Elementals

8

Jude

I break my promise as soon as I'm out of their sight. Instead of heading for the bathroom, I go straight to Taylor's room. It's one floor above and a little to the left—as long as Rani and Lana don't go looking, they'll never know.

When I get there, Taylor has already changed back into his clothes, and he's tying his shoes. He's unsurprised and undisturbed when I close the door behind me. If anything, it looks like he's egging me on.

"They said I'm good to go," he says tonelessly. "But they keep asking for identifying information. I'll have to escape before they come back."

"Good," I say tightly.

He keeps tying his shoe, but he's looking directly at me. When he's done, he sits up straight, never breaking eye contact.

"Did you kill Jansen?" I ask.

"Yes."

My hands clench. "And were you going to kill us?"

This makes him think. His eyes squeeze shut, and he stands, turning so that he's only facing me halfway. "I—"

"That's a yes or no question," I snap.

He looks at me. "Yes," he says quietly. "But then I changed my mind. And now, I—"

"Owe us an explanation? Yeah, you do." I go to leave, but I turn halfway through the door. "Give me a minute head start," I say stiffly. "I wasn't supposed to talk to you."

I slam the door behind me and go back downstairs, taking my place next to Rani. Neither of them ask where I was, so I take it as a sign that they believe I was in the bathroom, or that I got lost on my way there. Plausible, considering I've never been in this hospital before, and I hope to never be here again.

A few minutes later, Taylor walks right by us. We stand and follow, lagging several steps behind. I'm bursting with anger, betrayal, confusion, and about a million different emotions, and I'm sure that Rani and Lana and hell, even Taylor, are bursting too, but we do our best to give nothing away.

There's no way he knows where he's going, because he was barely lucid when he brought him here. As far as he knows, we're not even in Georgia anymore. And yet, his steps never falter. He does stop by his car—which we drove here—to pick up his jacket, but then, he keeps walking, and we keep following until we've found a clearing in a small thicket of trees, occupied only by a few squirrels that go running away when we arrive.

Taylor stands, alone, on one side, and the three of us are on the other. He looks annoyingly composed; I know for certain that I fractured one of his ribs when I gave him CPR, and I know that he feels it with every breath, and yet, I'd never say by looking at him that he almost drowned.

"Whatever Dr. Jansen told you about me," he says to Rani, "was a last-ditch effort to save his own skin and his grand plan."

Rani narrows her eyes, but she doesn't respond.

"He didn't find us the way that we are," Taylor continues. "He made us. After each of our accidents, he took our bodies from the hospital and used us like lab rats. It was science and cruel experimentation that gave us these powers, and when we woke up, he lied to us and convinced us it happened naturally, and that we could become heroes."

"Why?" Lana asks.

"Because he was a fucking maniac, that's why. He was intelligent and egotistical and he didn't give a shit about us because we were just injured kids who no longer had any direct family. He probably told himself he was doing us a favor."

Rani steps forward. Her face is hard, tone even harder. "I want to see it," she says. "Show me the lab where he made us."

"I can't."