He paused. “Um… we all agreed to meet up after dinner, like we planned yesterday.”
“Oh, yeah… that’s right.” I’d totally forgotten— like I forgot everything. I couldn’t remember a second of that conversation yesterday, either, and that worried me more than a little.
He stopped at the edge of my bed and looked down. “It’s just… weird, seeing you like this.”
“Go on,” I offered. “Say what you mean.”
“I don’t want to make it all about me.”
“But you think about it.”
Marcus sighed. “Yeah. I… I keep thinking that if I had tried to hold my magic back when I killed all those people before I came here, it would be me in a wheelchair instead of you. Or dead, more likely. But at least then, the witches and warlocks I killed would still be alive.”
“We don’t get to choose everything that happens to us,” Ez encouraged.
“Yeah,” I agreed weakly. “And sometimes, even the right choices end up being the wrong ones. So how are you to know?”
Marcus shrugged miserably. “I guess.”
I sighed. “Ancestors, Marcus, you’re such a little emo kid.”
“And we love him for it.” Kallie strode in, followed by Oberi, who was bouncing rather happily. Charlie followed, looking a little less peachy, though his lips uplifted into a rather slight smile when he heard my voice.
“What are you guys up to?” Kallie asked, plopping on the side of my bed. Oberi jumped onto the mattress, tumbled off, then jumped onto it again with an embarrassed sniff.
“Nothing, just hanging out,” Ez said innocently.
I had to find a way to thank Ez somehow. He was a good brother.
Charlie closed the door behind him. “Has anybody made any progress in getting these stupid cuffs off?”
He scratched at the area where his inferichite bracelet sat, and I noticed his skin was red with a harsh rash. I’d tried to heal it several times, but it returned every time, worse than it’d been before.
“If we had, do you think we’d still be wearing them?” Kallie replied. “Never mind, I just wear it because Ienjoyfeeling like ass all day.”
“We’ll just have to find a way to escape regardless,” Charlie stated.
Marcus and Kallie eyed each other, and Ez asked, “Uh… escape?”
“Yeah. We need to break the hell out,” Charlie said bluntly. “The Demigod Guardians want to get us out, but I don’t trust them to take the proper risks. We have to leave by ourselves.”
“Hold on,” I started. “I’m in a wheelchair. Clearly, I’m not going anywhere fast.”
“It’sbecauseyou’re in a wheelchair that we need to get out, before you or the rest of us get hurt worse than we already are,” Charlie replied.
“Sorry to break it to you, pal, but we aren’t going anywhere until these inferichite bracelets are off,” Kallie protested, and she jangled the one on her wrist.
“We’ll just find a way out of here with them on, and then get them off later,” Charlie said roughly.
“Becausethatwon’t be impossible,” Marcus muttered. “They’ve got trackers in them.”
“If we wait for things to be perfect, we’ll never try. I’m so tired of running into a brick wall every time we attempt to do something,” Charlie argued. “There has to be a way to move things in our favor. We still have access to our normal magic, which means if we can get off Institute grounds and away from the wards, Kallie can cast a portal to get us off Darke Island. We can use magic to disable the trackers.”
“That’s a great plan, except we have to get past the fence first,” Marcus said sarcastically. “We’ve already tried, and we can’t get past the inferichite perimeter.”
“We’re demigods,” Charlie growled. “I’m sure once we break these inferichite bracelets, we can come up with some creative solution the Warden hasn’t thought of yet.”
“What about waiting until next Christmas?” Kallie theorized. “The Warden let you go home for Winter Break your first semester, Ava. What if we just ask our parents to take us out of here during the holidays, then we elude the officers who are meant to guard us, and get out that way?”
