Author's note: So today I randomly received a ton of anonymous reviews for the last chapter which took me by surprise. Not that I didn't enjoy getting the praise, of course. Thank you! If for some reason they were all wrote by the same person (which is possible considering they were all sent minutes apart- although I don't understand why somebody would do that) I'm not going to complain or anything like that; it's actually nice to know that you liked the story so much you took the time to review like that. And if they were all by different people, I would love to know where you lovely lot came from! Haha.

I posted this on my other story too but: I have now decided to be a Betareader and I'm currently accepting requests. So check out my Beta page if you feel like you might want/need a Beta or message me and I'll check out your story, see if I want to help you out :) (Shamelessly self-promoting myself, haha)


15th January 2020

Killian and Gracie went into the separate changing rooms to dry off and change into the clothes they'd brought in a bag (Gracie finally realised why they had to wear their PE kits for the class) before he led her over to the boys dorm building. Killian's bedroom was on the top floor and he opened the door, gesturing for her to go in first in a gentlemanly manner. Gracie smiled thankfully up at him as she stepped past him and into his bedroom, looking around the room in curiosity.

There was only one bed in the room (an indication that he didn't have a roommate), a double with a white duvet that had real splotches of paint on it. Canvases small and medium and large were hung up on the wall, laid on the floor, leaning against the wall- basically covering every spare inch of the room. There were two canvas stands, one of which had a blank canvas and one that had a painting of a girl on it. Gracie moved closer to the second one and saw that it was painting of a girl that looked just like her, expect it was prettier than she saw herself. It was from the first time she had met Killian in the stables, when her hair was plastered to her face from the rain and she was shocked to see him stood there. In the painting her grey eyes were large and stunned; there was a look in them that made her look so heartbreakingly sad yet she still looked beautiful. The painting was amazing. Every strand of her hair looked wet and stuck to her face, the clothes she was wearing clinging to her figure. It looked so much like her, yet at the same time looked too stunning to be her.

"What do you think?" She heard Killian ask quietly after closing the door behind him. "It's you, obviously."

"I think it's brilliant," she replied instantly and honestly. "Did you do it?"

"Yes."

"I love it," she turned around to smile at him. "I just think there's one problem with it: I'm not that pretty."

"I paint things exactly how I see them," he shrugged as if he didn't think that his words would cause butterflies to flutter around in Gracie's stomach. Which they did, just for the record. "I've been working on that painting since I met you, I couldn't really focus on any other ones that I started," his cheeks blushed a rosy pink colour. "I wasn't really planning on ever showing you it but I'm glad that you like it."

Gracie looked around the room at the rest of the paintings, most of them being landscapes with the odd few of random people. "You're an amazing artist," she said. It was the truth too. Every single painting that she could see of his was detailed and looked so realistic. She admired Killian for his clear talent. "So is this what you wanted to show me? All of your paintings?"

"In a way, yes," he nodded. "But not because I wanted to brag about them. I just wanted to show you what I do, other than help with the animals, to just you know, release myself from the world. When I paint and get into 'the zone' I forget about all my troubles and worries. It's relaxing, you know? And I think you need something like that too. I've learned to try and remember how relaxed painting makes me when I can feel my power start to go out of control, and after what happened earlier it's obvious that you need something to think about to calm you down too. I'm not saying that you should take up painting because it's not for everybody. I'm just saying that I think you need to find your equivalent of what painting is for me."

Gracie raised her eyebrows as she looked at him in a sort of shocked state. "Excuse me? Is this your way of telling me that my power is out of control? It's sweet that you're trying to help Killian but don't you think I've tried to find something that calms me down? No matter what I do, what I think about, once my power's exploding and causing trouble there's nothing I can do about it. I can't control it. That's why my parents sent me here."

"I understand that," he said, sounding exasperated. "But you really do need something that'll balance you- these lessons can only help you so much, believe me I know. You need balance, Gracie. It's a shame that you haven't found your soulfinder, apparently just thinking about your soulfinder can calm and balance you. Not that I would know anything about that, of course. I'm just trying to help you Gracie, not start an argument."

"Well you're not helping," she snapped defensively. "You're just telling me things that I already know! I don't need to hear them again." She sighed and shook her head before looking back up at him. "I'm sorry, it's not your fault. I shouldn't be getting angry at you. It's just that... It's been like this for me for a long time now and I know I need to find something that will help calm me when I'm using my powers. I know that I need balance, preferably my soulfinder. But as much as I've tried, I can't find that. I honestly wish I could, I hate feeling like I can never truly let myself go because my powers might get out of control."

Killian smiled sadly at her as if he didn't like hearing her sound so upset. "Sounds to me like you have a lot bottled up in your mind about how your power got the better of you," he said. "Have you ever talked to anybody about it?" Gracie shook her head. "You can talk to me about it. It's not like I'm going to go spreading it around the school. I really think you need to tell somebody about it all, just to get it out of your system."

"Huh." She moved to sit cross-legged in the centre of his bed and Killian joined her, sitting across from her and close enough that their knees were touching. "I guess you're right, I do need to talk to someone. It's kind of a long story though."

"We have all day," he smiled at her. "Annie said that she'd tell Danielle that we won't be helping out today, so we have nowhere else to be. So, off you go. Spill."

Gracie hesitated for a moment to think through her answer and the best place to start. "Well I guess it all started before I was even born, really. When my mum was young, her mother Laurel decided that she didn't want her anymore so she left. She faked her own death so that she could start a new life without any ties to her old one. My grandad brought mum up on his own and a year later Laurel turned up again. Said that she'd changed her mind and she wanted to be a good mother. Grandad didn't believe her and thought she wanted to hurt mum or take her away from him, so he took mum and moved away. To hide from Laurel.

"My parents met at school when they were six years old. They realized they were soulfinders soon after and started dating when they were older. When they were sixteen, grandad decided it was time to move on and he forced my mum to leave. She was pregnant with me at the time but didn't know it until later so my dad didn't know I even existed.

"When I was nine grandad went missing and my mum freaked out and took me to Wrickenridge, where my dad lived. Mum and I were in a car accident and she went into a coma for a little while and I stayed with my dad.

"Things seemed great for a while, they really did. I had both my parents, grandparents, a bunch of uncles. I was so happy. But then Laurel had some guys that worked for her kidnap me. They kept me in a basement with my grandad; it was a plot to lure my mum in. Laurel wanted some information from my grandad and she used me to try and blackmail him into telling."

"Did she have somebody hurt you, Gracie?" Killian asked softly, taking hold of her hands in his own in a way that made her feel comforted and supported.

Gracie nodded her head. "Yeah, Yeah, she did. You're the only person I've told about this- I never told my parents because I knew it would hurt them and my mum was already so upset, I couldn't stand to see her blame herself for me being hurt.

"Laurel knew this guy called Hanson who could manipulate people's powers. He would make me use the water element to drown people's lungs- I would force a ton of water into their throats and make the water fill up in their lungs. It was horrible having to hurt people like that, I still remember feeling the terror they felt and seeing them try and scream in pain. Hanson always had me stop just before they died so I never killed anybody... But I was still torturing them for reasons I didn't even know about.

"They were trying to get grandad to tell Laurel about the information but seeing me get upset over torturing people wasn't enough to break him. Plus, I kept telling him not to say anything because it must have been pretty serious if he was keeping it a secret from her.

"Laurel told Hanson not to hurt me because then my mum would never help her. But Hanson got angry that grandad still wasn't saying anything so one day when Laurel wasn't there, Hanson made me get into a bathtub full of water and manipulated my power to make the water hold me in the tub. Kind of like this morning when the water was fighting against me. He kept it up for hours, letting me come out of the water to breathe just before I passed out and then making me go under again."

"He tortured you?" Killian sounded - and looked - horrified, his deep blue eyes wide and unblinking. "Gracie I'm so sorry.."

"It's the past, there's nothing you can do to change that," she shrugged, trying to look casual but knowing that she failed. "At least it was just that one day... When my parents eventually found me, there was a big confrontation. I saw my grandad get killed and my mum lose it and nearly kill her mother. She stopped though and I'm glad about that because she's not a killer. She never could be, that's not her."

"You sound really close to your mum," Killian pointed out.

"I am. She's my best friend," Gracie smiled. "For the first nine years of my life it was just her, me and grandad. I didn't go to school or even go out much so they were my only friends really. After grandad was killed, mum asked me to trap Laurel and the people who worked for her in ice. I had to use my water element for it and I hated it; it made me feel sick. That's when I forced myself to stop using that element and I locked it away in my mind."

Killian was silent for a moment, seemingly delving into his own thoughts. "In our first lesson with Annie you said that you first started to lose control of your powers when you were nine. Was that after this Hanson guy tortured you with your own power?"

"Yeah, actually it was," Gracie said slowly. "Do you think my powers went out of control because I locked the water element away into my mind? I can't believe I never thought of that."

"It would make sense," he replied, nodding his head. "And I honestly think that Annie's right: you'd be able to control all the elements better if you didn't lock water away in your mind. I understand why you don't want to use it, why you're scared of using it. But I'll be there to support you and this can only be better in the long run."

"Hmm... I don't know, I guess maybe I can think about it," she sighed. Deep down Gracie knew that Annie and Killian both had a good point but she was just so scared of using that power that at that moment she couldn't even consider saying that she'd definitely start using the water element again. Right now she didn't want to talk about it. She'd imagined telling somebody the truth about her kidnapping and breaking down into tears, but Killian was such a calming presence that she still felt strong. She was glad that he was the first person she'd opened up to and it really did feel good to finally get everything out in the open and not keep it a secret from everybody.

Sensing that she needed a change of subject Killian asked, "hey, did you ever find out what secret your grandad was keeping?"

Gracie nodded. "Yes. It was about my Aunt Persephone. But that's a whole other story," she smiled and squeezed his hands once before letting go. "Anyway. Can I see some more of your paintings please?"

"Sure," he returned the smile. "There's one of Ruby that I really think you'd like. I don't like the horse but she has the perfect colouring to paint. Come on then, I'll show you my paintings and then we can try and figure out what else to do for the rest of the day."

"Sounds good."


Author's note: Not much going on in that chapter other than Gracie's back story which was in Safe & Sound, but it was obviously a relevant chapter and I hope you all liked it still.

A hint about the next chapter: We'll be fast forwarding a few weeks :)