Eleven

Adara followed the sound as long as she could, but she lost it when she reached the top of the stairs. She looked down both hallways, but Keahi was nowhere to be seen.

She looked again. Two open doors. In reality, she had a fifty-fifty chance of going in the right door.

Choosing the door in the left hallway, she hurried down the quiet path. Adara tried to lighten her footsteps, lest it actually be the wrong room.

Since the door was only partially open, Adara pushed it open the rest of the way. Immediately, she went to the shelf directly across from the doorway. Though her eyes would naturally be attracted there anyway, that's not what interested her.

It was the pictures.

Adara knew that she was a stranger in the house. She had hardly been there for fifteen minutes. She wanted to know them, but she didn't particularly want to talk to them.

People were stressful.

The curious girl picked up the center frame. In it, the photographer- presumably Beck, seeing as he wasn't in the picture- had captured Reva's white hair flowing in a breeze that, apparently, no one else in the photo experienced. At that time, she was sporting eerie yellow contacts. Hali was next to her, leaning on Axton's shoulder, and Adara fleetingly wondered what was between them. Not that it was any of her business. Kaj was in the middle of everyone, but he didn't seem to be enjoying himself. His eyes were slightly angled to his left and his smile was forced.

She suspected that it had to do with Keahi holding hands with the last person in the photo.

In all fairness, the man wasn't bad looking. But, boy, was he bold and just looking for attention. His blue eyes instantly hinted at Water. That is, if his shocking blue hair didn't give it away first.

It was obviously dyed, though Adara wouldn't doubt anything after she'd seen Reva. She was a scientific mystery. Adara could see that the man's roots were beginning to fade, and his naturally blonde hair was shining through.

Adara wondered who he was and went to look at the next photograph.

"Get out of his room."

Adara startled and straightened from where she was leaning down to look at the pictures. She wasn't sure that she wanted to turn around. Keahi was fuming.

Distantly, she heard footsteps pounding on the stairs. She wondered who was coming.

She turned to face him and met a face colored red with anger. Only slightly confused but mostly curious, Adara said, "What?"

Keahi raised his voice to a scream, going from zero to one hundred faster than Adara's mind could handle. "Get out! Get out, get out, get out!"

Through the din, Adara saw Kaj appear behind Keahi, and he put a calming hand on his shoulder.

"I'm...I'm sorry," she said slowly, not knowing what else she could do but apologize. She wasn't good for anything else. That had been made clear to her enough times in the past.

But, apparently, her apology wasn't enough. Keahi stormed over to her, oblivious to everything but her, the focus of his anger.

He got directly in her face, and Adara was only partially surprised to see tears welling in his eyes.

"Get. Out," Keahi said through gritted teeth, little flecks of spittle flying toward her face. He didn't lean back when he was done, either. Just waited impatiently for her to follow directions.

Shocked, Adara stiffly walked out of the room, heading to the other open door.

Her eyes were unfocused and her steps were uneven. God, what had happened to him to make him that way? And where the hell was that other guy?

Because she wasn't paying attention to exactly where she was going, she ran into something. After initially assuming it was a wall, she dimly recognized that the wall was not by the stairs. Adara focused her eyes enough to go where she needed to.

It was not a wall.

Adara looked up to Beck, wondering what was happening in her head. She couldn't focus. Too much chaos. Roaring in her ears. He tried talking to her, but she couldn't hear him. She vainly attempted to read his lips, but she was barely aware enough to stand on her own. What was happening to her?

Beck grabbed her wrists to try and get her to listen. In her mind, they tightened. His hands mimicked the same thing that Gabe had done so many times before, but she could tell that this was different. He wanted to be gentle, to show her that he meant no harm.

No longer wary or resistant, Adara let Beck pull her to him. Only when she was securely nestled into Beck's chest did the pounding waves in her ears calm down. She took a shaky breath and steadied herself.

Adara waited a few seconds before pulling away from Beck. "Can..." Adara trailed off a bit, her mind still foggy. "Can you show me my room?"

Instead of speaking, Beck nodded at her.

He pulled away fully, leaving Adara with a curiously empty feeling. He kept a hold on her wrist, though, gently trapping it in between two of his fingers.

Sure enough, they headed for the other open door.

Beck nudged the door open gently and led her to decently sized bed in the middle of the room. He moved the blankets for her, and, once she was laying down, covered her up again. She distantly thought about the fact that she was still in the day's clothes.

Beck straightened and headed for the door.

"Don't go."

Adara faintly recognized the demanding voice as her own. Beck turned back with a start. She realized that she needed to take responsibility for just blurting that out, so she rephrased her statement as a question. "Can you please stay? I just had some questions about everyone here. I kind of feel out of place."

Beck's eyes softened and he came back to sit at the foot of the bed, careful not to touch her. She looked at him weirdly because of it. She wasn't a plague.

He registered her unusual look and said, "I'm okay to be sitting here?"

"Yeah, you're fine," she replied. She struggled to think of a reason why she had wanted him to stay. Her mind blanked, but she finally came up with something sufficient. "So, what's up with Reva?"

Beck looked offended. She quickly reiterated her statement. "I just meant, what's she like? I didn't really get to meet everyone and figure them out."

The fierceness left his eyes. A pleasant calm surrounded him as he prepared to talk about his friends. Adara couldn't help but wish that she was a part of that protectiveness. That she could be under its wing. "Well, she's kind of off-putting because of her hair and eyes. You know how wind is clear? So is she. Her eyes are translucent and her hair is white. Like, grandma white. So, at home, she's allowed to express herself, hence her pink contacts. Outside, she wears brown contacts and has a brown wig, since her hair doesn't take to any dye. It's really-"

"Beck?" Adara interrupted, humor in her voice.

"Yeah?"

"I more meant personality," she corrected.

A look of understanding passed across his face, and a light pink spread across his cheeks. "Oh, yeah, that makes sense." He shook his head at himself. "She's a complete know-it-all, but I guess that's deserved. Every wind Element has an Oracle. Reva can see the future. She always acts in the family's best interest, though. Well, usually." She thought that his voice hardened a little on the last part, but she played it off as her imagination.

Once again, Adara longed for that. Beck called them a family without a second thought. She and her family had never been close, and here they were, making their own.

Surprisingly, the news of Reva's Oracle didn't shock her in the slightest. Enough weird things had happened in the past few days that that was the least of Adara's worries.

"Well, lucky you guys," she said, making it clear that she noticed the divide between her and their "family". Beck opened his mouth to say something, but Adara cut him off. "And Hali?"

Beck didn't protest against the change in tone. "Hmm...well, she's really good at breaking up fights in the house. I mean, I should be, too, because of the whole "Water equals peacemaker" thing. Hint, I'm not. And Hali is an amazing painter. Like, masterpiece level work. It's insane." He trailed off, trying to think of something else to say about her.

Adara knew that you could know someone for your whole life and not be able to describe them in just a few words.

She decided to spare him the trouble of searching for the right words and continued the line of conversation that they were already having. "What about Axton?"

Beck gave her a look that she'd never seen on him before. "You guys seemed to get on well." Just as Adara was about to tell him that his comment had nothing to do with her question, he said, "He is all jokes, that guy. He's usually responsible for lightening the mood in serious situations, even if we hate it sometimes. But..." Beck clearly didn't know whether or not to tell her what he thought next.

"Yeah?" she urged gently. Sue her, she was curious.

Beck sighed. "His Spirit." Noting Adara's confused look, he explained further. "All earth Elementals have a Spirit. A dead person's soul that speaks to them. I think it's because the dead are buried in the earth? I don't really know. Anyway, his is his dad."

Adara couldn't hide her bewildered look. "So his dad is..." She couldn't bring herself to finish the statement.

"Yeah," Beck confirmed. "He has been for all of Axton's life. He passed not even a month before Axton was born."

She shook her head in pity. "That's terrible," she whispered.

"Well, yeah. The death of a family member is never a good experience."

Oh. "It's always a family member?" Adara asked.

"Yeah."

"So Kaj has one, too? A dead family member?" God, she felt so bad for them both. On top of losing them, they had to hear their voices every day? That was just torture.

Beck nodded in affirmation. "His brother. He doesn't really take his loss too hard, though, because he gets the full brother experience anyway. Sometimes, you'll hear him just start yelling randomly, and everyone will just know that he's talking to Kael. They never get along."

A pause in the conversation gave Adara the chance to consider whether or not she should ask the question racing through her mind. In the end, she figured it couldn't hurt.

"What's going on between Kaj and Keahi?"

Beck didn't seem surprised that she had asked; he almost looked resigned to it. "Kaj just helps him to calm down sometimes, that's all."

"Yeah, what's his problem?" The question had been burning in her mind since she met the cold man. Finally she would get some answers-

"It's really not my place to say," he monotoned, a grim smile cutting across his face.

When Adara tried to protest, her eyes began to droop. She hadn't realized how tired she was.

Beck had, though, and went to leave the room. She wasn't ready for their time to be up and blurted out, "Tell me a story?"

He looked at her in disbelief. "A story?"

Adara used the comforter to cover up her burning cheeks. "Yeah, a story. Problem?" she asked defensively.

Beck grinned boyishly and shook his head. "Anything in particular, princess?"

Oh, good lord, he better stop.

Adara half-heartedly glared at him and said, "Don't do that. And no."

He continued to smile at her, but it faded while he was thinking. A crease formed between his brows. "Well, there was this one time...

"I was walking some trails along a waterfall, and it was so cold that the waterfall actually froze. The tourists were all furious. So I, deciding to be nice, resolved to unfreeze the entire waterfall."

Upon her look of sleepy incredulity, Beck nodded enthusiastically. "I know, it's hard to believe. But I did it. I focused all my energy on the water. It was more to see if I actually could do it than anything else, but it's a cool thing to brag about."

"I bet it gets you all the ladies," Adara joked.

"Definitely," he said in such a way that Adara knew it definitely did not get him any of the ladies. "But when the ice started to shake, I yelled 'Duck!' and the whole waterfall exploded. People got mad that they were wet, but, then, no one is ever satisfied, are they?"

Adara vaguely heard him rant about that for a while, but she was soon zoning out, drifting in and out of consciousness. Finally, after a long battle, sleep won and Adara fell into the land of dreams.