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Questions and arguments exploded in my brain along with a thick, sticky sort of panic. I didn’t want to go back there. I hated it there. Jayce couldn’t stay there, he would hate himself forever for the things he needed to do to survive. I calmed myself down enough to speak. They were reasonable people, right? I just needed to reason with them, that’s all.
“Excuse me, sir, but how the hell can you banish us to the underworld?”
Clipboard blinked at me. “I beg your pardon?”
“We’ve already been there and back several times. Hell, we spent a whole year there! We got the entire school back to earth after it was transported down there—oh, and you’re welcome for that, by the way. What makes you think we won’t just create another portal and pop back up?”
The asshole on the far left grinned again. I wanted to punch his snaggle tooth down his saggy throat. “You won’t, if you know what’s good for you. You think we’ve never thought of that? There’s a database. Your name will be on it the second this is over.”
“And you guys, what, check a database every time you catch one of the fallen in the wild?”
“We don’t have to,” he sneered. “You’ll be magically branded. Marked as banned. Any Custodian who sees you topside will shoot to kill.”
My jaw dropped. “And just how do you ‘good guys’ justify that bullshit?”
His eyes flashed, and he tightened his jaw. “Every fallen gets one chance. One chance to swear fealty to the human race. One chance to avoid death or banishment. One. Uno.” He shrugged. “We gave you a fair shot to redeem yourselves. Provided a school, education, room and board—what more could you ask for?”
“Leniency,” Kingston said shortly, his voice hard.
The Custodian blinked at him and barked a harsh laugh. “Listen here. Some of us don’t even think you should be given any chances. Once you blow your shot, Custodians have a single goal—to be rid of you. Banished or killed, we don’t really care. As long as you’re gone from this plane of existence.”
Oh. Shit.
“Let’s get this over with,” the Custodian on the far right said. “That is, if you’re ready.”
He wasn’t asking us. He was asking Clipboard.
“Yes. The sooner it’s done, the sooner we can address—that other problem.”
I didn’t have to guess what the other problem was. The only reason it’d take the Custodians this long to deal with us was because they
were busy fighting off Gavriel’s minions all over earth.
In that moment, something black and vicious passed over my soul, sending my thoughts to the darkest place they’d ever gone before. For the briefest of seconds, I hoped Gavriel would storm every Custodian meeting hall and outpost and wipe them off the face of the planet. Only the worst kinds of people functioned in absolutes.
I wanted them to suffer.
I wanted them gone.
Then I remembered what Xero looked like when we’d found him, and the thought dissolved. Nobody deserved what Gavriel was dishing out, not even the Custodians. Certainly not the humans who would fall under Gavriel’s metaphorical sword in the process.
So, okay. Maybe I didn’t want the Custodians wiped out. But I would happily deliver a massive ass-kicking to these five assholes if I could.
I couldn’t risk starting a fight right now though. They’d made it perfectly clear they were fine with either banishing or killing us, and if I made option number one too difficult, they’d take option number two.
Live to fight another day, Pipes.
They marched us out into the hallway, each of the Custodians apparently assigned to one of us. They guided us with firm grips on our arms, which was irritating, but I recognized that they could have had us shackled instead. That would have attracted all kinds of unwanted attention and would definitely have been an issue once we got back to the underworld.
My escort was the stoic, silent one who’d been sitting on Clipboard’s near-left. He remained silent as he took my arm.
“Make way for the banished!” Far-left called down the hall.
Classes had just been let out for the day. The hall was full of students. As soon as he said that, every single one of them stopped and stared.
“Make way for the banished!” he called again as we walked.
He was fucking enjoying this. The bastard wanted us to be the center of attention. They all did, I realized. There was no reason they had to banish us from somewhere special. Shit, Dru had nearly banished me and Hannah in a goddamn parking lot. They were putting on a show on purpose. They wanted to prove that they were doing something, even though the guys and I had done more to save the school than any of them had.
