in the middle of the
open. I can sense everyone around us readying their weapons. Tony
inches slightly closer to me. I can feel his shoulder brushing up
against mine as we walk. I want to look up at him but I have to
force myself to keep my gaze down. I don't want to put everyone in
danger because I can't follow simple instructions.

We walk for a good twenty minutes without
any sign of Reapers. Much to my relief Tony tells me we are nearly
there. My heart has been pounding so hard that I can feel it in my
ears. I take several deep breaths to keep calm. I need to be able
to flawlessly get them inside the mountain. My mom had told me
earlier that she needs Claire to turn us invisible before we move
through the mountain. After all, if the Reapers saw us just walk
into the mountain they would be ready for us when we came out for
sure. That is the last gift we would want them to acquire.

I know we are up against the mountain when
my mom appears at my side. I don't look up though. She whispers to
Claire, "Are you ready? What do you need us to do?"

"I'm ready. You all need to be touching me."
She does a good job of keeping her gaze on the ground while talking
to them.

"You will need to touch me as well so I can
pull you through." I tell them.

Tony moves to stand behind me so my mom has
to stand behind Claire. I feel his hand land softly on my side.
Butterflies kick up inside me and I do my best to ignore it. Even
if I have to clip their wings, I will ignore it. I feel my mom's
hand on my other shoulder and that gives me comfort. I hold
Claire's hand. We stand like that for a moment and nothing happens,
we are still visible

Claire looks up at me and asks, "Are you
ready?"

"Put your head down Claire. You need to turn
us invisible first." I whisper.

"We are already invisible. It's your turn
now." Claire tells me.

I look up at her. I've got to remember that
Candy's gift allows me to see her. Keeping up with all of these
abilities is going to be confusing. "Okay, everyone stay close and
walk with me." The mountainside isn't more than a few feet away. I
take a deep breath and count to ten. Holding my hand out I slowly
move through the sediment. "Hold on tight." I tell them. I close my
eyes as I step into the mountain. I walk through as fast as I can,
hoping to get everyone to the other side in one piece.

I breathe a sigh of relief when I feel the
cool air hit my skin. I open my eyes but can't see anything, it's
pitch black in here. I hear everyone let out a heavy breath as they
step out of the mountain. Tony is the first to break contact. I can
still feel the warmth of his hand on my side as I hear him
shuffling around in his bag. A moment later a flashlight kicks on.
I look around the dimly lit corridor. A flash back from when I
first walked into this shelter with my dad hits me. I was so full
of despair and my heart was broken in two. Anticipation fills me as
I think about how close I am to having my family fully
reunited.

"Okay, so are you ready to split up?" My mom
asks us.

"Yes." We murmur at different times.

"Okay, Willow, I need you to tell me how to
find your dad." My mom says. Claire looks a little taken aback by
this but my mom quickly clarifies. "Don't worry, we will be looking
for Connor too. I'm hoping that my husband will have an idea about
where they might be."

Claire nods her head in understanding.

I give my mom the instructions on how to
find our room. I also tell her some of the sanitation routes that
my dad might be on if he's still at work. Luckily Claire has been
to my room before, so she’ll be able to help her find it. I look to
Tony, "We’ll start in the cave. I need to get my mom and Claire
into the main hall though first so will you wait here?"

He doesn't look happy about it but he
complies. "Yes."

I grab my mom's hand and Claire's. "We are
going to walk straight out into the middle of a common area. Are
you going to be able to keep yourself and my mom invisible for a
while?"

She points her thumbs at her herself, "Um,
of course! I'm practically an expert now." We all laugh at
that.

"Good luck." I tell her. "Love you." I
direct to my mom.

"Love you too. Go find your man." My mom
smiles at me.

It's hard to ignore the grunt that Tony
makes. "Let's go." I wait for Claire to confirm that all three of
us are invisible then we start walking through the wall. We come
out on the other side into the busy common area. I look out onto
the sea of people in scrubs. Virtually every color is represented
in a perfectly uniformed way. I forgot how goofy it looked to see
everyone in those.

I hug my mom and Claire, then without a word
I walk back through the wall.

"See, I wasn't gone long." I say to Tony
once I appear on the other side. A slight woozy feeling overcomes
me and I sway on my feet.

Tony is at my side in less than a second. He
puts his hand on my back steadying me. "Whoa, are you okay?" He
asks me.

I feel light headed and drained but I nod.
"Yeah, It's been a while since I've used this many abilities at
once. It's harder on me now because I'm not only using multiple
abilities on myself but I'm also using them to cover other people.
I think I just need to sit for a second." My head starts pounding
so I quickly drop to the ground and prop myself up against the
wall.

"Has this happened before?" He sits next to
me looking worried.

I close my eyes so I don't have to meet his
gaze. "Well, only after healing my mom. That took a lot out of me.
I don't think it helped that I had run the gambit that day using
every ability I had access to."

I feel his hand on my shoulder and it makes
my heart beat a little faster. I don't like the clenched up feeling
I get in my stomach when Tony is too close to me. It makes me feel
confused and even a little bit guilty because I can't understand
why I have those feelings. I'm too tired though to shrug his hand
off. Plus, I don't want to make him feel bad.

"Maybe you need to take it easy for a few
minutes." Tony says gently.

I shake my head and run my hand through my
curls. Cringing when my fingers get stuck, I think about how my
locks could really use a good brushing right about now. But that's
a more frivolous need, what I need right now is to find Alec and
Connor. "No, I'm feeling better. We should get moving." I stand up
too fast and end up falling to the side.

"Crap, Willow!" Tony catches me before I
fall. He wraps his arm around my shoulder and forces me to sit back
down.

I end up leaning my head against his
shoulder. Feeling frustrated I sigh loudly.

"Maybe you just need to eat something." With
his free hand he wrestles something out of his bag. He hands me a
protein bar.

My hands are shaky as I accept it from him.
I slowly open the wrapper and then take small bites. After I finish
it off he hands me some water. I take a few sips. The food was a
good idea. I start feeling a lot better. "Thanks." I tell him.

"Are you feeling better?" He asks.

Remembering how close we are, I sit up. I
feel the heat spreading across my cheeks so I'm grateful for the
dim lighting. "Yes. I'm surprised that I just got wiped out like
that."

"I'm not. You haven't really gotten much
rest the past few days. You've also been using an awful lot of your
powers lately." Tony says. "Do you want to rest for a little while
longer?"

"No, I think we should get going." I'm
anxious to find Alec. Plus I don't need any more close moments with
Tony.

"Okay." He says a bit weary.

I stand up without a hitch and he looks a
little more comfortable with the idea that I'm not going to faint
like a damsel in distress. "We’re going to move down a few levels
from here. I'm going to have to keep us invisible while we move.
This is going to be difficult to do, so we need to do it quick. Are
you ready for that?" I ask him.

"Yes." He nods.

"Let's do this." I grab his hand and focus
all of my energy on making us go invisible. Then I slowly allow us
to fall through the ground. We land in the field of spinach. I
inhale the crisp damp air that tells me that this time I missed the
sprinkler rotation.

We both stand up. I grasp Tony's hand again
and we move slowly through the floor and land with a thump on top
of the storage container.

Tony throws his hand over my mouth. We both
stand there in silence while we hear a pair of footsteps
investigating the area. I remove Tony's hand from my mouth with my
free hand and peak over the edge of the container. A tall man that
I don't recognize, in black scrubs is looking around curiously.
After looking around for a few minutes he seems satisfied that it
was nothing because he walks back to the front of the storage area.
We wait until the man gets on the elevator and the doors close
before we hop down.

Tony jumps down first and holds his arms up
for me to jump. A deja vu of jumping into Alec's arms so many times
hits me. I take a deep breath and drop into Tony's arms. He slowly
lets me down, allowing his hands to linger on my sides for a little
too long. I avoid looking at him. Instead, I hold his hand and
slowly move us through the floor, down to the tunnels.

Finally having made it through all of the
floor levels without a hitch, we start crawling through the tunnel
towards the cave.

Tony makes a groaning sound as I hear him
pulling out his flashlight. He clicks it on and swallows
loudly.

“
Now, this part is a real tight fit.
But don’t worry, it doesn’t get too tight. Just enough to make
yourself a little uncomfortable.” I tell him.

I look back and Tony doesn’t look too
pleased but he nods his head in affirmation and we start to move
further through the tunnels. Halfway through I feel Tony grab my
hand in a not so sweet manner. I turn to look at him and see his
face is white as snow. “What’s wrong?”

He looks as if he’s seen a ghost. He barely
manages to spit out the word, “Claustrophobic.”

I give his hand a squeeze for reassurance
then I let go and start crawling faster, hoping it will help him.
“We’re almost there,” I keep reassuring him. When we round the
final corner out into the open, Tony breathes a huge sigh of
relief. I pat his back not sure what else to do.

“
Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to
freak out. I’ve just had issues with tiny spaces since I was
little. I never could get over them.”

I shrug my shoulders, “No biggie.” We step
out into the first large cavern. Tony takes his time gazing around
the room. I pry the flashlight gently from his hands and bounce the
light off the walls. The shadows on the far end of the cave look
luminous and I'm anxious to move out of here. “Come on, this way,”
I say leading Tony deeper into the cave. We walk along the water’s
edge towards the blown up entrance that leads to the second
cave.

In the distance I hear the sound of a rock
hitting the water. We both stop and I place my hand over the
flashlight trying to dim our light. We listen for a few seconds and
then hear another rock. I look over to Tony whom I can barely see
in the dim light. I question him with my eyes as to what he thinks
is going on but he simply shrugs his shoulders. We stay still and
listen for a good five minutes before we feel comfortable moving
again. When we reach the rubble from the explosion that locked my
friends away a few days ago, I grab Tony's hand.

I begin to push my hand through the cave
wall but the sound of someone clearing their throat a few feet away
from us startles me. I end up dropping my flashlight and it breaks
apart, extinguishing the light.

As quick as lightning Tony bolts up and
pushes me behind his back, never once letting me go. I can’t see
the person in front of us because of Tony’s height and the fact
that the only light is now coming from a small lantern the other
person is carrying.

“
Who are you, and what do you want?” I
hear Tony bellow.

The other person snorts and then tells Tony,
“I want my girlfriend.”

My heart leaps out of my chest as I
practically throw Tony into the water trying to get to Alec.
“Alec,” I scream running into his arms. Yet, as soon as I wrap my
arms around him I know something is wrong. This isn’t Alec.

I look up and see Zack smiling down at me
with his customary wicked grin. “Well, that’s not exactly the
greeting I expected, Sugar. But I’ll take what I can get.” He grabs
my wrist harshly.

“
Zack,” I say in disgust.

It doesn’t take but a split second for Tony
to be at our side. “Get your hands off of her,” Tony yells.

Zack simply cocks an eyebrow and sizes Tony
up with his eyes. “And what, may I ask, are you going to do about
it?” Zack asks with mock humor. He still hasn't let go of my
arm.

Oh boy, I can tell this is going to get
ugly. While the two of them participate in some sort of piss
contest I look around at my surroundings to plan my getaway. Sure,
I know I have the strength now to break each of Zack’s arms but
that wouldn’t be very fun, now would it? The way I see it, Zack
deserves better than that. Especially after he treated me so
hospitably when I was in the shelter.

I have to do a double take when I see Tony
turn around mid-sentence and go sit in the corner placing his thumb
in his mouth. “What did you do to him,” I yell at Zack.

“
Do I really need to answer that,” he
retorts. He laughs at my angry glare then says, "What, are you mad
that I put Baby in a corner?" His laugh makes me sick.