BRAYDEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
Pain shot through my body at his touch making me sit up, eyes snapping open as I started to scream. Jay, who was behind me, wrapped a hand around my mouth to muffle the sound.
"I'm sorry man but you have to stay quiet," Micah cautioned, from where I could see him kneeling in front of me. "You dislocated your shoulder in the accident and we have to get it back in place. This is gonna hurt like a son of a bitch, but you need to keep it together man."
Accident? What accident is he talking about? Then in a series of flashes, I remembered the massive box truck that came out of nowhere and hit us. The image of Lailah screaming as she saw it coming at us, then everything became fuzzy until I got tossed into the back of the box truck with the others.
"Is everyone else alright? How's Lailah?" I asked as they started to work on getting my arm in the right position to put back in.
Micah looked at Jay over my shoulder and gave a slight shake of his head no.
Then Micah made his move and the sickening sound of my bone popping back into my shoulder socket filled the space.
Clenching my jaw at the pain, I was thankful that Jay was still behind me, because I wasn't sure if I was going to pass out or not.
"You were the last one to wake up, the rest of us started to get worried," Micah shared.
Glaring at him as he tied a ghetto sling around my wrist and neck to keep my arm somewhat stable, "So your solution was to put me in pain?"
"If we plan to get out of this fucking cell to get to our girl, then yeah—I'll do whatever needs to be done."
My hand shot out, grabbing Micah's shoulder before I truly registered what he said. "What the fuck did you just say?"
"Lilith has Lailah," Jay answered, making me whip my head around, which was not my best move since it made me light headed.
Groaning, I pulled my hand from Micah to try and stop the pounding in my skull. "Fucking hell, why did they have to hit us with a truck?"
Micah, being the asshole that he is, chuckled. "I mean it wasn't all that bad of a plan, seeing that it worked."
Slowly, I dropped my hand and looked around the dimly lit room we were in.
Sure enough, it looked like a cell with a steel door, no windows, and only a single light bulb in the ceiling to shed light on us.
Carefully, I scooched back to lean against the wall, taking in Jay's appearance with half his face covered in blood from cuts on his face.
True to Jay's nature, he didn't even act like it bothered him in the slightest. Micah seemed to be fine, until I noticed that he wasn't bending his left leg at all.
Then I spotted Hudson in the corner, shirtless with a nasty gash on his chest that he was trying to staunch with his shirt.
"We're lucky to be alive, you know that right?" I question Micah, not really sure he understood how bad this was.
Parker and Lailah had been able to handle things for a little while when they were attacked, but they were in good shape.
Currently, we looked like we already lost the war and we had no idea what was happening to Lailah.
When I reached for her, I didn't feel much other than she was in pain but with how I felt I wasn't surprised.
"Trust me when I say that we will continue to stay alive, because they want Lailah. Remember, if one of us dies it could take her down too, let alone all four of us," Micah argued. "I have a feeling someone will come to check on us soon, which is when we make our move."
"Right, solid plan there bro," I sassed. "Hudson's bleeding everywhere, I don't have use of my right arm, and you busted something in your leg. Tell me, how are we going to overpower anyone, let alone a whole demon army?"
Micah rolled his eyes at me as he sighed. "I forgot that pain makes you act like a bastard."
I opened my mouth to share my thoughts on that retort, when Hudson cut me off.
"Would you two shut the fuck up? I refuse to sit here and play the victim when we need to get to Lailah.
" I shut my mouth so hard my teeth clicked, knowing he was right.
"I think I have the bleeding stopped enough if you can do the rest Micah. "
"You sure? I've never tried to do something like this before," Micah warned as he pulled himself over to Hudson.
"If there is any chance that I'm going to be useful, then you need to do it, or at least try," Hudson pointed out.
The moment Micah put his hand on Hudson's chest, I knew what he was being asked to do.
My stomach clenched at the thought of how much pain he was going to be in if this actually worked, and I had to admit he was a bigger man than me.
There is no way I would have even thought of the idea of having Micah cauterize my wound for me.
"Wait," Jay called out, getting up and removing his black leather belt. "You might want to bite down on this, the last thing you need is to crack your teeth or hurt your jaw."
I gaped at Jay, envious of how calm he was about this whole situation, as Hudson took the belt and bit down on it and laid down on the floor, nodding for Micah to go ahead.
I knew the moment it started to work as he screamed, his whole body going rigid as he did everything in his power to keep still and let Micah work.
Now that it wasn't covered by a shirt, I could see how large the gash was, starting from his collarbone arching down to his ribs.
Micah moved as quickly as he could, using two fingers to glide over the blood-slicked skin, sealing it up, filling the air with the smell of burning flesh.
Not soon enough, Hudson passed out from the pain, as Micah finished up the last part of the wound.
When he was done, he looked it over and touched up a few spots that were still bleeding but it had done the job—crude but effective.
The room was silent as we listened to Hudson's even breathing, wanting to make sure he wasn't in too much distress.
Just as we started to even consider relaxing, my whole body filled with mind numbing pain that I remembered from when Lailah was being tortured by the Dark Lord.
"Holy fuck," Micah roared in pain. "What the fucking hell is happening to us?"
"Lailah," I grunted. "They’re trying to take her again."
"Brayden, what are the chances you can use your powers to knock one of these walls down without crushing the rest of us?" Jay asked through gritted teeth. "I can use my wind to keep some of it at bay but if we can make the walls unstable it might work."
"Hell, I could melt the door," Micah offered.
"That will take too much time, this is faster," Jay countered.
I closed my eyes, trying to focus on my center where my powers slept, but the echo of Lailah's pain was too distracting. I needed to override it somehow. Turning to Jay, I looked him dead in the eye and made my request. "Punch me in the shoulder."
Without hesitation, Jay landed a solid hit right on my busted shoulder, shocking my body with enough pain for me to center myself in my own body.
Using that pain, I thrust it into the ground on the side the door was farthest away from us.
The ground started to rumble as I gripped it and yanked like I was ripping it from the earth, creating a fissure in the floor that the wall and door fell into.
Knowing that we wouldn't be able to jump the gap with Micah's leg, I slammed it back together, causing the whole building to shudder and cracks to appear in the ceiling.
"We've got to move now, I don't know how long the ceiling will hold," I yelled, grabbing Micah's arm and pulling him up so he leaned on my good side and off his bad leg.
Jay grabbed Hudson, tossing him over his shoulder, and we moved as quickly as we could out of the room, moments before the whole thing caved in on itself.
The fallen section opened up to the outside, letting me know that we weren't underground, which I was very thankful for, so we weren't buried alive.
People came running from both ends of the hallway we were now in, but Micah tossed up a wall of fire, keeping them out of the way.
This gave us the chance to climb through the rubble into the outside world, where we discovered we were in a section of a large factory.
"Don't stop, we need to get to Lailah," Jay barked charging forward. "She's in the main part of the building. I can feel it."
"What the hell are we going to do once we get there?" I demanded as I pulled Micah along as fast as we could.
Jay tossed me a look over his shoulder. "Kill the bitch and get our girl back, of course."
"Oh sure, it's that simple," I muttered following him.
"Don't be a little bitch, Brayden, you just busted us out of jail without killing us. I'd say our chances of getting out of this alive are way higher now," Micah pointed out.
Grunting my acknowledgement, I sped up even more to try and keep up with Jay, making Micah swear under his breath. "Don't be so dramatic, Micah."
"Very funny prick, I'll remember this the next time you ask someone to punch you."
"Let's hope we get through this so there is a next time," I grumbled, as Jay kicked in a door, leading us into the main part of the factory. "Into the lion's den we go."