The Gemini Age: Book One

[14-2] The Break - Part Two

    She could have kept her eyes closed. There were only shreds of ambient light for them to receive here, and every attempt Jade made to light a fire failed at the first tightening of her muscles. As her fazed mind caught up with her alert body, her skin winced at the bite of the chains that held her in the murky air, their glass fibre teeth pinching her limbs with needles of pain. Below her, the curves of a shallow pit left rubble and cracks behind as they swept over the ground. She could not see where the chains led.

    Once awake, she yanked on the bonds until the links clattered together. "Hey! What is this? Anybody?" The weight of the ensuing silence forced her to relax her neck and let her head hang. "Uncle Wilf?" she whispered, shaking her head at her own futile optimism.

    "Save your strength. You'll need it." It was a man's voice, though not the one she recognised from the phone calls. This person spoke with clipped tones that would be more at home in university theses than casual conversation, at least not any she would participate in. She could not even imagine the owner of the voice smiling. "I apologise for the circumstances of our meeting. It's an unfortunate necessity, however."

    Jade clenched her jaw as she searched for the speaker behind the voice. "It's necessary to kidnap me? Who are you? I haven't done anything to you!"

    "Not to me, but your dear Wilfred might have some complaints about your behaviour recently." The speaker walked around, yet he never came into Jade's view. "As would Marcus, and Lloyd, and Penelope. And as for Fiona, she's in no state to be complaining about anything right now."

    "How would you know that? What did you do to Fiona?"

    "Typical child, missing the point entirely." Unknown nails tapped against the unseen wall, which to Jade's surprise was made of a dense, durable metal rather than the magma-like rock below her. "If you'd listened to other people and kept out of things that don't concern you, nobody would have to get hurt in their misguided attempts to 'rescue' you from your own messes."

    "What's that supposed to mean?" Though she stayed still, Jade's chains clinked as she spoke.

    "The coast, the monument, the arena, even the nicest house in town. Everywhere people go for you, they risk picking up life-changing injuries. At the arena, your friends may have died."

    Jade tugged at her chains, sweat droplets shining like mineral deposits on her skin. "That's your fault, you lot forced us into it!"

    "Am I responsible for the actions of everybody I employ? Certainly not more than you're responsible for your own. When you lash out, you can't complain that things lash back."

    "I'll show you lashing out! Let's hear you talk so much when you're not hiding in the dark!"

    "That won't be necessary." Something in the walls shunted, and Jade leaned backwards as the chains on her wrists and ankles shifted towards the ground. She tugged until her muscles burned and the water molecules in the air around her face formed a cloud of magical steam, yet all her resistance made little difference. "I have a better use for your abilities."

    The ground drew closer and Jade writhed against her bonds, twisting and thrashing until her back ached and the twinge of nausea in her gut stirred into a tempest. Her hair stuck to her face as she whipped it around in an effort to escape both the chains and the fear that plagued her mouth, spanning past salty to metallic. Her magic eluded her, as did the sparse elements of the room around her.

    Her feet hit the ground. In a blink, a rich blue light poured forth from the crater at her feet, and Jade's mind drowned in images she never wanted to see again. Each one struck her with the force of a new revelation.