Page 69 of Wrong Squad, Right Mess

“There’s another option.” Shear spoke so softly that I nearly missed it. He kept speaking, though, the quiet nature of his words forcing us all to listen. “One person will absolutely burn out. Three S-Rank espers with a S-Rank healer, though? It could work, just long enough to destroy it.” He paused, then added, “Do not misunderstand me. We won’t walk away from it.”

His point remained clear—we might save Yun, but we would forfeit our own lives. This came down to a choice, and we’d have to make it.

Did we save our own skins or the woman we loved? Were we willing to sacrifice ourselves so she could walk out of this dungeon?

It wasn’t even a fucking question, and we all knew it. I’d been hopelessly lost to her since the start, since she’d turned me down that first time, and I’d only wanted her more and more as time went on.

“I’ll do it,” Carter said first, no hesitation in his voice.

“Fuck it, I’m in,” I said. “Least I don’t have to fry alone.”

“I’ll do it,” Shear answered as well.

Kenyon took longer, but I understood his reasoning. The rest of us had to endure, but he had to watch. He had to try to piece us together, to prolong our suffering enough to finish the job. For a man like Kenyon, someone as gentle as he was, for a healer, that was a far more challenging expectation. He turned toward Yun, then nodded. It was like seeing her reassured himself, gave him the strength. “Okay.”

“Fuck okay,” Yun shouted. “You don’t get to just make a decision like that on your own. You don’t get to just decide to leave me.” Her bottom lip trembled, proving she was desperately trying to hold herself together, a battle she was losing.

“Sure we do,” Carter said, voice kind. “That’s always been our job, to keep you safe. Wish we could have done it for longer, but we’ll still do what needs to be done.”

She shook her head. “You can’t just abandon me. I’ve been tossed aside so many times and you promised me you wouldn’t do the same thing.”

“We aren’t,” Carter pressed. “You know better than most that we never really had much of a future out there for us, that we were just fighting until we hit an end. That’s what the life of an esper is, but you gave us something more. This isn’t us throwing you aside, this is us saying that you matter more than anything else to us.” He paused, then let out a slow breath. “To me.”

“You can’t do this,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around herself.

Carter reached out and gathered Yun to him, pressing a kiss to her lips as though that could stop the way they trembled. “It’s fine. You’ve risked a lot for us, so it’s our turn for you. As soon as we start, you take off toward the portal, okay?”

“I won’t,” she argued, earning a soft huff from Carter.

Kenyon caught her chin and turned her gaze toward him, then took his own kiss. He didn’t pull away, his forehead pressed against hers, Carter still holding her. “As our official guide, you’ll get everything we own. I’m sorry I won’t get to show you that cabin, but you should still go and spend some time there. There’s this little firepit out back with stone benches. Do a couple s’mores for me, huh?”

That seemed to break the dam that she’d crafted, and tears fell down her cheeks. It broke my heart, made me wish we could take this pain from her, too. After how often she’d suffered, I hated the idea that she’d bear any more pain.

Too bad there wasn’t a fucking thing we could do about this.

Shear moved up beside her on the other side, and pressed a kiss not to her lips but to her forehead. She turned toward him, with Carter loosening his grip so she could turn fully. He said nothing aloud, but he didn’t need to.

He leaned in and rested his forehead to hers, keeping eye contact. Were they having a conversation? No, I doubted that. Instead, it seemed more like he’d offered his feelings to her, let her experience them herself, giving her the proof of how deeply he cared for her.

It caused a hiccupping sob to escape her, but he offered her a rare smile in return.

Which made it my turn… I fucking hated goodbyes, hated the bullshit of it. I hadn’t cared about enough people in my life to have that many of them, but this one?

This one hurt.

Yun twisted fully, facing me, her eyes red, her skin blotchy. It made me want to laugh, the idea that people sometimes talked about how pretty people looked when they cried.

Yun didn’t look pretty at all. She looked a mess of pain and anger and snot.

I still loved her, though, wanted her. None of that mattered.

“This ain’t your fault,” I said, knowing exactly what rested at the bottom of all that anxiety she held. It wasn’t just losing us, it was the guilt that I didn’t want her living with.

“How is it not my fault? If you’d never met me—”

“Then we would have continued being Reject Squad, having nothing, not giving a damn about anything. We wouldn’t have had a fucking clue there was something more, something better. Look, Spark, I’d take the months together we got over a whole fucking lifetime without you, so don’t you dare feel bad about this, because I sure as shit don’t.”

She worried her bottom lip with her teeth, the action making me desperate to feel her kiss one last time. Fuck, I was pretty sure I could die with a smile so long as I had the taste of her on my tongue.