20. Fix
Chapter 20
Fix
F ix was walking back to his truck, dodging the crowds of people this close to the center of Slatehollow. Restaurants, stores, and office buildings were everywhere, people going to and fro busily, stray magic in the air.
There was also the main train station taking up a huge amount of space, with overhead billboards attached to the sides of the tracks and on the huge metal struts that held it up.
His phone rang in his pocket and he reached for it lightning quick, always worried it would be about Liam.
He saw Morgan’s name and frowned. “Hello?”
“This may be a complete wild card. I may be waaay off.” Morgan started in at a hundred miles per hour before Fix could even get a grip of the conversation. “But if I don’t say something and it turns out to be something then I’ll go to my grave with guilt and I don’t want to become a restless spirit roaming the earth—”
“Morgan,” Fix interrupted, the anxiety spiking his own. “What is happening?”
“Did Liam tell you he was doing a stream today?”
Fix stopped in his tracks on the sidewalk, people pushing past him with tuts of annoyance. Fix ignored them. “What?”
“I just clicked onto his profile to do some more digging and there’s two messages from him today talking about a stream. Well, one’s talking about a stream and the other is cryptic as fuck.”
A feeling started to build in his chest, something suspiciously like dread.
“Send it to me,” he said, already pulling the phone away from his ear and putting it on speaker so he could go to his messages. He found Liam’s name.
Fix: Are you okay?
Liam didn’t reply and the screenshot came through a second later.
Fix read it with a frown, trying to work out what the hell it could mean. All he could think of was Star Stealer , but how did that make sense?
He pulled up Wren’s contact next.
Fix: Are you with Liam? He’s not answering
The reply came pretty swiftly.
Wren: He asked me to walk King for him. He should be in the house
Fix: How long ago was that?
Wren: A couple of hours? I was just about to head back. Is something wrong?
Fix didn’t know, and that was the problem.
“Listen, Morgan, I’m going to hang up and try calling him—”
“Wait!” Morgan said. “He just went live. He…”
There was a quiet gasp that Fix felt was echoed all around him.
“What? What is it?” Fix demanded.
“The stalker…he’s right there, Fix,” Morgan mumbled hysterically.
Fix’s world fell out from under his feet.
“He’s at the house?! Morgan! Tell me!”
“N-no…”
It was getting harder to hear, a commotion around him forcing him to put the phone back to his ear as he sweated through his shirt.
“Morgan! Tell me where he is right now!”
“I don’t know!” Morgan said. “It’s not the house, it looks abandoned. Liam is running… How…? Oh my god, it’s being broadcast. Fix, he found a way to broadcast his stream. It’s on my fucking television!”
The noise around Fix filtered back in and he looked around to see everyone with their phones out pointing upward. Fix followed their line of sight and froze.
Above him, instead of a haircare ad, was a stream of Liam running for his life for the world to see. He stumbled and Fix swayed on his feet as well. He cried out and so did Fix’s heart. The background was a blur, dark and dirty and hard to make out.
Where the sky meets the star.
Where the sky meets the star.
It was running through his head on repeat, taunting him, haunting him.
“Fix?” Morgan called in his ear. “Fix?”
It was white noise.
A nightmare.
He couldn’t wake up.
He was frozen in place as Liam ran in terror in front of his eyes.
“FIX?!”
His phone had fallen away from his ear, slack in his hand. He looked back down at it in a daze as a new notification flashed up.
Unknown: MOVE ASSHOLE!
It was a shock to his system, the words becoming paddles on his chest that brought him back to life.
He gasped for air as the pieces slotted into place, Liam’s voice ranting to him in his head about his favorite show and how the main characters met.
He knew where Liam was.
People were shoved aside as he sprinted for his truck. He slammed the phone into the handset holder, pulling up Liam’s stream easily. It was everywhere, broadcasting live on every social media platform and news station.
Liam’s face filled the screen. He was ducked down with his eyes tightly closed, a hand over his mouth to prevent sound as he hid. Fix could hear his shuddering breaths and whimpers through the speaker now, and it made him feel sick.
He wanted to reach straight through and comfort him, but he couldn’t.
“Liam,” an unfamiliar voice called, and Liam squeezed his eyes shut tighter. “You can’t hide from me.”
Something metallic fell over close to Liam, and he screamed and ran from his hiding spot, the camera shaking everywhere before cutting out completely and going dead.
Fix put his foot to the floor, pointing the car in the direction of the mall. “Fuck!” he yelled, hitting the steering wheel and willing the thing to go faster. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
Unknown: You can say that again. This whole plan just got fucked 10 ways to Sunday
Unknown: I don’t know how the stream got broadcast when I was streaming it privately to the cops
Unknown: It makes no fucking sense!
The messages came through in a drop-down at the top of his phone in quick succession.
“You helped him do this?” Fix growled, because this mystery asshole could clearly hear him. “And Cyrus knows about this?”
Unknown: He wasn’t in on it until I sent it to him. I told him not to say anything to anyone in case something like what just happened, happened and it put Liam in more danger
“HE WAS IN DANGER AS SOON AS YOU LET HIM RISK HIS LIFE!” he bellowed, finding it hard to concentrate on the road at all, dark spots crawling across his vision and making everything tilt on its axis.
Unknown: I just gave him a better option, asshole. He was doing it on his own before I stepped in, okay?
Fix shuddered out a breath.
Had Liam truly felt so alone and cornered that he’d risked everything like this?
Unknown: I assume from the direction you know where you’re going already. At least you aren’t completely stupid
Unknown: You need to hurry
It was the last message they sent as Fix tore through a red light, horns blaring and tires screeching in his wake.
The area was swarming with people when he pulled up, and all of them had their phones out with Liam’s dead stream pulled up.
He jumped out of his truck and abandoned it where it was, pushing through the cacophony of noise and crowds bodily to reach the cordon PUMA and the local police had set up. He attempted to blast right through, only to be held back by multiple sets of hands on his shoulders, arms, and chest.
“Sir, step back! This is a police-controlled area, you can’t enter!”
“Get the fuck off of me,” Fix growled while shoving at them.
“Threatening a police officer can get you arrested. I won’t give you another warning, sir!”
Fix wouldn’t either as he prepared himself to tackle this motherfucker.
“Let him go, you imbecile, he’s a cursebreaker!” a voice interrupted them.
Hands dropped like he was toxic, like he had curses writhing all over his skin. Fix had never been so happy about their prejudices.
He shouldered past them and toward a harried-looking Cyrus, who was coordinating with someone else, a team of strapped-up PUMA officers in leather tactical gear and helmets readying themselves to go in behind them.
He stepped forward to meet Fix. “Hey—”
“Before you say anything, you aren’t stopping me from going in there.”
Cyrus held eye contact for a suspended moment.
“Well if he’s as curse happy as you say he is then I’m sure we’ll need someone to break whatever he’s going to throw at us,” Cyrus drawled, finally looking away. “It’ll look good on the paperwork.”
“Are we going in now?”
“We were coming up with breach options and coordinating hitting the other entrances and exits when the stream went live to the fucking world. As soon as everyone is in position we can move. We don’t want this bastard slipping away with Liam as soon as he hears us coming.”
Logically it made sense. Deep down Fix knew that.
He wasn’t thinking logically right now.
“We can’t wait for that! Anything could be happening to him in there, we need to go now!”
“Look, Fix, this isn’t our first rodeo. Let us do our jobs—”
“HEY, YOU! Hold it right there!” someone shouted behind them.
They turned to see Wren had snuck past the cordon with King on a leash, officers only just noticing and chasing him down.
“That’s a cursebreaker too, you idiot. Don’t you see that mark on his fucking face?” Cyrus yelled back, the vein in his forehead bulging. “But great work noticing the massive dog slipping under your noses!”
Fix left Cyrus to continue to berate them and met Wren halfway.
“Is he okay?” Wren asked breathlessly as King whined and tugged. “The feed cut off on my way here. I should have known something was wrong this morning. I’m so sorry…”
“That fucker better hope he is, otherwise I’m ripping him limb from limb,” Fix growled, already stepping toward the mall’s entrance. “I’m going in there now. I’m not waiting for PUMA and Cyrus.”
“I figured as much, I’m just glad I was able to catch you first,” Wren said, offering King’s leash immediately. “He’ll be able to find Liam faster than anyone else, trust me.”
King was still straining toward the mall, and Fix took the end of the leash. King glanced up at him and a look of understanding passed between them.
“Let’s go get him,” he murmured.
Fix took off, King matching his pace before outstripping him and leading the way forward.
“What the—FIX! GET BACK HERE! YOU FUCKING CURSEbrEAKERS ARE GOING TO GIVE ME AN ANEURYSM!”
Fix ignored Cyrus and pounded over the ground, following King through a loading dock and toward a door. King scratched at it and Fix hauled it open, letting King dart inside and following after. King sniffed the air a few times before heading left, yanking on his leash. Fix would have let him go but he knew King was faster than he could keep up with.
The lights above them flickered sporadically like a horror movie, and Fix knew instinctively it was a curse. He kept his eyes peeled for more as they ran through a storage back room that was now little more than a shell of its former self, but most of his focus was on finding Liam.
He strained his ears for any whisper of sound, only to have them blasted with a sudden burst of music. It was loud and obnoxious, a children’s song playing over and over with giggles echoing off the walls, the distorted tinkle of a lullaby dancing on Fix’s nerves and making him cover his ears.
Searching for the source, he found there wasn’t a way he could break it from here, seeing the speakers recessed into the ceiling. Gritting his teeth, he pushed on, following King and breaking a curse on a shutter that slammed closed as soon as they approached, only opening when they stepped back.
When they stepped out into the atrium it was into a pool of water that was spreading under their feet. He followed the spread and saw in the distance that a fountain had exploded and was gushing water continuously.
Fix could see the evidence of other curses in the unnatural shapes and actions of previously inanimate objects in a once dead mall, but it was hard to fully distinguish everything because the place was in such disrepair.
Fix caught movement on the top floor and then a distant scream sounded over the music, striking ice into the heart of him.
Liam.
That was Liam.
King started barking like crazy, straining the leash, going up on his hind legs as he desperately tried to pull forward.
Fix reached down and let him off.
King bolted through the water and Fix followed as fast as his legs could carry him, spray splashing up around him. There was a distant shatter of glass that sounded like it was echoing from every direction, voices rising as PUMA breached the mall. Everything was happening at once, the world speeding up like something cosmic had just reached out and spun the earth like a top.
Fix knew he couldn’t keep up with King, his powerful body a distant blur by this point as he tried to work out how to get up to where Liam was. Scanning around, Fix looked for his own shortcut, knowing he had to be smart about this. The escalators were turned on and going backward and the stairs were blocked. Fix gave up on them immediately, instead homing in on a stone pillar that had fallen over onto the second floor, creating a treacherous bridge.
He didn’t even pause, jumping up despite his wet shoes and powering to the top floor against the gravity that was trying to take him back down and the groaning and movement of the pillar.
Shadows flickered in the corners of his eyes, and there was more screaming and unintelligible yelling that made Fix’s heart pound. He couldn’t pinpoint it. Where were they?
“LIAM!” he shouted.
“FIX!” came from the left before another scream sounded.
Like a bat out of hell, Fix chased that sound down, willing his legs to go faster, carry him farther.
He skidded to a halt on a walkway.
Before him was the stalker, Liam held in his arms, facing him with a knife at his throat.
“Fix,” Liam whimpered, eyes terrified and sparkling with tears.
“STOP SAYING HIS NAME!”
Liam flinched away from the shout in his ear, cringing as his neck pressed into the knife’s edge, raising a bead of red on his porcelain skin.
Fix had never wished death upon another person before, but his thoughts were consumed with it. His hands curled into fists, but he breathed through the cloud of misty red as he concentrated on Liam.
“It’s okay, honey. It’s going to be okay,” Fix said, trying to exude calm so Liam could soak it in.
“You’re not taking him from me! He’s mine! He was mine first before you laid your disgusting hands on him,” the man ranted.
“You don’t want to hurt him,” Fix said.
“Then step back.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
The stalker’s eyes glinted, as sharp as the knife that moved toward Liam’s neck. “Then this is your fault.”
Fix’s heart leaped in fear, and he lunged forward just as King came springing out of nowhere, his huge jaws clamping down on the stalker’s arm. He cried out, the knife clattering to the floor, and Liam fell to the ground, gasping for air as he was abruptly let go.
Fix used his momentum, aiming for Liam as the stalker contended with getting King off him. He was bleeding, blood dripping onto the floor as King refused to unlock his jaw. He raised a booted foot to King’s chest and kicked, making King yelp and fall aside.
Incensed, the stalker kicked him again, venting his anger.
“KING!” Liam cried out in such utter heartbreak that Fix changed his path and slammed straight into the stalker instead.
They hit the glass side of the walkway, the force of the collision causing a sharp crack and making the metal hinges scream in exertion.
The stalker punched him in the jaw, desperation making his reflexes quicker to recover. Fix took the hit and laid his own into the guy’s stomach, using every ounce of strength he had in him and propelling it with the weight of every single one of Liam’s miseries.
They exchanged blows, Fix tasting blood in his mouth and seeing it spread across the stalker’s face, now unmasked for all to see.
Voices were getting ever closer, but it was a background hum as Fix finally let vengeance rain down.
The stalker realized he was in a losing game; he was surrounded with no leverage. Fix saw his eyes darting around, looking for an exit. In a desperate bid to escape, he managed to reverse their positions, shoving Fix back into the cracked glass again and making it splinter further.
Only this time it didn’t stop, spiderwebbing outward unnaturally.
A curse.
Fix only had a split second to react as the wall disappeared behind him, shattering into nothing.
He grasped the stalker’s collar and dragged him with him in a shower of glass.
“FIX!” Liam screamed, right before they hit the murky water of the fountain under them, the water absorbing the impact of Fix hitting the floor and swallowing him up.
It rushed around him, a typhoon of pressure and sound. He was completely winded, the breath knocked from his lungs entirely, water entering his nose and ears, pain radiating from his shoulders.
Like a minnow, the guy tried to slip out of his grip in the water, but like a shark, Fix chased him down.
They broke the surface still tangled together and gasping for breath. Fix took him back under as they struggled for control. The stalker punched and hit, but Fix was a predator that had sensed blood in the water, blooming bright. Injuries were ignored as he finally got a hold on his prey and held him under the water as he rose back up to his knees, torrents falling from him, blinding him and running from his open mouth.
He squeezed so hard he felt like his muscles would rupture. Hands scratched at his skin, water kicking up as feet flailed for purchase.
Distantly, someone was calling his name.
“FIX!” Cyrus yelled. “You don’t wanna do this!”
Didn’t he?
It was hard to judge anymore. All he could see was a knife against a throat he loved. Terror after terror in green eyes.
The seconds ticked on, the person under his hands growing weaker in his struggles.
“Fix?” Liam called shakily. “Daddy?”
Fix let the guy break the surface.
Stumbling back through the water to the edge, Fix panted for breath, dripping as PUMA officers climbed into the fountain to grab the half-drowned man by his arms to cuff him.
Cyrus met him on the other side, face tense. “Good choice. We have it from here, and there’s a medical team on standby outside. We can contain the curses until we can call someone else to come in and break the last of them.”
Fix hardly heard him, climbing over the fountain’s lip with water pouring out around him and slapping onto the already wet floor. He trudged on numb legs toward where Liam was being flanked by two officers. King was lying on a makeshift stretcher, whining but moving. He saw Wren with him and knew he’d be okay.
They locked eyes, and Liam broke away from the officers and didn’t stop until he was buried face-first in his drenched chest. Fix wrapped his arms around him and wasn’t sure if he could ever let go again.
It was finally over.