I snorted and tore the page from my sketch pad, tossing it into the trash to join the other wads of discarded drawings and doodles. After I finished planning out this week’s episode for the webcomic, I’d burn the evidence of whatever didn’t make the cut so no one could hold it against me. No way would I make the mistake of leaving any of my sketches around for others to find, others like Council members snooping in my room. Council members on a witch hunt to find something—anything—to label me as dark.
So for the past five or so months, I’d kept my head down, my attention laser focused on school, mastering the 3Cs (call, control, conceal) of my powers, and missing my quad squad so much, I could barely breathe.
Rob Emmett, my tall, dark, hotheaded hottie of a fire elemental and the leader of the squad, had left me first. Well, he didn’t leave leave me. He’d left Clearwater Academy to work for the very governing body hell-bent on labeling me as dark. Fun twist there. We still saw each other, but not nearly as often as we used to.
To add insult to injury, Leo Jackson, my blue-eyed babyface of a water elemental with wild blond curls, had joined Rob working for the Council as a hunter. Together, along with the members still left after the attack that’d cut their numbers in half, they patrolled the Pacific Northwest for clans of dark elementals, concentrating on Whidbey Island, where we lived.
Clay Williams, my bearded, carefree air elemental with a mischievous green gaze that danced wickedly whenever he smiled, had taken over for Lulu, the assistant to the headmaster and general mother hen of the academy. After she’d been sent to elemental prison for standing up to the Council, and me agreeing to some shit I didn’t want to talk about to get her and the others released, she resigned her position at Clearwater and went to live with her sister. I couldn’t blame her. If I had any relatives aside from my dad, who’d written me off the first chance he got, I just might have done the same thing.
At least I still had Bryan Gunderson, my straitlaced monster of an earth elemental with shoulders that blocked out the sun, at the academy with me. He’d just started up his internship with the island’s alchemist this term, which I didn’t even know existed, and wanted a full year under his belt before requesting final tribunal to graduate from the academy.
And then there was me. I still didn’t know how I’d gotten so lucky as to have four hot guys hawt for me. At 5’7” and with a little meat on my bones, I definitely wasn’t billboard material. My red hair was too long and untamable. My boring hazel eyes wouldn’t earn me a call from any number of cosmetic companies asking me to be their next mascara model.
Yet I’d managed to snag the attention of four of the most attractive, most attentive guys on the planet. Now they were model material, every last one of them. Rob had a smolder about him that curled my toes even when we weren’t trying to eat each other’s faces. Clay was quick with a joke and always kept me laughing. Leo calmed me and taught me how to let shit go. The way Bryan looked at me, like I was the only girl on the planet, made me feel, well, like I was the only girl on the planet.
I’d just finished sketching out the week’s webisode and tapped the end of the pencil on my chin as I deliberated the dialogue. The webcomic had turned lighter, almost silly with the shenanigans I put the characters through. With the state of our world, on the brink of a civil war between elemental sides, we could all use a little humor in our lives.
I refused to write the civil war into the plot. Amethyst and Onyx had been at war for years and didn’t need something like that overshadowing their already dysfunctional relationship. Besides, I lived the reality of what that felt like and didn’t want to immortalize it in my webcomic.
I spun in my desk chair, my arms dangling at my sides as I stared at a knot in the wood that made up the roof’s peak. The comic had suffered due to my inability to focus these past few months. Readers weren’t shy telling me all the things they hated about the webisodes. No doubt they’d hate this one too no matter what I did, so why not go for it?
Shooting forward in the chair and catching myself before I jerked too far forward, I wheeled up to the desk and settled in. Okay, first panel: Amethyst doing a puzzle and eating pizza with Nigel Brandt, the handsome detective and sometimes love interest, when a knock at the door pulls their attention.
“Are you expecting company, Amethyst?”
“What company? You’re my only friend, Detective Brandt.”
“I’ve told you to call me Nigel.”
“Well, since we’ve had our tongues down each other’s throats already, I guess that warrants a first-name basis.”
I moved to the next: The door crashes open, and Onyx stands there, a fireball in each hand.
“Hello, Amethyst. Am I late to the party?”
“I don’t recall inviting you, Onyx. Looks like I need to talk to my doorman about upping the pest control in the building. Why do you have your balls in your hands?”
“So I can attack you with them.”
“Eww, dude. Gross.”
On to the final panel: Amethyst blocks the attack with an airfield, but one fireball gets through, setting the puzzle and pizza on fire. I drew angry eyes on my heroine and even made the
