Read The Soothing Scent Of Earth (Elemental Awakening, Book 2) for Free Online

signature nod. "Good," he said simply, clasped my hand in his again and moved us further along the wall.
    The sun was high, but its position was in our favour. A shadow existed along this stretch, that despite me wearing what was once a white sheet and white shortie trousers, managed to hide us enough to reach the designated spot the doctor had chosen. I looked out across a small expanse of concrete to a large Kapok Tree, its seed pods already bursting open with fibrous cotton.
    It was tall and the trunk massive, the wide spread boughs offering shade, but little protection from the Guards in the towers either side. However, the exposed roots, reminding me of a Moreton Bay Fig Tree, were almost high enough to hide an upright adult in between. Our first task would be to reach one of those alcoves created by the roots and hunker down.
    If I approached this one step at a time it might just be achievable. Thought of what would follow was too debilitating.
    "Ready?" I said to the doctor, making his face jerk towards me. Yeah, I wanted out of here. There was no stopping me now.
    He nodded, a small amused - or impressed - smile gracing his lips. We both checked the Guards, waited several torturous moments while they looked away simultaneously... and then ran.
    I expected shouts of alarm to sound out immediately. Maybe even the sharp retort of a gun. What I had forgotten was, that I was inside a Gi compound. And while my feet still touched concrete, those guarding the area had access to the Earth.
    A sense of burgeoning Stoicheio was the only warning we got, before we were both thrown sideways by roots projecting from the edge of the concrete, like some supernatural-nature security alarm system triggered to attack. I had nothing to defend with. No power, no Element. Just my forearm raised to protect my neck. I lost sight of the doctor and went flying several meters across the concrete, feeling a vine wrap around my ankle and start to haul me across the rough surface towards what was definitely going to be a trap.
    But they'd forgotten something too. Three months of being separated from the Earth, only tasting it through the sadistic power of my interrogator, had made my body crave contact. My soul cried out for communion. The moment the vine touched my flesh my Stoicheio flared to life.
    I was no longer defenceless, but a little power drunk.
    I moaned with abandon, rolled over the concrete neglectful of the rough surface scraping my skin, and forced the vine to break flesh, to sever a vein and touch my blood.
    Tingling rippled through my body, as finally shouts of alarm sprang up from either tower and more Stoicheio filled the air. But it was too little, too late. The Earth had been denied my touch, my blood, for three months also, and it sang with joy at the first crimson drop.
    You are here , it whispered on the wind, in my mind. We missed you, it complained, and sighed out in bliss as more of my blood flooded down the vine until it reached soil. Run, it commanded, a sense of urgency replacing the euphoria. She knows you escape, it added, sending a wash of chills down my spine.
    I sprang to my feet, the vine already releasing my ankle, scanned the ground for the doctor, but couldn't spot him, and so, with one regretful breath in, I bolted for the fence behind the Kapok.
    The Guards commanded the Earth to attack, but with a swipe of my arm before me, those vines and roots it sent my way fell uselessly to the ground. My bare foot touched down on grass, dirt sifting between my toes.
    The Earth cried its happiness.
    The Kapok Tree started to groan, its boughs swaying in the still, thick air, the leaves rattling and the cotton from the seeds flying free. White fluffy clouds rained down, creating a fibrous haze of cotton-candy-like feathers wafting in the non-existent breeze. I soon became engulfed in it, but somehow not suffocated.
    The Earth was shielding me from sight, giving me a fighting chance to escape unseen. Oh, the Gi Guards knew