Chapter 82
After setting his knitting hooks aside, Ender held up the booties to show Cyrus, as he happily chimed, “First pair done!”
The Fate, who had been putting clothes away in one of the dressers, walked over and took one, a smile on his face. “They are so cute. What…” The Cryptid trailed off when Ender’s phone started ringing.
Frowning, he tossed the bootie he still had in his hand aside, and snagged it off the nightstand. Releasing the screen, he answered, “What’s up, Toddles?”
“Killian disappeared,” Soren said, his accent out.
His vision spun, going black for a moment, as his brain tried to make sense of what his brother had just said. Struggling to maintain Cyrus’ increasingly concerned gaze, his hands started to shake as his breathing sped up.
Ender did his best to not drop the phone as he put it on speaker, before almost whispering, “What did you just say?”
“I’m sorry, Ender. He was there one moment, and then gone the next!”
Cyrus blanched at the words, the man’s hand clenching around the baby bootie as the Fate’s whole body became stiff.
Fighting back the fear that came with the Harpy’s words, he screamed, “Did you look away?!”
“No, no, that’s not what I’m saying!”
“Then what the fuck are you saying, Soren?! What the fuck happened?!”
Instead of the Harpy responding, Quill’s voice came over the phone, the younger Fate sounding seconds away from losing it. “I’m sorry. I’m so s-sorry. He was—he was right in front of our eyes, Ender! He was right there! And then h-he wasn’t. It wasn’t on purpose! I swear! Killian was right there!”
“He just…blinked away,” Cyrus rasped, sounding lost.
“Yes…” Soren said.
“I should have done something. I should have done something. I’m sorry.
I’m sorry—ah…I’m sorry. It wasn’t me. I didn’t…
It wasn’t… He was right there! Took him—T-they took him!
Is…is he back?” Quill whimpered, babbling in the background.
His last words were so soft and filled with fear, he’d barely heard them, but Ender had.
And each one made him flinch, hitting far too close to home.
From one blink…one place, then not… NO! Don’t go there, don’t go there, Ender, he begged, as he shoved back the memories that tried to claw their way up, while dread filled his stomach. But alongside the dread, slowly twisting in, was fury.
HOW DARE THEY?! They wouldn’t… Not again—they would not do this to him again! Ender wouldn’t let them. They had taken too much from him already! They would not take anyone else!
“I didn’t blink…Ender,” Soren croaked. “I promise you, there wasn’t even a second where he was out of my sight.”
Ender’s eyes fluttered closed for a moment as tears filled them, and he took a shuddered breath. He held onto his sanity by desperately fueling the anger inside him with all they had done, with all the losses he had to mourn. When he opened them again, he carefully said, “Come back, now.”
“Maybe we should try—”
“But you already did, didn’t you, Soren? I’m not the first person you called, am I?”
The first person the Harpy had likely called would have been Tracy ‘Tink’ Jessux, the person in charge of the Intelligence Command Center when Ender wasn’t there.
“You… No, you’re not, but Tink spotted other Sirens near the area. If we keep—”
“Come back, now! There is no point risking running off in the wrong direction, when we don’t know where the fuck they are! And don’t argue, we don’t have time. We need to plan!” Ender snapped with a hiss.
“Coming.”
The phone slipped from his hand as the Harpy hung up, and swallowing hard, he eyed Cyrus. The Fate was still standing there, but his eyes were red with unshed tears, and his jaw was clenched tight, his fangs grinding together.
The man’s fists were shaking, and Cyrus seemed to be struggling to suppress his rage as he slowly ground out, “Someone in my family…took him… No—hah—someone in MY family helped those BASTARDS take him! The same bastards who abused him, and have been threatening him his whole fucking life!”
The Fate’s face twisted with this look of complete and utter betrayal and hurt as a tear broke free. Ender’s heart clenched painfully as he recognized the look, it was one he’d been forced to wear for far too long.
Taking another shuddered breath, he reached out and grabbed hold of the hand he knew was clenched around the bootie, and rasped, “We will find him. We won’t stop until we do.”
When Cyrus’ jaw popped as it clenched further, he tugged the man down to him and cupped his face with both hands, as he gave him a hard but brief kiss on lips, before hissing, “We will FIND him, I promise you!”
Cyrus stared into his eyes, his mouth trembling. But then his face crumbled further, more tears trailing down as he finally nodded.
Ender pressed his forehead against Cyrus’. “WE will find him, together.”
“T-together,” Cyrus agreed, his voice shaking.
He caressed the side of the man’s face. “Yes, together we will take back what is ours, and crush those sick, water-dwelling twisted fucks, along with the bastards who betrayed you, so they can never touch what is ours again!”
“Yes,” the Fate murmured back, his voice slightly garbled, before he started to lean in to kiss him again.
But the man’s lips never touched his, because Cyrus suddenly jerked back from his hold with wide terror-filled eyes, and then…he was gone.
“Cyrus?!” Ender croaked, his hand shaking as he reached toward nothing. “Cyrus!” he called out again.
The tears he’d been holding back trickled free, while his gaze flicked around looking for a man who was no longer there.
“No, no, no, no, no, not again! Not again—ah!” Ender curled in on himself, as he clutched at his chest when pain radiated from it.
He desperately tried to hold on to the burning hatred and rage, but Ender failed, fear winning out. Fear and loss, both icy cold to him, spread through his body. Digging deep, it rooted out every bit of warmth he had left.
“Cyrus! Killian,” Ender sobbed, before gasping for air as breathing became difficult with how tightly his insides were clenched.
Slamming his eyes shut on a desperate scream, he willed himself to wake up, for him to open his eyes and find them still there. Ender sobbed harder when he did it and only found himself still alone, in his nest with his eggs.
The tears trailing down his face felt boiling, yet the rest of him was… “Cold…” Ender whimpered. “I’m…cold…”
So very cold…
THE END