CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

"So someone explain to me how we're going to be able to check to see who has an element mark and who doesn't?" Reed stated as he scratched his eyebrow, bringing his feet up and putting them on Nathan's bed.

Nathan walked by and knocked them off before going over to his computer. "You're getting annoyed aren't you?" he questioned as he shook the mouse and brought up a web browser.

"No, what gave you that idea?" Christian replied, chuckling as he passed a tennis ball back and forth between his hands. "The fact that he's starting to use his Australian accent again, or the fact that it's a very beautiful day outside, we could be going to the park or into town or something, but instead we're dealing with something that could potentially get us killed." He shrugged.

"Yeah, well, there's a reason we found out about this," Nathan turned in his chair to face his friends. "To save the world, maybe," he shrugged. "I don't know, but you can't tell me that you're not interested in this stuff."

"I didn't say that." Reed interrupted, raising his eyebrows. "I'm just wondering how much time we're going to invest in this stuff."

"Don't worry about that," Nathan shook his head. "At least not for now, for now it's just a project that we're researching…when we're supposed to be researching something else for an actual project that's for a grade." He turned back to his computer and then motioned for Reed and Christian to join him. "See," he jabbed at the computer screen with his thumb. "These two images that I downloaded on my computer, and hid amongst a bunch of files in case someone gets my IP address, these two elementals have the same mark-"

"The element mark," Reed interrupted and then smirked when Christian and Nathan looked over at him. "What? Someone else should have a chance to name things other than Nathan." He defended himself.

"Anyway," Nathan turned back to the computer. "These 'element marks'" he used air-quotes around the words. "Are in different places, kind of like tattoos, like I said before. They could be anywhere on the persons' body, so if we're going to look for them, we're going to have to keep from drawing attention to ourselves and what we're doing."

"And how do you propose we do that?" Christian demanded, crossing his arms over his chest.

"You're going to have to figure that out on your own."

"Geez Nathan, didn't you ever think that this was going to be harder than you originally thought?" Christian asked as he rubbed his neck. He hadn't had any luck with looking for elemental marks, most of the ones that he had been able to get close enough too turned out to be tattoos, and the others would just notice that he was staring at them funny and walk away as fast as possible. It didn't help much that many of the women he was looking at slapped him for staring at them so intently. "He better be having better luck than I am or someone is seriously going to pay for this."

He shook his head as he continued walking along the streets of the city, minding his own business and looking around at everyone hat he passed. He had just stopped at a crosswalk and was waiting to go across when he heard a voice form an alleyway almost to his immediate left.

"Give me all your money!" A strange man said.

Christian's first instinct was to figure out what was going on, he never was one that was able to just sit idly by while someone was being mistreated. It was never his nature.

"Here, take the purse. Just . . . just, leave me alone." A feminine voice said.

Christian turned on his heel and hurried into the alleyway, looking back and forth as he slowly inched forward, making sure to keep his footsteps light. The man was about five and a half feet tall with short brown hair wearing jeans and a black jacket.

The woman had shiny black hair and was petite, but despite her size, she was standing her ground and glaring at the man. "You got your money, now leave." The woman said forcefully.

The man began laughing. "I don't think so," he walked over to her and leaned close to her, whispering something in her ear. Christian couldn't tell what he was saying, but it seemed to make the woman angrier. Christian moved closer to the two of them, still staying as silent as possible. When he was close enough, he spoke up.

"Leave her alone!" he declared.

The man looked at Christian and snorted. "You're going to stop me?" The man laughed a little.

"Yeah."

The man turned around, making it seem like he was going to turn away from Christian, but then spun around and punched Christian across the face. Christian stumbled back a few steps, caught off guard, but then easily returned with a punch to the man's stomach.

The man bent over, gasping for air as he tried to catch his breath. Using the time that the man was down, Christian reached over and grabbed the woman's arm, lightly tugging her forward. "C'mon. We gotta move."

The woman looked away from the man that was kneeling in front of her and turned to Christian, her eyes still blazing with the will to fight. "Thank you," she said with a nod.

Christian nodded back, "You're welcome. Now, let's move!"

The woman stood rooted where she stood. "My purse, he still has it."

Christian turned around, his eyes scanning the ground, and then moved forward, retrieving the purse. While grabbing it, he kicked the guy on the back, as he was on all fours, sending him to the pavement. Christian shook his head, and handed the purse to the woman. "Let's get out of here."

The woman nodded, "Sure. My name's Kristin."

Christian smiled, "Christian." His smile then faded a little. "I don't mean to be rude when I ask this, but, it's obvious that you're part Asian, so how can you have the name Kristin?"

"Old fashioned father, I had different views," Kristin replied with a shrug and a smile. "It's a long story."

"A long story meaning that you don't want to tell me?" Christian raised an eyebrow.

"A long story meaning that I would like to meet up to tell you about it." Kristin replied, raising an eyebrow herself before smiling.

Christian smiled back.

A/N: Eventually I was going to bring in the decline of the guys' relationship, and now I brought in one element of it. I hope you guys liked the idea of this chapter.

Sorry guys, I promise that this is the last 'a look into the past' chapter for a while, and I really need to bring this back to Bailey and Halo Syndicate, so things with the others are gonna be picked up soon, or just seen in a flashback or an explaining of events as I bring it back to Bailey, since the story is mostly about her. Sorry I haven't updated sooner as well, I've been so busy it's not even funny. Plus, I've been having problems with my SLOZAC/SLOD episode collections (go to the latest chapters of those to see what I'm talking about as I'm wondering whether or not to continue or just stop since it may be against the rules). Anyway, I'll update again soon, but this time I'll make sure I do.

Cheers,

-Riles

PS - Chapters will get long again