Chapter 8
Cyrus sat there in the back of the vehicle, trying to not think as he was driven to Haybridge Launch Pad—one of the Cryptid Enforcement Bureau’s private and rarely used shuttle launch sites nearest to them in Kansas.
Numerous calls had all been made over the last hour.
With plans set, others were now likely reaching their own launch pads to follow any possible leads and paths.
But he knew, or at least he hoped he knew, that the path he managed to see, after months of searching, hadn’t changed with his interference of the timeline.
Cyrus was worried though. He had been sure of too much.
He had, and still was, assuming too much!
Because despite what he’d done, what had happened and had been changed already, he was going forward as if there was no possibility that the trafficker who had taken Killian had changed from Riker Amarant—a man who went by the codename Armor Ranti.
And with that shaky fucking belief, he was going to follow the most likely path that made sense, and try not to let the fear of being wrong change his course. Because it was the only hope he had.
But the reality was that he knew nothing. Cyrus had once used the threads to see as much as he could, but now that he’d defied them and bent them to his will, he could barely see anything…
He was going in blind… Trusting things not to change when one thing, one horrible thing, had already shifted. And that was the thing about changing fate, the result was always an endless shifting of threads. And when he had done what he’d done…he had dragged Skya into the mess.
She…she shouldn’t have been with Killian.
Skya wasn’t supposed to be taken… Even though he hadn’t managed to see the exact moment they’d grabbed Killian, even on the original timeline, Cyrus knew.
The threads had mockingly let him know through feeling alone that Skya had been taken because HE had interfered.
And all he could do now was pray to the threads that his greed and selfishness hadn’t just sacrificed her life for Killian’s. Cyrus…wasn’t sure he could live with himself if that was the case…
How was he even supposed to face Severo and Seri? His jaw clenched, while his fangs ground together. Cyrus couldn’t stop his body from stiffening when he reached the finding out stage of that question, as the car pulled through the gate and neared the loading area for the shuttle.
Severo and Seri were right there waiting for him, looking as if they were barely holding it together. Back in the distance was the large, spinning top-like spaceship that would take them off this planet. Based on the low amount of activity near it, he could tell they were almost ready to leave.
As soon as the vehicle came to a stop, Cyrus opened the door and hopped out. But he only managed to take a few steps before Severo confronted him like a raging bull. “DID YOU KNOW?!”
Staring down into the man’s enraged face, Cyrus felt the confession on the tip of his tongue, but held it back. His self-righteous fucking principles may have already been shot to hell, but he couldn’t tell them…not here, not with all the people running around.
“I—” Cyrus’ words cut off, his eyes widening when Seri shoved Severo out of the way and launched himself at him.
The short man gripped the front of his shirt as he screamed, his voice filled with pain. “ANSWER US!? WHAT DO YOU KNOW?!”
Staring down into his teary golden gaze, the devastation on the Nymph’s face was clear. As the man’s hands trembled where they grasped him tightly, Cyrus finally forced himself to say, “I’m sorry, I can’t see anything. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Seri let out a despair-filled sob, his hands dropping to his sides. The Water Nymph sagged where he stood, and as he appeared to break down further, Severo tugged the man into his arms.
Meeting the Shadow Dweller’s gaze over Seri’s head, Cyrus flinched at the suspicion he saw there—the doubt, the hurt, and the fear. Worse, it was all deserved. Severo had no reason to trust him. Hell, Cyrus didn’t even trust himself anymore.
Their relationship, their friendship, had barely recovered, if it even had, and once Severo knew what he had done, it likely never would.
Cyrus almost sighed in relief when Severo’s accusing gaze flicked away, the man turning his full focus on comforting the small Nymph.
Not wanting to disturb them further, he stood there silent and unmoving, not even commenting when the Cryptid who drove him there deposited his bags by his side. But he was eventually forced to when the Loading Foreman gave the signal that it was nearing launch time. “We need to go.”
Severo didn’t even glance his way, the Dweller just murmured something softly to Seri, before the two finally parted.
“We will do everything we can to get Skya back, I promise you,” Cyrus rasped, before turning away from the distraught couple, and heading towards the craft.
He didn’t need to look back to see if Severo had followed, because he could feel the Shadow Dweller’s gaze trying to burn a hole into his back.
Severo tried his best to pay attention to the meeting that was going on around him, but he couldn’t seem to get himself to look away from Cyrus. The man knew something! His voice had shaken as he’d replied to Seri earlier.
What was the point in even talking now?! They had a path, they knew what the others were doing!? WHY FUCKING DELAY?!
He felt so angry. Poor Seri. It hurt to walk away…but one of them had to go… He HAD to be there doing something! Skya…
The bastards had taken his gummy bear. His precious baby.
His sweet, innocent child. And here he was, expected to fucking listen to them go on and on about the trafficker they believed they were going after, a trafficker they should have shut down years ago.
But no, the Grimms didn’t think it warranted the time, money, and efforts it would take to track and accurately predict where these fuckers would go, so now his child, and a lifelong friend, had been taken, to have the void knows what done to them.
And his friend KNEW something… Severo just wasn’t sure he’d be able to get past it once he finally found out.
The second the meeting ended, he was up on his feet, following after Cyrus, through the purple trimmed, chrome halls. When the man walked into what was clearly his private quarters, based on the fact that there was a bed, he shoved his friend forward, growling, “What are you hiding?!”
The door sealed behind him as he walked fully into the room. Cyrus almost hesitantly straightened and looked back. Severo’s stomach dropped when he saw the fear there…the guilt. Yet, at the same time, he didn’t think he had ever seen the man look so lost.
He struggled to form words as he stared at the Fate, his chest aching.
Cyrus was his friend, his best friend…and dammit, part of him wanted to comfort the man.
Killian had been taken, for fuck’s sake!
Cyrus loved the Siren with all his heart, always had, and they were all friends…
But he couldn’t, not with Skya gone too…
Severo couldn’t risk trusting the man right now, and it killed part of him to even think that.
“What is it? Tell me!” he snapped, as tears started to form in his eyes. Much more softly, he begged, “Please, just tell me you had nothing to do with this…”
Cyrus’ face pinched, but before he could say something, they both were looking up as the speakers clicked, alerting them to an upcoming announcement.
“This is Captain Adam Bricker speaking. Make sure all of your belongings are secure, and at this time, buckle up in either a seated or fully reclined position. Launch will commence in five minutes. Remember to remain buckled until we have left the earth’s atmosphere, and the gravity stabilizers have activated. ”
They glanced at each other before looking around the room.
With curved chrome walls and black metal floors, the room was decorated in a mix of greens, purples, and black, which was the common coloring for most Bureau-owned shit.
It was an open floored space, aside from the doorway that likely led to a bathroom.
There was a living room with purple couches as you entered, a kitchenette to the right, and a bedroom taking up the back half.
The curved wall behind the bed had a shuttered window that ran the width of it.
In the kitchen area, there were four chairs with harnesses attached, and it looked like there was possibly a table beneath the floor that would fold up between them. They remained quiet as they sat down across from each other and strapped themselves in.
The silence continued for a bit longer, but when the ship started to launch upward, Cyrus slowly started to talk. “I don’t know…what is going to happen. And I didn’t know Skya would be taken, but the fact that she was—” The man swallowed hard. “—is undoubtedly my fault.”
His anger tried to boil over at the admission, but he held it back because he still had too many questions. “Explain,” Severo demanded stiffly.
The man swallowed again, his eyes going glossy.
“A little over four months ago, I walked into Killian’s office, and before even reaching his desk, instead of seeing his face, I suddenly saw…
a skull with a bullet hole. The thread coming directly from his heart was black where it connected…
I saw it, and I…” Cyrus confessed, his voice becoming shakier with each word, before finally trailing off.
Severo stared wide-eyed now, his anger having been replaced by shock. “You changed it…his fate.”
The man nodded. The tears in the Fate’s eyes broke free, right before Cyrus blurted, “I swear, I didn’t know about Skya. I looked and looked, and tried to see anything I could about what was going to happen, about what would have happened if I had done nothing! But…I couldn’t see anything.
“It took everything I had just to see what would have happened, and even then, it was just jumbled clips. It’s still just jumbled clips, with so much fucking missing. It’s like once I changed the threads, they refused to show me, not only what could have been, but what is actually going to happen!
“But Skya was not part of the original timeline. She was not supposed to be taken with him. She wasn’t there… I’m so sorry, Severo, that what I did put her there.”
As the shuttle left Earth’s atmosphere, the gravity stabilizers turning on, they went quiet again.
Severo stared at the man as he continued to cry.
He couldn’t ever recall seeing the man look so broken…
But he wasn’t sure what to feel. He was still angry…
he felt it. And knowing what he did now, part of him wanted to blame Cyrus.
When he stayed silent, still trying to figure out how to fucking respond or react, Cyrus sniffed and rasped, “I know what you must be thinking. Some friend I am. And I haven’t been a good friend.
I’m the worst of hypocrites. I always went on and on about my rules…
About picking the best fucking option. I lectured you, and decided for you, and those you cared about…
But I just…I couldn’t…I couldn’t—” The man let out a soft distressed sound, shaking his head. “I couldn’t let him die… I couldn’t.”
Severo sighed. He was angry, yet…hell. Unbuckling the harness, Severo strode the short distance to the still seated man and hugged him, his own tears spilling over. “You did the right thing.”
The larger man flinched at his words, as if he’d hit him. “What? How can you say that?!” The Fate truly meant the question. Cyrus sounded so damn lost.
He pulled away and pinched the Cryptid’s nose.
“I’m the one who is supposed to cry about shit.
” Cyrus batted his hands away, but his tears didn’t slow.
Sighing again, Severo plopped down in the seat next to the man.
“I could blame you. Part of me thinks I should, but the fact is, if you had told me what you saw, I would have made you fix it. Friends don’t let friends die when they can stop it. ”
“I usually don’t see it…when the person is close to me. Not the deaths, not this blatantly, not when there is no other path. I don’t know why they showed me. I wasn’t even…looking, but they did, and I didn’t hesitate to change it, to fix it.”
Severo knew the man wasn’t lying. He had once wondered if perhaps Cyrus had been, that the Fate had just been able to cruelly ignore whatever he saw, but seeing him break down like this, he knew Cyrus was telling the truth.
“Maybe they showed you so you could fix it?” Severo offered slowly.
“Then why block me?! Why punish me for doing what they wanted?! Why won’t they just show me WHAT is going to happen?!” Cyrus started to sob, the man hunching down, his head in his hands. “I’m sorry… If anything happens to Skya…I won’t…I won’t forgive myself… I’ll—”
“You’ll do nothing, you hear me, Cyrus Grimm. This is not your fault. But even if it was, I forgive you.” He gripped the Fate’s shoulder. “I forgive you, Cyrus. You just did what anyone would do when faced with the option of doing nothing or saving the person they love.”
Sniffing hard, the man’s head lifted. Cyrus’ eyes were red from crying, and his friend didn’t look any less lost. “I don’t understand that… I—how could you? After knowing what a fucking hypocrite I am?! How could you, after I did this?!”
“Cyrus, do you know why, after learning you chose to let Seri be taken—even after we talked—the reason why I couldn’t fully let it go?”
The man smiled sadly. “I knew you hadn’t.”
“Yeah, I said I did, but I lied. I hadn’t actually let it go until this very moment.
I hadn’t fully trusted you again until now.
And do you know why, Cyrus?” He sniffled, rubbing a few tears away.
“It’s because when you told me that you would never sit back and let the people you care about die, if you could change it, I didn’t believe you. But I do now.”
Cyrus stared, the man’s tears slowly drying up.
“You still shouldn’t…” The Fate let out a bitter laugh.
“Because I don’t…ha—I can’t say what I will do anymore…
I don’t…I don’t know… I don’t know what…
or who I am now that I don’t have those self-righteous principles to cling to anymore.
And I don’t know what the consequences of this will be…
beyond that Killian will at least survive whatever is about to happen… ”