Free Elemental Hunger by Elana Johnson

Elementals are all that different than males,” Adam said, turning toward me. “But the laws stem from the Manifestation.” He sounded sincere, even with that distinct edge of steel in his voice.
    “Hard to overcome two centuries of time,” I murmured, still trying to sort through my conversations with Jarvis and what a female Supremist meant for me.
    Adam left me next to the fire, thinking through what a revolution would do to the United Territories. Where I would end up when everything settled.
    His long silence caught my attention, and I turned around. He stood with his back to me, revealing a large black tattoo—a swirling mass of intricate lines arcing around an orange circle—sweeping between his shoulder blades. His muscles were tight and developed, and I stared much too long.
    I’d only seen a mark like that one other time. On Patches’s back last fall, two weeks before I’d Manifested my Element. His tears of pain were still bleeding over his face when he’d dragged himself into my dorm room.
    He’d lain on his stomach while I tended to the angry flesh between his shoulder blades. The coiling lines and orange rotating disc had looked remarkably sinister in the candlelight. “Patches…what?” I’d asked. “Is this electronic?”
    “The orange eye is,” he’d said. “It collects data and transmits information. Our individual assignments are uploaded to our personal eye.”
    I’d pressed my lips into a thin line. “Can it be removed?”
    “The mark of a sentry never goes away,” he’d wept.
    We didn’t leave the room for three days. Liz brought medication and food. Patches spoke only eleven more words. And they were, “I can’t see you anymore, Gabby. You know, sentries and girls….”
    The weight on my chest increased, pushing, pushing the air out of my life. I’d nodded, a hole widening inside. After he’d gone, I filled it with anger. With resentment. Those things never abandoned me. Never said I wasn’t good enough. Never wanted me to be more or less than what I already was.
    Adam pulled a T-shirt over his sentry mark, and I ducked my head. I tossed our chicken bones in the glowing embers and super-heated them. He dragged his bedroll across the cave and sat next to me. Close enough to be friendly, but not so close as to get stabbed.
    I reminded myself that he’s spent twelve years training to kill people .
    I remembered a lecture about sentries and Councilmen from Educator Graham. Her wizened face had held extra lines that day. “Gabriella, you question too much.”
    “But if we have a Councilman who can control fire, why does he need sentries?” I’d been thinking about Patches. About his tattoo.
    “Sentries are appointed as bodyguards.”
    I noted the way her mouth drooped when she’d said it. Her sign of a lie. “They kill people,” I said.
    Educator Graham closed her book, sighing. “Yes. Because their Councilman tells them to. The Councilman is the public figure, Gabriella. It’s his face everyone knows. It’s his charm that wins him cities, followers. He cannot simply burn everything to the ground when he’s displeased.”
    I considered her words. “So they send sentries to let the people know their…displeasure?”
    “Yes. Besides the Unmanifested member of a Council, sentries are the highest rank of the Unmanifested.” She placed one wrinkled hand over mine. “Your friend is fortunate to have been marked so early.”
    Fortunate rattled in my head. That tattoo with its winking electronic eye hadn’t looked fortunate.
    “The sentry system is another way Supremist Pederson keeps the Unmanifested from revolting.” Her words had tickled my curiosity, as she knew they would. She spoke them in a voice barely heard over the thrum of my pulse, but they ignited loud questions.
    “How?”
    Educator Graham let a bitter smile skate over her face. “He sends one Unmanifested to kill another. That way it’s not Elemental against Unmanifested, is it?”
    “Is that why