It was a perfect evening in Los Angeles. The air had a muggy bite to it with an aftertaste of smog that could only be found in the city. Lights from the surrounding buildings and billboards on the street far below grew brighter as the sun faded beyond the horizon in a brilliant medley of color. The cozy inland weather was perfect for an evening stroll, but 17-year-old Alyssa Maxwell could only stare longingly from the private balcony of this week’s hotel.

  The crisp April breeze rustled her long red hair, and she reached out her hand to let it run through her fingers. It called softly to her, whispering promises of freedom in a language only her heart could hear.

  Jump, it seemed to say, tempting her to fall into it. To fly into it — but she knew better.

  She didn’t want to die.

  She wanted to live. To feel the rushing wind against her pale freckled skin, the thrill of soaring through the open air. No more hotels, no more guards, no more fear. All it would take was one more step, a slight lean, and—

  “Alyssa, come in, please.” Her father’s silvery voice carried through the open balcony door. “It’s not safe for you to be out there alone.”

  “We’re fourteen stories up,” she retorted with an eye roll, crossing her arms as she turned to face him. “Even the taunts can’t get up this high.”

  “I’m already late. I don’t have time to argue with you,” he said shortly.

  “Late for what? You just got here,” she protested, watching him pace the room in search of something.

  “Meeting. I told you earlier.” He looked sharp in his suit, she thought — though she hardly saw him without one these days. He had fair skin and brown eyes, and though he had aged fairly well, the grays that peppered his well-trimmed brown hair and goatee betrayed his 47 years.

  Ever since the Talents’ attack on their home, her life had become a never ending array of heavily guarded villas and hotel penthouses. They were moved every few days, never staying longer than a week, and never returning to the same place twice. It had been a full year since she had been home at their comfortable mansion in the belly of Beverly Hills.

  Although the Talents had nearly succeeded in their murderous mission, Alyssa still felt her father’s reaction was too dramatic. It was hard not to resent him for uprooting her life and isolating her from everyone she knew.

  “What kind of meeting starts at 6 in the evening?” she questioned bitterly.

  “It’s a dinner meeting, and there’s traffic,” he answered with impatience. He checked his pockets for the third time and then turned to search through the mess of papers on the counter as he muttered to himself, “where’s my damn phone?”

  Alyssa glanced at the small dining table on her left where a sleek white smartphone rested face down. Watching him search for it in vain brought an amused smirk to her face.

  He looked at her, then followed her pointed gaze to the table and scoffed in annoyance as he retrieved it. “Stay inside, please, and keep the door locked,” he said, eyes glued to the screen. “Quinton is out in the hall if you need anything. He’ll call you an escort if you want to leave the room.”

  She groaned. “What am I, ten? At what point am I going to be allowed to just walk down the hall without an army around me? It’s humiliating.”

  “We’ve been over this, Alyssa,” he responded in a tired voice. “Until the Service has dealt with the taunts and their little uprising, we have to take precautions. They’re targeting me, which means you’re a target by proxy. You know what they did to your mother; it’s too dangerous to take risks.”

  Alyssa shifted uncomfortably. She had been too young to remember the night her mother was killed by the infamous Talent known as Sarah Taylor, but her father had witnessed it firsthand. It was a constant reminder of how dangerous the Talents were.

  Not that she really needed it since the attack. The sound of the gunshot in the hall still haunted her. Within seconds, the guards were packing her things and rushing her and her father out the back door.

  Of the four Talents who had attacked their home, one had been killed, and the other three escaped.

  “Why hasn’t the Service caught them yet?” she asked.

  “I don’t have time to discuss it right now. My car’s waiting.” He stopped to type on his phone.

  “But you have time to text?” she countered dryly.

  He shot her an annoyed glance. “I know you think I’m the worst father in the world, but everything I do is to protect you. Remember that.”

  She sneered at him as he turned his back to grab his briefcase from the counter. “Gee, I feel so safe being locked up like a prisoner,” she grumbled, staring judgmentally at a stray thread unraveling on the room’s dull gray couch.

  “Yes, Alyssa. Prisoners are kept in hotel penthouses with television and room service,” he retorted. “I’ll be back late. Don’t wait up. Your vitamin shakes are in the fridge, and you can order something for dinner if you don’t want leftovers. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  And then she was alone.

  She rolled her eyes at the empty room and went into her adjacent bedroom, flopping dramatically onto the bed with a groan. When her father had arrived home a little earlier than usual, she was hoping for a night in. They hadn’t had much time to relax together since they’d left the mansion.

  She missed the days when he would call in from work and spend the afternoon playing around the house with her. It seemed like forever since she’d seen him smile, or since she herself really had, either.

  She grabbed her phone to check the news, hoping — as always — to see that long awaited headline: Reign of Terror Over! Terrorist Talents Caught By Service.

  But she was never that lucky.

  She turned off the screen and let gravity pull her arm against the bed. It was hardly even worth having a phone. Her notifications were non-existent.

  Her father had locked her out of her social media accounts a week after the attack, giving them over to some inexperienced intern at his office to make it look like they were on an extended vacation in Switzerland.

  ‘They can track you from a photo,’ he’d said.

  Though she had created several secret backup accounts, his team soon found them each time. It was almost like a game to her to see how long she could have a new account before they found out and had it deactivated. The battle ended abruptly when, upon discovering her seventh secret profile, her father threatened to throw her phone away entirely.

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  Instead, his office had given her a locked down phone that could only text approved contacts or run a web search. Her father swore they weren’t reading her conversations, but she had once tested his claim by telling Claire which country they were in.

  They had been moved to a new country within the hour.

  This was the closest she had been to home since the night of the attack, but she had never felt so far away. The city outside the window may as well have been on another planet.

  It was hard to believe it had only been a year since she had over a million followers and enough friends to keep her glued to her phone every hour of the day. Gone were the days of scrolling through endless comments on everything she posted.

  Most of her friends had given up trying to stay in contact. Only Claire still bothered to text back, and she was up to her eyeballs studying for finals and getting ready for Senior Prom with her new boyfriend.

  The fact that she was likely going to miss prom because of all this nonsense made Alyssa’s stomach hurt. She reclined against her pillow and snapped a selfie, mustering a half-smile for Claire’s sake.

  The close camera did her no favors, making her round nose look as though it were bulging out. Every picture of her mother seemed like that of a glamorous model, but Alyssa had always felt she’d gotten the worst combination of her parents’ looks: her father’s round face and brown eyes, her mother’s pale freckled skin and loosely curled red hair.

  Genetics had blessed Lynette with baby-blue eyes, a heart-shaped face, and a perfectly upturned celestial nose that Alyssa envied. Lynette’s freckles were light and only appeared noticeable on her cheeks, while Alyssa had inherited her grandmother’s darker, more evenly spread dots. She scoffed in disgust and deleted the photo, wishing she looked more like her mother.

  She walked out to the balcony door and snapped another one, catching the city skyline in the background and holding up two fingers in a peace-sign.

  ‘Guess where?’ she sent to Claire.

  Her father’s lackeys would pitch a fit when they saw it. Maybe she would at last get the glorified paperweight taken away.

  But it would be worth it if she could see her friends again, even briefly. She watched the unread symbol for a few minutes before setting it down with a tired sigh. Claire was probably too busy to text back, anyway.

  What a waste.

  She flipped on the TV and scrolled through the channels, hanging upside down off the foot of the bed while she purchased three premium movies she wasn’t even sure she wanted to watch. It wasn’t like Claire would be able to mount a rescue mission, anyway. What had she expected? A cavalry of high-schoolers to outwit the guards and whisk her away to prom?

  She hit play on an old rom-com about a princess running away from her duties with a handsome journalist and went to the kitchen as it started, poking through every cupboard until she found the hidden fridge stocked with snacks and miniature bottles of liquor. Her father would be furious when he found out — if he even bothered to check the bill — but she was already the equivalent of super-grounded. There wasn’t much left for him to take from her.

  She grabbed the tiny bottle of brand-name whiskey and opened it, dumping the entire thing down her throat. The strong taste made her gag and she spent the next few minutes coughing into the sink and regretting the decision.

  Ten minutes into the movie, she returned for the vodka. Her reaction was similar, and she washed it down with a gargle of mouthwash. The warmth from the alcohol moved through her chest and she heaved a deep sigh, ending it with a frustrated groan.

  It had done nothing to quell her restlessness. She checked her phone again. Still no response. She grabbed the hotel pillow and screamed into it until the back of her throat started to hurt.

  At least in the other hotels, they were far away from home. Being trapped in Los Angeles added insult to injury. She was so close to being able to see her friends again, but the guards would never allow it. She wondered how much longer it would be before she was forgotten entirely.

  She wandered back to the kitchen to peruse the room service menu even though she wasn’t quite hungry and ordered a lobster pasta and filet mignon.

  On the back of the menu was a photo of a sunny rooftop swimming pool with several attractive models lounging in chairs. It had been over two weeks since she’d been to a hotel with a nice enough pool to bother swimming in.

  Even if it was smaller than her pool back home, she missed the water like nothing else. She had been the star of the swim team at her school, consistently beating the competition by increasing lengths. Between the school’s olympic sized pool and the one in her own luxurious backyard, swimming had been a daily activity. Her coach had told her on more than one occasion that if she kept it up, she could be on track to competing in the olympics.

  It was her only hope of ever being known as anything other than Jeff Maxwell’s daughter, but that dream had begun to fade, left behind to gather dust with everything else.

  Maybe a swim would help her unwind.

  At very least, maybe it would get her mind off her friends. She unpacked her favorite dark blue one-piece and pulled a pair of jeans over it, then wrestled her chest-length hair into a neat braid and opened the door to the hall.

  Quinton turned and stared at her with hard green eyes. He had been her personal guard for nearly three months after the previous one had quit. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked in a deep, gravely voice.

  She had once made it her mission to make him quit, too, but grew bored with the idea after a few weeks of no success. He adhered rigidly to the rules and had the emotional range of a brick wall.

  The idea of having five more of him standing like statues around the pool while she swam made her want to retreat directly back into the room.

  “Nowhere. I’m bored,” she said.

  “Did you finish your homework?” he asked.

  “Hours ago. You know how lousy it is doing schoolwork without the school?”

  He didn’t respond, but his eyes dropped judgmentally to her swimsuit.

  “Look— it’s been a long day. Can I just have like, five minutes at the pool?”

  “You can have as long as you’d like at the pool.”

  Her spirits lifted instantly, almost enough to smile.

  “After I call the escort,” he finished.

  She scowled. “Forget it.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Neither of them moved.

  “You know, I’ve been swimming since the day I was born. I’ve literally won first place at every school swimming competition since kindergarten. Do you actually think I’m gonna drown without some armed lackeys watching me? I can swim circles around your whole squad, Quinton.”

  “You could be the best swimmer in the world; you still won’t outswim an Elemental.”

  “The pool is on the roof!” she protested. “There’s a dozen men in the lobby. What, you think the taunts can climb fifteen stories up the side of the building? How would they even know I’m there?”

  He gave a half shrug. “Sarah Taylor could fly.”

  “Sarah Taylor is dead.” The name of her mother’s killer tasted like metal in her mouth.

  “There are other Elementals,” he argued. “Or did you forget why you’re here in the first place?”

  “Because my dad’s an overprotective lunatic. They failed, and we have twice the security, now. If they can waltz past you and get to the fifteenth story, then what’s even the point of you?” She attempted to walk around him as she spoke, but he moved in her way with crossed arms and a glare.

  “The rules are here to protect you,” he said firmly, reaching for his radio.

  She looked up at him with annoyance and then glanced briefly over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow as an idea struck her. “Well, that was fast. I didn’t even hear you call them.”

  As he turned to see the empty hallway, she snatched the radio from his vest and darted around behind him toward the elevators.

  “Wha— hey!” he objected, beginning to chase her. “Get back here!”

  She turned back as she reached the corner, holding her hand out. “No, wait!” she cried. He stopped suddenly, looking at her with the closest thing to a genuine emotion she had seen from him so far.

  He was afraid.

  “You can’t be in two places at once,” she said quickly. “You can either chase me and leave the room unattended for the taunts to ambush us, or you can let me have a nice quiet swim, alone. I’ll be back long before my father gets here. No one ever has to know.” Her heart was racing with adrenaline. It was all she could do to keep her voice from trembling.

  He glared at her as he started to advance again.

  “And you won’t get fired for the negligence of letting me steal this,” she taunted, lifting the radio to her lips with a mischievous grin. “All I have to do is press the button and tell them.”

  Quinton pursed his lips in frustration, but he had stopped moving. “If you’re not back here in fifteen minutes—”

  “See ya in an hour!” she called, sprinting down the hall with a laugh.

  Her father was going to kill her.

  Worth it.