For now, that’s all Cass needs.
Cass was right. Thisreallyisn’t ideal. Even with JJ’s baseline strength and the adrenaline racing through his veins, he’s still struggling to keep up with Ez and Obie’s quick pace as they stride towards the interrogators’ break room. So far, this hallway is blessedly silent, but JJ knows that won’t last long.
This is just the calm before the storm.
Cass’s voice is low and drowsy next to JJ’s ear. “Hanging in there, JJ?”
JJ swallows down his fear. “Yeah,” he whispers back. “You?”
“I’ve had worse,” Cass mumbles. “You should’ve seen Normandy.”
JJ fights back an unhinged laugh. “You’ll have to tell me about it when we get home.”
“I can bring you there.” Cass’s voice is dazed. Almost delirious. “I can take you to all the important sites from Operation Overlord, and—and I can tell you about all the places I saw and the people I met. And then we can drink apple brandy by the church where one of the paratroopers got tangled in the spire. And then?—”
“Quiet,” Ez hisses, and Cass cuts himself off. When JJ glances up, it’s to see Ez and Obie furtively checking around the corner up ahead. “No way around them, right?”
“No way around them,” Obie agrees grimly. “JJ, stay here with Cass and watch your back. We’ll clear the room.”
JJ flinches. He can only imagine what “clearing the room” means to two of the most powerful demons in Redwater, but to get Cass home, he’ll have to accept it. “Roger,” he says reluctantly, and he pulls Cass back towards the wall, letting him lean against it.
Instantly, there’s a familiar plume of black smoke billowing around Ez and Obie. Within seconds, they’ve shifted into their true forms: Ez, a bloodred creature that looks like a cross between a lion and a dire wolf with all its proportions glaringlywrong,and Obie?—
Obie, an inky black monster with glowing red eyes that looks like the cursed offspring of a chimera and a dragon.
Holy shit.JJ’s heart nearly jumps out of his mouth as the two demons streak around the corner, leaving panicked screams and bones crunching and bodies hitting the floor in their wake. He tries to keep his breathing steady, focuses on keeping Cass upright, waits for the carnage to end?—
The dire wolf races into JJ’s hallway, turning back into Ez’s human façade with a swirl of black smoke. “Clear,” she says, sucking in a ragged breath. “If we move quickly, we should be able to make it out of the prison unchallenged, and then I can open a rift and—watch out!”
JJ automatically whirls around, shielding Cass’s body with his own, as Ez jumps forward, one glowing hand held high. He has just enough time to process a sleek arrow less than a foot from his chest before it bursts into flames, and he jerks around to stare down the hallway, heart pounding. “You almost killed me,” he says hoarsely.
Bryant is already nocking another arrow. “I was aiming for Chin,” she says flatly, and she raises her bow again as Roma bolts forward, her second-favorite ax held at the ready.
There’s a low, primeval snarl from behind JJ. Obie rockets between JJ and Ez with the strength and ferocity of a missile, tackling Roma to the floor and diving for Bryant afterward. JJ resists the urge to squeeze his eyes shut as Obie attacks, breaking bones and shredding flesh and leaving them bloody behind him.
Bloody, but alive. JJ has the bad feeling that the only reason Obie didn’t kill them is because he didn’t want to deal with JJ’s protests. He swallows down his horror. “Let’s get out of here?”
“Let’s get out of here,” Ez agrees, and Obie’s true form leads the way as JJ fights to keep up, guilt snapping through him every time Cass whimpers with pain. The crackle of Ez’s last magic attacks from behind him, the bloodcurdling growls as Obie tears through the few hunters reckless enough to get in their way, the shriek of metal shredding as he rips through the prison’s door?—
He opens up a rift and bounds through it without even breaking his stride. JJ scrambles in after him, half-dragging Cass, and Ez brings up the rear, snapping the rift shut and leaving them blessedly alive in Obie’s heavily warded safe house.
“Cass!”Desi shouts, and she races up to Cass’s side, tugging his hand insistently. “Cass, are you okay? JJ, is Cass okay? Cass?—”
Blearily, Cass reaches down to run a hand over her hair. Desi grabs his arm and hugs it to her chest. “I’m okay, Desi,” he whispers, relief making his vision blur and his legs wobble underneath him. “I’m gonna be okay.”
“Hopefully,” Ez says tightly, and she beckons them down the hall. “JJ, get him to the bedroom. I need to take a better look at—at those injuries.”
“You can fix him, right?” JJ asks, desperation winding through his voice as he coaxes Cass onward. “You can?—”
“I can try,” Ez says, and she slips Cass’s other arm over her shoulders, guiding him into the bedroom.
Cass fights back a hiss of pain as JJ and Ez lay him down on the mattress, Ez belatedly snapping her fingers and making clothes reappear on herself, Cass, and Obie. His flannel pajamas are worn and familiar against his tattered skin, and when Desi climbs up on the bed next to him, he can almost imagine that it’s just another night at bedtime, Desi begging for one last story.
Almost. “I’m going to be okay, Desi,” Cass repeats, squeezing her hand lightly. “I’m gonna be just fine.”
Cass is pretty sure it’s a lie, and he knows it. Ez and Obie know it, too. As for JJ and Desi, well?—
They’ll find out soon enough.
