Chapter 43
Wyatt
Is Zephyr willing to help you heal some of these survivors? Marion is ragged.
I almost groaned out loud. Zephyr stood next to me, though earlier, his elbow had brushed against mine before he took a dramatic step away from me. Now, we were both standing with our arms crossed, probably looking pissed as hell as we surveyed the survivor camp in front of us.
It was a fucking mess.
Nothing was organized. There were no supply stashes. Disease was going to spread quickly if things weren’t brought under control. I didn’t know what’d made Rafe want to be here, but it was a good thing we came.
“Zephyr,” I said lowly. His piercing pale green eyes, so similar and yet so different from Skye’s landed on me, full of thinly veiled hatred that I wasn’t so sure I deserved anymore. He’d broken my leg, what else did he want from me? “Rafe is asking if we can heal some of these people.”
He was nodding before I finished speaking. “Yeah,” he replied. “I can do it.”
“Mr. Craig?”
We turned in sync, facing down one of the oldest women I’d ever seen. Marion Holmes was the Palace’s best Healer, and the only one the Princess had trusted to heal Rafe’s burns. I’d seen her again after the attack on the academy, but she’d been suspicious of me, so we hadn’t spoken.
“The Prince’s…companion tells me you’re his personal Healers,” Marion said slowly, eyeing me and Zephyr like she didn’t quite believe it. “I didn’t know that was something the Palace had resources for.”
For a moment, I hesitated, not sure what the hell to say to that.
The monarchy already wasn’t seen very favorably for hoarding valuable resources, among other things.
This would just be another nail in the coffin.
And…I’d never actually cared before. Somehow, this exchange with Marion had just given me the realization that I was now part of a Royal Chain.
Holy shit. I needed more time to accept that.
“It’s not exactly a job you apply for,” Zephyr said with a wry grin. “His Royal Highness brought us to assist, and it’s a good thing. Things are clearly…” He swallowed, then glanced at me, looking for assistance.
“Dire,” I said dryly. “Things here are a bit dire.”
Marion pursed her lips, but nodded. “That’s putting it lightly. It’s been a rough week.”
My jaw almost dropped. “A week?” I clarified.
“Six days, give or take. I haven’t had much sleep.” Marion said, running a hand over some limp pieces of white hair gathered around her face.
“That’s…” Zephyr’s hand twitched, then clenched into a fist. I could feel it, too. Marion was dangerously close to Exhaust. She’d pushed herself nearly to her breaking point.
And no one else had been coming to help.
We’d only come at the last minute because Rafe felt guilty and Skye was determined to make me the biggest hypocrite on the planet as she seamlessly adjusted to be what each of us needed.
What would have happened if this went on for another day? Or two?
Marion looked uncomfortable, probably because she’d been trained in the old days when it was unacceptable to show any sign of weakness, including warning signs of Exhaust, which was one of the main reasons the healing affinity was so rare, now.
Most Healers wouldn’t stop to give themselves a rest when needed.
They were usually the best type of people, more than willing to Exhaust if it meant saving someone’s life.
“This way,” Marion nodded for us to follow.
Zephyr looked at me, his eyes wide in question. I only shrugged before following her.
Six days. She’d been here alone for six days.
Zephyr and I followed Marion in complete silence, neither of us willing to speak to the other. We watched our surroundings, taking in the different scenes of desperation.
The camp was filled with dingy tents. Family Chains seemed to have claimed small areas for themselves, the men eyeing us warily like they’d need to protect the women.
I really didn’t like that.
Zephyr didn’t either.
He was growing more agitated as we drew further into the camp, his hands fisted inside his pockets while he tried to appear nonchalant.
“Are you good?” I asked lowly.
“No,” he replied honestly. “But I’m not going to freak out.”
I nodded, thankful for his honesty. Thankful he was even speaking to me.
My leg twinged as I stepped on a rock wrong, and I winced.
Dani was good, but my thigh was bothering me. She hadn’t healed the bone entirely, leaving some soreness. I’d tried to put some of my own affinity into it when we’d arrived, but nothing was touching it. I needed a stronger Healer, or Skye needed to connect with me.
So, in short, I was screwed.
“You ever seen shit like this before?” I asked Zephyr in an effort to distract myself from the pain. But part of me was a little eager to keep him talking.
He breathed out hard through his nose, almost a laugh. “Yeah, Wyatt. I survived the Gulf Capitol Massacre.”
My stomach dropped. How could I have forgotten? There was no use apologizing. Zephyr wasn’t the kind of man to take words, especially not given our toxic history.
“How old were you?” I asked.
“Fifteen,” he muttered.
I raised my eyebrows. “We’re the same age?”
“Weren’t you at my party?” he asked sarcastically, then kicked a rock.
I ignored that, because he was right. I hadn’t bothered to find out his new age, and I was in disbelief. “You opened that café when you were eighteen?” When I was eighteen, I was getting my ass kicked in military training with Rafe.
And I meant that literally. Once, he’d made me laugh while in formation and our commanding officer actually made us crouch and lean forward, then kicked us right in the ass so we fell face-first into mud.
Rafe had still cackled like a witch, and I’d thought for sure we were about to die. Somehow, we’d both made it out mostly unscathed, and it had nothing to do with Rafe’s title. If anything, they were harder on the both of us so everyone knew the Prince and his boyfriend weren’t special.
Yeah. The awkward boyfriend joke about Rafe and I had been around for a long time.
Zephyr looked at me with a furrowed brow.
“I saw the ten year anniversary sign in the café when Rafe and I…broke in.” I cringed.
Zephyr’s lips twitched, but he didn’t smile. He was silent as we followed Marion, making our way to the back of the camp toward a larger tent. Zephyr cleared his throat, catching my attention.
“I dropped out of school. We used the life insurance money to stay afloat until I was eighteen and then I used another portion of it to buy the café and apartment.”
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
“Don’t be,” Zephyr sighed. “It was necessary. Skye was always smarter than me, it was more important that she continue with school. When she decided to stay with me instead of going to college, I was…” He swallowed thickly, keeping his eyes trained on the dirt path as we walked.
“I worried she’d never be able to leave. ”
He’d been right to worry. I knew less of Skye than the others, but I could see the siblings were close. It was the kind of closeness my father hoped Willow and I would never have, even though our mothers had always dreamed of it. He’d seen it as a weakness, not a strength.
“What about Levi?” I asked, remembering that they hadn’t quite been alone all those years. And maybe that was why they’d done so well. Zephyr was clever and resourceful, sure. But so was Skye. And sharing the common goal of keeping your damaged father alive probably made for a lot of dedication.
“What about him? He was barely a step up from a vegetable for most of the last decade,” Zephyr said, sounding a little bitter. “He started off fucked up, got a little better…then just got really bad. He was depressed. Most days he wouldn’t even speak to Skye.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. It’d been my understanding that his hearing had been damaged until Zephyr was able to heal it only recently, so…
“She’d speak to him telepathically,” Zephyr explained. “It was the only way we could communicate with him, but eventually he just stopped speaking to her all together. He wouldn’t respond. He’d get into these moods and he wouldn’t even really look at her.”
“That’s…pretty fucked up.” I said softly.
Zephyr scoffed. “Yeah, it was. She already blamed herself for what happened, and then he wouldn’t speak to her?”
“That would piss me off,” I muttered, not thinking he’d hear me.
“It pissed me the hell off, but what could we do? I’d rant to him, and he’d watch me, but he couldn’t hear.
It was nice in some ways, but it was pretty fucked.
” Zephyr turned his head away suddenly, then ran a hand under his eyes.
I looked away quickly to give him some privacy.
We’d reached a tentative truce, and I didn’t want to ruin it.
I felt for him, but another emotion was prodding at me.
Anger.
Toward Levi.
A picture was being painted in my mind, and it only served to piss me off. I imagined Skye, young and desperate, trying to connect with her only father while he ignored her. She blamed herself for something awful, and he ignored her instead of comforting and reassuring her.
Something was very, very wrong with that.
The relationship between Skye and Zephyr didn’t point toward uncaring parents.
An uncomfortable weight settled in my stomach as I tried to consider what would lead to Levi’s actions.
He couldn’t possibly have blamed Skye for what happened.
That didn’t seem right, especially when Zephyr wasn’t harmed, either.
But if Levi wasn’t her father, as Rafe and I suspected…
“What happened to him?” I whispered, not expecting Zephyr to answer. It was the one missing piece of the puzzle that I couldn’t put together. How had he ended up paralyzed? Zephyr wasn’t harmed in the blasts, probably because of his incorporeality, but Levi…
It was on the tip of my brain, but Zephyr stopped next to me, and I turned to face him, my worry growing at his serious expression.