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“That’s a risk we’re willing to take for you, sweetheart,” Caleb said, cocking his head as he looked down at me crouched in my cage.
“Let me out,” I demanded but Darcy shook her head, her eyes wet with unshed tears but her expression firm and unyielding. “You’re not coming out of there until you’re yourself again,” she growled and before I could reply, a mournful roar sounded from somewhere overhead.
“Roxy,” Darius growled, dropping down into a crouch and looking in at me with his brow creasing. “Please stop looking at me like that.”
“Like you think I’m about to attack you. I fucking love you, Roxy,” he growled. “Why the hell would you think I’m going to try and do something to cause you pain?”
For a moment I was paralysed in fear and panic but in the midst of it, the call of the Phoenix fire in my blood centred me and I found a girl between the flames, her body coated in fire like mine and her arms outstretched to me in a silent plea.
I collided with her with a sob escaping me as she pulled me close, squeezing me so hard I was sure I would break. But I didn’t. Because I had her. And she was all I’d ever needed. My tears turned hysterical as I clung to her, my brain unable to concentrate fully on anything other than how much I’d been missing without her, how much I needed her and how much less I’d been altogether. I wasn’t sure how long we clung to each other like that, practically forming one body, two halves of the same whole. Just the way we’d been born to be.
Plese tell me shes free
“You’re okay, Tor,” Darcy was saying over and over as she held me tight against her and stroked her fingers through my hair.
Embarrassment clawed at me, and the shadows slithered beneath my skin, offering me some reprieve from this feeling, but I resisted their call, looking at my sister and finding all I needed to centre myself in her gaze.
I threw an air shield up before Darius could move any closer, recoiling into Darcy’s arms as a whimper of fear escaped me. “Shit,” Max cursed, glancing between me and Darius as his face pinched with sadness. “Darius...I think you should leave.”
THAT BASTRRD HIJWACKED HER PEETA AND KATNKS
“What the fuck has he been doing to her?” Caleb murmured as a whine escaped Seth’s throat and my gaze darted between all of them as I found myself totally overwhelmed by everything.
Darius’s face tightened and something in his gaze seemed to shatter as I looked at him with fear in my soul so deep that I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to escape it.
“I don’t know if-” I began, but Darcy cut me off. “You can trust him, Tory. He’ll help you. Please just let him.” My gaze met my twin’s eyes and I found so much hurt and pain in them that I found myself nodding, just needing to do something to alleviate what
Memories of our childhood were bubbling up in me until I felt like I was overflowing with them. The good, the bad, the downright fucking miserable. And yet no matter what we’d experienced over the years, I’d always had this one burning light right beside me, like my very own star set to guide me back home always. Darcy. My other half. My one, truest love.
Ouch ouch
“We’ll figure this out, okay little Vega?” he murmured, catching my gaze with his deep brown eyes and for some reason, I really did trust him. “Alright,” I agreed.
It had taken me more than five hours of just sifting through the memories of pain and fear that filled Tory’s mind before I’d even been able to get down to the roots of them. Lionel had done a damn good job of forcing her to associate every moment of torture he’d inflicted upon her with a memory of Darius. I’d gotten a clear look at so much torture in her memories that it made me feel sick to my core and bile kept rising up in my throat as my gifts allowed me to feel every single second of it.
He hadn’t just cut, burned, and electrocuted Tory until she couldn’t even scream any more. He’d revelled in it.
We’d moved into my bedroom within King’s Hollow after the first time she’d blacked out with the memory of the torture she’d endured, and I’d barely caught her before she cracked her head against the hard floorboards.
She was curled in my arms, her head resting on my chest as her limbs trembled with the memory of pain that had crashed through her over and over again.
“You really think she’s gonna be able to fake it good enough for that to be safe?” I growled, feeling strangely protective over the girl I’d once sworn to ruin no matter what. But fuck putting her back in the firing line of that monster.
“You don’t wanna see it, man. Hell, I don’t wanna fucking see it and I’m not in love with the girl,” I tried, though I could already see how determined he was to know the extent of it.
“Imagining it and living it aren’t the same. I’m begging you to leave it. Trust me to help her through it, know that it’s over now and just try to-” “Show me,” he commanded, grabbing my hand, and lacing his voice with Coercion even though he knew I could shove off the impulse to comply if I wanted
him what he wanted to see even though I knew this was going to hit him like a stab wound to the fucking heart.
Darius’s grip on my hand tightened and the rage and grief I felt from him hit me like a tidal wave as he watched what his father had done to her. “How often did he do this?” he snarled, his grip unyielding so he was crushing the bones in my fingers, though I was fairly certain he hadn’t even realised he was doing it. “Not as often recently. It was almost all within the first six weeks,” I muttered. “He stopped once she showed fear in response to every mention of you.”
The haunting roar of a Dragon in distress rattled the entire treehouse a moment later as he took off towards the sky and I felt something shatter deep inside me as my own grief over all of this threatened to tear me apart.
Geraldine sighed, kicking her shoes off and dropping her blazer as she padded towards me with her eyes glimmering with tears. “Don’t do that tonight, Maxy boy,” she breathed. “Just let me hold you close, and we can pretend the rest of the world isn’t out there.” I swallowed thickly, nodding as she wrapped her hands around my waist and gently pushed me back until I was sinking down onto the bed.
It wasn’t enough to chase out all of the dark in me. But it was the sliver of light I’d been aching for, calling me home.
I hadn’t spoken to her, just curled up in bed between her and Gabriel while she slept. Me and my brother had stayed up talking half the night in a silencing bubble about Tory, the Imperial Star, Lionel’s awful Orderist shit and just…everything.
“Thank you,” I breathed as he held onto me for a moment before stepping back. I could never repay him for this. One look in his eyes told me what this had cost him, and there were no words which could ever encompass my gratitude for that.
“Tor?” I called, my voice quavering. Please be okay. “Darcy?” she called back, hope filling her voice and tears rushed down my cheeks.
She was curled up in a ball at the heart of the covers and she pushed herself up to look at us, her face blotchy from crying. I rarely ever saw my sister like that; it made me want to find Lionel Acrux this very second and make him bleed for what he’d dared do to her.
Gabriel’s shoulder brushed mine as we waited for her to speak, but she didn’t, she just opened her arms to us with a choked sob and I ran to her, jumping onto the bed and falling on top of her as I crushed her in my arms. “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, and I held her tighter as I fell into the space beside her, kissing her forehead and keeping her close. “Don’t be sorry for anything,” I growled. “It wasn’t you. It was Lionel.”
We just held each other, and I felt the love of my family binding us all so tightly together that nothing could ever break us. Not Lionel, not the stars. They might have tried to shatter our wills and crush us beneath them, but they’d never succeed. We’d always end up back together. Where we were meant to be.
This would always leave a scar. But now I had Tory back, I was going to make sure nothing ever happened to her again. And that she got what she deserved. A fucking happily ever after. “Do you want to talk about it?” I whispered to Tory as our heads lay on one pillow, facing each other while Gabriel wrapped his arms around her from behind. She shook her head, her eyes wet, but no more tears were falling. And knowing Tor, she wouldn’t let any more fall for Lionel Acrux after this.
“I want to go flying,” she said. “I want to fly with you and Gabriel somewhere far away from here.” “Tonight,” Gabriel promised. “We can sneak off campus after classes and go together.”
“Coffee,” she half sniffed, half laughed, and I grinned. “And some of Geraldine’s buttery bagels.”
“And I want things to go back to normal. Don’t act like I’m made of glass. Promise?” she asked, the fire in her eyes saying she needed that more than anything else. I nodded firmly, my heart squeezing with love for her. “I promise.” I took out my Atlas, shooting Geraldine a message and she replied in half a second flat. Geraldine:: My lady will have the butteriest of bagels brought to her door this very instant! Geraldine: My lady will have the butteriest of bagels brought to her door this very instant!
She nodded, her eyes swimming with some dark emotion, but there was love there too. The black rings in her eyes were always evidence of that these days. The way they were bound was imperfect and cruel, but it was still a mark of how absolutely meant for each other they were. And I swore on all I was, I’d help them find a way to fix it.
It wasn’t long before Geraldine arrived, and I hurried downstairs to fetch the bagels from her. She’d brought an entire basket, fit to bursting with bagels, butter and a whole range of jellies, toast, pastries, and juice. She burst into tears as she saw me, placing the basket at my feet and dropping to her knees in the mud. “Tell me she’s well! Oh Darcy, I must hear that her spritely heart is beating and that her tongue is sharp, and her wit is keen. Oh, my lady, please tell me Tory is whole and sound and that the stars have gifted her with a thousand hopes and joys.
I love ghis gurl so much
I nodded, smiling at her as I picked up the basket of food. “Thanks for this.” “You are most welcome, and if you need anything more, summon me. As your most faithful friend, I shall always, always come.”
He had a thermos in his grip and as he looked to me, he frowned. “This is for her.” He held it out then pulled a packet of Tory’s favourite chocolate wafers from his pocket.
Sbbing
I moved forward to take them and he caught the back of my neck, pulling me into a tight hug. I swear I’d never been hugged so much in my life as I had this morning, but I knew we all needed it. My gaze caught on Caleb and Seth standing further off in the trees, watching us with anxious expressions. “Don’t ever let her go again, Darius Acrux,” I growled in his ear. “Don’t you hurt her or let her down or make her cry. I don’t know how we’ll fix everything, but we will. And when we do and you two can love each other like you’re meant to, I won’t take any shit from you.”
Once Tory had been caught up on everything that had been going on without her around, we just talked and talked about some of the good in the world. Gabriel told us about how his baby boy was growing out of his clothes nearly every month and how his wife could feed him, clean the house and do a workout in some stupid amount of time because of the gifts of her Order. For a while, the rest of the world just faded away and for the first time in a long time, I felt truly happy.
Washer shot him a glare. “Well Miss Vega here has no other students of her Order in the class at this moment, so what do you expect me to do?” he snapped, and I swear I’d never seen him get so angry.
Maybe he can be reeemed
The kid headed off, looking pale faced and violated, which was basically how most people looked after an incident with Washer.
Never mind
heard he broke up with Nova,” she whispered as she cast a whirlpool of her own. “How come?” I asked in surprise. “He’s totally anti-Acrux,” she breathed. “And Nova’s like an Acrux uber fan, so I guess it didn’t work out.”
How am i on his side
“We are starting an uprising, Darcy. In the name of the rightful queens. The A.S.S. will unite and cast an unstoppable wind through this academy that will drive out the turds.” I snorted a laugh, but realised she was deadly serious, and that analogy hadn’t been intentional. “Well obviously I’m up for any kind of Asscrux rebellion.”
She grinned widely. “Leave it all with me, I shall build an underground army ready to follow you and Tory into the depths of hell and back again. I have also sent as many of our dear Tiberian Rat friends as I could to my father before they could be taken for inquisition.” “Is he helping them?” I whispered hopefully and she nodded. “He is leading them to secret burrows in the north,” she whispered though the silencing bubble would stop anyone from hearing anyway. “As well as creating a network of friends and allies to our great and noble cause who will be at your back the moment you are ready
...more
I LOOVE THM
I crushed Tory in another hug as she laughed. She was thinner than she had been and sadder too, but I knew the girl I loved was still here and we’d soon figure out how to make Lionel pay for everything he’d done to her.
I laughed as Tory flew around me in circles, the smile on her face filling me up with purest sunlight. I had missed her so damn much, and I was never going to get tired of seeing her smiling.
Through all the darkness, I’d finally found something good to hold onto. My brother, my sister, my friends. I would never take any of them for granted.
