Chapter 17
The sound reached me before anything else.
Worse than the alarm. The kind of destruction that comes when somebody stops caring about controlling their own strength and starts caring only about getting out.
I was still half a hallway from the common room when I heard furniture crashing, somebody cursing while they tried to manage a beast that couldn't be managed.
Then there was a voice that sounded like Trux and wasn't quite.
My body moved before my brain caught up. I found the room where the noise came from. The door opened onto chaos. The furniture shoved to the walls in a wide ring, the center cleared on purpose so the thing Trux had become could move without breaking anything else that mattered.
Seph stood near the far wall, hands out in the universal don't come closer.
Rhiot off at an angle, far enough not to be a threat, close enough to move.
Grayson with his eyes closed, holding some psychic line I couldn't see.
Ryker stood off to the side with dread all over his face even though he looked ready to interfere if needed.
Kearan stood between Trux and the rest of the room, not blocking the space. Kearan chanted, his hands moving in a way that drew the energy out of Trux. All of that pent up energy had to go somewhere, and that somewhere was Kearan's own body.
I understood what I was looking at half a second after I saw it, and the understanding left me feeling sick.
Kearan's whole frame was locked, shoulders braced so hard the tension climbed the back of his neck.
His hands were spread, palms out, and there was something in the air between him and Trux, something that pulled, and every pull made his breath hitch.
Trux was caught between forms. That was the thing that made the room freeze.
Not a man, not a raccoon, but some weird stuttering between the two.
And his eyes were wrong. I'd seen Trux angry.
I'd never seen his eyes go that flat black that meant the human part had retreated somewhere deep and something else was driving.
"Parker," Seph said, sharp. "Stay back."
I didn't stop. Stay back meant Kearan was alone in there, and when Trux got worse, and he was about to, there'd be nobody to pull Kearan out if he went past what his body could take.
Trux's head swung toward me. The whole room stopped existing for him in that second, the way it does when a predator locks on. His body rotated toward me in jerks, several systems fighting over one shape, and the rumble in his chest climbed into something that was a growl.
"Trux." My voice came out level, because I didn't have the bandwidth to be scared in a way that would stop me. The fear was there, a hum under everything, but it was background. "Hey. Look at me."
His jaw spasmed. He was in there even though he bared his elongated canines in a threatening hiss. That was the worst of it, knowing Trux was still present enough to feel himself losing.
Kearan made a small, controlled sound as he doubled his efforts. His fingers trembled.
"Stay back," Grayson said without opening his eyes, his voice tight. "He's not reading your presence right. He's not aware enough to know it's you."
"He's in there," I said, still moving. Slow enough not to trip the predator, but committed enough that he'd know I wasn't going to stop. "You're still in there, Trux. I know you are."
The thing wearing him lunged.
Not a calculated attack. Closer to desperation, a creature that had been caged too long feeling the cage crack. He had me by the shoulders before I could move my feet, his grip rough enough that I felt every finger through my shirt.
Here's what nobody tells you about getting grabbed by someone mid-berserk. There's a kind of panic that comes before the real panic, and then a place past it where panic stops mattering because you've already committed to how this goes.
I loved him. That was the decision I made. The Hesolga was driving him, but underneath it was Trux, and Trux would never hurt me. Not the parts that mattered.
"I love you," I said, and meant all of it. "I know you're in there. I know you'd never hurt me. So come back."
The grip didn't loosen. If anything it tightened. But the black in his eyes stuttered, and for about a second I saw something that looked like the man under the thing.
"Come back to me Trux."
Kearan was there before I caught the movement. His hand hit Trux's arm, a flash that made my stomach drop. Then Trux went limp, his grip releasing as his consciousness went out and Kearan took him under the power of his magick.
I felt him go loose in my arms. That was the part that broke something in me, watching someone hand over consciousness because staying awake cost too much.
Kearan didn't stop. His hands kept moving in patterns I didn't know, his mouth shaping words that didn't make sense. His whole body shook, not from cold but from everything he'd pulled out of Trux before I even got there. Ryker moved in and helped me lower Trux to the floor. Still breathing.
Kearan finished. The last word dropped, and he sat down, not because he chose to but because there was nothing left holding him up. He hit the floor hard enough that it should have hurt and didn't flinch, because he was too exhausted.
Seph had a hand over her mouth. Rhiot was rigid, determining on how much longer this stayed survivable. Grayson's eyes were open now, holding something that looked like understanding and nothing like hope.
"Next time," Grayson said, flat. "Next time that happens, we might not have enough left in him to pull it off."
Nobody argued. Nobody offered comfort. The situation was urgent.
Ryker squeezed my shoulder and moved to check Kearan's vitals, the hacker checking the healer, everything was backward. I lowered myself onto the floor beside Kearan. Not asking anything. Not trying to fix anything. Just there, the one thing in the room that didn't need him to hold it together.
He reached out. His hand found mine. Not a move toward me, just a hand reaching for the one solid thing that wasn't asking him to be anything other than what he'd become. His hand was shaking. I didn't say anything. I held on.
The room emptied out. Seph wanted to stay; Grayson put a hand on her shoulder and walked her out, anyway.
Kearan still hadn't let go of my hand. The grip was loose because he didn't have anything else, but it was there, as if letting go meant he wouldn't be able to grab on again.
"You still in there?" I asked.
He blinked. Once. It was enough. His skin had gone gray, the color drained out and replaced with something closer to ash, his breathing shallow, running on the minimum to stay alive.
I didn't ask if he was okay. Didn't ask if he needed water or food or a medic.
Just held his hand while the quiet settled over the room.
Time moved strange. Five minutes, maybe twenty. His breathing deepened, the gray resolving a little as his body remembered how to move oxygen.
"It's getting worse," he said, voice torn. "The Hesolga. I could feel the difference from last time, pulling it out of him. Next time he goes like that, I might not get it all out."
"Then we don't let there be a next time," I said.
He turned his head to look at me, and the rawness in his face said he heard the thing under it.
"I know what that means," a breath. "And I might not survive the next absorption. There's only so much one person takes on before it breaks them."
I squeezed his hand.
"Your hand is cold," he said, and his voice had something in it I didn't recognize. Present, instead of floating somewhere above his body.
"So's yours."
"We should fix that." I watched him take a self analysis of his condition and decide it was worth it.
He moved, just enough to pull me closer without either of us standing, and his arm came around my back with the care of a man terrified of crushing something fragile. I put my head against his shoulder.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"For what."
"For being too wrung out to actually feel this. You deserve someone who can be here for it. I'm running on fumes."
"You're here. That's what matters."
He rested his head against mine. His heartbeat came through where I leaned on his chest, strong, still working despite everything.
"I love you," he said, and it came out like it was being pulled from him, like he couldn't afford to hold it anymore, like saying it was the only way to be sure he'd remember it if he got worse. "I love you, and I'm terrified."
"I love you too."
"Say it like you mean it. Not like you're comforting me. Like you're telling me something I need to know."
I sat up enough to really look at him, at the person under the healer.
"I love you," I said. "Not despite the crisis.
Not in spite of you being scared. I love you because you're still here.
Because you could've let go of Trux and you didn't. Because you could've let me stand there and get grabbed and you didn't. I love you because you keep choosing people, over and over, and it costs you everything, and you choose them anyway. "
His arm tightened.
"That's the scariest part," he said. "You love me for the exact thing that's going to destroy me."
"Then we survive it, anyway."
He pulled me back against his chest. "When the bond completes," he said into the quiet, "you'll feel exactly what I feel. You'll know what it costs. You'll carry it with me."
"Yes."
"And you won't try to make me stop. You won't ask me to choose myself over the team."
"No."
"Good. Because I wouldn't stop anyway."
I knew that. I also knew that him knowing I knew, that I wasn't loving him on the condition he'd change, was the thing that made it survivable. It wasn't much. But it was all we had right now.