A Thousand Cuts (Cursebreakers, Inc. #3)

3. Fix

Chapter 3

Fix

F ix drove on autopilot.

He went to bed with Liam on his mind and realized his memory had done him no justice. He’d remembered him as pretty, but Liam was stunning. Heavy-lidded green eyes had looked at him with so much emotion. Fix had picked out fear, resentment, hope, and defiance. He’d seen it in the set of his soft jaw, the scrunch of his small nose, and the purse of those pouty lips as he did his best to send Fix away.

Fix went, and with everything he had seen and heard, he slept for shit. Liam wasn’t safe there. He wasn’t happy there. It ate away at Fix.

The lock on his fucking building was barely holding it together; anyone had access to him. Anyone could come in and curse him. Find him. Touch him. Anyone could hurt him.

And the curses. Multiple curses he’d been living with for however long. Curses he couldn’t afford to have broken. Not until one got too dangerous. He wouldn’t let Fix help because he couldn’t pay for it. As if Fix wouldn’t level the whole damn town if it meant Liam was safe and happy.

He could recognize this feeling, this raging need to justify his chosen name. It was always at a low hum, guiding him through the world as he tried to make a difference, but it had been years since it had flared up this strong.

Only six times in his life.

Every time, the person who’d woken it up had ended up being tied to Fix with bonds that couldn’t be broken. First his brothers and Taylor.

Now Liam.

Despite everything Hart had told him about the reasoning behind it, he was still unable to control it. When Fix latched on, he latched on hard. Wren called it imprinting. Hart argued it only happened with animals. Fix felt both of them were right.

His phone rang, snapping him out of his thoughts for a split second.

“Hello?”

“I moved the gerbils,” Wren said in lieu of a greeting.

“Oh.” Fix swallowed the negativity to pay attention to Wren. Wren needed to be heard and seen. Fix knew that and he’d give it to him every time. “Where did they go?”

There was a rustle and a chirp from Blu in the background. “I built them a little thing out back.”

Fix frowned. “Out back…of our house?”

Wren paused for a moment before humming. “Hart said I could.”

Despite everything, Fix found himself chuckling. “Does Hart know he said you could?”

Wren had a wiggly way of asking for things.

“He said yes,” Wren assured him, sounding about as convincing as Ash did next to any sort of open flame.

“Okay.” Fix shook his head, deciding to sit this one out. “I guess that’s Hart’s business then.”

“No one will even know the darlings are there,” he said sweetly.

“Riiight. Like Mary at the office. Totally inconspicuous.”

“Exactly,” Wren said, missing the joke and being completely serious. “Did you find who you were looking for?”

“I did, yes.”

Wren let out a little chirp Fix knew meant he was excited. “What happened? Is he safe? Did you help him?”

The questions brought everything back up again.

Fix gripped the steering wheel of his truck harder and pushed the gas pedal until the tires screeched against the worn-out road. Driving fast along the empty road let off some steam, but he wasn’t feeling any calmer.

“No, Wren.” He forced himself to slow down. To be careful. He couldn’t afford to get hurt because then there would be nobody to take care of the people he cared about. “I did as much as he’d let me. I broke one curse, but he has more on him…”

“He wouldn’t let you break the others?” Wren asked, sounding utterly confused.

“He’s stubborn,” Fix murmured, picturing Liam’s pointed chin jutting out. “And proud.”

“But he looked for you,” Wren said. “That day when he showed up he wasn’t just looking for any cursebreaker, he was looking for you .”

Fix wanted to drink those words in. He’d felt Liam’s eyes on him and seen the tumultuous shift when Fix stood close. It made him question and hope that after all was said and done, there might be a space for Fix next to Liam.

It had been so long since he’d felt this way about anyone. Since he’d looked at a beautiful boy and wanted him to be his. It was more complicated than that though. Finding partners who could deal with a cursebreaker was hard enough, but finding a boy who was willing to deal with the split attention was like gold dust.

Liam looked like gold to him.

“Well, he must have changed his mind.” He tried to shake his head free from the tangle.

Wren was quiet for a moment. “I’ve seen that look in his eyes before, like he was being hunted, or running from a predator. He was tired and scared. He needs someone to protect or support him, even if he won’t ask, and I can’t think of anyone better to do it than you. Don’t give up.”

With that he cut the call, leaving Fix to wallow in his guilt and recount all his mistakes.

It wasn’t the right time though. He had to get his mind off Wren and Liam. He needed to focus, then he’d allow himself time to figure out what to do.

Just get through the day first , he coached himself.

He turned right and drove through the ornate metal fence surrounding the cursebreaker training facility.

Nexus.

He drove up the long driveway, the building looming in front of him, even from relatively far away. Smoke billowed from the various metal parapets, a clock tower with a rounded roof the highest point that glinted in the sun. The whole building was a relic of an older time, added to and expanded over countless decades.

It resembled the steam trains and tracks that came from the same era, all exposed beams and cogs holding the sturdy bronzed beast together instead of wood or bricks. Windows covered its surface, a balcony wrapping around the entire second floor, and then a few private offices higher up.

An elevator and its mechanisms could be seen from the outside along the left face, just to the side of the longest part of the building. The cursebreakers’ dorms. It was there Fix’s gaze fell and stayed, a lifetime of memories bubbling to the surface and making his chest ache.

He’d spent more time here than he had anywhere else in the world.

Twenty-eight years.

His time with his brothers hadn’t even reached half that number yet.

He parked and got out of his truck, breathing in the familiar smell of smoke and oak from the trees littering the grounds. Nostalgia threatened to eat him alive the longer he stared. It was the same every time he came back. Old wounds and sadness; a loneliness that was hard to bear as he waited and waited for something that never seemed like it was destined for him.

A team.

Family.

Even after he finally found it, the feelings lingered, yet he always came back to this place of origin, unable to stay away.

He trod the familiar path inside, pushing the heavy metal doors aside and revealing the burnished gold interior of the Nexus building lobby. Black stone lined the floor, making his steps echo under the high ceiling. Yellow light beamed down on him from old oil sconces that had been repurposed into electricity at the turn of the century. A double staircase with wrought iron banisters wrapped around both right and left, offering pathways Fix knew by heart.

The overwhelming weight of magic settled over him, thick and heavy like a blanket. Unlike in the city where things were dispersed and saturated between so many regular people, in here it was only casters and cursebreakers.

He signed in at the large, half-oval desk centered between the two staircases. Multiple Nexus employees sat there, doing administrative tasks and answering phone calls while casual magical tasks flowed around them without notice. They were dressed in black and gold, the Nexus logo on their breast pockets—the letter N in thick cursive on a background of the same cogs that could be seen around the facility, symbolizing a part of a bigger whole.

It was his earliest memory, that logo. Not a face. Not a name. Just that.

He was given a visitor’s badge and then ushered in without much fanfare, and his feet led him without permission to the left. He leaned against the doorframe and stared down the long hallway leading into the residential area of Nexus. The place where cursebreakers too young to start training lived.

Home.

Or at least the only version of home they all knew.

Cursebreakers’ existences were deemed sad by some, but Fix found it hard to comprehend anything different from the life he knew and the walls that had cradled him. Their world was created the way it was, and Fix had never once thought about changing it.

Fix, like all the others, had been born with a cursemark on him. As such, his real family had had to say goodbye to him before he ever got to go home with them.

Nexus employed caretakers. People who raised little cursebreaker babies until they were old enough to enter training. Once in training, they got too busy to think of just how different their upbringing was from everyone else’s.

They had classes to attend, specialities to figure out, and teams to match with. Fix did it all. Even if it did take him longer than it should have.

“The famous Fix,” someone said from behind him. Fix turned around, coming face-to-face with a man maybe Hart’s age, so a few years younger than himself.

He was wearing the standard Nexus instructor uniform of brown leather pants and a matching long coat with a pair of black gloves and boots. Leather just took curse backfire better, so it was good protection while teaching younger cursebreakers to do their jobs.

“Fix is right,” he said with a smile, extending a hand toward the man. “I don’t know about famous.”

“Tarquin,” the man said. “But Quin will suffice.”

“Quin it is.” Fix looked the man over once again. There was a stiffness to his posture, a regality to it that reminded Fix of Hart, but was still different in a lot of ways. Hart’s was a front. A facade he took on to present himself to the world the way he wanted. Quin wore his like a badge of honor, stiff and serious with none of the quirky charm or charisma Hart naturally owned.

“You’re new?” Fix asked.

Quin shook his head. “I have been teaching here for some time now. But I came on board after you had been gone for a while. So yes, I assume in that way I am new.”

“Well, welcome to Nexus. Seeing how young you look, I can only assume you’re an incredible caster to be an instructor here.”

“Level five as of last testing.”

Being the regulatory body for magic, it was impossible for any standard level one or two caster to get a job at Nexus. They sourced from those who tested at the highest level in all magical schools, and even then it was cutthroat as Fix understood it.

Those who didn’t make it went on to regular career paths or lower-level casting jobs that had to report to Nexus and its various branches.

“Impressive.” Fix whistled. “And what’s your area of expertise?”

Quin broke eye contact for a split second before meeting Fix’s gaze again. “Objects.”

“Ah. Midas seems to be collecting the powerful ones.”

Quin smiled tightly at the small talk. “I apologize, but I have a class to teach presently, and I know you’re here to teach too. Would you mind if I picked your brain about a particular matter of interest sometime?”

“Business related?” Fix asked. Quin nodded, his face outwardly calm but his body telling a different story entirely. Shifty. Antsy. It was strange, yet Fix still reached into his pocket and pulled his business card out of his wallet. “Just give me a call whenever.”

Quin took it between two ringed fingers. There was an inscription on one of them that Fix wasn’t able to make out. “If you don’t mind, could we do this in person?”

Fix frowned at the intense stare, but shrugged it off. “Works for me. If you drop by the office we can chat there. Just maybe call or text to see if I’m in. I don’t keep regular hours, as you probably know.”

“I will.” Quin pocketed the card, glancing around them surreptitiously. “Thank you. Have a good lecture.”

“You too,” Fix called after his quickly retreating figure, wondering what that was about as he left the residential wing and crossed a large foyer into the training facilities.

Humble as his response to Quin had been, Fix was aware of the reputation he held among other cursebreakers. Of being the best. The most talented.

He didn’t know if he believed it, but that reputation had earned him an invitation to be a guest lecturer at Nexus. Twice a year he’d come and teach a class to those ready to leave. He’d offer practical advice, talk about some of the more unusual cases he’d had and the things they’d likely encounter in their new jobs. Young cursebreakers liked him well enough and Fix enjoyed nurturing their curiosity.

The click of his footsteps on the floor drowned out the distant chatter of cursebreaker voices as they got ready for their training sessions and lectures.

Memories flooded in again. Of people he’d trained with getting matched with their teams and leaving Nexus to start their work. Of his quarterly team aptitude tests coming back wonky and mismatched every time. Of the instructors assuring him it was only a matter of time before he matched with a team, even as he grew older and lost almost all hope. He’d been put on practice cases with so many teams in so many combinations he was pretty sure he’d met every single cursebreaker in training they had.

It had never panned out. Nothing worked. None of them fit.

Until someone did.

Black.

A deadly curses specialist who had only just graduated. A weirdo wrapped in pastel colors and attitude. A ticking time bomb according to everyone who’d ever trained him and every other cursebreaker they’d tried him with. He’d looked like a muffin to Fix. Tiny and colorful and sweet at his core. Fix wanted to put him in his pocket and protect him.

Then Midas.

A cursed objects specialist. Aloof and disinterested. Incredible at his job and loyal to absolutely nobody but his own whims. Fix saw the warmth nobody else seemed to see. He liked Midas from day one.

Then Wren.

A cursed animal specialist. Broken in ways he still didn’t understand. Rebellious and resentful. Unmatched because he refused to take the aptitude tests or practice with any of the teams and refused to tell anyone why. They’d managed to sway him into trying out with Fix, and Fix saw the strength behind the pain.

Then Ash.

A bonding curse specialist. Unmatched for years because he’d managed to burn the aptitude test paperwork several times and fly off the handle in every practice case they’d put him on before Nexus just gave up on him. Unfocused. Scatterbrained. Volatile. Fix saw brilliance and adaptability where others saw fault.

They sat in waiting for the final puzzle piece for what felt like ages.

And then they found Hart.

An interpersonal specialist. Perfectionist. Cold. Too finicky for every other team but somehow exactly what theirs needed. Fix leaned into it. Played off of it. Partnered with Hart and allowed him to take some of the responsibilities he always saw as his own. Hart became an ally.

By that point Fix had been at Nexus for so long most of the instructors saw him as a friend. He had a rapport with them the other cursebreakers didn’t have. They’d privately advised Fix that his team would crash and burn before their first year in the field was over. They’d said they’d never seen a team like theirs, so full of dysfunction and outliers, and there was no chance of it ever working.

The only thing Fix had to say was that it was precisely why they’d matched. Because they were all unmatchable with anyone else.

The reject team.

Fix wouldn’t change them for the world.

“Fix, my boy.” A gentle voice sounded from the top of a set of L-shaped wrought iron stairs that led to the instructors’ offices in the uppermost parts of the facility. Fix snapped his head up toward the cavernous upper beams, sour memories disappearing as his lips stretched into a wide smile.

“Gwen!”

He rushed up, taking the stairs two at a time until he reached her. He gave her a tight hug, making her laugh when he lifted her off the floor.

“Oh, you overgrown child.” She smacked his shoulder until he put her down, her hands reaching to smooth the nonexistent wrinkles on her clothes.

She was always perfectly poised and glamorous, and the outfit she wore that day was similar to the ones Fix remembered. A pair of gray trousers, a black turtleneck sweater, and high heels with pointed toes. She was tall and thin, but incredibly strong. Her blonde hair was graying at the temples and tied into a bun at her neck. She had clear green eyes and dark eyebrows that didn’t match her hair at all. They gave her face a more severe look when Fix knew her as anything but. She was like a mother to him. An adult he had trusted his whole life.

“Long time,” Fix said, holding her hands in his. She gave them a squeeze.

“We need to find a way to lure you in here more often,” she said, letting go of his hands to thread her arm around his as she guided them down the stairs and toward a hallway to their right. “Two lectures a year isn’t nearly enough.”

“We said we’d wait for me to retire before you poached me to be a full-time instructor,” he reminded her.

“Pfff, by the time you decide to retire I’ll be worm food. Don’t you miss Nexus?”

He looked around at the black marble and echoing vastness of the space he’d grown up in. He remembered running down these hallways until he was taught not to run. Laughing until he was taught to do it quietly. It wasn’t perfect, but there was a part of him that would always belong to the cold, detached mausoleum of the cursebreaker training facility.

“Sometimes,” he said softly. “But I’m happy where I am now.”

She held his gaze for a long moment before she exhaled and nodded.

“That’s the way it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?” she asked, voice quiet. “It’s what I wanted for you.”

“You don’t sound too happy about it.” He tried teasing, but he couldn’t help but think his response disappointed her somehow. It weighed heavy on him, the idea of not living up to who she wanted him to be.

“I’ll always miss having you around, Fix,” she said. “We aren’t supposed to get attached, but you were the closest thing to a son I’ve ever had. I had you for longer than I’ve had anyone else that’s gone through here. Part of being a parent means letting your children find their own happiness though. And being content in the knowledge that they did.”

Fix was beyond touched by her words. “I really like my life,” he assured her.

“Good.” She smiled, but it quickly morphed into a playful smirk. “Though I don’t know how. We really did a number on you with that team of yours.”

He let out a laugh before shrugging. “They’re all great once you get to know them.”

“I’ll take your word for it. They’re incredible cursebreakers, but we were all pretty pleased when they finally matched with a team and left this place.”

“They’ve grown up a lot.” He defended them, knowing deep down he was searching for her approval. “They’ve settled and calmed. You’d have a hard time recognizing them if you saw them now.”

“Last I checked, Ash is still a walking flamethrower, Hart is toeing the line of morality, Midas is more gone than he is around, Black is disturbingly gleeful about his job, and Wujia is as closed off as he always was—”

“Wren,” Fix corrected her. “His name is Wren.”

“Right,” she said, and he could tell she wanted to say more so he looked away before she could.

“You’ve been keeping tabs on us.”

“You’re the most volatile team that ever walked out of Nexus,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’d be horrible at my job if I just let you go. Not to mention the curious cases that have been coming out of your branch lately.”

“What about me?”

“You?”

“You know all about the others. What about me?”

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

“You’re still clinging on too tight,” she said. “I didn’t say anything that isn’t true about your team, or anything that would imply it was bad, but you’re ready to go to battle with me. You’re defending them against a nonexistent threat.”

She still had the ability to bring red to his cheeks like he was five years old. “They’re my family.”

“And nobody is calling that into question, Fix. Nobody is taking them away from you.”

“I’d like to see them try,” Fix said.

She rolled her eyes and chuckled as she directed them toward the classrooms. “You’ve got the younglings today. They’re so excited to meet a ‘real cursebreaker.’”

Fix laughed. “Do they think their usual instructors are fake?”

“Probably. Kid logic.” She stopped in front of a door, pointing to it. “Find me after?”

“Don’t I always?”

She hummed, patting him on the arm before leaving him to his lesson.

Fix walked into the empty classroom and took his time looking around the space. The classrooms hadn’t changed much. Metal desks still sat in even rows, with their chairs tucked in facing the whiteboard. The posters on the walls were still there, but they’d been updated as curses and casts were broadened with more cases to draw from.

There was one thing that hadn’t been touched though. The engraved bronze plaque was on the back wall, the six core curse types sitting under the Nexus logo. He walked over to it, remembering staring at it for years on end and being made to recite them until they stuck.

A sound behind him made him turn, and he spotted a Nexus caretaker holding the door and ushering in a group of small cursebreakers, about six or seven years old, walking in a perfect line. Each had on a Nexus tracksuit, the color corresponding to what curse type they were suspected of favoring, and those who didn’t show any signs yet dressed in simple gray.

A few young eyes widened when they spotted him, taking in his large size and moving over his tattoos. Fix gave them a friendly smile, hoping to ease their discomfort quickly.

“Take your seats, everyone. Quickly,” the caretaker instructed, taking a few ingredients from a side pouch. The children watched as they cast a quick spell to do a head count. Numbers lit up over their heads in shimmery blue.

Fix walked over as the children did as they were told, the numbers fading. “I’ll take it from here.”

The Nexus caretaker didn’t question him, simply swept one more assessing glance over the class before leaving.

Fix closed the door after them and turned to smile at the class. “Hello, I’m Fix. I’m a nuisance cursebreaker from Slatehollow. I’ll be teaching your lesson today.”

There were a few shy waves and murmurs back, but nobody seemed inclined to break a rule or get caught speaking out of turn. Which wouldn’t do at all.

“What do you say we get more comfortable before we start, hm?”

The children all shared glances with each other, some whispering in confusion.

“Come on. Up and at ’em, these desks won’t move themselves.” Fix clapped his hands.

The kids got out of their chairs slowly, confusion clearing once Fix started pushing the first few desks to the side of the room. They began to follow, giggling and excited by the change in pace. Fix helped a few of them, settling them in a circle with himself at the ‘top.’

“Are there any questions you want to ask me before we get started with the lesson?”

One brave girl raised her hand and Fix smiled at her. “Are you really a cursebreaker?”

“Really, really.” Fix opened his shirt slightly and bent awkwardly to show a sliver of his cursemark. “Just like you.”

“Mine’s on my leg,” she said, yanking the hem up to show off a small mark on her calf.

Others began to join in, shouting their curse placement. It was when one boy stood up to show the cursemark on his butt cheek that Fix called a halt to it.

“All certified cursebreakers,” he said.

“Not really,” one of the boys in gray murmured, gaze downcast and small fingers fidgeting. “I haven’t figured out what I’m even good at yet.”

Fix gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder and said in a soft voice, “That’ll come in time. No one really wakes up just knowing.”

“Nuh-uh,” another boy in red said with his nose in the air. “The coolest cursebreaker was setting things on fire when he was, like, three and that’s how he breaks curses, so he must have known for forever!”

“Shh!” the boy next to him hissed. “We weren’t supposed to tell we heard.”

“Oh…” The boy froze. “Uhhh…”

Fix was far too amused. It seemed Ash’s legacy had lingered for the next generation of budding bonding cursebreakers.

“Well it’s not the same for everyone, just like no one breaks curses exactly the same way even if you work in the same field,” Fix explained.

“We learned that,” a girl in green said. She had a few twigs in her hair. “The teachers say we need to test a lot of ways to figure out what we like best.”

Fix smiled and gave her a nod. “Exactly.”

“What’s the biggest curse you’ve ever broke?” another child asked in excitement.

“Nuisance curses usually aren’t that big. But once I had to break a curse on some opera curtains that closed every time someone tried to sing.”

A bunch of giggles burst out across the room.

“Are nuisance curses scary?” a girl in blue asked, brown eyes wider than dinner plates.

He gave her a reassuring smile. “Sometimes they can be. No curse is easy and nuisance curses, unlike other curses, can pile up on someone, so that can be tricky. But you’ll all be brilliant little cursebreakers by then, won’t you? Ready to handle anything?”

They nodded, little heads bobbing around.

“How many curses can one person have on them? Can they have a billion?”

Fix laughed. “A billion is… a lot. But there is a myth that if someone gets a thousand curses put on them, they die!”

He wiggled his fingers for dramatic effect, like he was telling a ghost story around a campfire.

A few of the kids gasped and a few laughed.

“That’s a myth though! Those aren’t true!” someone shouted back in the determined way only kids could.

Fix dipped his head with a chuckle. “There’s never been a recorded case as far as I know.”

“See!”

Chattering broke out and Fix was glad to see the ice had fully been broken between them. “Okay, okay. Now that we’ve all gotten to know each other, let’s get into our lesson, little cursebreakers.”

He had an incredible time with them, happy to note all of them seemed to be well adjusted and seemingly accepting of their role in the world. None of them had the haunted look Wren used to wear. None of them looked like they were moments from bolting like young Midas had.

They seemed like picture-perfect Nexus trainees, and while maybe not ideal, it was the best possible outcome. He finished his lesson without issue and helped the kids put the classroom back the way it had been before their caretaker came to get them.

And then…there was nothing to stop him from thinking about Liam anymore. The moment the kids’ chatter stopped echoing down the hallway, the floodgates opened and Liam was front and center again.

Was he okay?

Was he scared and alone?

Cursed again?

He met Gwen in her office for lunch after his lecture like usual and tried to enjoy her company like he always did, but his head and his heart weren’t in it. His mind raced and his body longed to be somewhere else. He felt like he’d combust if he stayed away for one more moment. Burst at the seams if he didn’t see for himself Liam was okay.

He tried hard, but Gwen could tell there was something off. She knew him too well.

“You have that look on your face,” she said, even though her eyes weren’t on him at all.

He put his fork down, sighing and running a hand over his face. “Yeah.”

“Someone important?”

“Maybe. I think I want them to be, but it’s complicated.”

“Isn’t it always?” she said sagely. “Nothing worth having was ever won easily.”

She took another bite of her salad before shooing him away with her free hand. “Go. You’re all jittery and it’s messing with my vibe.”

It was a free pass to excuse himself, and he jumped out of his seat, kissed her cheek, and ran out like his life depended on it.

He hopped into his car and rushed away, the anxiety in him settling the closer he got to where he felt like he needed to be.

Close to Liam.

As close as he was allowed.