Chapter Thirty-Nine
Ingram
Everything in me still wanted to track down Corsa, to take his life myself.
It wouldn’t be quick, either, but it would make me feel so much better.
Even the screams from him, distant as they were, didn’t eliminate the pull to do it myself.
He might suffer under the jaws of monsters, but I wanted him to suffer under my own jaws.
Still, when Yun took off toward the heart, I knew where my priorities lay—I followed her.
We burst through the treeline into the clearing. Usually there would be monsters there, ready to defend the heart, but none did. Were they all too busy with Corsa to care about us? Had that woman helped out in some other way?
I didn’t know, but figured I’d take the rare win we got.
Yun rushed forward, but didn’t reach out to touch the heart. Instead, she stared at it. “Nothing is happening,” she said, tension lining each word.
“Can you sense anything?” Shear asked.
“I feel this pull—I’ve felt it for a while, like it’s drawing me here. I thought maybe when I stood in front of it, the power would flow out of me…” She nibbled on her bottom lip, then flinched. She probably still hurt from where Corsa had struck her.
I could rush out to him, fucking kill him, then be back before anyone even…
“No,” Yun snapped, drawing my attention back. “I’m done with him. I never want to think about him again, so don’t you dare do it.”
I shrugged and crossed my arms, working for innocent but probably missing the mark by some. “I would never. Now, what do we do with this?”
She sighed and reached out. I lunged forward, but Carter stopped her before I could.
“Are you insane?” he asked, voice sharp and panicked.
“I touched it before.”
“Because you had no choice, because you were wanting to die. The fact that you didn’t is a miracle—I’m not about to risk that again.”
“Well, what else do you want me to do?” Yun’s voice matched Carter’s in intensity.
“I can’t leave, and I can’t seem to interact with it.
I can’t pull the energy from it, and I can’t do a damn thing, so tell me, what the hell I’m supposed to do!
” Her chest rose and fell, her breathing sharp and quick and frantic.
Which I understood. We were stuck, and there just weren’t answers.
So I stepped forward. “I can do it.” I stretched my hand out, then drew it into a fist. I knew how it felt to grasp a heart in my hands, to endure the pain, the crush it in my palm. I recalled the many times I’d done it, that I’d withstood the power inside it, that I’d overcome it.
“It’ll kill you,” Kenyon said. “If I thought anyone could survive it, I’d vote for you, but there’s no way. The power inside a stable dungeon’s heart is too much for your body. I can’t keep you alive through it.”
“No,” Yun said, but I ignored her. She’d say no to any idea that risked any of us.
“I’ve destroyed how many hearts? If Kenyon keeps me going, I can do it.”
“It’ll kill you,” Carter said. “And it’ll do that long before you’re able to destroy it.”
“We don’t have another choice,” I bit out. “I’m not looking forward to this exactly, but it’s the only choice we’ve got. If—no, when—I destroy it, you can get your asses through the portal and get Yun back.”
“I can do it,” Carter countered. “I’m combat, I’m tougher than you.”
“I’ve done this before, so I know how to handle it better.”
“It won’t work,” Kenyon said again. “This isn’t a time when I’m just saying it because I don’t like it. I’ve seen what a heart does to you, Ingram, and this heart will burn you up before you can get it anywhere near as weak as it has to be to destroy.”
“There’s another option.” Shear spoke so softly that I nearly missed it.
He kept speaking, though, the quiet nature of his words forcing us all to listen.
“One person will absolutely burn out. Three S-Rank espers with a S-Rank healer, though? It could work, just long enough to destroy it.” He paused, then added, “Do not misunderstand me. We won’t walk away from it. ”
His point remained clear—we might save Yun, but we would forfeit our own lives. This came down to a choice, and we’d have to make it.
Did we save our own skins or the woman we loved? Were we willing to sacrifice ourselves so she could walk out of this dungeon?
It wasn’t even a fucking question, and we all knew it. I’d been hopelessly lost to her since the start, since she’d turned me down that first time, and I’d only wanted her more and more as time went on.
“I’ll do it,” Carter said first, no hesitation in his voice.
“Fuck it, I’m in,” I said. “Least I don’t have to fry alone.”
“I’ll do it,” Shear answered as well.
Kenyon took longer, but I understood his reasoning.
The rest of us had to endure, but he had to watch.
He had to try to piece us together, to prolong our suffering enough to finish the job.
For a man like Kenyon, someone as gentle as he was, for a healer, that was a far more challenging expectation.
He turned toward Yun, then nodded. It was like seeing her reassured himself, gave him the strength. “Okay.”
“Fuck okay,” Yun shouted. “You don’t get to just make a decision like that on your own. You don’t get to just decide to leave me.” Her bottom lip trembled, proving she was desperately trying to hold herself together, a battle she was losing.
“Sure we do,” Carter said, voice kind. “That’s always been our job, to keep you safe. Wish we could have done it for longer, but we’ll still do what needs to be done.”
She shook her head. “You can’t just abandon me. I’ve been tossed aside so many times and you promised me you wouldn’t do the same thing.”
“We aren’t,” Carter pressed. “You know better than most that we never really had much of a future out there for us, that we were just fighting until we hit an end. That’s what the life of an esper is, but you gave us something more.
This isn’t us throwing you aside, this is us saying that you matter more than anything else to us.
” He paused, then let out a slow breath. “To me.”
“You can’t do this,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around herself.
Carter reached out and gathered Yun to him, pressing a kiss to her lips as though that could stop the way they trembled. “It’s fine. You’ve risked a lot for us, so it’s our turn for you. As soon as we start, you take off toward the portal, okay?”
“I won’t,” she argued, earning a soft huff from Carter.
Kenyon caught her chin and turned her gaze toward him, then took his own kiss.
He didn’t pull away, his forehead pressed against hers, Carter still holding her.
“As our official guide, you’ll get everything we own.
I’m sorry I won’t get to show you that cabin, but you should still go and spend some time there.
There’s this little firepit out back with stone benches. Do a couple s’mores for me, huh?”
That seemed to break the dam that she’d crafted, and tears fell down her cheeks. It broke my heart, made me wish we could take this pain from her, too. After how often she’d suffered, I hated the idea that she’d bear any more pain.
Too bad there wasn’t a fucking thing we could do about this.
Shear moved up beside her on the other side, and pressed a kiss not to her lips but to her forehead. She turned toward him, with Carter loosening his grip so she could turn fully. He said nothing aloud, but he didn’t need to.
He leaned in and rested his forehead to hers, keeping eye contact. Were they having a conversation? No, I doubted that. Instead, it seemed more like he’d offered his feelings to her, let her experience them herself, giving her the proof of how deeply he cared for her.
It caused a hiccupping sob to escape her, but he offered her a rare smile in return.
Which made it my turn… I fucking hated goodbyes, hated the bullshit of it. I hadn’t cared about enough people in my life to have that many of them, but this one?
This one hurt.
Yun twisted fully, facing me, her eyes red, her skin blotchy. It made me want to laugh, the idea that people sometimes talked about how pretty people looked when they cried.
Yun didn’t look pretty at all. She looked a mess of pain and anger and snot.
I still loved her, though, wanted her. None of that mattered.
“This ain’t your fault,” I said, knowing exactly what rested at the bottom of all that anxiety she held. It wasn’t just losing us, it was the guilt that I didn’t want her living with.
“How is it not my fault? If you’d never met me—”
“Then we would have continued being Reject Squad, having nothing, not giving a damn about anything. We wouldn’t have had a fucking clue there was something more, something better.
Look, Spark, I’d take the months together we got over a whole fucking lifetime without you, so don’t you dare feel bad about this, because I sure as shit don’t. ”
She worried her bottom lip with her teeth, the action making me desperate to feel her kiss one last time. Fuck, I was pretty sure I could die with a smile so long as I had the taste of her on my tongue.
I crooked my finger to draw her closer, and when she came as though pulled by some invisible force, I took the kiss I needed so badly.
And she offered me everything like she always did, returning the kiss with the same fervor that I felt. It was one hell of a last kiss, I had to say, one that made me wish we had time for one last fuck. I wanted to feel her heat again, her tightness, but I knew better.
No time, but fuck, I missed it.
She broke the kiss, staring up at me with a feeling in those eyes of hers that I never thought anyone would give me—love.
It hit hard, like a physical blow, one that made my knees weak and my balls hurt.
Wait…my balls?
It took a moment for me to bend forward and realize that she’d kneed me in the groin, and my scrambled brain didn’t work it out before she rushed past me, crossing the few short feet between us and the heart.
I didn’t get the chance to even call out before she whispered, “Sorry,” and set her hand on the heart.