Chapter 26
I was on my knees, surrounded by my friends and their jeering laughter. The world beyond them was a dark expanse of nothingness. I wanted to dart between them, to run away, but they circled like vultures, blocking my escape again and again as they rained down insults like heavy hailstones.
“Pathetic,” Shar said. “I can’t believe I was friends with you.”
“I should have known better,” Touron added. “You’re weak.”
“More like selfish,” Curi said. “Taking what you need at the expense of others.”
“It’s your fault that Serath was taken,” Palia said. “He was so focused on protecting you that he failed to watch his back.”
They continued to chip away. To make digs at me. Their words more painful than any blade or barb.
No. Not true. Derek’s voice filled my head. My Cameron, you can’t believe this.
But I did; there was a part of me that felt all these things, that held on to them every fucking day.
These were my wounds come to haunt me, and as much as I wanted to fight back, to tell them to fuck off, the words refused to come because everything they said felt too real, too true, teasing the doubts and fears inside me.
Their voices grew louder, and I felt smaller and smaller until the buzz of Levi’s alarm jolted me back to the training room.
I stared at the mat, tracing the nicks and cracks in the fabric as I waited for my pulse to stop racing and the awfulness that had bloomed in my chest to dissipate. I couldn’t look at the others right now. I needed a moment to remind myself that none of what had just happened was real.
Derek put his hand on my shoulder. “It’s not true. None of it is true.”
I exhaled and nodded, because of course I knew this. But…but it felt true. Deep inside me, it fucking felt true.
Derek put his arm around me and pulled me into a sideways hug, resting his cheek on my head. “It’s all right now, my Cameron. It’s all right.”
I glanced at Shar, staring at the exit as if she wanted nothing more than to bolt.
I nudged Derek and whispered, “I think Shar could do with a hug too.”
He kissed the top of my head, then misted away only to materialize next to Shar and pull her into a hug.
She let out a soft squeak before relaxing against him and closing her eyes.
Curi watched them with an expression I couldn’t read. His gaze shifted to me then bounced quickly to Levi.
“How come you’re not training?” he asked Levi.
“I defeated my demons a long time ago,” Levi said.
“Is that what we’re doing?” Sharniza asked. “Defeating our demons?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Curi pulled himself to his feet and rolled his shoulders. “Then we best go again, after I get a latte.”
“I’ll come with you.” I made to stand, but he waved me off. “I’ll bring you one back.”
He didn’t look at me when he spoke, and my heart sank as he left without another word.
I caught Levi watching me. I didn’t want to see the pity on his face.
“Take thirty,” Levi said. “Get some air.”
I followed Derek and Shar to the door.
“Cam?” Levi called. “Can I have a minute?”
Great. I wasn’t in the mood for a pep talk or a lecture, or maybe both, but I had too much respect for what he was trying to do with us to tell him that.
Besides, right now, I was sucking hard at this mind walk stuff, and if I didn’t master my demons soon, then I wouldn’t make it out of the elite trial.
So I hung back while Shar and Derek left and waited for whatever pearls of wisdom Levi wanted to hurl at me.
“I wanted to apologize for earlier, at the tower,” Levi said. “I was an ass. Pushy and jealous. I had no right to be. I was selfish, focusing on my insecurities instead of supporting you.”
Well. I hadn’t expected that. “It’s okay. I understand. If roles had been reversed, I probably would have reacted the same.”
“No, Cam, you wouldn’t have. Because that isn’t who you are. You don’t have a selfish bone in your body.”
“I beg to differ. Recently, everything I do feels selfish, and my mind walk confirms it.”
His brow crinkled. “Your fears and doubts aren’t always real, Cameron.
They aren’t always valid. It’s up to you to weed out what is true and what is false and find the balance that will allow you to be the best version of yourself.
Our past experiences don’t have to define us.
” He smiled wryly. “We can take away from them what serves to make us better people and leave the chaff behind.”
I wanted so desperately to believe that, but… “And what if we can’t? What if I can’t?”
His smile fell. “Then you’ll fail. It’s as simple as that.”
Another round of mind walking, another failure, and two hours of physical training later, we were free to get on with the rest of our day.
My limbs had that satisfying ache that came from a good workout, and my head felt a little fuzzy, the kind of sensation that said I’d done a ton of mental acrobatics too.
All in all, I’d have been happy to head back to the tower, climb into bed, and dream my way to Serath.
But if I was going to save him, then dreams would have to wait. There was work to be done.
Shar dabbed at her brow. “Are you going to see Mirrowind?”
“Yeah. I’m going to shower and change first.” I lifted my armpit and sniffed. “Definitely.”
“We’ll come with you,” Derek said.
I slid a glance Curi’s way, waiting, hoping that he’d offer to come with, but he wasn’t on his mat; he was already at the door, then gone.
“You should talk to him,” Shar said softly.
“Why should she?” Levi said from the bench press across the room. “He’s acting like a child.”
“You don’t know what he feels,” Derek said.
He was right. We didn’t. Everyone had said their piece. Everyone except Curi. “I’ll meet you guys at the tower.”
I hurried outside and spotted Curi walking toward the tower. “Curi! Wait!” I jogged to catch up, and he slowed his pace to let me. “Can we talk?”
“We don’t have to do this, Cam. We’re good. Everything is good.”
“If everything was good, you wouldn’t be avoiding me.”
“I’m not. I…Look, I just, I need a little space, okay?”
The yawning pit inside me grew wider. “Oh…Of course. I…I’m sorry. Of course you do. After what I asked you to do—” I was an idiot. Of course, he was upset.
“This isn’t about that.” He came to halt and turned to face me. “The mind walk today was…difficult, and it centered on you. I just need…I need a little space today. Okay?”
I’d been in his mind walk? “Did I hurt you? Did I hurt you in the mind walk?”
“No, Cameron. I hurt myself.”
Because of me…He hurt because of me. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. It isn’t real.”
“But it feels real.”
“Yeah.” He reached out to touch my cheek but thought better of it and pulled back his hand. “Caramel lattes tomorrow morning and you can fill me in on whatever Mirrowind says today.”
I nodded, unable to speak past the stupid lump in my throat.
He broke away and jogged toward the tower, beautiful blue hair gleaming in the red rays of the setting sun, and even though I was headed there too, I waited for a couple of minutes before following.
I was filling a takeaway mug with coffee to take to the main building with me when Orix entered the kitchen.
“How did training go?” he asked.
Ah, so many ways to answer that one, but I didn’t have the energy for a long conversation. “Good.”
“And everything else?”
“It’s fine. We’re fine. I’m actually about to go look for Mirrowind now, so hopefully I’ll have answers and solutions too.”
“Don’t get twisted up if she can’t help,” Orix said. “We’ll figure something out regardless.”
I needed the vote of confidence right now. “I know, I just…I can’t risk failing the elite trial. Romi and Serath are depending on me. On us.”
“Not just them,” Orix said. “Everyone. We’re tasked with bringing down the graynite alpha, Cam. Bringing back Romi and Serath are bonus actions, not the main mission. You do realize that, don’t you?”
Ice filled my veins, because no, I hadn’t been thinking in that way.
For me, Serath and Romi were the mission, and my face must have communicated that because Orix pressed his lips together, breathing raggedly through his nose in a way that told me he was about to deliver some serious home truths that I probably wouldn’t want to hear.
“You’re not a fool, Cameron. You’ve hunted, you know how priorities in the field work. The main objective must always come first. The secondary objectives can be completed afterward. The lives of the many over the lives of the few.”
A bitter tang stained the back of my throat. “You’re saying Romi and Serath are dispensable.”
He shook his head. “Not to me. Never to me, but for the purpose of this mission, yes. If we must choose between taking down the alpha and extraction, then we choose taking down the alpha.”
Choose? How could I choose? “I’m not going to leave them there. I won’t do it.”
His lips thinned. “Then you’ll end up getting us all killed. If we’re not on the same page, then we will fail. All of us.”
“The others…you spoke to them already, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “I did.”
“But what do they care? Romi is my brother, and Serath is my mate. I’m the one with everything to lose here.”
“Listen to yourself, Cameron. Would you really put their lives above the lives of every supernatural and human in our world?”
A vise tightened around my lungs because for a moment only one word echoed in my mind. Yes . Yes, in the moment I might just do that. I grabbed hold of the counter, exhaling in shock at the revelation.
“Cameron…” Orix moved closer. “Both Romi and Serath knew the risks when becoming an elite. We are the front line. We are a weapon. Without us there is no hope. They knew what the elite team’s sole objective was—to eliminate the alpha.
That is what we were chosen to do; everything else is filler.
You need to understand this too.” He pressed his lips together for a beat as if choosing his words before continuing.
“I was going to wait until after the trial to tell you and the team this, but I think you need to hear it now.”
My scalp pricked. “What? What is it?”
“All this time we’ve been prevented from attacking the graynites on their own turf because of a ward they have over their city, but that’s changed.
It turns out the prototype that Prasan was working on was a dud, probably deliberate on his part, but the science and theory behind it was sound enough for another tech to run with, and we now have a mini disrupter.
According to your sire, this other device has been in production for some time, even before Romi was taken. ”
“Prasan’s prototype helped them fix their version?”
“Yes.”
So my father had been confident that we might have a way past the wards when he asked me to run for elite.
“It won’t take down the whole ward,” Orix said.
“But we can punch a hole into it. We can get into their territory without them knowing. We can find the alpha and take him down. And everything must be focused on that objective because we only get one shot. One use of the machine and then it’s over. Do you understand?”
He wanted me to agree to put Romi and Serath second, leave them behind or let them die if it came to a choice between saving them or killing the alpha. I wasn’t sure I could do that.
“I…I should get going.” I hurried toward the exit.
Orix gently gripped my arm. “You can’t run from this, Cameron. If you do, you could end up getting us all killed.”
I looked up into his eyes, filled with doubts and concerns, and my gut twisted. “I know. I just…I need a little time.”
“There isn’t much of that left. Make sure you’ve reconciled with the idea before stepping into the trial.” He released me, and I ducked out of the room, eager to get away from him and his pointed words.
There would be no elite team if I failed the trial, and that’s exactly what would happen if I couldn’t get the fever under control.
That would have to be my first concern. The rest would have to wait.