Page 85 of Lovesick Titan

“I’m not only talking about the physical. That monster wanted to break you. I know what it means to do that to someone, where the line is to do just enough so they’re compliant without pushing too far. Ludgate doesn’t give ashitabout that line.”

“No. He doesn’t,” Danny said, “but keeping me out of the fight won’t change that. He’ll target you, target everyone else, and still try to get to me, you know he will.” Refusing to let Mal back away further, Danny grasped his hands that still felt chilled. “He did get into my head, and maybe he’ll always be there now. I know this isn’t something I can heal like my body heals, but if I’m going to have any chance at beating this, then I have to be a part of beating him. I need to do this, and you need my help.Please, Mal.”

The one reprieve he got was that Mal didn’t pull away.

“We figured you’d say that,” John said with a sigh.

Danny looked at his father, looked past him to find amusement in Lynn, despite her silence, and maybe some of that fond exasperation from Shan, but it was Mal who looked resigned like he wished he could convince Danny otherwise.

“Thank you,” Danny said. “All of you, for everything. But we do this together or we don’t do it at all. I know what he’s done to me,” he pulled Mal closer with a tug of his hands, “what he’s been trying to do to us. Bringing him to justice is one of the few things I mighthave some control over in my life, and I need that. I won’t let you risk yourself to protect me when I’m the best weapon we’ve got. Stopping Ludgate, putting him away, it won’t fix me, but I need to prove to myself that I can do it, that I can beat someone like him without…turning into him.”

“Danny…” Mal said softly, but Danny wasn’t drowning in his sorrows; he didn’t need pity or protection, he needed support.

“I’ll be okay,” he said, mustering a smile. “Now, what’s the plan so far?”

“Oh no.” Lynn came forward with a click of her heels, decisively but gently knocking Mal out of the way so she could push Danny toward the bed. “AfterI’ve given you a thorough exam. Then gotten some food in you.Then—”

“Gotten you into the shower, dude, cozwow,” Andre’s voice spoke over her, causing Danny’s head to whip to the door to find his friend wedging himself inside with Hephaestus on his tail. “Your hair always stick up that many directions in the morning?”

“Yes,” Mal and John answered in unison, which made Danny and Andre sputter into laughter. Hephaestus—Priestly—joined them once he noticed John’s scowl, until Andre smacked his shoulder.

It was strange seeing the young man for the first time since Danny had tried to put him away. Oz was the first member to leave the Titans, but Priestly had been the last to join.

Catching Mal’s anxious gaze, Danny smiled as genuinely as he could. He didn’t care whether his father approved of them. Nothing could ruin that Mal was here, that he’d said things didn’t have to end between them. They could start again. Once Ludgate was taken care of, they could startagainwithout any lies or disasters looming. That’s all Danny wanted. The rest, the real healing, could come slowly.

He allowed Lynn to settle him back on the bed, sitting this time, not lying down, if only to briefly appease everyone, but he was not staying out of the fight. He was done hiding, done running from the responsibilities that lay ahead.

“Okay,” Andre moved in beside him despite Lynn’s scoff that he could wait fifteen minutes for her to finish her check, “Joey is a certified genius and definitely the new team mascot. We have a lot to fill you in on.”

R

“You found a teal contact?” Danny said after Andre had explained events since last night.

“I didn’t know what it was at first, not ‘til Cho mentioned Ludgate having one teal eye and one grey.”

“He has heterochromia?”

“There have only been cases of that happening among leaning people, not Elementals,” Lynn said. “It’s possible, but more likely he’s a Metal Elemental instead of Light and didn’t want anyone to know.”

“His mother was Metal leaning,” Danny recalled.

“Maybe he forged his records,” Priestly said, hanging by the door as if uncomfortable getting too close to Team Zeus, despite working with Andre all night. “People don’t care as much if someone’s leaning is listed wrong. It’s only a felony if you Awaken and don’t update your status.”

“None of that matters now,” Danny said. “So he has a different element than we thought. We still don’t know what his power is. We should focus on what we do know—that he uses mirrors to travel. His actual powers don’t matter as long as we can trap him and keep him from escaping.”

“And on that note…we built the Miasma Maker into Prometheus and Helios’s amplifiers,” Andre said, nodding with camaraderie at Priestly. “Once we realized our technologies were working on similar principles, it was easy, but Joey was the one who suggested it.”

“This way they’ll know exactly how far the radiuses extend,” Priestly said.

“But won’t they need their eyewear for that?” Danny asked. Mal hadn’t been wearing any lenses last night; Ludgate might have been able to use the reflections against them.

“Notice anything?” Priestly tapped the side of his glasses—hisglasses, Danny realized with a jolt—with lenses that, despite the Miasma Maker being on, weren’t fogged over. “The trick is for them tonot be reflective. I can tweak the goggles and mask to be the same by tomorrow easy.”

“Then we, what?” Finally allowed to hop down from the hospital bed, Danny eyed his friends skeptically. “Are we supposed to get into the mirror world and turnonone of the fields?”

“That’s a big no,” Andre said, and Priestly likewise shook his head. “We don’t know what this mirror worldis. If you cut off the reflections while inside it, you could seal yourself in there forever.”

“Or cease to exist,” Priestly added matter-of-factly.

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