Page 41 of Rescuing Air

“No, Beautiful, you’re right about that. She’s in the other room napping. Whatever they did to her sapped a lot of her energy. You healed her from the curse but she still has some recovering to do,” Jay answered.

That made sense. Her body had gone through a lot and I remembered how bad the curse was strangling her heart. “I’m glad she’s safe.” Pausing, I took a moment to look at all of them together and my heart burst with happiness. “So, what have I missed?”

“You’ve been asleep for two, almost three, days without moving a muscle, scaring the shit out of us,” Micah grumbled.

Brayden glared at him as he climbed up on the bed to sit next to me, taking my hand and setting it in his lap. “Do you remember everything that happened?”

“I think so... I found Parker in limbo and then saved him with all your help. Then an angel came to meet with us. The details are a little fuzzy on that but pretty sure it was something about my true power being unlocked?” I answered, ending it with more of a questioning lilt.

“That would be the basics of it, yes,” Hudson assured me. “While you were sleeping, we worked with Beth and Cami, trying to figure out just what information Makoto has access to and how to get around it. Unfortunately, he has inserted himself in almost all areas of the Elementi, making him the perfect mole to funnel information in and out.”

“In?” I questioned.

Jay’s jaw clenched at my question. “It would seem that he used his access to cover the Dark Lord’s tracks, which is why we didn’t know anything about him until he came after you directly. This whole thing has been years in the making and we are so far behind. I’m disgusted to even call that man my father after all he’s done.”

My heart ached for Jay, knowing how he’d spent most of his life working to gain his father’s approval. “Okay, so we’re playing catch-up. What about the fact that we’re fugitives?”

“Thankfully, Beth and the power of the Elementi were able to make those accusations go away since we were able to tell them what really happened. All our names have been cleared and charges dropped so that isn’t anything to worry about,” Hudson explained. “Actually, the local government was pleased since we helped them root out a section of dirty cops that had been doing all kinds of messed-up shit.”

I let out a sigh, my shoulders relaxing, glad to know that one thing was going well for us. “So, now what? All of us are back together, bonded, and my powers have been unlocked...”

Jay turned to face me, a stern look on his face. “It’s time to end this. We take out the Dark Lord’s army and seal off any chance of him coming back.”

“Great, I’m all for it. How exactly do we do that?” I pressed, knowing he had an idea but was hesitant to share it.

I could feel him fighting against himself, so I crawled to the foot of the bed and settled my hands on his hips, looking up into his eyes. “There is no one that I trust more than you to make this call. You know your father. You know war, and I have all the faith in the world you know the right move to make. So what’s it gonna be, Jay? How do we bring down the Dark Lord?”

Wrapping his arms around me, he pulled me close, resting his head on mine as if he was going to fall apart if I didn’t hold him together. I felt him come to terms with what he needed to do. “We go after my father. If we have him in custody, we will have all the information we need, and with Parker’s help, he will tell us everything.”

“Crazy idea here—but what if Makoto is the Dark Lord’s conduit?” Parker asked. “How else could he have made an oath like that with me, if he didn’t have some connection to the Dark Lord? We know from Ubel and Tabitha that willing people can become conduits without the serum.”

This thought had me pulling back to gape at Parker for the sheer brilliance of the idea. “Holy shit, you could be right!”

Parker just grinned and dusted his knuckles off on his shirt. “Yeah, well maybe coming back from the dead changes a man. Who knows, I might be the smart one in the group someday.”

Micah scoffed at this but didn’t voice his thoughts, which was oddly mature of him.

“Okay, so let’s pay with that idea. If that’s true, then if I can purge him out of Makoto, it would limit his ability to interact with the world. Then, all we would need to do is find a way to seal Hell to prevent this from happening again,” I reasoned. “What if once we sort things out here, the angels can finally act?”

“They seem really hung up on that whole freewill thing,” Micah muttered. “Seems all we’ve been going through since you arrived has been one big test to see if we could handle this battle. Makes me wonder how many Synergy’s have come before you and failed, so they all died.”

My jaw dropped at that idea and the horror of it. “You don’t think they would really do that, do you? Angels are supposed to be good and pure, doing the work of God.”

They all looked at me like I was missing a screw to believe that.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Cookie Monster, but I’m gonna live in the real world about this. They’ve done nothing but put us through hell and back. Fuck, they were even holding back your powers when they let the Oath break between you and Parker. They most definitely don’t have our backs about shit. We need to do this on our own with whatever they gave us. That’s the real purpose of that meeting in magic land. Wish us good luck and cross their fingers we stop the world from being turned into a second hell.”

The anger and venom in Micah’s words had me blinking at him for a few moments in surprise. Clearly, he’d not been taking this well and the fact that in his eyes I almost died again might have pushed him to the edge. Reaching out for him, I wiggled my fingers to get him to come closer, he finally gave in with a dramatic sigh and sat on the bed next to where I was kneeling. Without hesitation, I curled up on his lap and rested my head on his shoulder, wrapping my arms around his chest.

“None of us want to do this, but we don’t have a choice. We can’t run and hide, sticking our heads in the sand. All we can do is push forward. There is no guarantee that we’ll make it out of this but I have to believe that they aren’t going to send us into this battle without some way to win. Call it blind optimism, or naivety, but I won’t lose without giving it all I’ve got. No holding back. We either live through this or die trying and that’s a lot to accept,” I whispered, my lips brushing against the skin of his neck. “All I know is that as long as the six of us do it together, then there has to be hope.”

Micah groaned, hiding his face in my mess of curls. “How the hell did I fall in love with a woman who is all sunshine and rainbows?”

“How did I fall in love with a man who is all doom and gloom, believing that all hope is lost?” I chuckled, pressing a kiss to his neck. “As the angels said, we need to trust each other and give it all we’ve got.”

“Can we start with you taking a shower? Two days in bed makes you smell a little stale,” Micah teased, causing me to pull back and punch him in the arm.

“Rude!” I laughed. “Do we have some clothes for me to change into? Not that I’m ungrateful for the oversized t-shirt but I can’t really go out in public like this.”