Page 33 of Rescuing Air

Closing my eyes, I let my power trickle into her through our physical connection. This was the first time I’d done anything like this to a person who wasn’t possessed or one of my men, and I was scared to hurt her. Instead of filling her with my power, I just let a small wisp float through her body, exploring to see if there was anything there to deal with. When I got to the area around her heart, I knew we were in trouble. It felt like it was enveloped in something dark and oozing, as if it was slowly strangling the life out of her. My eyes snapped open and met Jay’s concerned gaze.

“I can help her but I can’t do it here. The amount of power I’m going to extend will knock me out of commission. We have to hurry though, she doesn’t have a whole lot of time,” I said, keeping my voice soft for only us to hear. “Will you let me heal you so you can protect her?”

Jay nodded his agreement, and I saw him set his jaw, ready for the pain he knew was coming. “Don’t go easy on me. Get it out of me.”

Biting my lip, I let go of his mother and grasped his arm. Doing as he requested, I slammed my power into him, hunting down the venom so I could purge it from him. Jay dropped to his knees, clutching his mother to him as he endured what I was putting him through. Moments later, he was cleansed, and we both gasped as I pulled my power back from him. Tiredness swept through me and I knew healing all of them after the battle Parker and I fought was putting me close to being useless. Taking a deep breath, I reached out to all the men I was bonded to and pulled some of their power to me, giving me temporary strength to make it through this.

“I’ve done the best I can for all of you right now but we need to get out of this place if we plan on seeing tomorrow,” I shared, feeling my body sag even with the pick-me-up I’d given myself.

An arm slid around my shoulders and a kiss was pressed to the side of my head. A sense of peace enveloped me and I knew that Parker was influencing my emotions to help get me through this. “Come on, Trouble, let’s give ’em hell.”

twenty

Brayden

Watching Parker with Lailah told me that something shifted between the two of them while we were locked away. While I was still pissed that he hurt her and created even more wounds on her heart and mind, I knew they wouldn’t be able to walk away from each other. They loved each other even if they needed to work on things. Trust had been broken and it couldn’t be fixed overnight or with a few sweet words. By no means did I think things were fixed, but I could tell that she was willing to accept his affections and allow him to step up. Right now, it was more important for us all to put our personal drama aside and focus on getting the hell out of here alive and in one piece.

“Jay, I know you don’t want to hand off your mother but you’re the only one out of all of us that knows this place,” Hudson pointed out. “Allow me or Brayden to take her for now. Once we’re out of the building, you can take her back.”

I could tell he wanted to argue but then he looked between his mother and Lailah, and begrudgingly handed her over to Hudson. Lailah held something out to me and I was shocked to see it was a gun.

“Not everyone in here is possessed and the guards knowingly work for the Dark Lord, so I consider that making them our enemy,” she explained.

Taking the gun, I let my hand linger against hers. “I agree completely with that logic.”

She nodded absently and turned away from me to follow Jay as he led the way back up the stairs. Someone had turned the alarm off but the strobing lights were still flashing, making everything seem to move in slow motion. The whole place was overrun with people destroying everything around them. It made me think of a zombie apocalypse, if the zombies were intelligent and could fight. Soldiers were fending off swarms of these possessed people and we dove into the thick of it, falling into formation just as we’d been trained. Never in the years we’d been working together had we ever worked this seamlessly but everything flowed like a well-oiled machine.

They kept telling us this was how all the other groups functioned but we’d never figured it out. With Lailah added to the mix, it seemed to connect that missing piece. Seeing as we were surrounded by more of the demon people, I used my spirit weapons, leaving the gun tucked into my pants at the small of my back. The one bonus of being in the basement was that we were already on the floor we needed to be on to get out the front doors—if that’s where Jay was leading us. I caught a glimpse of the door but Jay headed the opposite way.

“Where are you taking us, Jay? The doors are behind us,” I called out.

Jay just gave me a look, telling me I was clearly being an idiot. “Yeah, what are you gonna do once you’re out there? Run all the way to the city or maybe back to Cape Town?”

Fuck! Okay, so clearly he had a plan, and I needed to get with the program and follow wherever he led us and shut the fuck up.

As we fought our way out of this mess, I could feel a tug on my powers as Lailah drew more strength from me and a few of the others. She was bone tired and reaching the end of what she could do without a break. Who knows what she’d been through before she got to the point she and Parker saved us. What I wouldn’t give to just collapse this whole building and crush those within it and end this whole mess. Only right now, I couldn’t, not with us inside. I was saving the idea for the moment we got into a car and out of this hellhole. Then we had to find a place to lie low and let everyone rest for a little while before we went toe-to-toe with the Dark Lord.

It was a good thing that Jay knew where he was going because I was completely lost, unsure of where the hell we were going and where we’d just been. We reached the end of the hall with double doors that Jay kicked open, exposing a back lot full of various vehicles and other equipment. Lights illuminated the parking lot, seeing as it was well into the evening and the moon was only a sliver in the sky. We didn’t head for the first vehicle we spotted. Instead, Jay kept pushing us to the back of the lot where older jeeps and trucks were lining the chain-link fence.

“Everyone, get in the back of the tarp-covered truck. I’ll get it started and bust us out of here,” Jay yelled, motioning us to hop into the back of the green military truck.

Micah all but tossed Lailah into the back of the truck and climbed up behind her, reaching out for Jay’s mom. Hudson joined them as Parker and I stood watch for anyone who might be lurking in the shadows. He must be thinking what I was, that this was going too smoothly. Makoto and his men might be overwhelmed, but this was what they trained to do. If we could make our way out of it then why couldn’t they? He had more people, and they were fresher, not having been battle tired or locked away, drugged with venom. No, there was something else we were missing.

The truck rumbled to life. “Everyone in. We’re getting the hell out of here,” Jay called from the front seat as the door slammed shut.

“Let’s go,” I said to Parker, motioning with my head for him to get into the back of the truck.

He shook his head. “No, Brayden, I’m going to hold them off while you guys make a clean getaway.”

“What are you talking about? There’s no one here to stop us,” I challenged, looking around the space like I was missing something.

Parker grabbed my arm and pulled me to look at him. “I know you don’t have any reason to believe me but I’m not safe to be around you guys. There was only one chance to get Lailah out of here and I took it, knowing it would mean giving her up forever. Please let me do this. Let me love her and protect her the only way that I can since I’m not bound to her.”

“Nothing you’re saying is making any sense,” I argued. “Just get in the damn truck.”

“No,” Parker stated firmly and took a step back. “I told her I would protect her with my life and that is exactly what I’m going to do.”

Realization dawned on my face as the horror of what was about to happen made my stomach twist into knots. “She won’t survive that, Parker. If she loses one of us, she won’t recover from that. It will be the last straw and she will shatter.”