Chapter 3 Kane #3
Sai blinks, his fingers flinching around my shoulder as he fights with his darkness, then he slowly lets out a breath edged with a laugh.
Colour returns to his gaze, and he releases my shoulder with a sly smile. “Don’t threaten me with a good time, Kane.”
The corner of my mouth twitches. Bastard.
“Anyway,” he stretches, draping his arm over the back of his chair. “We got what we wanted.”
I stare at him, and his grin only widens, urging me to take the bait.
“Go on.”
“You want her.” My brother’s words are immediate, and they knock me, everyone, into silence.
I’ve witnessed many things over my long life. Atrocities. Horrendous, life-altering situations. But this…
You.
Want.
Her.
Want is such a strange word. It’s shallow. A passing thing. A hunger you feed, then forget, something easily satiated. This isn’t that.
This is far beyond want. I don’t want her.
I ache for her.
I—
There’s a vibration, and we all track it, finding Ezekial holding his phone. Who is contacting him at this hour?
He glances at us all, then answers, “Kacey, why are you calling at 3 AM? Is something wrong?”
“Give me that fucking phone.” Sai slides over the table and lunges for Ezekial’s hand.
“We can’t let him speak to her. Jasmine could be listening.” Ezekial’s words spring Julien into action.
He reaches over the table, locking his arms around Sai’s waist, before lugging him back with force.
Sai struggles against his hold, his tendrils flaring out in jagged lines as Julien finally yanks him off the table.
“Zeek, speaker, now!” Sai growls, voice dipping into shadow.
“Do it,” I say to Ezekial, knowing it’ll take the edge off Sai’s darkness.
He nods. “I’m going to put you on speaker, Kacey. All the guys are here.” He taps his phone, then places it onto the table.
“Oh. Hey, guys. Sorry to erm... interrupt you? I mean, I’m not really sure what you could all be doing at 3 AM. Well, I guess I shouldn’t really be ringing at this time anyway and—”
“Kacey.” That’s all Ezekial has to say.
“Right. Right, sorry.” She takes a deep breath. “I was just calling to warn you.”
We look to one another. Ezekial wets his lips. “About?”
“Jasmine.”
Sai’s markings spike with such vibrant intensity that we all squint. “Get the fuck off me!”
There’s a sharp crack of Sai’s power, followed by Julien’s hiss of pain, then he’s lunging over the table once more.
Ezekial reaches out, but an electrified vine snaps at his fingers, and Sai snatches the phone as it drops.
“Back off!” he snarls, blackened gaze flicking between us as he crouches on the table, Ezekial’s phone now in hand.
“Leave him.” I feel the grip his darkness has on him, and it would only escalate if we tried to intervene now.
Sai’s wild gaze snaps to mine, knowing I’m the one he has to convince. Slowly, I nod.
He lifts the phone closer to his mouth. “Kace, listen to me.” His tendrils coil around him in an electrified barricade, protecting him; warning us.
He’s been battling his darkness for days, ever since I found him in the Dark Realm and had to force him out. At least, at the moment, he’s still in control.
“Listen. I really need you to hear me right now, Kace, because I am so close to losing it.” He inhales deeply, then swallows. “I need you to take a nice, big breath for me, and then say everything you need without stopping.”
Sai pauses, glancing at us as he carefully lowers the phone back onto the table, showing his compliance.
Kacey clearly listens, we hear her taking a deep breath, then begins: “I need you to be prepared because Jasmine doesn’t... she doesn’t look the way you last remember. She’s hardly slept, barely eaten, she spends all day researching bonds and what they mean. I can barely get a sentence out of her…”
She isn’t eating.
The ache in my chest explodes.
I feel Ezekial watching me because he understands how that will affect me—torment me. She’s starving herself, and she’s doing it because of us. Me.
All the times I’ve practically forced her to eat erupt into my mind, and my stomach twists like I can feel her hunger—but I can’t.
I can’t feel her at all.
“She’s harming herself.” Julien’s pained voice seeps into our minds.
I seek him out. Julien’s no longer watching Sai, he’s staring at the shadows of the room, ones that have become much larger.
“No, Julien.” His gaze sweeps to mine. “You can’t.”
Shuffling sounds emit from the phone, then Kacey’s voice becomes a whisper. “She would kill me if she—well, maybe not kill—but she’d definitely give me this angry, terrifying ‘the things I’ll do to you’ face if she knew I was calling—”
“Kane, Julien…” Ezekial murmurs.
Then there’s a pressure, a distinct sign that Ezekial’s creating a barrier, which means…
I’d been too busy watching Julien, meaning I’d missed the shadows responding to Sai.
They’re spearing out, latching onto his limbs like oily tethers and dragging him into the dark through the table.
Julien moves for Sai instantly, reaching for him through the shadows that cling like tar, but he doesn’t stop—he’s more used to the dark than any of us, and although it fights, Julien is superior.
He drags a snarling Sai back and forces him into a solid chair formed from all our darknesses, then holds him steady by the shoulders.
My darkness spreads out, curling around his legs and arms, coiling over his chest to bind his body in place. To lock him here, in this realm. With Ezekial’s barrier sealing the room, we’ve cut off every possible escape.
Slowly, the black light in his markings dulls and his head slumps back with a groan.
“Hello? Are you guys still there?”
“Sorry about that, Kacey.” Ezekial runs a hand through his hair, never taking his eyes off Sai. “Please, carry on.”
“I’m only telling you all this because, well, you’re my friends.” We glance at one another, except Sai who shuts his eyes. “You’ve all done so much for me, and honestly, I just thought you deserved to know what you’re heading into.”
“Ask her about the food.” I can’t help myself. I’m desperate to know.
“You said she hasn’t been eating, but we sent food?” Ezekial asks.
“She gave it all to the staff. She’s refused to accept anything.” The room darkens, but before I can seek out the next perpetrator, I realise it’s all of us. “I’ve tried to feed her, but I’m not exactly the best cook. I even tried guilt tripping her a few times but she’s... stubborn.”
I feel them all look to me, but I stare at the table.
“Thank you, Kacey, for telling us.” Ezekial says he’s thankful but he feels and looks anything but.
His entire aura has darkened, lips pulled tight in a grim line, hands tensed into fists.
Kacey sighs. “There’s… something else.”
Sai groans. Ezekial winces. Julien steps away from the table. I’m not sure we can take much more.
“She’s in pain.”
I’m not sure I can.
I stare ahead into a faraway stretch of shadow. Jasmine chose me. She chose me to be with her tomorrow—today—in a few hours. What difference would it make if I—
“Kane, ground yourself.” My brother’s words stun me into reality.
I stare at the shadows, the ones beginning to engulf my body. Sai and Julien are watching me too, but they’re not stopping me.
“She thinks she’s hiding it, I don’t think she knows necromancers can sense pain, y’know?” Kacey’s whispers sound heavier now. “And it’s always worse at night. Especially when she has these nightmares.”
Those fucking nightmares—memories. Witnessing it once was enough. We haven’t experienced any more, even at a distance, we thought we would feel it, see them.
We were fools.
“Do you... Do you think you can stop the pain?” Kacey’s voice sounds so quiet. I think she’s crying.
Each member of my unit seeks me out, waiting for my answer.
But I have no idea.
I thought I—we—had been stopping it. Decreasing it, at least. I gave her a shadow, a sliver of one, but still… Clearly, it isn’t enough.
“We’ll try our best, Kacey.” Ezekial’s the one to answer, but the strain on his voice shows he’s losing his composure.
My darkness reaches for him, now holding all three men.
He glances at me as he says to Kacey, “I promise we’ll fix this.” Then only to me. “We have to fix this.” His metallic gaze burns.
“I know you will, and for what it’s worth, I think you’re all a good match.”
For the second time tonight, I’m shocked. I might’ve thought it another hoax, if Kacey’s words hadn’t hit us all the same way, snapping us back into the room and making the darkness quiver.
“All of you. You’ll be good for her. You are good for her.
You’re good men. Just… don’t give up,” she urges.
The overconfident tone is so rare for Kacey I can’t help but listen.
“You need to show her the guys I know. You might look all tough and scary, especially Kane.” Sai manages a brief laugh.
“But you’re kind and loyal, and… you care.
You saved a runaway necromancer. You’re the only people who can stand to be near me—”
“Jasmine wants to be near you.”
Kacey chuckles quietly at Ezekial’s interruption. “Hmm, maybe not right now. But, y’know what’s funny?”
Not one of us says a thing.
“She’s just like you, all of you. She hides behind this mask, but that’s all it is really, a mask. She cares, and not just because she’s an empath, no, it’s more than that, and she’s strangely... protective, in her own way. She’s selfless. Brave. Strong… kinda like these four guys I know.”
She laughs again, then slowly sighs. “I always wondered how I would return the favour for what you guys gave me. Finally, I’ve got a chance.”
“Kace, you don’t know what we’ve done,” Sai murmurs. It’s the first time he’s spoken since the dark, the rasp in his voice is still sharp from the scrape of it. “It’s not that easy—”
“Hey! Stop that! Stop it, right now!” Kacey snaps—snaps—at Sai.
He makes a choking sound, Ezekial’s brows shoot up, and Julien looks somewhat impressed.
“No more feeling sorry for ourselves, the past is the past. I’m not saying it’s a good past, but it’s time to try and fix it. And I’m gonna help you.”
Sai shakes his head. “If you knew the full story. You wouldn’t—”
“I’m not picking sides. Don’t even try to make me.
” Her voice, for maybe the first time ever, is clear and definitive.
“I’m on both your sides. I want what’s best for J, but I also want what’s best for you.
And yeah, maybe she’s not ready to talk to you just yet, maybe she won’t be for a while—I mean she barely talks to me,” she grumbles that last part.
“But I’m going to help you, in any way I can, just like how you helped me. ”
We all fall into another stunned silence.
“You saved me,” she says gently, encouragingly. “Now, let me help save you.”