The Last Elementalist

Chapter 5

Evie laid on her scratchy straw mattress, staring at the ceiling. As a young girl, born into a life of fame, a senator's daughter, she tried to play brave. For her own sake and for Connor's. Earlier that night, after the attack, she just couldn't keep it together. Her tears slipped for the first time since her and Connor were taken from home. It had only been a few days, but it felt like an eternity. But as Evelin Shophia Hallman grew older, she came to realize more each day that her entire life was a sham.

People gawked at her in the streets when all she wants is for her life not to suck so much. The promised life of fame that so many children and adults across the globe long for is not all that great. Not at all. Evie wished she could tell them that, wished she had the courage to tell anyone that they were wrong. Tell them what she wanted. Big houses and even bigger egos flood DC and California alike, but the main difference is that normal people live in California too. People who understand that fame isn't everything.

Evie's belief since she was four was that her mother maintained her spot in the Senate to benefit Hallman Industries, her father's business. Once she became a senator to help her grandmother with her health problems, she never stopped returning to the Capitol. Term after term they would all take weekly trips to DC, sometimes to dine at the White House, sometimes to watch the Senate meetings in progress. On weekends Evie and her sister Layla got to spend time with their father. Whether at home or in DC, they always would go out to dinner and laugh at their father's corny jokes, because they never knew when that time to laugh and play and love would run out. Evie learned that lesson young. The day her brother died. The day the lives of all the Hallmans changed forever. The day that happened exactly two years ago from the day after tomorrow.

Evie liked to blame the fact that her mother was an Aries which therefore made her egotistical. She wished it were true and that her meeting with Anna McClien as a young girl hadn't been the start of it all. She had heard the story of how she was told by Anna McClien herself that she had potential to shine a million times, and probably would a million more.

She turned onto her side and let sleep take over, turning her mind into a crystal of the past.

* * * * *

The late morning sun peeked out from behind the gray clouds of the midwinter sky. The holiday parties at the White House and homes of other Senators and Representatives had come to an end that week, allowing the Hallman family to return home to Maryland. Father was sleeping and Mother was on more constant phone calls. Evie and Layla laid on the carpet and debated the argument the girls had started with Alastair.

The children were playing a game of chess, Layla watching from the chair on the other side of the coffee table. They were talking about the last party they had been to at Representative Eli Manning's mansion. Manner had said some things to the children that had offended their mother. They didn't tell her, of course, but they were constantly discussing it whenever they had a moment that their parents weren't hovering, which was not very uncommon.

"Well I do think it's true though," Alastair reasoned. "Mother can be a bit rash when it comes to simple things like that. I am not saying I support Manner at all, only that we all have flaws, and Manner has spotted one of Mother's."

Evie shook her head. "How could you ever go against Mother like that. You should be ashamed Alastair. He was only trying to insult us to make you and Layla vote for Dallas Houstin as Mayor, go against what Mother thinks."

Alastair gave her that look that said, you're only four and I'm eighteen. The one that irritated Evie horribly.

"Just cause I'm four, does not mean I am dumb, Alastair," she retorted.