Chapter 20 #2
“There’s no use fighting, Damir,” Kellan said. “I taught you that long ago.”
“Why are you doing this?” Teddy demanded. “Why did you choose me?”
Kellan’s typing paused. “Because it could never be anyone else.”
“So what? You’re going to magically enhance me? Why would you do that if you’re planning to kill me? Research?”
“Because you need to be at your strongest.”
“But why?”
“Because you were the one I chose!” Kellan yelled, pushing a rolling cart full of syringes aside to clatter into a wall. “After years of watching, of selecting. You were the best. I need the best. I can only use the best. Don’t you understand?”
Teddy’s mind raced and his heart pounded in terror. He needed to buy time, and he needed answers if he ever got out of this alive.
“No, I don’t,” he said. “I don’t understand any of this. You spent years torturing me, hurting me. For what?”
“To make sure you stayed,” Kellan said. “I needed to keep you close for when this all finally came together.”
“Your drug ring?” Teddy asked.
“The drug getting out was a side effect.” Kellan waved a hand. “A needed one, for the money and connections. I promised them power and they gave me the resources I lacked to make what I truly needed. What I could use to make a real difference.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“EVERYTHING!” Kellan said loudly, making Teddy flinch. “Your magic needs to be at its highest. At its strongest!”
“For what?” Teddy asked. “Cursebreaker magic isn’t even active. I can’t do anything but break curses with it.”
“See?!” Kellan whirled around, pointing at Teddy. “You don’t even know what you can do with it. So much of it, and it’s WASTED on you! You’ll be better off without it.”
Teddy froze, his heart stopping for a second before resuming to drum so loudly he thought it would choke him.
“You want my magic,” he breathed out, horrified by the thought. Disgusted by the perversion of it.
Kellan grabbed his face, nails digging into his flesh. “I want everything.”
“You’re insane.”
“You would say that,” Kellan spat. “You, who have never had to struggle or fight.”
“What are you talking about? I’ve been fighting you for as long as I can remember.
I’ve fought and struggled my whole life, being told what I had to do from the time I was born.
Being told that I couldn’t even love who I chose,” Teddy snarled, years of pain and agony pouring out.
“What have you had to struggle for? You’re a caster, you’re at the top of the world order.
What could you possibly need to fight for?
More power? Why isn’t what you have enough? ”
“BECAUSE THEY LOOK DOWN ON ME!”
Teddy caught his breath as Kellan fisted a hand in his hair viciously, spittle flying into his face.
“Don’t you understand that caster ranks are like currency? If you’re not at the top, then they treat you like less than a cursebreaker. You’re there to be walked on. Discarded as useless.”
“You’re an instructor, you have to be at least level—” Teddy cut himself off. “Unless you’re not. Unless they hired you despite you being a lower level.”
“My research and designs were coveted by my higher-ups. They offered me a position at the facility to hand it over,” Kellan said. “But they never treated me as their equal. They always saw me as beneath them. Beneath people like you. They buried my hard work. Said it was dangerous!”
“If you wanted more power then why didn’t you target a caster?”
“Because they wouldn’t have cared. If I had simply acquired power they would still look down on me. I need something more. Something you have.”
“What are you talking about?”
“People love you, Damir. Haven’t you realized?”
“W-what?”
“All your life, even the top casters liked you. You move through the world with doors swinging open for you. Smiles follow you around. People want to fucking be around you not because of what they can get from you, but because of YOU! You know how to speak to anyone. How to fit in no matter the circumstances. People accept you because they like you.”
“That isn’t magic. It’s just who I am.”
“So blissfully ignorant,” Kellan said. “What do you think determines what type of curse you’d be best suited for?
Why do you think your feral little beast is an animal specialist and your social butterfly self is in interpersonal?
Why the fuck would you ever think any of it is random or accidental? ”
“I—”
“You got cause and effect in the wrong order,” Kellan said. “Your personality isn’t a product of your magic, it’s the other way around.”
“You can’t take that from someone, Kellan,” Teddy said desperately.
“Can’t you?”
He shoved himself off of Teddy and walked to a small medical fridge, drawing out a vial and a syringe.
Teddy began to struggle again.
“You know, that bird your lover likes so much was my first success,” Kellan said.
Teddy stilled. “You cursed Blu?”
“It has wonderful mimicking abilities, doesn’t it?”
He flicked the needle and tested it, liquid spraying out of the end. Teddy swallowed as Kellan walked closer.
“You can’t do this.”
“Who says I can’t?”
“Kellan—”
“Be good and hold still. It won’t hurt…much.”
“Kellan, please, don’t,” he said, straining away as the needle drew closer to his neck.
“Don’t worry. You’ll live on, in a way. You’ll always be with me. We just need to do some tests first. It won’t hurt a bit.”
The needle pierced skin and Teddy screamed.