Page 23 of Level Up for Love

When I glance back to Mona, she’s idly scrolling through her phone with one hand and massaging her right knee with the other. I frown. “Hurting today?”

“It’s the weather.” Mona shrugs, unconcerned. “It’s not too bad, don’t worry.”

I think she hates my fussing sometimes, but I can’t help it. It’s been more than ten years since the car accident, but some days, it still haunts her—joint pain more than anything, which is a blessing considering how bad it was. In high school, she was in the hospital for weeks, and even after that, her brain injury forced her to be in and out of rehab clinics for months, relearning everything. How to walk, how to write. She missed the rest of her sophomore year and had to redo it all. It was my junior year, and I’d nearly failed, too, I was so worried and angry. But the yoga helps her—Mona started it when she was settling back into her body, and to this day, she swears by how healing of a practice it is for her.

The accident haunts me, too, but in different ways. It haunts me that Dad and I walked away without a scratch. It haunts me that for those first forty-eight hours in the ICU, we weren’t sure whether Mona would walk away at all.

I try to ignore the old tightening of my throat as we trot down the stairs and run through the rain to my car. My driving anxiety doesn’t show up as much as it used to, but on days like today, when the visibility is bad because of the weather, it makes even the ten-minute drive to Game Knight feel like it takes ages.

When we arrive and descend into the Dungeon Room, the others are caught up in a lively debate about the latest D&D game guide release. Mona meshes easily into the conversation, and though I could, too—I have a lot of opinions on its proposed new rules—I hold back.

I can almost picture my old friend group seated around this table, debating this very topic. Mona would say the same thing she’s saying now, that she’s always game to try new things and shake things up. Owen would scowl and refuse to change anything, too stubborn to learn anything new—and Lauren would agree with him. Eddie would do whatever the rest of the table wanted, though he’d crack a joke funny enough to break the tension and get us all back on the same page.

My thoughts travel even further back to my dad; I doubt he would have cared about the new release. He was always the sort who made up the rules as he went along.

“…Reagan?”

I look up at the sound of my name, though I don’t know who said it. The feeling of Wesley’s eyes on me—of the whole table’s eyes on me—shakes me out of my reverie. I didn’t realize they were waiting on me.

“Well?” My tone is impatient and embarrassed. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

“Where we’re from, it’s been centuries since anyone has seen a vampire,” Moss muses. “Really, he’s an honest-to-gods vampire?” She bares her teeth in a comical approximation, though her orcish tusks jut out from her lower jaw, not the top.

Mortimer clasps his hands together in unnerving excitement, violet eyes made wider by the thick lenses of his glasses. “Yes! A necromantic marvel, truly!”

Antoni hisses through clenched teeth. “Need I remind you that necromantic marvel is trying to kill us all?”

“Ah. Right.” Mortimer passes his palm sheepishly over his bald head. “Perhaps that was insensitive,” he says, though he sounds more thoughtful than apologetic. He leans conspiratorially toward Sindra and Moss. “I’m not from Moros, either, you know. I traveled here to study—erm, help. They need my expertise.”

Sindra eyes the skulls tucked cozily under his arm and wonders how far his expertise extends. She huffs a laugh and drums her fingers along Brightmorn’s hilt. “I’ll try to make use of my expertise, too.”

For hours now the party has traveled together toward the heart of Moros, and if Sindra thought matters looked bad near the border, it was nothing compared to how the landscape withers as they journey deeper into the kingdom. Everything is gray: the ever-present dark clouds crowding the sky, the dried stalks of grass that have managed to punch through the ground, the bark on the skinny trees. Sindra finds herself glancing down at the ruby red of her skin just to remind herself that she can see color at all.

It’s not hard to imagine how beautiful the kingdom must once have been. Behind them, the white-capped mountain range stretches across the horizon, threatening to pierce through the clouds. It’s late summer, and Sindra can picture the valley they’re walking through full of flowers and flooded with sunlight. But instead, she has yet to see the sun once, and no wildflowers decorate the dusty earth. Empty houses and barren farms dot the landscape from time to time, and though they’ve been traveling for half the day already, they haven’t encountered a single other soul.

“How long has it been like this?” Sindra breathes.

“Just a little over four years,” Mortimer says matter-of-factly. Sindra nearly trips over her own feet, she’s so stunned. All this devastation in only four years? Instinctively, she looks over her shoulder, back toward the enclave.

Back toward home.

How long do we have before the same thing happens to us?

“What’s next?” Sindra says, her voice clipped. “What’s the plan?”

“The plan,” Antoni says roughly, “is that you’ll come with us as far as the town of Zaska to replenish our supplies. We’ll decide where to go from there.”

Not good enough. “But you do have a plan, don’t you?” Sindra presses. “To kill this vampire? To end the curse?”

Earnestly, Moss adds, “To heal the land?”

Vera seems to perk up at that, but Antoni keeps his hard, narrowed eyes on Sindra and Moss.

Slowly, Mortimer says, “We have a theory—”

“Quiet, wizard,” Antoni snaps.

“Father…” Vera sighs. “If they’re just trying to help—”