Chapter 20
20
C ass might be faster and stronger than a regular human, but JJ has his Sanctum enchantments and raw adrenaline on his side. He reaches Desi a split second before Cass does and sweeps her into his arms, whirling around to calculate their odds. Five strike teams, fifteen trained hunters, multiple escape routes cut off by the lake??—
It’s a damn good trap. JJ prays they can get out of it. “Cass,” he says sharply, tightening his grip on Desi as she wriggles confusedly in his arms, “cut us a path?”
Cass’s eyes gleam. “With pleasure,” he says, and he drops into a fight stance, throwing a hard palm strike. Purple-gold magic roars out from his hand in a wide arc, forcing a few hunters to dive out of the way, knocking others down entirely??—
“Come on!” Cass grabs JJ’s jacket sleeve and yanks him through the gap, their sneakers pounding from springy grass to solid pavement. As they race past the strike teams, JJ catches a blur of expressions?—shock, confusion, anger??—
Dawning realization.
They recognize him. JJ’s stomach plummets. “Looks like I just defected,” he manages to gasp.
Cass’s grin is feral. “Good,” he says, and he snaps his fingers impatiently. “Come on, come on?— how wide is this anti-rifting zone?”
“Standard is a mile.”
“A mile?” Cass tightens his fingers in JJ’s sleeve, urging him on. “How fast can you run?”
“This?—?” JJ’s record is a four-minute mile, but his baseline is closer to six minutes?—and even though Desi is thankfully still and silent in his arms, she’s still extra weight for him to carry. “This is all I’ve got, Cass.”
Cass bites out a curse, picking up his pace and pulling JJ along with him. Side streets pass in a blur as they bolt down the main road, sprinting due east towards the center of town. Under any other circumstances, a straight path like this would be their worst possible route, but right now, they just need to get out of this anti-rifting zone.
And then Cass will whisk them away, and JJ will officially be branded a traitor.
Just like Sawyer and Naomi.
JJ forces the thought away. That’s a problem for later. For now, he tries to fall back on his training: making sure every footfall is fast and steady, keeping his breathing deep and even, checking around every corner and intersection??—
What about behind you? JJ tries to glance over his shoulder, almost stumbles when the motion pitches him off-balance, and focuses his eyes forward again. “Are we being followed?”
Cass’s head snaps around. His jaw tightens. “Yep.”
“How many?”
“Three strike teams,” Cass says, the words clipped with trepidation. “Where are the other two?”
All at once, the hairs on the back of JJ’s neck shiver upright. Based on past experience, that could be a latent instinct firing, a tracking spell settling into place??—
Or a magic strike charging. “Bank right!” he yells, skidding around a corner and yanking Cass along with him. Moments after they clear the intersection, a blast of offensive magic shrieks down the street where they would’ve been, fast and lethal.
“Good call, Jackson!” Cass jerks JJ to the left this time, snapping his fingers in another unsuccessful test of the anti-rifting zone. “The Courtyard should be out of range. We just have to get there, and we’ll be home free.”
JJ’s stomach roils. There are a lot of civilians in the Courtyard, a lot of soft targets??—
A lot of potential casualties.
Especially because the strike force hasn’t been shy about indiscriminate magic offensives. Right on cue, JJ sees a blur of motion in his peripheral vision. “Cass, on your??—?!”
He’s not even halfway through the shouted warning before Cass throws out his arm. Another blast of purple-gold tears down the road, forcing the oncoming strike team to scatter. “Not my first rodeo, JJ,” he says, shooting JJ a savage smile, and this? ? —
This feels good. This feels right. Fighting side by side with Cass feels just as seamless as his years of working with Strike Team Kappa, their instincts and fighting styles blending together in a flawless dance, their strengths and weaknesses perfectly balanced??—
If JJ weren’t so worried about protecting Desi, he would probably be enjoying this.
The thought has barely flashed through his mind when he hears the sharp crack! of a combat whip behind him. Before he can jump out of the way, cold metal bites into place around his shins, coiling tightly and jerking him backward. He pitches towards the asphalt with a gasp, twisting sharply to fall on his shoulder instead of on top of Desi.
“JJ?” Desi squirms out of his arms, shaking his shoulder. “JJ!”
“JJ!” Footsteps stumble against the pavement as Cass doubles back for him, dropping into a crouch to yank at the thin metal cord around JJ’s ankles. A split second too late, JJ lunges forward to bat him away, but Cass is already snatching his hands back with a curse.
Bile rises in JJ’s throat at the angry welts on Cass’s fingers. Corrosion-imbued weapons. “I’ve got this,” JJ stammers, wrestling at the tight band himself. “Just?—just take Desi and run. Take Desi and??—?”
“Don’t be a moron, Jackson,” Cass snarls, pulling the silently crying Desi into his arms. “We’re getting out of here together. We’re getting out of here?—?” His hand flies out again, palm facing away, and another blast of magic rages down the street. “?—?together!”
Suddenly, JJ feels a shimmer in the air. His heart leaps. “Is that??—??”
Cass settles Desi on his hip and stands up, a wolfish grin spreading across his face. “Looks like I hit their spellcaster,” he says, and he snaps his fingers. Instantly, the beautiful purple-gold of a rift billows to life, and Cass takes a quick half-step through it, extending his free hand towards JJ. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
JJ finally wrenches the cord off his ankles and scrambles to his feet, lurching forward. Cass stretches out his fingers, JJ reaches back for him??—
And JJ may not have been born into the Sanctum, but he’s been a hunter for twelve years. He knows all of their strategies, all of their tactics.
All of their tricks. He snatches his hand back, heart pounding. “They can track me.”
“Of course?—?” Impatiently, Cass reaches out again. “Of course they can track you. That’s what anti-tracking spells are for. JJ??—?”
JJ stumbles backward. Away from the rift, away from Cass and Desi. Cass’s eyes widen. “Soul tracking, Cass,” JJ says desperately. “Sanctum enchantments, remember? Anti-tracking spells won’t work. I don’t think they suspected me before, so your house and safe house should still be safe, but you need to go?—you need to??—?”
“Not without you,” Cass hisses. “Ez can break your enchantments, okay? She can deactivate them. Just?—just come with me, JJ, and??—?”
“She can break them today?” JJ’s heart feels like it’s crumpling. “In the next hour?”
“I?—?” Cass’s frozen expression is all the answer JJ needs. “No, but?—but we’ll figure it out, okay? We’ll??—?”
JJ takes another step back. There’s an unmistakable sensation of focused clarity washing over him, the laser-sharp precision of planning for his next mission??—
Protect Cass and Desi. “No. No, I’m not putting you two in danger. I’ll hold them off as long as I can, but they can reopen freshly closed rifts. You’ll need to rift-hop for a while to throw them off, and try not to go back to your house for a few days, and??—?”
“No!” Cass’s eyes are furious. “I don’t leave allies behind, Jackson. I don’t leave friends behind, and I?—I’m sure as hell not leaving you behind. JJ??—?”
Desi lets out a strangled sob, reaching out a tiny hand towards him. “JJ! Don’t go!”
Cass’s arms tighten around her, instinctive and protective, and JJ??—
JJ knows Cass will take care of her. And she’ll take care of him, too. He manages a smile. “Keep her safe, okay? Don’t let anything happen to her, and?—and don’t let anything happen to you, either.”
“Don’t do this, JJ.” Cass’s voice sounds raw. “JJ??—?”
“Cass.” JJ takes a deep breath. He knows that the strike teams are closing in, pounding footsteps and shouted orders drawing closer by the second, but right now, it all sounds far away in his ears. “Cassius. Please.”
For a long moment, Cass hesitates. Looks from JJ to Desi and back to JJ, like he never even imagined he might have to choose between them.
And then he grits his teeth, squeezes his eyes shut, and snaps his fingers. Relief washes over JJ as the rift shudders closed, taking Cass and Desi to safety with it.
Now, he just has to make sure they’re not followed. He snatches his escrima sticks out of their gap in spacetime, keeping his back to the nearest storefront so no one can sneak up behind him. Nine armed and deadly hunters closing in fast, at least six more on the way??—
He cut his way through a militia to get to Desi once before. He can do it again to keep her safe.
Let’s see how long he lasts against an army.
“We need to move,” Cass says sharply, bolting into Desi’s bedroom with his pulse still roaring in his ears and his heart still shattering into pieces. “Desi, we need to go, we need to??—?”
Desi sobs when Cass tries to set her on her feet, burying her face in his shoulder and clinging to him. “But JJ??—?!”
Pain tears through Cass’s chest. “Don’t worry about JJ right now, okay?” he says desperately, and he snaps open one of his pocket dimensions, grabbing fistfuls of Desi’s clothes and shoving them inside. The seconds race by too quickly in his head, that unfailing beat of time driving them forward??—
Cassius. Please.
He and Desi shouldn’t even be in his real house right now. He knew that the Sanctum could reopen recently closed rifts, but in his blinding haze of trying to save Desi and JJ, he didn’t think. He didn’t think, and??—
And he just wanted them to be safe?—wanted all of them to be safe?—and the place where he’s always felt safest is his own home.
Not so much anymore, though.
But Desi will need her belongings if they can potentially never come back. Cass has had this pocket dimension packed with his own emergency supplies for decades now, but he never filled up a go bag for Desi. Part of him futilely hoped that she’d never see this ugly side of the world, that she’d never have to worry about being forced from her home, that she’d never even know what it meant to go on the run.
He hates that she’s about to find out. He finishes shoving most of Desi’s wyvern plushies into the pocket dimension, snaps it shut, and presses Kira into Desi’s arms for safekeeping. “We’re going on an adventure, okay?” he says distractedly, waving open a rift to the most desolate part of Antarctica and stepping through. “We’re going to see every continent in the world. This one is called Antarctica. There are penguins here. You like penguins, right, Desi?”
Desi sniffles against his shirt and doesn’t answer. Cass doesn’t really expect her to. Snow and ice crunch under his feet as he jogs twenty feet forward, peels open another rift, and steps into a lush rainforest. “And this is one of Costa Rica’s cloud forests, see? We’re really high up in the mountains, so it’s foggy all the time. Pretty cool, right?”
Cass keeps talking as he weaves around a handful of trees, snaps open another rift, and steps through. Rift-hopping is an active defense strategy that demons use to throw Sanctum trackers off the scent, moving just far enough away from each closed rift to lose any pursuers before opening the next one.
It’s not foolproof, of course. Cass knows that some Sanctum spellcasters are specifically trained to track demons through multiple rifts. He can only hope that none of them were in those strike teams, that it’ll take too long to mobilize them from the Sanctum??—
I’ll hold them off as long as I can.
That JJ can keep them occupied for long enough, and no, no, Cass cannot think about JJ right now, he has to hold it together for Desi, has to get them somewhere safe? ? —
“And this,” he says, pulling open his twelfth consecutive rift in the past ten minutes, “is Greenland, see? It has a funny name, because there’s not much green here?—just snow and ice. And even though it’s cold like Antarctica, there aren’t any penguins. There are polar bears, though!”
His ragged breath puffs white ahead of him. He needs to start slowing his pace, needs to conserve his energy. Needs to pick a safe location for the next few hours, needs to ward it with every defensive spell he knows??—
Needs to call Ez and Obie. They can tell him if his house has been compromised and when it’ll be safe to return to Redwater.
And they can help him plan a jailbreak, too. Cass knows that the Sanctum interrogates their dissidents for at least a few days before deciding their final fates; that’ll give Cass and his friends precious time to figure out their next moves.
The alternative?—that JJ is already gone?—is something that Cass can’t even consider. He won’t.
JJ saved Cass. Now, Cass is going to save JJ. It’s that simple.
His last few rifts are sloppier. One to a different part of Antarctica, back-to-back ones in different areas of Morocco. Japan, France, Australia, Ecuador, and finally back to the United States, to an especially quiet section of the Appalachian Trail. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, gently sets Desi on her feet, and adjusts Kira in her arms. “We’ll rest here for a while, okay?”
Desi immediately bursts into tears. Cass’s eyes burn as he drops to his knees, pulls her back into his arms, and hugs her tightly. “We’re okay now, Desi,” he murmurs, gently rocking her back and forth. “We’re okay now, all right? I promise.”
Desi’s voice is halting and quivery. “Is JJ gone forever?”
Cass’s heart nearly cracks in half. “Of course not, sweetheart,” he whispers, and he ruthlessly shoves down the tightness in his throat and the dread pooling in his stomach. “Don’t even think like that. We’re going to save him, okay? We’re going to save him.”
And, with Desi still crying softly in his arms, Cass squeezes his eyes shut and prays that he isn’t lying.