Copper Ravens(59)

Then, everything changed. “Tell me, what is keeping us from living the good life? What keeps us poor, underfed, overworked?”

The stupid government. I however, was alone in my opinion.

“Elementals!”

“Magic freaks!”

“Bearded baby snatchers!”

Cold sweat broke out across my chest, and I moved closer to Max. He grabbed my arm, just above the elbow, probably to keep me from running or doing something else stupid. I’d never been so glad for anything as the knitted hats that covered Max’s and my copper-colored hair.

“I ask you, good people, how can we break the hold the Elementals have over us?” Uncle Mike demanded.

“What hold?” I hissed in Max’s ear. He shook his head, his eyes never leaving the stage. Then I heard what the crowd was shouting around me.

“Imprison them!”

“Make them work for us!”

“Keep them away from my children!”

That last cry was little more than a sob, but Mike, and the rest of the crowd, had heard it clear as day. She was probably a plant.

“I know your pain,” he said, now staring right at the woman in the crowd. Yep, definitely a plant. Mike stretched his arm out behind him, beckoning. Seeing her cue, Juliana staggered to her feet.

“This is my niece, Juliana.” Juliana stumbled, but Langston steadied her with a hand on her back and guided her to the front of the stage. A murmur rode over the crowd; evidently, this wasn’t the first time she’d joined in on Mike’s theatrics. “As you can see, she isn’t doing very well.” Mike made a show of whispering into Juliana’s ear, as if he was asking her approval to tell her story. She nodded slightly, as if she’d had any other choice.

“Elementals ruined her,” he said, with a pointed glare directed at the women in the crowd, just in case we didn’t know what he meant by ruined. “Luckily, there was no permanent damage, not that the bastard didn’t try.”

Realization dawned on the more thick-headed in the crowd, and we were surrounded by shouts and gasps. Mike gave them all a moment to settle down before he continued. “You see, that’s what they want. Elemental men set out to impregnate normal, healthy girls. That’s how they plan to spread their foul race across our country.”

“Was he executed?” someone called out.

“No,” Mike admitted. “He escaped and remains at large.” The crowd went deathly silent, eyes darting at their neighbors, as if the Elemental in question would leap out and abscond with their daughters at any moment. “But if you elect me, and grant me the resources to combat this evil, I will make sure that what happened to my dear Juliana will never happen to your children.”

“What will he do with—” I stopped short when Max coughed, and I chose a different word. “All the Elementals. Will he imprison them, deport them, what?”

“Who cares?” grumbled a man at my left.

Another said, “He means to use them.”

That had our attention. Max and I turned to look at the speaker; it was the Mirlander candidate, none the worse for wear after the cabbage incident. “Use them for what?” Max asked.

“He wants to dissect them, determine the origin of their abilities, and replicate them,” the speaker replied.

“That’s stupid,” Max said. “Why would a man that hates Elementals want to make more Elementals?”

“Does he hate or is he jealous?” the man countered. “Read up on your history, kids.”

With that, the speaker melted into the crowd. I was shaking, not trembling but actually shaking, as if I was outdoors in a blizzard. While I accepted that most Mirlanders were nuts (why else would you join the losing party?), what he’d said hit too close to home. No matter what Max had said about the Institute not always being so bad, based on the state I’d found him in, he’d only been a day or two away from dissection.

“What will happen to her?” someone called out, and I was glad, not only for the distraction from the Mirlander’s conspiracy theories. I wanted to know the answer to that, myself.

“Langston here has been kind enough to care for her,” Mike answered, giving his assistant a hearty clap on the shoulder. “Juliana is a lucky girl.” Juliana nodded weakly, and Langston drew her to the side of the stage. Our side of the stage.

“Aww,” murmured a woman beside me, “they’re such a cute couple. Aren’t they?”

I realized she wanted my agreement, so I nodded. “Yeah, they look like they belong together,” I murmured. If you overlooked how Juliana shrank away from Langston’s hands, and how Langston stared at her like she was a juicy pork chop, they looked like the King and Queen of Hearts.