Choosing Fate

Choosing Fate .:2:.

Akorin . . . she knew that name somewhere.

Somewhere?

No it was in her nightmares!

Her breathing caught in her throat and her palms started to clam up. “Have I been here before?”

Darryl hesitated to tell her. “You were born here.”

“Why is your hair colour the same as your eyes? Why don’t you look related to me? Why doesn’t –”

“I’m a Water Elemental Em,” he said, cradling his sister in his arms who started to shake like a Chihuahua. “My features tell others what Element I possess. So if you were a Fire Elemental guess what colour hair they’d would have including their eyes.”

Emerie frowned, stopped shaking and pressed her lips into a line. “Red. Hell red.”

Darryl chuckled loudly, ruffling her black hair. “Nope. It’s like an orange glow. Guess what Earth would be?”

“Green,” she said, remembering Dexter and how he could shift tunnels in the Earth. “How come Uncle Dexter has dark hair and eyes?”

“It’s all an illusion which Water Elementals are capable of,” he told her with a dry smile. “I’m not related to you though Emerie.”

From there she started to panic. “I knew it! But it can’t be! But – I – Darryl how?!”

“Because I am not part of your family,” he said quietly. “Neither is Dexter. Neither were our parents. My parents.”

Her breathing hitched and she sounded as though she was hyperventilating. All she could manage to whisper was . . . “Why?”

“We adopted you on the orders of your real parents,” he whispered, feeling his heart plummet at speaking those words to her. “I’m sorry Em.”

She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry out as a pain in her chest made her convulse in his arms. She couldn’t believe it. Emerie Martin, after all these years, was not a Martin at all. She was adopted.

“Who are my parents?” she asked in a deadly voice. “Tell me.”

Darryl was obviously uncomfortable with the subject as he told her. “Elder Damaris Ayda Hartley and Elder Ryker Lyric Hartley. Ryker is a Headmaster of Akorin’s best school where they teach all three races in unison.”

Her breathing hitched and she clutched at her chest, fingers digging into the bones beneath her skin. Why did those names sound so familiar?

Oh right because they’re my birthparents’ names, she thought to herself bitterly.

“Why . . . why did they abandon me?”

“That,” Darryl started quietly. “Is something that you shouldn’t be concerned of.”

“I want to go back,” she said stubbornly, standing up and faced him with her arms crossed. “You’re not my blood brother I know but we were raised as siblings therefore I want you to be a good brother and take me back home.”

“You were born here; this is your home,” he argued, standing up a head and a half taller than her.

“Darryl!” she said, raising her voice. “I don’t belong here! If I did then wouldn’t my hair have changed to a freakish colour and I’d be dong freakish things by now?!”

“We’ve been protecting you from the Watchers for so long,” he said exasperated. “Humans want you. Half want you dead. Half want you alive for a weapon. They hate the Destinies, the Time Guardians and especially us Elementals! All we wanted to do was live in peace and coexist with the humans! Emerie they want us all dead because they want our power! I can’t let that happen to you!”