We’re Not Gonna Take It
We’re Not Gonna Take It
DAMON
Archie has to rest for a while before he can move.
He peels himself off the caked earth by degrees, and his leonine body is definitely still fighting the injuries.
I watch the change, carefully monitoring him for signs that we’re outpacing what he can handle.
He had it worse than Ang and me, and we were more crumpled than Rogue.
But he shakes his mane a little as if clearing his head, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
There’s a rainbow of wounds—a few scabbed, some healing, others open but not bleeding—on him, but the worst have knitted enough to ease my panic.
I see the bad one is working hard at his ribs, ugly until it’s completely reformed.
Javier, still a mostly bald baby phoenix, is clinging for dear life with clutchy little claws, looking like the world’s ugliest decoration.
I give a low whistle. “Are you going to make it, baby?”
Lion Archie answers by sneezing—a wet explosion that flattens a patch of grass as he rumbles. Javier chirps his outraged response at my disbelief, his head too big for his tiny, half-plucked body.
Okay, the damn shifters don’t like me questioning them; got it.
Rogue finally says, “That’s the most annoying newborn I’ve ever met—and I don’t like human kids, either.”
Her voice is empty and flat, but she’s not losing it anymore, so that’s a win.
There’s blood dried on her face—definitely not all hers—but her eyes are locked on the horizon, the far edge of the crater where the fight went down.
She’s looking for Rebel now that Arch is out of the woods, and she can’t focus on anything else until we locate him.
Archie gives a low, impatient growl as he watches our mate.
He’s ready to help her, and so am I. Rogue being this worried is affecting all of us because we’re mated, and what she needs is her grouchy stepbrother that she’s likely regretting her last words to.
She needs to not to be comparing this to losing her twin and feeling helpless.
We have to help her and ourselves find the last piece of our family even if it’s painful.
Angelo limps over to her, his face a mess of bruises and smeared glittery blood.
The silence hangs around us as we prepare for the search, secretly hoping that Rebel won’t be worse than Archie.
But there should be noise here—sirens, cops, fire, Rebel’s moans, demons, whatever—and it’s still quiet as a tomb.
“Weird, isn’t it? That no one from any side or group has noticed this shit yet?” Angelo says. He looks at me, his left eye swollen shut. “You’d think there’d be cleanup crews by now.”
“It’s not over,” I say. “Maybe no one is sending people because the area is… not suitable? Fuck, I don’t know, Ang. We’ve been over this.”
“Yeah, but it’s still creeping me out, bro. This is next-level shit, and even after we find Reb, I have no idea where we go from there. You know?”
“We keep moving,” Rogue says as she starts forward. “That’s all we can do with something this big and this complex. Take it in chunks; knock a piece off the board one at a time. I’d bet it’s what they’re doing—whoever they are.”
The shifted version of Archie paces beside her, with Bird Javi making this sad little rasp every third step. Angelo walks behind them, and I take up the rear, keeping an eye out for movement, threats, residuals. Every sense is on high alert as we search for our brother and her future mate.
He’s not dead; Rogue would know.
But it doesn’t feel like Rebel’s here either, and that makes me paranoid.
Even as we find the impact site where Javi’s fireball big enough to torch a city block took out the pedestal, it’s just a patch of scorched earth and glittering shards.
The ground is smoking, and that viscous goop from the blob is everywhere.
There’s no body under the rubble or lying in the open; it’s only the traces of the explosion.
“He’s not here,” Rogue whispers.
“Maybe he—” Angelo can’t finish, and I don’t blame him.
Rogue’s legs give out, and she hits the ground hard. Her knees are in the ash, and her hands are braced to hold herself up. She’s not crying, because she never cries, but I can see the fracture run through her. It’s her fault for surviving, just like it was her fault when they sent Reckoning away.
Archie paws at the edges of the circle, his ears flat and tail lashing. Javier hops off and immediately face plants, then rights himself with a huffy shake. He pecks at a shiny spot, then screeches.
I squint at what the naked bird is trying to show me.
Something in the debris and ash is weird…
in fact, it’s something that shouldn’t be here: Fae dust. I scan the horizon, then the sky, then the dirt.
No sign of him flying, but his wings were out again for sure.
The only other thing is the goop, spreading slowly from the impact like an oil stain.
“I don’t think he was… evaporated or whatever, guys,” I say slowly. “There’s Fae dust on top of the debris here. If it was let out only before the blast, it would only be under stuff. This is… fresh.”
Angelo frowns as he comes over to where the animals and I are investigating. “You’re right, D.”
Rogue shakes her head. “He can’t just be missing; I’d feel it. I’d know.” Her fingers dig into the earth as she shudders. “Unless—”
“Unless he’s in a place even you can’t reach,” Angelo finishes. “Then he wouldn’t feel dead, but he wouldn’t feel here, either.”
I crouch, sifting through the dust to find a clue of who might have done this: a smell, a trace, or a piece of something that doesn’t belong will work.
Archie’s nose is sharper as he noses around, but even he looks stumped.
It’s like someone could completely hide their presence in defiance of all principles of evidence and magical tenets simultaneously.
Who the fuck can do that shit?
Rogue’s wings flicker into existence, shuddering in the afternoon sun, and I know she’s losing her temper. She’s burning magic she needs, but she doesn’t care. Her posture is rigid, determined, and she looks like a death goddess as she surveys the entire crater with fury in her aura.
“Whoever this is,” she growls, “will pay, and I am not cheap in vengeance. I am fucking tired of this shit, and especially of people stealing my goddamn men.”
Angelo cracks his knuckles, his own wings unfurling. “Agreed, Princess. Injuring our people, stealing our family? That’s an affront to us, and to everything else we’re connected to. The Geminis, the Guardians, the phoenixes… hell, even the shifters.”
I hold up a hand. “Not that we can tell any of those damn organizations because we don’t know who to trust. Sparkles is right; we have to get our pound of flesh and rescue Rebel ourselves.”
No one wants to admit it, but we’re on our own with this.
Javier creeps up and tries to climb Rogue’s leg.
She stoops down to pick him up, and I join her, locked in a silent circle as we all come to grips with what I said.
I’m the one who breaks the silence first, because if I don’t, Rogue’s going to disintegrate right here in this ash-pit and take the rest of us with her.
She’s running on rage, but there’s a splinter in her, twisting deeper by the minute.
“Can you feel the Guardian link at all? Is it—” I don’t want to say, like Reckoning, but she knows what I mean.
Rogue draws in air like she’s prepping for a punch. Her wings flicker—half in, half out, a riot of sparkling dragonfly-like shadows. She closes her eyes and goes quiet as she tries again.
I hate making her do this, but we need to be sure.
Angelo paces like a caged wolf, his wings ruffling. Archie sits curled tight around his body as he watches. Even Javier, haphazard lump of feathers that he is, goes quiet.
Finally, my mate opens her eyes. They’re dry, but not okay. “I can’t feel him through any bonds, even Fae-based ones. There’s no…” She’s searching for the right word, and struggling as she rasps, “He’s not gone, just…absent.”
“So he’s not dead,” I say, my voice still raw.
“No,” Rogue says. “He’s not here, but he’s not dead.” She looks at me, and there’s hope and a terrifying fury behind her eyes. “I didn’t think there was anyone who could hide Fae from one another like that, especially ones with bonds in place via their magics.”
I don’t have to fake the shudder. “I mean, we have no idea what all those new realm fuckers can do. And we were so separate from the real world in that pocket realm that the bad guys didn’t know we were there.
We think that’s how the people are trafficking supes like Reck, right?
They’re taking them through portals like that one that disappear and allow them to get anywhere in any realm. ”
Angelo runs a hand through his hair, his expression thoughtful.
“Then he’s been kidnapped and taken to another realm, while we were all knocked out cold.
Seems weird it’d be him, right? Two demon heirs, an oft-hunted mythical, and a hybrid Fae Guardian available, but they take Rebel?
I mean, even Archie’s parents are on the Shifter Council.
Reb had the least hostage value of everyone. ”
“Not to us,” Rogue says through gritted teeth. “If they were aiming at us, he’d be important even without all those fancy designations.”
“And less likely to draw outside attention when he goes missing, especially if Rogue doesn’t tell their handler,” I add. “Kind of a brilliant strategy, now that I think about it.”
Rogue actually smiles at that—knife-thin, but a genuine smile. “I hate this shit,” she says. “But if he’s alive, we can work with that. We can figure out where and rescue his ass.”
“Then we need clues,” I say, getting practical.
Rogue looks at the ground. “That’s all that’s left,” she says, gesturing at the shimmer in the dust and the dark slicks of goop. “This is all we have to go on, guys. We have to gather some of it up and get it back home so Damon can do… science things.”
“We’ve been blown to shit, Princess,” Angelo points out. “We don’t exactly have evidence kits like on a TV show.”
“Maybe not,” Rogue says. “But we have whatever is on us, and what’s in Archie’s car. We’ll use that to collect shit as best we can.”
Javier hops off her shoulder and struts in a little circle around her boots, then looks up expectantly. I could swear the damn bird is listening, but I have no idea if that’s possible.
I pull out my phone, which is half melted. “No way this does anything useful. Sorry, Sparkles.”
“Then take off the scraps of your shirts and wipe up some stuff. We can take those back, analyze everything, and then we let D do his lab thing. Angelo, you’re walking the best of everyone, so you should go check the car for anything we can use to get this stuff back or contact help.”
“Yay for me,” Angelo mutters, then flashes her a grin. “Don’t worry. I’m going. Maybe Arch has some water and shit, too. We all look damn near desiccated with dehydration, injuries, and magic depletion.”
Rogue’s brain is firing again; you can see it in the set of her jaw.
“If you find a phone, we’ll send for some of your demon minions, guys.
We don’t give them the authentic story, but if they show, then we can get a ride to the gates of the house at least. That will keep us from having to stagger around until we get there. ”
“Are we sure that Luca isn’t involved?” I ask tentatively. “We definitely can’t fight off a gang of our own dudes in this shape.”
Rogue hesitates, but then nods. “I think this one is above his pay grade. We were right before when we said he wouldn’t be dumb enough to arrange it right after you guys left his house.”
I strip the remains of my shirt off as she instructed. “We need something to store this. Get a move on, bro.”
Angelo sighs and gives us a little wave as he heads out of the crater and towards the field where we entered the area.
Javier lets out a peep, and she bends to stroke his head. When she straightens, she looks at me carefully. “Are you holding up okay now?”
I want to tell her no, that my ribs feel like popcorn and my head’s still swimming from the hit I took, but I just nod.
She moves closer, laying her head on my shoulder gently. “We can’t let them see us bleed. It gives them the idea that we’re weak, Damon.”
I stand up straighter, even though it hurts, chuckling a bit. “We didn’t really have a choice before, Sparkles. No magic or shifting to staunch it.”
“You know what I meant.” Rogue lifts her head, then starts using the fabric I give her to collect the goop residue. I follow her lead with the sparkly dust, and together we scrape up as much as we can.
By the time Angelo gets back—miracle of miracles, with an intact lunchbox and a half-empty bottle of water—we’ve got a small stash of samples. This should be enough to test and maybe trace their origins.
“Are you ready to head towards civilization now?” he asks. “I found the CB in Arch’s trunk from racing, so I could get some signal and send out a blast for help.”
Rogue just starts walking. I fall into step beside her, and for the first time since the blast, it feels like we’re going to get through this. We just had to get our heads right and our bodies able to function—now we can meet this bullshit head-on.
“What’s the plan after this?” Angelo asks as he looks at the lion and the small bird trotting along beside us.
“We get home. Then we get him back,” Rogue replies firmly. “That is all we have on the plate right now.”
“Do we start in Hell?” I ask curiously. “We had to do a lot of dancing to get that approved, and Luca will be suspicious if we don’t visit for at least a day.”
“Probably,” she says in a sigh. “I really dislike the idea of going there, but the testing is a ‘Hail Mary’ and we all know it. There aren’t references of stuff from some of those realms because their people never come here.
We may find that none of that is from here, but not be able to identify where it came from.
Then it will be a process of elimination. ”
The sun’s setting by the time we get to the car to wait for whoever is coming from Angelo’s SOS call.
I glance at Rogue. Her mask is back in place, but under the armor, I see her heart.
Rebel is integral to who she is, and without him, she’s aching.
Despite that vulnerability, she’s showing an emotion that surprises me.
It’s not hope or anger; it’s something worse: certainty.
Rogue Kelly is going to bring Rebel home, or she’s going to die trying—that I know without a shadow of a doubt.