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“You’ve got nothing to worry about, I promise.”
“Except Ade blowing up the school.”
“We’ll deal with that too. It’ll be okay.”
“I hope you’re right.”
* * *
After Jasmine picks up Ade, the pizza gets delivered just as Yas and Whit are arriving. It’s a little awkward but they come in and we all sit around the coffee table to eat. Not a lot of talking takes place until we’ve finished.
“So…” Yas begins.
“I’m sorry!” Lumi blurts out at the same time. “I have some explaining to do.”
“You don’t owe anyone an apology or an explanation,” Yas replies, a little pointedly towards Whit, who scowls back at him.
“I do. The last week without you all has made me absolutely miserable and I should have just trusted the bond right from the outset.”
“As should we,” I quickly add. “Let’s tell them about today.”
Lumi stares at me in horror for a moment, obviously thinking I mean sharing the details of what we got up to at the studio, but I chuckle and correct her train of thought. “Ade?”
“Oh! Yeah. So erm, I got a call when I was at the studio today and had to pick Ade up from school. She had gotten a bit upset and her powers had started to manifest at school.”
“Like at the rink?” Yas asks.
“Sort of. There was water involved...and a tornado, an earthquake and a small fire.” Lumi gives them the short version.
“But why is this happening?”
I quickly explain what Ade told me about her guilt over the rink and thinking we were all fighting and everyone looks upset.
“We can’t have her thinking like that or blaming herself,” Yas says.
“Her powers are being triggered by heightened emotions. Negative ones it seems. Obviously, you now know that I have control of air and water, but if Ade’s showing signs of having an affinity for earth and fire too, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m not sure I can support her here.”
“What are you saying?” Whit asks sharply. It’s the first he’s spoken and Lumi winces as if he’d slapped her.
“I don’t know if it would be best to take Ade back to Val-d’isère. It has the biggest community of elemental shifters and although they might not be happy to have us back, I don’t think they’d turn their back on one of their own in their time of need.”
“Why wouldn’t they have you back?” Yas asks thoughtfully.
“Why did you leave in the first place?” Whit demands.
Lumi sighs. I take her hand in mine and squeeze it reassuringly.
“My parents kicked me out when they found out I was pregnant. I had just turned sixteen. Ade’s father…” she pauses, takes a deep breath, then continues shakily. “Ade’s father was...pretty abusive. Controlling. He was actually my first—and only—boyfriend. Thankfully, he dumped me before I knew I was pregnant.”
“We had just finished school and he wanted to go on holiday with all his mates, without ‘a ball and chain’ holding him back. While he was gone, I realized I was late, took a test and found out I was pregnant. I turned to my parents for help and they disowned me, so I got in touch with Sacha. We’d been pen pals since we were eight. We met when her family came to the resort to ski, and we hit it off and stayed in touch. She sent me to her aunty in Paris who helped see me through my pregnancy.”
“It was fine until Ade was about six weeks old. I stupidly sent my parents a photograph of Ade thinking they might like to know their granddaughter. Somehow word reached Ade’s father and he started looking for us. When he tracked us down in Paris, he caused a scene and...Sacha’s aunt got hurt. We fled, and have been moving ever since. The last time he caught up with us in England, I decided we needed a bigger continent and Sacha offered us to come to Silver Springs to join her.”
“That’s why you kept moving around,” I say.
“Yeah. I like it here, I really do. I feel safer than I have in years. But I always feel like it’s just a matter of time before he catches up to us again.”
“Was Ade’s father an elemental shifter?”
