Branded (26 page)

Chapter 27 - Every Step Counts

Asher closed his eyes. Inside his head, the world was spinning, and seeing that it was not somehow made it worse. If it hadn’t been for José’s grip, he couldn’t have told which side was up and which was down. Not that it mattered all that much. He wasn’t getting back on his feet. An odd sense of comfort filled him with the thought. It would be over soon. He inhaled José’s scent and let a feeling of warmth wash over him without worrying what that meant, or didn’t mean. The finish line to this journey wasn’t what he’d expected, but it was a good ending point, anyway.

He rested his head against José’s chest and listened to his heartbeat, a bit faster than it should be.

“Ash?”

“Mhm.”

“Tell me something.” Fingertips danced lightly across his shoulder blades and caused a tingling sensation that made it impossible to refuse the odd request.

“’Bout what?”

“Anything. Just don’t fall asleep on me.”

Asher found himself saying the first thing that came to mind. “I like flames. They’re pretty.” He cringed at his own words. In his last moments at least, he should have had something deeper to say. But he hadn’t. He really was simple, wasn’t he?

In his mind, he pictured the fire eating up his childhood home. The image had never faded from his memory. Likely never would. “I like them too much, probably,” he admitted, for the first time. His mom bitched about his
obsession
all the time, but if he had to change everything she complained about, he’d have to stop existing altogether. Maybe his mom was happier now he was gone.

Lying in José’s embrace with José’s breath brushing his hair, it didn’t seem to matter.

“I see,” José said.

“No, you don’t.” Asher smiled. “You’re blind.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Asher complied happily. Not counting the nausea, he was warm and comfy and sleep was tempting.

“I take that back.” José cut through the haze in his mind as he was about to doze off. “Stay awake.” The words surged through Asher’s mind like an injection of caffeine. Asher opened his eyes and blinked against momentary double vision. How far could his body be pushed like this?

“I’m getting up.” José started moving, carefully shifting Asher over to the quivering stone floor.

“You’re leaving?” Asher couldn’t hide the disappointment from his voice. But of course José wouldn’t want to die in this hellhole. He had to have something to go back to. People who would be waiting for him. All the calm Asher had collected unraveled at the thought, and he wasn’t sure why.

“No,” José said, “we’re leaving. The quake is getting worse.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’re going on my back.”

“Wait, what…” Asher stared at José. He would never be fast enough if he had to carry Asher, and he had to know that, too. But Asher didn’t hesitate to clench his teeth against the dizziness and climb onto his back when José knelt down.

“You’re too damn nice.” Asher closed his eyes again, head swimming as José made the first step.

“You’re welcome.”

Asher smiled against his shoulder. A part of him felt sorry for José and wanted him to get back home where he belonged. He deserved it. But a bigger, more selfish part of him wanted José to stay, to die with him, and not to go back to those other people who would make José forget all about him, like he’d never mattered in the first place, like he was just this weird kid José had fucked in a fantasy world that he’d one day chalk up to hallucinations. Did that make him a bad person? Probably. But he was an asshole anyway and it was too late to change.

He kept his eyes shut as José walked down the hallway. Opening them might just make him throw up. The shaking of the building wasn’t helping. And neither was all the noise.
100, 99, 98
, he started counting down in his head to distract himself.

“You know, I’ve been wondering,” José said, “do you know that vampire’s name?”

90, 89…
“What?”

“The bloodsucker. What’s his name?”

“Fangs?” Or maybe he should start calling him the bloodsucking killer in the emo outfit.
83, 82, 81—

“Yeah. No. His real name. Do you know it?”

Asher frowned. Why the hell did he want to know? “Um… No idea.”
80, 79, 78
and a particularly bad tremor made José falter in his step for only a second. Asher had to suppress the urge to empty the contents of his stomach over his shoulder.
77 76 75 7—

“Why don’t you know…?”

“Why do you care?”

“It just strikes me as odd. Since you can remember complicated directions, you should be able to—”

“I am. I’m not that stupid,” Asher said, stopping José before he could make any more assumptions about his intelligence, or lack thereof.

“Then why—”

“He wasn’t important enough.”
71, 70, 69, 67, no, 68, 67-

“I see.”

“No, you d—”

“You want me to throw you off?”
66. 65. 64
. “I didn’t think so.”

Asher didn’t bother with a reply, but kept counting in his head, almost getting used to the swaying motions. Not long now. Another twenty, another ten seconds, he pushed himself to stay alert. When he reached
0
, he allowed himself to open his eyes a crack and check their surroundings. The hallway had broadened out to the sides into a large open room. The castle walls brimmed with magic, holding the fortress together for however long they could. Light filtered in through the high, transparent ceiling and specks of dust rose in front of Asher’s view. “It’s morning…”

“That’s nice. You see anything noteworthy?”

“Not really.” Asher looked around again. His gaze stuck to the ceiling. A tower loomed into the skies in the direction they’d just come from. Swaying like an autumn leave hanging on to a twig. At the top, a glaring blue light sprinkled into the wind, a stark contrast to the soft light of the morning sun. “I think the tower’s gonna fall.”

“Tower?”

“Never mind, just go on.”

José took a step, another one, then stood still, tensed.

“Wha—”

“Shh!”

Was someone coming? Someone who hadn’t fled the crumbling fortress yet? Asher closed his eyes again and listened. Over the noise of the crumbling building, it was impossible to make out anything.

“Anywhere we could hide?” José asked.

“Uh…” Asher blinked. “No, we’re in an open hall. Nothing but some old ugly shelves to the sides.”

José inhaled. The tension hadn’t yet left him.

“Who’s coming?” Asher asked, unsure that he wanted to hear the reply.

“Fox.”

Asher swallowed and balled his hands into fists. He hadn’t wanted to see Fox-Face ever again. He checked the room again for places to hide. Still nothing. Fuck. His heart beat sped up; there was nothing he could do to stop that.

“I'm going to set you down,” José said. Asher squeezed his eyes shut again until his feet touched the ground.
Run
. He wanted to run. He stood on his feet, but his vision swayed, and then the rest of the world did too. Ten, nine, eight, and he doubled over. Clutched José's arm before he could fall. Breathed in, out, waited for his head to clear, and slowly sat down.

José stood still in front of him, listening, waiting. He wasn't running. He should be. Better than having another conversation with that four-tailed lying know-it-all bastard. But José wasn't going anywhere.

The sound of running feet reached Asher’s ears and he backed up against the wall, his gaze fixed on the exit where the fox would be making his appearance.

Fox-Face came in tails swishing and ears twitching. His eyes glared with the promise to kill as they landed on him and José. Asher held his breath as he looked back at him. Dare you to kill me, he thought, willing himself to be more confident than he felt.
I'm already dead.

The fox's gaze flickered from him to José. He snorted. “I thought he was an idiot, but you're the bigger fool after all.”

“I may be a fool,” José said, “but it's not my fortress that's falling to pieces right now.” The silence that followed weighed like a ton on Asher’s chest.

Then the fox charged at José, who took a step to the side, away from Asher. They crashed to the ground beside him, the bastard on top. Within a second, José’s body lit up on fire. The fox growled and jumped off him. The smell of something burned permeated the air. "Don't think cheap tricks like that will stop me from annihilating you."

José scrambled to his feet, his skin still glowing red. “You don't want to know how we got out?”

“I'll rip the information from your mind. Just before I shatter it.”

If that threat made José nervous, he didn’t let it show. “You can’t touch me.”

For a split second, the fox’s gaze flickered to Asher, who felt himself edge closer to the wall. “Stay the fuck away.”

“You touch him over my dead body,” José said.

Fox-Face laughed once, not a hint of amusement in his voice. “That can be arranged.”

Asher gritted his teeth as he watched, unable to tear his eyes off the fox. Now José and he were both going to bite it. Asher’s hand moved into his pocket and closed around his lighter. It wasn’t enough to calm him.

Before his eyes, the fox’s skin began to glow an intense shade of orange. The aura he emitted made him look like he was part of the sun that rose above the glass ceiling. Only more furious. More lethal. A shiver went down Asher’s spine as their eyes met, but he refused to avert his gaze. He swallowed down a lump in his throat. Stared right back at the fox.
Bring it on, bitch.

In the corner of his vision, something moved.

***

Ruigi looked around the artifact room with a grim smile. So far, everything had gone according to plan. He hadn’t been sure the building would collapse, but it was a nice extra. The dragon and the elf should be well on their way out by now, and he shouldn’t stay too long himself. He had to find Ketsu and make sure he would evacuate the fortress. All his work would have been for naught if Ketsu went down with the building.

He hurried down the hallway, up a flight of stairs, and another one, before he stopped dead in his tracks at a noise ahead of him. Voices reached his ears above the grumbling stones. Ketsu was in the sky hall. And there were people with him. Those stupid good-for-nothing morons! What were they doing there? Why hadn't they left? Holding his breath, Ruigi listened, his thoughts racing to come up with a solution and hitting nothing but dead ends.

Ruigi sneaked up on the group, his gaze falling on the dragon sitting on the ground. Why was he just sitting there? The poison should not have knocked him off his feet so quickly. The answer hit Ruigi like a punch to the face: he hadn't calculated any possible co-effects with the painkiller he had given Asher. The ground seemed to slip away from underneath his feet.

How on earth could he have been so stupid? It took all his willpower not to bang his head against the wall in frustration. Now instead of leaving the fortress, they had run into Ketsu, and Ketsu would know exactly what had happened. All because of such a simple error.

At the very least, he had still succeeded in putting an end to Ketsu's crazy campaign. He inhaled once, gritted his teeth, and stepped into the hall.

“Ketsu,” he said, but his friend did not turn to him.

“Splendid job you did of watching things while I was asleep.” Ketsu’s voice was dangerously low.

“I—”

“He was very helpful,” the elf said.

There followed one second of absolute quiet. Not even the collapsing of the building entered Ruigi’s ears, until Ketsu whirled around to face him.

“You?” It was all he said, but it was enough to convey his shock and disbelief at the discovery. What hurt the most however, was the underlying feeling of ‘I knew it’ that was written on his face. Ketsu had not honestly trusted him in a long time.

Ruigi closed his eyes for one moment, and, knowing that there was nothing he could say at this point, he voiced the first thing on his mind: “Don’t take it personally.”

The weak smile that accompanied the words was wiped off his face as his friend growled, jumped and nailed him to the floor. Amber eyes bore into him with all the ferocity of a true beast as his back connected with the shaking ground.

“Not take it personally?!” Ketsu pushed down on his shoulders. “You stab me in the back. You ruin my life’s work. And that is all you have to say to me?” A hand grabbed a hold of his hair and slammed his head back against the ground with a force that made his vision blur for a moment. “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?”

“Everything I did,” Ruigi said, “I did for you.”

“How can you— how is any of this—” Ketsu twisted his hand in his hair, seeming to search for words to properly express his dismay. Giving up asking, he pressed his hand to Ruigi’s forehead. Ruigi had expected the intrusion, but when it happened, the brutality of it still left him breathless. Ketsu was like a slaughterer hacking into his head with a chef’s knife. The world around him faded as his own memories consumed his mind.