ICE (The Benders Series) Read online

  He hollered again as he spun and gestured his arms and legs about in swift, strong, and intending waves. Even his small movements produced stronger and more resilient ice than I could on a good day.

  “I love her!” he screamed as he watched the products of his fury shoot towards his victims.

  “She is FIRE!” my mother screamed back as she once again diverted his deadly advances while also managing to protect the three of us behind her. We weren’t his target though. She was.

  As I grew bolder and stepped nearer to my mother, my shields became stronger as I was suddenly flooded with understanding and sympathy.

  Kenna Rosen was fire. In an instant, it all made sense to me. And in an instant, I could completely understand my brother’s anger.

  I was so taken aback by the sweep of knowledge, that I let my rigid body become very relaxed.

  “Wait,” I heard myself say. Neither Jon nor my mother took their eyes off the other at the interjection. “You knew?” I asked, coming between them, my back now to the strongest of my brothers.

  “Not now Bryce,” she snarled back at me.

  The moment that I spoke the words of support, I could hear Jon breathing begin to slow, just slightly. He could have taken this opportunity to get rid of me, to shoot his deadly daggers into my back and be rid of me, but he didn’t.

  “Why wouldn’t you have told him?” I asked again.

  I could see my other two brothers becoming confused at my questions. They clearly hadn’t been paying attention to the conversation going on between my mother and brother and were more concerned about fighting Jon off.

  “Bryce,” she scolded.

  I continued to take steps backward until I was only a few feet from Jon.

  I was scared. I could feel myself trembling as I neared him.

  But above my fear was compassion. Above my fear was love.

  Jon was my brother, and his pain was resonating all about the kitchen.

  Kenna Rosen was fire. I don’t know how I would have reacted if I had been in his shoes. As far as we knew, she was normal. This revelation could not come without emotion, and my mother should have foreseen such a happening. She should have told him. She should have told him the second she knew, the day Kenna had come to the house the first time, before the two were even dating.

  “You should have said something,” I argued, Jon’s breathing slowing with every word in his defense that I shot at my mother. “At least then he could have made the choice to avoid her. What’s he supposed to do? Forget that she exists?”

  “Yes,” she retorted, “Let us not forget that she’s been keeping the secret from him as well. It was her responsibility to tell him, not mine!”

  As she spoke, I could feel Jon’s anger beginning to grow again. Before I could think, I found myself flat on the floor. One of them had shot a block of ice underneath me as Jon once again began to fire at my mother.

  “She doesn’t know!” he screamed back at her.

  “You don’t really believe that, do you?” she shouted back at him. “She’s probably only a spy! She doesn’t have real feelings for you, Jon!”

  I covered my head at this point as my mother began to take an offense. My brothers joined in, hoping to win some sort of favor if they helped to overpower their brother.

  I didn’t know what to do. I felt helpless as I lay on the floor with spears, and spikes, and bullets of ice thrusting from one end of the room to the other. I knew it was only a matter of time before my mother would overpower him. Jon was untrained. He acted through emotion instead of skill.

  But my mother. She was experienced. She still had the edge on him despite his growing strength.

  We all knew what she was going to do, as we’d seen her control Jon so many times in the past. The second that Jon would take a breath to recharge, she could form ice from underneath him and swallow him up in a solid cube that even his power couldn’t break.

  Of course, she would leave his head free to breathe while the rest of his temper cooled and his raging body temperature returned to normal. I hated the thought of it. I hated to think of Jon looked at and caged like an animal. He was not an animal. He was a person, a person who needed help.

  Unfortunately, though, it was better that he be caged than we all be dead, I reminded myself as I controlled the urge to defend Jon.

  Jon and I had always been close. I couldn’t remember a time that we weren’t best friends. Except now, I supposed. Now Kenna was his best friend. Some might have been jealous at the change in status, but I was happy for my brother, and I know that he would have been happy for me if I had fallen in love.

  But Kenna was fire. I wasn’t sure how their relationship could survive such a reality.

  As I thought, shards of broken ice fell onto me as their discs clashed and shattered downward. I could feel some of them tearing into my flesh as I continued to cover the back of my neck and my head with my hands. I could feel cold, red blood begin to drip down my sides.

  Britney would have told you to put a shirt on, I joked internally to distract myself from the pain of the ice slicing into my skin.

  It couldn’t be much longer. They couldn’t possibly continue this battle with the intensity that it was at. All the windows had been broken, the walls had been dismembered, and the kitchen looked more like the battlefield of ice monsters than a happy place to cook.

  This was by far the longest that Jon had held out against my mother. Normally, he’d get winded after a few minutes, but some fifteen minutes had passed since the first ice blade had been shot at the woman. And things didn’t seem to be letting up as ice continued to shatter above me and crash onto my exposed backside.

  “Stop this Jon!” I heard my mother shout, breaking the silence of speech that had surrounded them for a time.

  “You don’t know her!” Jon yelled back, the force behind his madness growing with every word.

  “I know her kind!” she argued as she defended herself and shot ice back at the boy in hopes to wound him enough to snap him back to reality.

  I was beginning to grow more scared. I loved my brother, but I loved my mom, too. I didn’t know if she’d be able to withstand his blows as they continued to strengthen.

  Ultimately, I agreed with Jon, but that didn’t mean that I wanted my mother dead. And so I was forced to make the only decision that I saw fit.

  Shifting around so that I could get a slight view of my brother’s ankles, I motioned an open hand towards them and struck him with a block of ice. I didn’t hit him hard, but he didn’t see the blow coming and was knocked off his feet. Seeing her advantage, my mother wasted no time in caging the boy’s body inside an immense block of ice that she raised up from beneath him.

  Jon screamed and cursed as she did it, but had no control of his limbs as the ice forced him into one solid pose. I couldn’t watch any longer as I hid my face in shame. I hated seeing him like that.

  My other brothers left, and my mother came over to me as Jon continued to shout his slanderous words.

  “Are you okay?” she breathed, clearly fatigued from the battle.

  “I’m fine,” I answered. I couldn’t make eye contact with her at the moment. I was angry with her and angry with the situation. But as I began to lift myself from the bath of shattered ice that sheltered the floor, I felt a terrible sting and let out an unintentional wince.

  “Stay here,” my mom ordered, witnessing the pain that stung my backside. “Let me get some water.”

  I didn’t want to stay there. I didn’t want to be near her or near Jon as he continued on his tantrum. In a few seconds, my mother returned with a bucket of cool water. One of the very fortunate parts about being an ice elementalist was that water could heal almost as well as it could damage.

  The woman used her hydrokinetic powers and lifted the water from the bucket to let it sit on my several bleeding gouges. I didn’t wince this time, though the water bit as hard as the ice had when it made its first contact. Within a few moments, most of
the pain was gone, and my mother returned the water to the bucket.

  “Well, they are done bleeding, but you are going to be very sore,” she noted as she ran her skillful hands over one of the lacerations. “And thanks. That was good timing on your part.”

  “Don’t thank me,” I said with a touch of hostility. She could sense my anger, not that I was making any attempt to hide it.

  “Do you think I like this?” she questioned, her voice stern but soft. “Jon is my son.”

  “And he can hear you,” I fired back, finding it inconsiderate of her to have such a discussion in front of him. Though honestly, I doubted that he could hear what we were saying over his manic yelling.

  She sighed and finally I saw pain in her eyes. “He’s getting too strong.”

  “You should have told him,” I interrupted, completely aware of where the conversation was headed. We all knew a day would come when Jon became too much for my mother to handle. I guess I didn’t expect that day to be so soon.

  She nodded, admitting the mistake. “I should have. I didn’t think anything would come of it,” my mother confessed. “But I wanted him to live. I didn’t want to choose for him who he could and couldn’t date.”

  “But what if he does love her?” I asked, quoting Jon’s words from during the battle.

  “He’s nineteen. He doesn’t know what love is,” she answered quickly.

  But I retorted with twice the speed, “Weren’t you married at nineteen?”

  She didn’t have a rebuttal. We stared at each other for a long time, soaking in the reality of what had just happened and what would happen soon. I could see a fear growing in her eyes like a raging wildfire. I could see the agony building like a tall glass skyscraper. I could feel her hurt. It was worse than any physical wound could cause.

  “He’ll be calm soon,” she noted, breaking our stare. “We should leave him for the moment.”

  For the first time that day, I agreed with her.

  And so, we both left him there in his enraged state.

  I went outside. I needed peace for a moment. I need to escape.

  I climbed one of the leafless trees and took a sit on one of the sturdier high branches. Once I was there, I took a deep breath. The winter was fading fast. Soon there would be buds on the branches of the very tree that I sat in. Soon there would be green grass upon the icy ground. Soon the small layer of snow that still made Minnesota its home would be gone.

  My faith was fading fast now too. Soon the joys of frost and the life of the icicles would melt away. Soon the yellow summer daisies would scatter themselves over the rink where we’d played hockey. Soon my brother, if not now, would be too powerful to stay in the house that I called home. Soon Jon would be gone.

  I breathed in the crisp air for several more minutes before descending from my perch. I couldn’t sit there thinking for too much longer. I wasn’t a depressed person.

  Instead, I made my way back into the kitchen where my brother was silent now. His head hung, his hair was more wild than usual, and his breathing remained loud but was under control.

  I was quiet when I entered. I didn’t know if he’d heard me.

  “Jon?” I started, not knowing how to say everything that I wanted to say.

  “I’m sorry,” he gasped, his head still hanging. I couldn’t even see a trace of his face due to the way his hair dangled downward.

  “No,” I said. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

  “I could have killed her, Bryce,” he huffed, still catching his breath. “I need control. I need it.”

  I swallowed hard, my sympathy always growing. “I know,” I agreed. “But this was all avoidable. If mom would have told you about Kenna sooner then-“

  Before I could finish my sentence, Jon began a terrible sob. I didn’t know how to comfort him as he cried.

  I hated seeing him like this.

  “What if it is all a hoax?” he managed to choke. “What if she is just a scout?”

  “I don’t think she is, Jon,” I said though I didn’t know if I believe my own words. “Maybe she doesn’t even know what she is.”

  He shook his head as the tears continued to drip though some of them froze directly to his face. “But it makes sense. She approached me. Her falling under the ice was probably a trap to gain the proof that she needed. I’m such a fool,” he managed to sputter. “But I still think that I love her.”

  I swallowed again.

  “No,” I reasoned. “I see the way she looks at you. She’s not a fraud. She actually really likes you.”

  “The way she looked at me today,” he whispered. “I broke her. I broke her like a twig.”

  I didn’t know what he was referring to and asked an oblivious, “What do you mean?”

  “I told her that I couldn’t see her anymore. That I needed space,” he explained, his head still drooped in shame. “I know she’s crying right now. She didn’t understand. She thought that everything was perfect, and it was.”

  “Then why did you end it? How did you figure it out?” I asked, observing that he was continuing to calm as he spoke.

  “She invited me in to meet her dad. I got near the front step, and suddenly I felt it. I could feel a crazy powerful heat source standing right inside her house. Then it hit me. Her dad had to have been a flame lord, making her at least a half. And it made sense. It explained everything,” he cried as he began to lift his head. “And I didn’t know what to do. So I just… ran. I ended everything.”

  He was looking up at me now. His eyes were glowing blue again, and the veins in his eyes were red, making them appear bloodshot and weary from the tears.

  “I’m sure things can be fixed. Maybe you should tell her,” I half-heartedly suggested though it was hardly a realistic option.

  “How can she not know what she is, Bryce?”

  “You didn’t even know,” I argued. “If she doesn’t have bending ability then she might have no idea. It is possible.”

  He nodded now, and I could see just a minuscule glint of optimism and hope settling within him.

  “I can’t believe that,” he shook his head. “I don’t know what to believe. And I don’t know that it matters now.”

  I didn’t know if he knew what the consequences of the battle would be, but apparently he did. I didn’t want to talk about it though. I didn’t want to think about his leaving.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, seeing that I wanted to change the subject. “I at least tried to move you out of the way for the record,” he added with a smile.

  I smiled as he grew lighthearted. “I’m fine. Took you out myself. Who needs mom or the others when I’m here,” I bragged with a laugh.

  It was hard to laugh though. Jon was so difficult to understand. We all knew that he had no control when he went into his manic state, and yet, he had control enough to move me out of the line of fire. It never made sense to me.

  Suddenly the ice that enclosed his body shattered, and our mother appeared behind us.

  “Very funny, Bryce,” she smirked, acknowledging that she’d been listening to the conversation.

  Jon fell to the ground, his body trembling from the ache that the enchanted ice had brought upon them. He managed to pull himself to a sit with his knees up and his back resting against what was left of a kitchen counter.

  I could see that he was beginning to sob again. Clearly it was over the guilt of what could have happened to our mother. He put his head down between his knees, and I could hear his cries beginning again.

  “Leave us, Bryce,” she ordered as she kneeled in front of Jon.

  I did as she instructed and left the pair on their own. For as long as I could remember, the relationship between my mother and Jon had been quite complicated. And although she was often the target of his rage, their love was resilient and strong.

  Their love was different than the rest of ours. Their love had struggle, their love had pain and hurt and anger. For those reasons maybe it seemed more powerful.

>   They were both full-bloods. My mother was a full-blooded bender and so was Jon’s father, whoever he was. The rest of us were just half-bloods who were fortunate that we inherited any bending ability at all.

  But honestly, I didn’t envy Jon’s power. The responsibility and pressures of being a full-blood were truly unfathomable. And his bouts of uncontrollable anger were nothing I desired.

  But when I thought about it, it was those very rages that probably cause Jon to be conceived. None of us knew the story, but I had to assume that whoever the rapist was that he had some sort of tug on my mother’s heart. She was probably like me. She probably sympathized with her offender enough to let him go free.

  But then Jon. How could he feel? He had to know how much his anger resembled that of his real fathers. After all, our mother was always patient, always calm.

  Maybe he hadn’t thought about it. I hoped he hadn’t.

  And speaking of thinking, I had had enough of it. I didn’t want to think about the conversation that my mother and Jon were having. I didn’t want to think about my brother being sent off. I didn’t want to think of any of it.

  I just wanted to sleep.

  I closed my eyes.

  And that’s what I did.

  Slept.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Alcohol.

  Kenna had been thinking a lot about alcohol the last couple days. If she’d been down South, she’d have had her hands on it in no time, but Minnesota was a little different. In Minnesota, she didn’t have the easy access that she’d had before.

  The girl had spent the last few days in bed and was in no hurry to get out of it. She hadn’t brushed her hair or her teeth or even changed out of the pajamas she’d thrown on Saturday night. In fact, the only thing she’d done to keep herself together at all was eat, but even that was only half of her usual.

  Kenna wasn’t entirely prepared to deal with the emotions that the break up with Jon had triggered. She’d never let herself get so close to anyone before…and never would again, she reminded herself. Though a small voice tried to tell her that the happy memories with Jon were worth the hurt, and the feelings of joy that their relationship had produced were worth the ending rejection, a louder voice told her that they weren’t, that it was all fake, that she was played, and that all of those wonderful feelings were based on lies and deceit.