Chapter 25
Callan
It’s a half-day trek to the bunker just outside Streatham where we’ll stay for the night.
Hunter and Devon will go ahead to the border and take inventory of guards and any notable activity outside the Estate walls.
I won’t send Lucina past the border until we are aware of any threats.
I can’t help her once she’s inside, but I can make sure she gets there safely. It’s all I can do really.
“Just do it,” Lucina whisper-shouts from beside me, pulling me from my thoughts.
We’re approaching the small grove of trees that surround our underground bunker, and her an Nix are going back and forth about something.
Phoenix shakes his head, but Lucina nudges him towards me anyway, her voice stern, “Do it or I will.”
The rest of our coven has now stopped to witness…whatever this is…It can’t be worth losing daylight.
“Fine,” Phoenix huffs, shrugging her off and moving in beside me. “Boss.”
“What is it, Nix?”
He glances past me, to where our coven continues on to the bunker. “Lucina wants me to remind you that um…there’s a Rogue in there.”
I freeze. “Shit.”
Phoenix’s damn girlfriend. The Rogue he’d left there before initiation. With all the fires I’ve had to put out since then, I’d forgotten all about her.
Running my hand across my face, I force my feet forward. “There’s no way she’s still alive.”
“I don’t know, Boss.” Nix hurries after me. “She’s pretty resilient.”
I fight the urge to trip him, turning to my coven instead. “Stay here,” I order them. Phoenix stops walking. “Not you, Nix. This is your mess.”
He smirks, gladly following me through the hatch in the ground and down the few concrete steps to the bottom of the bunker.
The cool, damp air is stagnant, and with a flick of my hand, the lanterns along the wall catch fire, illuminating the space.
“Chiaros, Nix,” I curse.
His footsteps are hesitant as he comes to stand beside me. Phoenix inhales deep, then exhales slowly. “Damnit,” he swears.
She’s dead. Very dead. The Rogue’s skin is nearly translucent, dried blood crusted around her restraints from where she’d tried to get free, and her head has fallen to her chest. I’ve inflicted and overseen plenty of Rogue torture, but even I can admit the cruelty in the scene before me.
Phoenix, on the other hand, doesn’t think or feel in the way most people do. There’s a disconnect in his brain, and it isn’t his fault. He was born that way. I’m willing to bet he has no idea how to feel about this.
At his silence, I glance in his direction. Nix’s expression is blank, save for the small crease between his brows. It’s not concern or remorse; he’s trying to understand what he’s looking at. Like he seriously can’t figure out how this happened.
Turning from him, I nudge the dead Rogue’s foot with the toe of my boot—just to be sure—but her joints are unmistakably stiff. Definitely dead.
Sighing, I pat him once on the shoulder. “Sorry, Nix.”
“I’m not.” Phoenix shrugs, casually stepping over her corpse. “She’s a lot safer in death’s hands than in mine. I never would have let her go on my own, and this way she can actually help us.”
“Help us?” I raise a brow. “How can she help us, Nix?”
“Well,” he grunts, heaving her up into a sitting position, and I wince as he pulls her hair back, revealing her lifeless face. The dark veins beneath her eyes and the bloodless, waxen look of her skin is harsh in the dim light. Phoenix smiles. “Little Reenan has a Rogue to memorize.”
He watches me for a moment, gauging my reaction, and when what he’s insinuating dawns on me, a wicked smile stretches across his face.
“Oh, gross,” Lucina gags, covering her mouth with the back of her hand as she enters the bunker, hazel eyes flicking to me. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.” I drag a chair to the center of the room and gesture for her to sit. “Illusioning yourself as someone they recognize is better than trying to sneak around the Estate as someone they don’t.”
“I disagree.” Lucina folds her arms across her chest. “What if someone she knew wants to talk to me? What about her relationships? Her personality? I mean,” she gestures an arm to the dead Rogue, grimacing at her corpse, “I don’t know anything about her.”
I nod, gesturing across the room. “But he does.”
From the corner, Nix smiles, hooking his thumbs into the sides of his padded vest.
Lucina’s shoulders deflate. “You want me to sit here and memorize this girl’s corpse? While Nix tells me everything he knows about her life?”
“Yup,” he and I say in unison.
She shakes her head, stomaching another look at the Rogue. “This is fucked up.”
Phoenix’s smile drops to a frown. “Yes,” he says.
"Well,” Lucina throws her arms out, voice dripping in sarcasm, “at least you’re aware?” Swinging her attention back to me, she rolls her lips together, scrubbing a hand over her face as she relents, “Fine. I’ll do it.”
“Great.”
Lucina passes me, pulling her sleeves up to her elbows. She shoots a glare in Phoenix’s direction, then plops down in the chair.
“Alright,” I exhale, turning towards the stairs. “I’ll be back in a little with dinner.”
Lucina gags at the mere mention of it. “Pass.”
Phoenix smiles, settling against the far wall.
“Lucina,” I plead with her, “you have to eat somethi—”
“Callan, how many times have you seen me puke?”
I don’t reply.
“Exactly.” Lucina grimaces. “Even the strongest of stomachs couldn’t eat after this.” She gestures to the gory scene before her. Lifeless limbs, the portion of the Rogue’s wrists that she tore trying to free herself from her shackles, the red around the yellow in her eyes…
Phoenix clears his throat, forcing my stare to break. “Bring two plates,” he asks of me. “I’ll eat Cin’s.”
Lucina gags. “I’m going to vomit.”
Yeah, and I might too. “We’ll talk about it later,” I compromise, shooting Nix a warning glare as I turn to leave.
A few hours later, and the sun is setting just over the horizon line, the air is cool enough that Easton starts a fire. Devon strengthens the illusion he has around our camp, keeping us and the flames hidden.
He and Hunter came back not too long ago and confirmed that they didn’t find anything suspicious, but I opted to still leave at dawn. Rogues are more active when the sun goes down.
Pax coordinated dinner, warming up some of the food that May packed for us. She sent us off with two days' worth, but we will take shifts to go back for more.
It was my decision to stay out here the entire time Lucina is in Streatham. We don’t know how long it will take her to get in and take down the ward, and I want to be as close as possible if something happens and she needs us.
Not that I would even fucking know if something happens. Not unless it’s dark out and she’s able to send an SOS to me through a godsdamn star while she’s being captured, tortured, or killed.
Forcing in a deep breath, I grab a plate of food, snatch Cin’s jacket from her bag, and make my way to the bunker.
The hinges on the hatch squeak as I enter, the glow of the lanterns still flickering across the stone walls.
“No, no,” Phoenix reprimands. “Like this.” I make it to the bottom of the stairs in time to see him fixing his face into a sort of bored smile. “Alesi,” he says, the name rolling off his tongue as if it’s his, the edges of it curled in some sort of mimicked accent.
Lucina huffs, blowing a strand of hair out of her face.
She’s thrown her hair up into a bun, her weapons vest hanging on the back of the chair, and I can tell by the look in her eyes that she’s over it.
Rolling her shoulders back anyway, a twinge of magic pricks the air, and I watch transfixed as her illusion forms, her features shifting and her face transforming entirely.
Her nose gets longer, her chin more proud, and her cheeks hollow out. I watch her pupils snap into slits, the hazel in her eyes turning gold.
Lucina curves her lips into a similar bored smile, drawing her voice out just as Nix had done, “Alesi.”
The cutlery slides off the plate I’m holding and clatters to the ground.
Lucina flinches, her illusion disappearing as quickly as it had come on. She whirls around to face me.
“Sorry.” I cough, clearing my throat, as I set the plate down on a nearby ledge and bend down to pick up the utensils I’d dropped. When I straighten, Lucina is staring at me, brows pinched, an expression I can’t decipher on her face.
“That was good,” I tell her. “Really good.”
“No,” Nix groans, crossing the space to take the plate for himself. “No,” he shakes his head, “it’s not the same.”
Lucina snorts, standing from her chair and gesturing a frustrated hand to Alesi’s corpse. “Of course it’s not the same. I’m memorizing a dead girl’s expression off of your face! Besides, you said she was a loner. Her expressions don’t have to be perfect if no one will notice anyw—”
“I noticed!” Phoenix shouts back.
I watch the anger flash across his face. Watch it boil, then simmer, then boil again. He forces down a deep breath, jaw clenched as he reaches for the fork.
“Can’t believe you’d even say that,” he mumbles under his breath.
Lucina sighs, taking the jacket from my outstretched hand and marching up the steps to the cellar. I snatch her plate from Phoenix and take off after her.
“Cin.”
She keeps walking, grabbing a bottle of cider straight from Pax’s hand as she passes the fire our coven is sitting around.
“Lucina,” I try again.
She doesn’t stop. She’s nearing the edge of our camp—where Devon’s illusion ends.
“Lucina, you did great. Who cares what Nix thinks?”
She stops walking. Freezes in the dirt with her back to me. Her shoulders rise and fall with the deep breath she takes, then she spins around to face me.
“I don’t care what Nix thinks,” Lucina vents. “I care what you think.”
My confusion with her statement must be evident because she lets out a frustrated sigh and plops down on the rock beside her. Her gaze stays fixed on the clearing, where a break in the trees offers a full view of the barren plains of Griseo.
As I approach, she keeps her stare fixed there, her expression unreadable.