The Girl with the Fire Heart
Chapter 51

The young boy looks down at the tanzanite stone in his hand and then looks back up at Damon and Valentina. Valentina feels a tug in her necklace and she takes a step forward. She feels Damon put a hand on her elbow, like he wants to stop her. She knows he must be thinking that she will use this to her advantage to exact revenge but he couldn’t be more wrong. Revenge is the furthest thing from her mind at this moment.

The little boy takes a step towards her, the furrow in his brows deepening impossibly more on his small, innocent face. Damon steps beside her. Then, without warning, the tanzanite boy rushes to them, his feet tripping over each other as he quickens towards them. When he is standing at the edge of the platform, looking at the both of them directly, his eyes never once leaving either of their faces to look at anything or anyone else, Valentina and Damon look at each other.

Valentina notices how tense Damon’s shoulders are and she can see that his mind is going, thinking and turning over every bit of information and personal experience he has to try and understand what any of this can mean. She looks back to the boy and walks to the edge of the platform, Damon following suit. Valentina can see that the little boy’s eyes are vibrantly blue from where she stands.

Suddenly, Valentina feels a sudden pressure against her throat and she gasps audibly. Her hands fly to her neck, grasping something she knows isn’t there. Her eyes widen at the suffocating feeling and she looks hurriedly at Damon who she instantly realizes is no longer standing. Damon is kneeling on one knee, his head bowed and his shoulders fighting an invisible strength that has him weighed down.

Valentina looks back at the little boy and she sees the fear in his eyes. That is when he begins looking around the room, scanning for what Valentina isn’t sure. She sees someone step out from the crowd, and she sees the girl she saw talking to Ava at the races. The girl isn’t looking at Valentina or Damon or the spectacle they are causing. Instead, she is staring straight at the little boy. Valentina looks back at the boy and sees his eyes are full of tears as he stares back at the girl. The boy turns and runs off to his parents, colliding into his father's legs.

The girl looks over at Valentina and the two stare at each other, one with desperation and the other with detachment. A shout rings out somewhere in the room and this seems to snap the girl out of her trance because almost immediately, Valentina feels the pressure in her neck disappear and she falls against the platform gasping for air. She can feel Damon beside her gulping in lungfuls of air like the weight had taken all of his breath when he fell.

Damon looks up to replace Valentina looking at him with a tear stained face and worry in her eyes. He wishes more than anything that he can take that away from her but his own fears grow inside of him at the realization he just had. He takes another deep breath before forcing the words out of his mouth.

“We,” he coughs before speaking again. “We aren’t the only ones.” His voice rasps and scratches over every dreadful word but he knows he needs to say them. He pushes himself onto his feet, and locks eyes almost instantly with who he now knows is the man with the earth heart. Damon sees the hatred in this man’s eyes. Something like faint recognition rings in the back of his head and he tries to remember where he knows this man but the shouts of the people around him bring him out of his reverie. He turns just in time to see a branch crash through the window and extend towards him like a rubberband. He expertly glides out of the way, dropping his body down and ducking his head. He feels more than he sees Valentina burn the branch in seconds.

The attack does something to her, Damon realizes too late. He sees the second her mind refocuses on her plan on the ride over here. He watches in almost detached horror as her flames burn the brightest they ever have in the time he has known her. He sees her lock her gaze on Elliot. From where he is standing, Damon knows if he doesn’t act now, he may very well be too late to stop his assassination.

He feels the same grip of air come around him again, almost as if it’s holding him in place. When he feels the tug of his feet being forced backwards, it registers that the air isn't stopping him from moving, it’s moving him out of the way. He glances around furtively, hoping to replace the culprit of his precarious predicament. His eyes land on steel gray ones, gray eyes that are determined and sorrowful, just as both he and Valentina had been just moments before.

Suddenly, it all makes sense. When he replaces the green eyes of the man who is currently having a stare down with Valentina, he sees the same sorrow lingering in his eyes. A pull on his body forces him to look over at the girl with the gray eyes and she makes a motion of releasing him. She knows. She knows exactly what he realized and for some unknown reason, Damon knows she doesn’t know or understand what is happening.

He feels the girl release him and he takes that opportunity to look back at Valentina whose focus has shifted to Elliot’s son. Damon wastes no time.

“Valentina! Don’t!” he screams.

Valentina hears him and her eyes well up with tears. She doesn’t take her eyes off of the little boy. She stands a few feet away from the stage and she is vaguely aware of Elliot and Ava cowering away from her and the man with the dark green eyes. The little boy, however, is unafraid. She can feel his confidence and his steadiness deep in her bones. He moves himself from behind his parents legs and takes a small step toward Valentina. The change in personality within minutes is striking to her and she wonders if this is what Damon meant when he mentioned the elements changing the hearts of people that were chosen.

Was it possible for the element to have a mind of its own, to choose someone deemed worthy of caring the weight of being a rarity? Was it possible that should Valentina's life end, this boy would be the one to carry her mantel?

Valentina sucks in a breath, and suddenly the only sounds audible to her are the sounds of the rare elements in the room. Her fire crackling, Damon’s water whirling, the air whistling and the earth groaning. Valentina isn’t sure how she knows, but she knows the other three rare elements in the room are watching the boy just as intently as she is. She can feel each one of them coming closer, striving to get as close as possible to the boy as he will allow.

The magnetism of this boy perplexes her. His youthfulness is evident yet his gaze is wiser than all four of them combined. Step by singular step, the boy comes close to the edge of the stage where Valentina stands stoically, and step by singular step, each of the other elements in the room come closer and closer.

Finally, she feels each of the other people just like her standing by her side. Damon stands closest to her on her left while the man with the green eyes and the girl she recognized from the stables stand off with some distance to her, the girl being to her immediate right. None of them take their eyes off of the young boy once they stand together.