Chapter 17

17

I t's not like she wakes up, not quite, but more like something gradually pulls her upward, tugging her back to awareness, one torturous moment to the next.

She's laying on something cold, something chilled and hard, and though she fights to keep her eyes shut, there's a bright, sterile light above her. The cut on her shoulder stings, distant.

And the creeping sensation of the dead fly, still in the plastic pill case on the table.

She pops her eyes open. The dead fly.

The fluorescent lights above her shine, painfully, too much, and she flops her arm over to cover her eyes.

"Delly?"

It's Maison's voice, quiet and subdued, and for a few moments her mind rejects it. He had been bleeding, she felt him die, she felt his brain stop and his heart still and everything go wrong.

"Delly, you need to sit up."

She tilts her head over in the direction of his voice. She's laying on the bare concrete of the basement, a spray-painted circle of gold wide, encompassing almost the entire room. The tables are pushed to the side, the bookcases pressed against the walls, as far away as possible.

Maison's sitting cross legged, a few good paces away, and his eyes glow red at her.

She glances to the circle, it's exactly like the one that had been in front of the door when she first got here.

There's blood still on Maison's cheek, like he had missed a spot while washing, though he's pulled on a new shirt and a hoodie somewhere along the line. His lungs ache, bone deep, and the skin across his chest itches and tugs at Delina's awareness.

"You died," she says, dumbly, then makes a face at the taste in her mouth, pushing herself up to sitting.

Her head swims, and she blinks through the dizziness.

"Is this a demon thingy?" she asks, pointing to the spray paint. "The trap?"

Maison nods, his expression something awful.

He's sitting in there with her, which means he can't leave.

"You've been out for about three hours, we got you back here. Gurlien and Chloe are now putting every anti-demon ward on the house they can possibly think of, carving it into the very forest floor." His voice is still soft, like he's expecting volume to hurt her. "You are very, very lucky."

There's a pallet of water bottles, helpfully put in the circle with them, and Delina makes an aborted motion towards them, before Maison scrambles over, pulling one out and opening it in one smooth action.

"You were dead, though," Delina says, after a long glug of water. Her own head aches, her fingertips tremble, weak.

His face twists. "Yeah."

"The…other guy, he did something, he killed you." The more she says, the further away it feels. "I saw it go through you, you died."

Maison rubs his face, and there's still blood underneath his fingernails. "And you're a necromancer, and you panicked."

She stares at him for one long moment. "You're welcome?"

He huffs out an approximation of a laugh, but it hurts the skin on his chest. "You could have died so easily right then, it's just luck that you're not dead."

She crosses her arms, and his fingerprints where he had gripped her and pulled himself in front of her are still there, almost bruises.

They had obviously tried to clean the blood off of her, wiping off her hand, though her shirt still sticks uncomfortably to her skin.

For a long moment, the only sound is the buzzing of the lights overhead.

"You should eat, too," Maison says, gently. "You put so much power into me your body shut down."

Food sounds like the opposite of what she wants to do, but he tosses her a pop tart and she rips open the cheap wrapping, her hands shaking.

"Is everyone else in danger?" she asks, her voice smaller than she wants. "Are they okay, too?"

"I don't think Gurlien's gonna sleep tonight, his face is one mess of bruising," Maison reports, "and Chloe is way more twitchy and spooked than she wants to say. But they're only in danger of being collateral damage, and each ward they put down decreases that possibility."

Doesn't explain why he's down here, where he can't escape.

"Does everyone always feel like ass when they do their magic?" Delina asks, and gets the barest hint of a dimple in return. "Cause this sucks."

"I think anyone who, completely untrained, put as much of themselves into doing some as you did, would feel just as shitty." He stretches out his legs in front of him, and there's a scrape on his shin that she didn't notice when her hand was on him. "You didn't just bring me back, you apparently tried to fix the entirety of the injury itself."

"Well yeah," Delina says, finishing the water bottle and immediately grabbing the other one. "It felt like you would just…die again if I didn't."

He raises an eyebrow at her, then shakes his head, and there's an echo of pain as he did that. "That's terrifying, and I don't think you realize this."

His skin is still paler than it should be, and there are circles under his eyes.

"Is there anything else to eat besides a pop tart?" Delina asks, glancing around the makeshift circle. A duffel bag sits to one side, but she very much does not want to touch something she's not supposed to.

"Five-hour energy drinks, power bars, a bag of chocolate chips, and some beef jerky," Maison says. "What, they left their emergency food bag, they didn't want to spend time cooking something."

"No, that's fine, it's just…" She attempts to push herself up to standing, but her knees wobble and she sits down hard on the concrete floor. "Weird options."

"When they're done, Chloe mentioned something about cooking an actual meal, but nobody's coming into this circle until they've finished the wider one." Maison digs into the duffle bag, tossing her a five-hour energy shot and the bag of chocolate chips.

"There is no way I'm drinking this," Delina informs him.

"I guarantee you'll feel better if you do," he snips back.

"Gross," Delina says, then opens it anyways. "Aren't these outlawed in a few states?"

"I mean, they should be," Maison says, taking one himself and shooting it in one go before coughing at the taste.

Which, of course, tugs at the skin and the ache in his lungs.

"Sorry," she blurts out, and he raises a single eyebrow at her. "Your lungs hurt."

Deliberately, he sets the shot to the side, then leans forward. "Delina, and I mean this completely seriously, don't fucking worry about it."

She blinks at his word choice.

"The College sent one of their best battle mages to kill you, you literally brought me back from the dead, you almost got yourself killed, I could not give two shits that I'm a bit sore."

It still bugs at her awareness.

"I'm alive, you're alive, I could be full of broken bones and I would not care."

"That's fair, I guess," she replies, and stretches, her entire body angry that she was apparently asleep on concrete for a few hours. "Glad we didn't bring a demon down on us."

"That's because we threw you in the car and broke way too many speeding laws getting out of range of the flare you put up," he says, then, slowly, reaches a hand out to her. "I know you're still mad that I lied, I know you can't trust me, but can I please see that you're alright?" His voice lilts up, suddenly vulnerable, and he swallows that down, his throat moving.

Even in their fights, even in their bad moments and their close calls, she's never seen him like this.

"Okay," she says, nervy, and he scoots over to sit next to her, cross-legged. "I feel like shit but I'm okay."

He rests his hand on his knee, palm facing up, and he's so close it's overwhelming.

"Why are you down here, anyways?" Delina asks, before gingerly placing her hand in his.

He inhales, then clears his throat. "In case they couldn't get the demon traps upstairs set up in time." He curls his thumb around her palm. "I'm going to do a basic scan on you, it won't feel like the one Korhonen did on you, it'll be gentler."

"Right, because he could tell what I was."

"What he did is considered very unethical, so you know." He briefly squeezes her hand, and a warmth spreads through her entire arm. "This is much milder, and if I was actually a demon, I would be able to do this just by glancing at you."

She shivers, even though it's warm.

"You need to eat way more," he says, his eyes half closed, staring off into nothing. "You will have a blood sugar crash soon if you don't."

"Alright," she says, then opens the bag of chocolate chips with one hand and pops some into her mouth. "That's doable."

"You're so low energy," he says, distant, "if anyone tried to scan you right now, they'd think you were completely normal."

"That's good, right?" Delina says, resisting the urge to pull back her hand so she can hug her knees into herself.

"No, it's very much not good, it means you're defenseless," Maison says, snapping back to full attention, but keeping the grip on her hand. "Just…"

He sighs, and with the paleness of his face and the circles under his eyes, it's like the last few hours have aged him.

"You stepped in front of me," Delina says, softly, after a few moments of silence pass under the harsh fluorescent lights.

He nods, circling his thumb on the back of her hand.

"That would've been a convenient way to get out of your problems," Delina continues. "Nobody would blame you if you didn't protect me now."

He looks up at her, really looks at her, like he can see all the way through her, and a thrill half akin to fear spirals up her spine. "I would blame me."

It's so close, so close to some sort of confession, something she so desperately wants to hear that she has to blink back tears in her eyes. She always cries at inopportune times, and this would be among them.

"Aww, no, Delly," he says, and his voice breaks. "Don't…" He tugs her into a hug, one of his wonderful hugs, wrapping his arms around her on the cold concrete floor, surrounded by gold spray paint and her dead mother's old research. "Don't cry."

"I'm not," she declares, before burying her face into his chest, right where she can hear his heartbeat.

It beats strong, perfectly in rhythm, and new tears well up in her eyes.

He strokes back her hair, gentle, as she shakes apart, real tears spilling over her cheeks, as everything in the last few days catches up to her, all at once. At the letter, the betrayal, the stares, the strangers in the house, the bio-trap, and Maison actually fucking dying, everything.

"You're okay, I'm okay, it's okay," Maison whispers, and she clings to him, to the clean hoodie and the still soreness in his lungs. "You'll get through this, you're going to live and figure this out."

It's not quite what she needs to hear, but she can't bring herself to say anything, just cries.

Some time later, when her tears have subsided but she can't pull herself away, someone clatters down the stairs and Maison abruptly stiffens. All the warm comfort, all the soft touches and gentle arms around her, immediately transforming into something foreign.

"All clear," Chloe's voice says, and Delina tugs herself away, sitting upright. "Oh good, you're awake."

Her tone suggests it's anything but good.

"And the forest floor?" Maison asks, deeply skeptical.

"Let's just say, any plant biologist would absolutely lose their shit if they ever did any research, and someone will have to let you in and out every time you want to leave for a bit." Chloe looks past him at Delina's ruined makeup. "Are you feeling okay?"

The answer is no, but she shrugs.

"Of course she doesn't, she hit burnout on her first time using her powers in any substantial way, nobody would feel okay after that." Gurlien steps down the stairs after Chloe, and a startlingly purple bruise mars his cheekbone and his eye is half swollen shut, but he crosses his arms at them. "Have you told her she was stupid yet?"

"I told her she was lucky," Maison responds, standing up, and his eyes still flash red.

"That's a nice way to put it," Gurlien says, then nods at Chloe. "Go ahead and let him out of this one."

Delina watches as Chloe sketches something midair, and the curve of the circle closest to her blurs.

"Is it safe for me to leave?" Delina asks dully, her head now good and truly pounding like it always does after she cries.

"Should be," Gurlien says, voice deeply skeptical. "That was insanely stupid of you."

Maison offers her a hand, pulling her up, and she sways.

"Now they know you're you, they know our general area, that Chloe and I are up here, they know that Maison double crossed them, and they know how to get back at him."

"They probably think I'm still dead," Maison says, with a glance back at Delina. "Hopefully, no getting back at me."

"And they know she's a Necromancer, nobody in their right mind is going to think you're still dead," Gurlien says, and by the tightness in his lips, he's frightened, too. "My former boss smacked me away like I was a fly, they're not going to assume anything and they're going to come down hard."

Maison scowls at him.

"I'm reheating some soup from our freezer, and Gurlien's already has bread in the oven," Chloe says, and soup and bread sound just about perfect. "Think you can manage the stairs?"

The answer to that is also no, but Delina nods anyways, and they all tromp upstairs, Maison's hand steadying on the small of her back the entire way.

Chance meows at her the moment she's back on the couch, before butting his head against her arm and crawling into her lap.

"Aww, the cat likes me," Delina says, holding as still as she possibly can, feeling wrung out.

"The cat does that to anyone who's feeling bad, don't take it personally," Gurlien says.

"Gurlien, stop," Chloe mutters, and he does, sitting at the table and accepting an ice pack for his face.

"What's the likelihood of them tracking us directly here?" Delina asks, as Chloe offers her a glass of water.

"Relatively unlikely but not impossible," Gurlien says, waving the hand not pressing the ice pack to his eye around. "Depends on how in-depth their knowledge of Frisse's properties is. This building is pretty well hidden, if they don't have directions to it."

Delina glances over at Maison, and he's staring blankly out at the door, like now that they're upstairs and out of the demon circle, the entire day is catching up to him.

"Oh, he found you because you slept with him, so unless you've slept with other members who just so happen to have innate tracking powers and bonds, you don't need to worry about it," Gurlien says, and Delina's gathered something of the ilk, but it's still…weird.

"What he's saying is we should be safe for now," Chloe says from the stove. "We just don't know how long that will last."