“No problem. Do we have?—”
He’d started to ask about their plan when he heard shouting from the other side of the door. There had been some muffled cries and screams after he woke from his nightmare, but he couldn’t make out too much through the thick steel door. They could only hear approaching footsteps as a person or group was drawing close. Tyche shoved to his feet on somewhat shaky legs. He kept his hand on the wall to steady himself as he watched the door. Frantic footsteps were approaching now.
A loud buzz preceded the door popping open. A single guard stomped in with Yesuntei’s limp, unconscious form under his arm. The man’s dark face shield was lowered, blocking them from seeing his expression, but there was something in his brisk gait and hard stomp that made Tyche think he was a mix of pissed and terrified. He walked straight to Yesuntei’s cell and dropped her in like a clump of wet laundry, then left. Not even bothering to close the cell door behind him.
“What did you do?” Tyche lunged for the bars and gripped them with both hands. He thrust his face forward, pressed his cheeks against the icy metal as he stared at the guard. “What did you do to her? She wouldn’t have hurt anyone. She’s fucking harmless, and you had to go hurt her.”
The guard stopped in front of Tyche and leaned in close. He didn’t lift the face shield, so Tyche could only see his own haggard features staring back at him. The man’s voice was muffled, but it trembled as he shouted, “She’s a fucking monster! She’s a monster, and I’m glad she’s dying! Fucking bitch!”
“Monster? You’re the fucking monster! She didn’t do anything you didn’t deserve!” Tyche screamed after him, spittle flying at the guard as he charged through the cellblock. He left with a hard slam of the door.
He’d brought his nightmares down on his own head. Tyche prayed he’d piss the bed every night for the rest of his life.
“Teitei? Can you hear me? It’s Shawn.” His companion’s gentle, coaxing words drew Tyche from his momentary rage.
A soft whisper of a moan trickled out of Yesuntei’s cell, followed by a tiny sob that crushed the remains of Tyche’s heart. “I’m sorry, Tyche. I tried…”
“No, no. This isn’t your fault, Teitei,” he rushed to reply. He lurched along the cell, changing his handholds on the bars, walking himself closer. Those bars were the only things keeping him upright when all he wanted to do was roll up into a tiny ball. This was all too big, and he was just an insignificant nobody. A tiny nothing who’d spent an eternity floating and slipping between the cracks.
“I couldn’t…Ty…I won’t make it.”
“Hey! Don’t talk like that. You can. You’ll heal,” Shawn immediately cut in, trying to give her some little shreds of hope to cling to, but he was wrong. Yesuntei would know. They all knew.
Panic gripped Tyche by the throat, closing off his windpipe while his brain scrambled. She couldn’t die. Not here. It was too dangerous.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! There was no time.
“Hold on! I’m coming!” Tyche shouted. He pried his fingers off the bars and scrambled to the door. He paused only long enough to look at the main door to their cellblock. From what he could guess, there was a camera that gave the guards a visual of the room, but they’d never reacted to anything he and Shawn said, so he’d always assumed that they didn’t have audio access. There were no noises coming from the other side of the door, but he guessed things were still in chaos following the explosion of Yesuntei’s magic.
He had to act fast. They were going to be on him in a matter of minutes.
With one hand gripping the bars, Tyche placed the flat of his palm against the metal panel where the card reader would be to operate the mechanical lock. There was no way to half-ass this or finesse it. The only option was a brute-force attack. He threw open the door to his powers, grabbed a fistful, and slammed it into the lock. The power ripped through his body and crashed into the metal panel. Lights flickered around them, and static crackled angrily in the air as if electronic devices everywhere were dying horrible deaths. It was possible that he’d broken the camera in the room, but he wouldn’t count on it. The important thing was the metal click that rose from his door as the lock opened.
Tyche broke out of his cell and raced across the narrow pathway to enter Yesuntei’s. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shawn move along the bars, following his progress, but the man said nothing. Blood covered Yesuntei’s chest and face, which was once again swollen with cuts and bruises so that she was nearly unrecognizable. Tyche’s heart lurched, and he dropped to his knees beside her, his back positioned toward Shawn. Carefully, he slipped his hands under her too slender body and slid her into his arms so that she was half laying across his lap. Little cries of pain escaped her, but even those were barely more than a breath. She was too fucking close to dying now to bother to make a sound.
“Teitei? Can you hear me? I need you to open your eyes and look at me,” Tyche whispered. His throat was growing tighter with each word he forced out. He was trying to ignore each second that ticked by. His entire body tensed as it fully expected a horde of guards to storm in and pull him out of Yesuntei’s cell and beat him to death. But he wasn’t leaving her. Not yet. There was something that needed to be done if she couldn’t be saved.
Slowly, Yesuntei’s eyes cracked open slightly. Her brow furrowed, and she turned her face into his body as if shielding herself from the bright overhead lights.
“I’m dying,” she mumbled, but it wasn’t in the common tongue that most people of the world spoke. No, this was the old language. The First Language. There was only one people who spoke this tongue, and there were too few of them who knew it any longer.
“Teitei…”
“I’m sorry. I tried, but I panicked. They?—”
“Shh…shh…it’s okay,” he replied as she grew more choked up. She moved her right hand to grip the front of Tyche’s shirt weakly and pulled herself closer. Tyche immediately tightened his hold on her, shrinking the distance between them so she didn’t have to use what strength she had left. “This isn’t your fault. None of it is your fault. But you have to survive if I’m going to get you back to Cirina.”
Her lips trembled at the mention of her beloved sister. She squeezed her eyes shut, and tears slipped from the red, puffy corners. “Cirina.”
“You’ll see her again. We?—”
“Don’t let her destroy the world.”
Whatever comforting words Tyche had dredged up became lodged behind the boulder in his throat. There was nothing he could say. If Cirina were still alive, there was a damn good chance she’d try to burn the world down over this. At the very least, the humans of Damardor weren’t making it out of this alive.
Tyche didn’t know what to do. He had no healing magic whatsoever. There was nothing he could do, no fortune he could conjure up where Yesuntei didn’t die in his arms. He was useless. Completely useless. This was why he didn’t associate with anyone—his own kind or humans. He was better off alone.
But he’d caved occasionally out of boredom and loneliness. He’d made friends here and there to break up the monotony of his long existence. He’d just never imagined that he’d witness the end of one of those friends.
