Page 4 of The Magic of Revenge
"Same here," he confirmed, and a sigh of pure relief left my body.
"Well, fuck. Come on, Khol. Let's get them inside. Something tells me they're all going to be out for a while," Bette announced, standing up and marching away from us back toward the cottage.
"You carry Saige, I'll grab... Ah, fuck it," Khol grunted.
Right. Because the pronouns right now were seven shades of fucked up. All I knew was that where there had been one very dead Fischer before, there were nowtwobarely alive Fischers.
"We can't just leave him, we have to go back and—"
"Nonsense. You know we can't. The spell went horribly wrong and the place is likely swarming with Radical teams right now. Do you want to be locked up? There’s a reason you left Radical, you know what they do to people," Laurie reminded Kai.
Fischer was gone. The details of the spell and what we were doing in this town were all hazy in my mind, like a camera lens that was just slightly out of focus. We all felt like that. Laurie had speculated it was because the land had been tainted with dark magic that had risen from the ground when we started our spell.
Montague Industries was always looking for the rarest and most powerful assets to add to the company. Bryce was the only one of us who recalled why we'd been sent there, something about a powerful lion shifter.
"But he's our fucking brother!" Kai roared.
"Not anymore, K," Sloane gritted out and when I glanced over at him, I saw him wiping his face angrily.
"Sloane, come on man. We'll just go back and get him real fast. Cam, you can make a storm. They'll never see us coming," Kai begged, but his feet still carried him forward. There was no going back.
"My magic is depleted," I choked, emotion breaking through. Fuck. My whole life, I'd had one goal: never, ever lose someone again. Not like this. Not when it could've been prevented. Not when I could've done more. My brother was dead because I fucked up. My moms, dead because I fucked up. And now my best friend was dead. Coincidence? Not fucking likely. As much as I wanted to turn and go back for Fish’s body, I couldn’t go back for him without risking the rest of the team…
Laurie turned and walked over to Kai, wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug. A sob exploded from his chest that nearly made me sick. Sloane couldn't deal though, and I watched as he stalked over to a pile of brush and vomited repeatedly before crashing to his knees on the forest floor, his face in his hands.
My head was spinning. A palm landed on my shoulder and I turned to see Bryce.
"I'm sorry, Cam. He was a great guy. We'll all miss him. But we have to get the fuck out of here before those Radicals catch up to us, okay?"
I nodded automatically. He was right, we did need to keep moving. We'd properly grieve our friend when we were back at the base.
My boots crunched on the leaves and twigs as I stumbled over to Sloane.
"Come on," I urged, reaching down and hoisting him up under his arms.
"I don't want to, Cam. Just leave me, I'll go back and just... be with him. I never told him how much he meant to me." Sloane's voice was ragged and harsh. I pulled him against me, pressing our foreheads together. The pain was enough to swallow us both whole.
"He knew. He was loved by all of us. But he'd want us to get out of here, and stay safe," I said, despite my heart breaking further.
Sloane straightened and ran his palms over his face, wiping away his tears. Nodding once, he walked around me and pulled Laurie away from Kai. Sloane grabbed the front of Kai's shirt and almost violently pulled him into his arms, giving him the hug that he so desperately needed.
"Kaito, listen to me. We're getting the fuck out of here. We'll give Fischer a real memorial, but we have to go now to have any chance of making that happen. Let's go." Sloane slapped Kai on the back a few times before stepping away and resuming our march through the forest.
When we broke through the trees there was an SUV waiting. My mind felt foggy, like I had jet lag or had taken a hit to the head. I didn’t really remember the vehicle, but I guessed we must have parked here earlier.
"Let's go. Everyone hop in," Laurie shouted as she rounded the vehicle and hopped into the driver's seat. Bryce took shotgun and the rest of us slid into the backseat. The slamming of the doors felt like gunshots to what was left of my heart.
* * *
We'd driventhrough the night. The three of us in the back had passed out; the exhaustion combined with the potency of grief wasn't something we could fight.
"Cam," a voice whispered.
I cracked my eyelids and blinked a few times as the face in front of mine came into view. Round green eyes, red hair. My pulse skipped and I wasn’t sure why. A throb of pain flared in my head as I tried to work it out.
"Cam, we're here." Laurie patted my knee, bringing me fully back to reality. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from her face.
"She said we're here, dude. Get out of the car," Sloane snapped and I realized I'd been staring at Laurie like she was some kind of angel.Ew, what the fuck?I slid my big ass out of the car like it was on fire.
