A Thousand Cuts (Cursebreakers, Inc. #3)

22. Fix

Chapter 22

Fix

“ L iam, honey, I need you to wake up,” Fix implored as he watched Liam writhing on his bed, angry red welts blooming on his skin from his own nails.

Sleep was still making his brain hazy and he could barely focus on what he was seeing. In the dim light of a small bedside lamp, Liam was thrashing, kicking his legs and begging Fix to make it stop. Fix wanted to. He really wanted to help but he had no idea how.

Unless…

Terror gripped his insides as he reached for the top drawer of his bedside table, pulling out his white marker and pressing it to his skin without even bothering to check if this was actually a curse.

The dim light glowed and Liam stopped scratching his skin.

It made no sense.

They’d caught the stalker and he was locked away and unable to cast, so who was…

The bed started shaking underneath them, rattling against the floor. Liam’s eyes snapped open and Fix wanted to die at the fear he saw in them again. They hadn’t even gotten a full night of peace. Not even one.

“Daddy,” Liam called out to him, holding on to the bed, and Fix broke the curse, rushing to take him into his arms.

“They’re back,” Liam said. “Why are they back? He’s gone. They got him. Why are they back?!”

The TV mounted to the wall on the other side of the room flickered on and the volume climbed until Fix couldn’t hear himself think.

He broke the curse and Liam buried his head in Fix’s chest, shaking it frantically.

“No, no, no, no,” he chanted, his entire body trembling with fear.

The armchair in the corner slid toward the door and slammed into it before rushing to the other side. The sound of wooden legs dragging on the floor made Fix’s skin crawl.

He broke that curse too.

Liam wailed in anguish and the windows started vibrating.

Fix broke the curse.

Liam screamed and the lightbulb shattered into pieces.

Then it clicked.

“Liam, honey,” Fix said, gripping his shoulders, desperately trying to get through to him. “I need you to calm down, okay? I know it’s hard, but I need you to listen to Daddy’s voice and breathe deep.”

“Can’t,” Liam gasped, clawing at Fix’s arms as he tried to get them around his body again. He tried to crawl into Fix’s lap.

The bedding flew off the bed and stuck to the ceiling.

Fix broke the curse. It felt like it stopped a bit slower. Like it faded out instead of shutting down like it usually did.

“Honey, I need you to try your best to calm down,” Fix said again.

“They’re back, Daddy,” Liam wailed. “They’re back.”

The contents of Liam’s bag flew all over the room, Liam’s notebook landing next to Fix.

One after another he broke the curses as his mind spun.

He couldn’t believe he hadn’t made the connection before. He couldn’t believe it had taken him this long to figure it out.

It was so fucking obvious.

The door to his room slammed open, then closed, then open again. Liam clutched at Fix’s shirt, crying and shaking.

Fix broke the curse.

“What the hell is going on in here?!” Ash bounded into his room, sleep-rumpled and annoyed, followed closely by Black, who looked like he hadn’t slept in about three days anyway.

“Black!” Fix called, breaking the curse with one hand while trying to hold Liam to his chest with the other. “Grab Liam’s notebook. Write down all the curses you see.”

Black rushed to do as he was told, eyes wide and curious as he took in the scene in front of him. A sudden screeching noise ripped through the air, deafening them all.

Fix broke the curse while begging Liam, “Honey, please, I need you to do everything you can to calm down. I know you’re scared but you’re my good boy and you’re so strong. You can do this for Daddy, right?”

Liam’s fingers clawed at Fix’s chest as he whimpered, struggling to breathe. The pillows behind their backs hardened like concrete blocks.

Fix broke the curse.

“What the fuck?” Ash asked again. “How is this happening? I thought we caught the guy?”

“Liam… Shit, there’s no easy way to say this but…” Fix started holding him as tightly as he could while maintaining eye contact with Ash. He had to be ready. For anything and everything that might happen. “Honey, you’re the one cursing yourself.”

There was a moment of silence so complete that Fix almost reached for his marker, thinking the oppressive lack of sound was another curse.

But then a bloodcurdling scream left Liam’s lips, and Fix’s world descended into madness.

The furniture started moving, there was a wind swirling their things around when all the windows were closed. Liam’s hair started changing colors, his pajamas got damp, it got incredibly hot for a moment, then unbearably cold.

Liam cried, shaking violently in Fix’s arms, and Fix couldn’t think of a single thing to make him settle enough for them to try and control it.

There was a glow around him now. Pale blue lingering just above his skin.

Black had given up writing down his curses and was just counting them now. Fix was desperately trying to break them as he felt the fatigue setting in. Ash did his best to curb the worst of it, stopping flying objects from hitting anyone and removing anything sharp from reach in case it came at any of them.

It was mayhem.

And it built.

One curse after another.

One scream after another.

Liam’s skin turned pale and clammy.

He was cold in Fix’s arms.

The curses kept coming.

“Fix, we have to do something!” Black called out. “There are so many of them, any one could be the final one.”

Fuck, Fix knew that. He knew and he was trying to think, but the desperation and fear clouded everything else. He was drowning in his own failure.

Another curse.

Fix broke it.

Liam’s breathing went from loud gasping to soft little hitches.

One more curse.

Fix broke it.

Liam’s heartbeat went from thundering to fluttering.

One more.

Broken. Fix could feel his cursemark tingling. He was overexerting himself, but he didn’t have the luxury of caring about it now.

The glow around Liam dimmed.

And Fix still had no answers.

“We have to get him to Nexus,” he said, pushing himself to the edge of his bed, Liam still clutched in his arms. Black and Ash both nodded without question, following after him as he carried Liam downstairs.

“Call the others,” Fix said, bundling Liam up as best as he could and breaking the curse on the buttons of his jacket that kept popping open.

Liam was nearly lifeless in his arms now. Head lolling to his chest. Cheeks sunken in and dark shadows around his eyes.

“I’ll text the group chat,” Ash said, pulling out his phone and typing as they stepped outside the house.

Fix rushed to his truck, stumbling when a wayward root wrapped around his ankle and tugged at his leg.

He broke the curse.

Black added it to the tally. The number was too high for comfort.

“You won’t be able to drive, hold him, and break at the same time,” Ash said. “Hop into mine.”

Fix nodded and headed for Ash’s car, panic making his throat close up. He couldn’t believe he’d missed this. How had he let it get this far?

“I can bring King once he wakes up from the pain meds,” Wren said, emerging from the shadows and walking toward them slowly. His eyes were wide and scared but his lips were set in a determined line. “I’ll take my car.”

“Wren,” Fix said, voice breaking. “You don’t have to…”

“I won’t go in unless I’m needed,” he said. “King and I will wait for you out front. I just…I want to be close. If you need me.”

“Move it, guys!” Ash called, swatting at a swarm of bugs that descended upon them.

“Be careful,” Wren said, watching to make sure the bugs were safe as Fix broke the curse that was drawing them in.

He carried Liam to Ash’s car and settled him in the back seat on his lap, marker in hand. Black hopped into the passenger seat and Wren carried King carefully into his own car.

They peeled out of their property and toward Nexus.

Liam was whining softly in Fix’s arms, breaking his heart. He was shivering almost violently now. His hair was damp and matted to his face and forehead.

Fix tried pushing it back. He tried cooling him down, he tried warming him up. Nothing was working. The curses kept coming, and Fix now felt every break like needles on his skin.

Ash’s taillights flickering on and off.

Car horn blaring without anyone touching it.

Seats flying back and forth and up and down.

Fix broke them all.

Liam grew quieter with each one. Despite his job, Fix didn’t have a lot of experience with death. Tangentially only, through Black. So it was no wonder he expected something violent and messy. Something scarring and traumatic. He expected a star as bright as Liam to go out in a blinding supernova that would burn Fix’s world forever.

Instead, Liam kept fading slowly, minute by minute, until he cried out softly and then went completely still, eyes open and staring into nothing.

The curses stopped.

The blood froze in Fix’s veins, the marker falling from his fingers as he clutched Liam’s limp body.

“LIAM!” Fix screamed his name, seeing the last of the blueish shine shimmer into nothingness. He lifted Liam’s head and cradled it against his chest. “Liam, honey, please don’t leave me. Don’t make me be without you, please. ASH!”

“Flooring it!” Ash said, pushing the gas pedal as far as he could, the engine screaming as the car hurtled toward Nexus.

They picked up a tail halfway there.

“Hart’s here,” Black said as the rumble of Midas’s car cut through the night. “Midas too. We’re all here, Fix. We’ll… We’re here.”

Fix didn’t hear a thing. He held Liam’s lifeless body close, rocking him back and forth, begging and pleading with him to just come back to him. He counted his shallow breaths.

One.

Too much time in between.

Then two.

Even more time.

Three.

He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against Liam’s temple.

“Please,” he whispered to him as the rumble of car engines drowned out everything else.

“We’re here,” Ash said, however much time later. Fix couldn’t tell. He grabbed his marker and pocketed it, vaguely aware that he didn’t have a lot left in him. But he’d give it all for Liam. “Hart called Gwen. She’s expecting us.”

They got out of the car, Fix clutching Liam in his arms as he rushed toward the entrance.

“My darling boy,” Gwen said when she saw him, eyes red-rimmed and desperate. “I prepared the containment room on the bottom floor. We’ll get him there and tested for power levels. We’ll see what’s happening and where to go from there.”

“Containment room?” Fix asked. “He’s not dangerous, Gwen. He’s not gonna blow up the facility.”

“He’s a danger to himself, Fix,” Gwen said. “We don’t know what he’s capable of, and based on what the others have said, he has no idea either. It’s best to keep him contained until we do. It’s for his own good.”

“I’m staying with him,” he said.

She shook her head. “Fix, be reasonable.”

“No,” he said, fear making him lash out. “No, he’s not going through another thing alone. I promised him I’d protect him and that’s what I’m gonna do.”

“Even if it means putting yourself in danger more than you already have?” she asked.

He nodded. “He’s the only thing that matters.”

She gave him a look he didn’t want to analyze at the moment before nodding shortly and leading them to the bottom floor.

Containment rooms.

There for Casters who couldn’t control their magic or didn’t know how yet.

There to stop them from hurting others, even if it meant hurting themselves.

The walls of the rooms wouldn’t allow any of the magic to escape. It would bounce and ricochet and inevitably hit the person it came from.

Gwen opened up the first of the rooms and Fix looked at his brothers for a moment.

“I get it,” Ash said. “I’d do the same for Morgan.”

“Decisions are easy when your values are clear,” Hart said.

Midas stood still, not saying a word. But the fact that he was there told Fix everything he needed to know.

“Can I take photos if you get blown up?” Black asked, and while everyone else might have seen it as cold, Fix saw the shine in Black’s eyes. The tremble of his lip. The desperate way he clung to the back of Ash’s shirt.

He nodded at them all and with a final deep breath, stepped inside the containment room. The heavy door screamed as it was bolted shut, and then it was just them.

“Put him on the table,” Gwen said, and Fix whirled around to find her standing in the room with him.

“Gwen…”

“Oh, Fix,” she said, eyes sad. “I know this team has hang-ups about this place. I know you all think we’re uncaring and cold. But…the well-being of young cursebreakers is the most important thing to us. Not a single caster was left in this room alone. Ever. I was there for every one of them.”

“I didn’t know,” Fix said.

“You didn’t have to know,” she said. “Now put him down. If there is any chance of saving him, we need to do it now.”

“I don’t know what to do, Gwen.” He set Liam down on a metal table in the middle of the room. “It’s supposed to be a myth. The Thousand Curses. But here we are. They don’t die because someone else is cursing them to death. They die because they do it to themselves until they drain their magical core.”

“That’s quite a theory, Fix.” She was puttering around the room, pulling out crystals and pouches of dried herbs, candles and rune stones. “Are you sure?”

“I can’t be, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. And if I’m right, I don’t know if there’s any magic left in him. He was so scared. In so much pain, Gwen.”

He fell to his knees next to Liam’s head, picking up a limp hand and holding it to his lips. He kissed the backs of Liam’s cool fingers, wishing he’d been faster. Smarter. Wishing he’d been good enough to figure it all out sooner.

“I’ll do whatever I can, Fix,” she said. “If there is any magic left in him, we’ll make sure to preserve it. To keep him alive.”

“How?” he whispered.

“Let me see where we are first,” she said, arranging things around Liam’s body. The herbs went close to his feet, the candles by his knees. Crystals were placed around his chest and rune stones over his head.

“Why are we testing his levels, Gwen?” Fix asked as the seconds ticked by, bringing them closer and closer to whatever outcome awaited Liam. Good or bad, it was looming. Fix could feel it creeping. Too close for comfort.

Gwen reached into one of her pockets and pulled out an instrument he hadn’t seen in years. It was a retractable metal rod with sigils carved into the sides of it. She stretched it out and placed it next to Liam’s hip. She held it steady for a second before releasing it. It balanced on its thin end, humming softly.

The items around Liam’s body reacted to it.

The herbs started releasing scents into the air, the candles lit on their own, the crystals glowed, and the rune stones activated around Liam’s head.

“You’ll have to let go now,” Gwen said when the items started releasing that same glow Liam’s skin had been giving off before it dimmed.

“No, Gwen.” Fix shook his head. He couldn’t let go. He’d never let go. He didn’t want to think about the future where he might have to. If Liam… No. He shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Cursebreakers have magic in them, Fix,” she said. “If we want to see Liam’s, we can’t have yours interfering.”

“I…” Fix struggled to breathe.

“It’ll only be for a moment,” she said. “I’ll give you the go ahead the second you can touch him again. Fix, this is for his own good. Now. Let go!”

Fix tore his hand away from Liam just in time for the beams of light to spread from the objects around Liam and connect at a point just above his sternum. Converged into one, the beam shot up in the air, running parallel to the metal rod, lighting up the sigils carved into it one by one.

The lowest one glowed the brightest, but three more lit up, getting fainter the higher they went. Once the final sigil was glowing, the light beam burst into a blanket of pale blue shimmer, settling over Liam like mist. It looked alive. Sentient. It reached glowy tendrils toward Liam, brushing against his skin, winding into his hair.

Liam’s magic was just as beautiful as he was, Fix thought, watching it. He ached to think something so stunning could cause him so much pain.

“Level four,” Gwen said, observing the magic. “Decent amount of power he had.”

“Had?” Fix asked.

She nodded. “I’m afraid a lot of it was drained. He has enough left to be a level one now.”

“So it’s not gone completely?” Fix asked, something like hope cautiously creeping into his heart.

“No.” She smiled at him. “We got to him in time. We have to keep his magic from spilling out accidentally until he can learn to control it and he should be perfectly okay.”

Fix slumped in relief, reaching for Liam before stopping himself.

“You can touch him now,” she said. “I’ll put this away and we’ll see about finding a magic dampener for him.”

She folded the rod together and broke the bond it had with Liam’s magic.

The moment the focus wasn’t on the rod anymore, the magic went wild again.

A blinding haze of light burst from Liam, lashing out and cursing everything in sight. The entire room looked alive with curses—objects flying, lights going on and off, floors shaking. It was as if the space was a playground and Liam’s magic was the rambunctious child needing to touch everything it found.

“Fix, we have to get out!” Gwen yelled at him, and he looked at her in horror.

“Okay.” He followed her when she rushed to the door, arms over her head as she avoided being blasted by Liam’s curses.

She opened the door and before she could realize what he was doing, Fix grabbed the key to the room from her hand, pushed her out, and slammed the door shut between them.

“FIX!” He heard Black calling out to him.

“Fix, no!” Hart sounded panicked, but he didn’t want to hear it.

He turned back to the center of the room where the love of his life was arching away from the table, magic seeping out of him, hurting him. Killing him.

Fix wouldn’t let him go through it alone.

If that meant going with him then so be it. Wasn’t like there would be a life for him after Liam.

“Find a dampener!” he called out to them as he knelt next to the table and gripped Liam’s hand in his. “Please just save him.”

Another burst of light spread from Liam’s chest.

Liam’s eyes snapped open.

He looked directly at Fix.

“Daddy,” he whispered, and Fix wanted to scream at how weak he sounded.

“Honey, I love you,” Fix said, kissing the back of his hand. “I love you. I’m here. Daddy’s got you.”

“Hurts,” Liam said.

Fix nodded. “I know. We’re gonna help you. You just have to hold on a little bit longer for me. Can you do that?”

“Tired.” Liam whimpered when his magic started a few more curses around the room.

“You’re so strong,” Fix said. “Stronger than anyone I know. You can do this.”

Liam’s chest heaved.

His eyes widened.

The fingers holding Fix’s hand tightened painfully.

A blinding light burst out of Liam.

Fix heard screams.

He threw himself over Liam’s body to cover him.

And then everything went black.