by Jessica Roe
Nodding, Zay stumbled just a little – all the traveling through portals had started to take its toll. He winced as Fortune let go of his arm, revealing a sizzling red hand print. “Yeah, drowning definitely isn't my favorite method of transportation.”
Sacha pulled back as Zay's words registered, frowning at Gable. Now that they were back in their own world, both he and Fortune had regained control of their powers again and his wolf traits had retreated back inside of him, waiting for the next full moon. “What? You drowned? On purpose? Tell me you didn't do that for me!”
Gable glared at Zay for his slip, and he pursed his lips, not even bothering to hide his amusement. “Oops. Awkward.”
She turned back to Sacha. “We'll talk about it later.”
“You bet your sweet ass we'll talk about it later.” He scowled at her, and for just a moment he was the old Sacha again. But it didn't take long for the haunted darkness to return to his eyes.
Gable didn't care; she'd take whichever Sacha she could get. The old one, the new one; one with ghosts and demons and horrifying nightmares. She would take it all, as long as it was him.
“Xavier!” a choked out yell interrupted, and a disheveled Charles was suddenly barreling into his son. He grabbed him up in a bear hug, squeezing so tight that Zay wheezed. “I came as soon as I could. Why didn't you call me earlier, you bloody bugger? I had to hear you were back from Felicity!”
“I wanted to get everyone home first,” Zay explained, patting his back. “Dad. . . Can't breathe! I'm fine, Dad. We made it.”
“I've been out of my mind. I had no idea if you were even alive!”
“Alright, no need to be so dramatic.” But despite his words, it was clear that Zay was just as pleased to see his father again.
The warehouse was almost empty. All of the prisoners had already left for Yarmac & Bogely's, and the guards had been taken away. Only the Guardians remained.
Near the doors, Kain had wrapped Queenie up in his arms and it didn't look like he was planning on letting her go anytime soon. Her cheeks were stained red, and Gable knew she must have been remembering their conversation over Kain's feelings for her.
Walker, stony faced as usual, regarded them all with a heavy sigh. She patted Nicky's shoulder once. It was awkward, like she wasn't used to showing affection. “You made it, then?” she asked casually, but it was obvious she cared. Deep down. Deep, deep down.
Spotting her, Hue ambled over and slung an arm around her shoulders. He placed a big, wet kiss on the corner of her lips.
She shoved him off. “Gross! You stink, Tracker!”
“You know you love it, baby.”
She pretended to gag, but Gable was sure that her cheeks darkened. Just a little.
Gable smiled as she glanced around at all the people who had somehow become her friends – with the exception of Walker, of course. And then there was Sacha. She slipped her arms around his waist and held on tight.
Yes, she was home.
+++
It was nearing midnight by the time they reached Yarmac & Bogely's. The familiarity surrounded Gable, filling her to the brim and relaxing her in a way she'd never been able to on that island. As soon as Tamitri let them in through the gates she let out a sigh of relief as the smell of spices and cooking foods and fire smoke washed over her.
“Gable!” Terelle greeted with a sigh of sheer relief. “You're here, finally.” She pulled her into her arms. Gable hugged her back without letting go of Sacha's hand.
“Yeah, we're home.”
Terelle turned to Sacha with watery eyes. The two of them had never gotten along, but Gable knew Terelle had always felt guilty over his disappearance. When Terelle had become leader of the Outcasts at Yarmac & Bogely's, she had made him leave his home there when most of the others had deemed him too dangerous. Since then, she'd blamed herself for that – had thought that if she'd never made him leave, he'd never have been taken.
She placed a delicate hand on his arm and squeezed. “I'm truly glad to see you alive and home again. I never believed it possible. . .” Her head shook back and forth, as though she was annoyed with her own lack of belief. “. . .but Gable, she never gave up hope. Not when it came to you. She was adamant that she'd bring you home again, and here you are.”
Sacha opened his mouth, but seemed to be struggling to find words. Instead he just nodded and squeezed Gable's hand. She could tell that he was growing weaker once more; he needed rest.
The two of them weaved their way through crowds of Outcasts, all awake despite the late hour – with the excitement of so many lost souls returned home, none would be getting much sleep at all.
Tents had been set up for the injured, and the prisoners had all been invited to re-cooperate at Yarmac & Bogely's for as long as they needed. Fabian, the young teenage healer, was exhausting himself trying to help as many people as he could, but there were so many injured that another healer from a different tribe had been called in to help. Gable made Sacha get checked out though she refused medical attention for herself; her injuries were not as severe as some of the others had suffered, and the healers needed to concentrate on those who needed their powers most. Besides, she wanted the pain. Needed it. She welcomed every ache, every burn, every cut and bruise and broken bone, because it let her know that it had all been real; they had succeeded in their mission and it hadn't been a dream. She really and truly had her best friend back.
So many stopped Gable and Sacha to talk that it took them almost forty minutes to finally make it to Terelle's tent. She was momentarily surprised that plenty of people were already inside, but then she really shouldn't have been.
Ward, who already looked so much better away from the island and in control of his powers again, leaned against Terelle's curved staircase as he chatted easily with Cadby. He too must have refused healing aid, because the bump on his head from where Zay had hit him was clearly visible. He mustn't have been holding a grudge, however, because when Zay walked by him, he slapped his shoulder and grinned.
Zay joined Charles and Walker on the other side of the room, and Gable heard snippets as he gave them a detailed account on everything that had happened since they'd left them at the airport four days earlier.
She blinked, shaking her head in surprise. Really? Had it only been four days? It felt like they'd been on their mission for so much longer.
On one of Terelle's sofas, Queenie had curled up in a corner and fallen fast asleep. A smitten Kane sat next to her, stroking her hair. On Kain's other side was Nicky, who was busy looking absolutely anywhere in the room but at Gable and Sacha. A stab of guilt ran through her, but she'd never lied to him. She'd been honest with Nicky right from the start about where her feelings lay.
It might have helped if she'd stopped kissing him, though.
A hand clapped her shoulder, startling her out of her thoughts. Hue grinned as he entered the tent behind her, gesturing down at his flawless body. “Like new. Those healers are fucking awesome.” He winked at her. “So, road trip soon?”
She smirked back and nodded. “It's on.”
Even Ralf Vance, the North American Elder, had managed to tear himself away from his elderly duties to visit with them. He and Terelle were discussing the results of the mission in low voices, and he seemed pleased.
Sacha stumbled a little next to her; he was still weak. He needed rest – a lot of rest. And probably intense therapy, though that would never happen. Sacha wasn't a therapy kind of guy.
Gable sat down on the floor by the entrance to Terelle's tent, leaning back against the thick canvas and pulling Sacha down with her. Her cheek dropped to his shoulder, and his head rested on hers as she entwined their feet. His eyes closed, and she heard him let out a satisfied sigh.
Terelle passed them by as she went to talk to Charles, smiling fondly down at them. “Ah, now this is familiar. Gable and Sacha, in their own separate world away from everybody else. I never thought I'd see this again.”
Behind her, Nicky flinc
hed.
“The full moon is in two days,” Sacha murmured quietly to Gable when Terelle had left them. “I can feel it.”
“When did you last change?” she asked. If he'd been stuck with the leeches, his change never would have taken place.
He was silent for a moment, and then, “A few months ago, I think. I don't know what they did to me while I was the wolf, but I remember how much it hurt the next day.”
Gable bit down hard on her lip, trying to keep the tears at bay. She wanted to bring both Chase and Pablo back to life, simply so she could kill them all over again for ever hurting Sacha. He didn't deserve it. God, out of all the people she'd ever known, he was the one who'd deserved it the least.
She turned her face up and kissed his jaw, his cheekbone, his eyebrow.
Ralf cleared his throat to capture everyone's attention. When they were all silent and watching – because here was a man so powerful that he owned a room, simply by being in it – he glanced around at them all seriously. “Today, I am the proudest Elder of all. What you did, what you achieved is. . .phenomenal. Simply and utterly phenomenal. You are all heroes, and each one of those Outcasts you brought home – they're heroes too.” He coughed, trying to reign in his emotions. “The key will be returned to Faiz, and it will be up to him what he does with it then; but before that, it is being used by a team of Officials and Trackers. They are working diligently as we speak to scour the island, make sure there are no remaining guards left behind or prisoners who might have wandered away. So far they haven't found any stragglers. They will also be bringing home the bodies of the Outcasts who didn't make it so that they may have a proper burial.”
Terelle nodded at that. “That will be much appreciated by all.”
“Unfortunately,” Ralf continued. “many bodies were lost in the wreckage. They will not be so easy to recover. It is my hope that we can arrange a service to commemorate their losses.
We haven't been able to dig up much information on the man who'd been running things in the wake of Pablo's death.” He glanced searchingly at Gable. “Xavier tells me you can expand more on this?”
She stiffened, feeling Sacha's eyes on her, though she refused to look at him. Stupidly, she'd been hoping for just a little more time before she would have to come clean, before she would have to explain to him all the awful things she'd done since he'd been gone. He was going to hate her when she'd told him everything, and then she was going to lose him again, right after getting him back.
But the thing was – she'd do it all over again. If the end result was her finding him and bringing him home, she'd do every last terrible thing, again and again until her soul was nothing more than a puddle of black, sludgy tar.
With a falling heart, she nodded at Ralf. “Yeah, uhm. . .his name was Chase Packmire – he was Pablo's assistant. He always seemed like such a nice guy. I don't. . . I guess I didn't know him at all.” She sighed, ignoring Sacha's searching gaze on her face. “But I'll tell everything you I do know. Later.”
“Of course.” Ralf waved a hand in the air. “You should rest first. You should get plenty of rest, in fact – I have a feeling you'll be very busy in the near future, Guardian.”
She regarded him tiredly. With everything that had happened, she'd forgotten all about that. Her, a Guardian? Shaking her head, she decided it was something that could be left to think on tomorrow.
There was a sudden boom outside the tent and Gable flinched uneasily. Her mind immediately jerked back to the island, to the earthquake and the collapsing prison. She wasn't the only one who reacted – Sacha, and everyone else in the room who had been on the island with her, visibly paled.
“That'll be some of the younger ones setting off fireworks,” Terelle said, rolling her eyes. She didn't seem to notice their turmoil, or if she did, she was doing well to hide it. “They must have begun the welcome home celebrations already. I told Celeste and Lace to wait until everyone had slept and rested up.” She tutted and left the tent to scold the kids.
With her exit, the impromptu meeting seemed to come to an end. The group broke off into twos and threes to further discuss everything, but Sacha wrapped his arm around Gable's waist and whispered, “I'm so tired.”
Nodding, she climbed to her feet and helped him up – though there was only so much help she could give a six foot five werewolf. Cadby approached them before they could leave, smiling brightly as usual as if he hadn't just returned from a harrowing experience of epic proportions. He was good at faking, she realized, because if she'd not felt a direct link to his thoughts back on the island, she'd never have known about his feelings for her. He was so good at hiding all the bad crap. She hoped he found someone to love him unconditionally soon, someone so much better for him than her.
He pulled Sacha into a hug and slapped his back. “Missed you, bro,” he said, amused at his own understatement. Though he was eight years older than Sacha at thirty three, they had been very close friends growing up together at Yarmac & Bogely's. Gable suddenly felt very guilty for hogging Sacha ever since they'd found them.
“Don't be dumb,” Cadby teased, reading her thoughts. “I'll catch up with him later.”
“I missed you too,” Sacha told him with a faint smile. “Not quite as much as her though.”
Cadby laughed. “Go get some rest in my tent. It's probably one of the only places you'll get any privacy right about now.” Even without being able to see Sacha's thoughts, he could still read him well.
Thanking him, they left the tent. Cadby was probably the only one that even noticed.
Chapter 35
Gable
Once outside, Gable and Sacha paused for a moment to look up and watch the bright fireworks as they lit up the midnight blue sky. They were mesmerizing in an astonishingly beautiful way – golds and reds and pinks and greens. Wonderful explosions that were such a far cry from Ward's terrifying earthquake that Gable felt stupid for her moment of panic back in the tent. The fireworks reminded Gable of the stars back in Zawavia – alive and dancing and endless.
Another raging bonfire had been lit, almost as tall as Terelle's tent. Outcasts in high spirits had already begun to drink around it, laughing as they danced and span and rejoiced.
Terelle was watching on with folded arms. Her lips were straining as she tried to look unamused, but ultimately she failed to keep the grin off her face.
Sacha's large, warm hand slipped into Gable's as he pulled her against him. “This is perfect,” he whispered into her hair. “This is all I wanted. To be back here again, with you.”
“Me too,” she admitted. “Come on.” Her hand tugged his, leading the way to Cadby's tent. She was still limping, but she didn't let it slow her down.
Fortune approached them as they walked. He was a tall guy – though not as tall as Sacha. His time in the underground prison had left him pale and thin, but Gable could tell that when he put on a few more pounds and got used to the sunshine and freedom again, he'd be ridiculously handsome.
“Hey,” he greeted them both cheerfully. “How're you doing, buddy?”
Sacha shrugged. “I can't even. . . Fuck. I just keep waiting to wake up.”
“Not this time. I should never have doubted those dreams were real.” He shoot a cheeky smirk at Gable. “He talked about you in there, you know. Just once or twice. . .an hour.”
Sacha elbowed him. “Dude!” He paused, and then, “How's Gelasius doing? I never thanked him.”
“You'll get your chance, don't worry. They got him to that healing kid just in time. Do you know him? Bloody incredible.”
“Yeah, Fab's pretty awesome.”
“Anyway, Gelasius is fine now. Holding court and letting everyone tell him what a hero he is, the sod. It's definitely going to his head.”
“He deserves it.”
Fortune nodded. “That he does. Moisey's good too. They fixed his broken leg right up.”
“And you?” Gable asked. “How are you doing?”
“I'm okay.” But
something flashed across his eyes then; something haunted. The same haunted look in Sacha's eyes. “Physically, at least. The healer fixed me up good and proper too. No more broken wrist for me.”
The crackling of the bonfire and the singing and playful screeching grew quieter the further they walked. As soon as they reached Cadby's plain white tent, Sacha flopped down on the single bed and closed his eyes.
Without bothering to light any candles or turn on the lamp, Gable and Fortune sat down on the chairs by the wooden table in one corner of the room. The room was lit up only by the starlight shining in through the gap in the tent entrance. Cadby had always had simple tastes; had preferred not to clog up his space with material possessions. All he had was a bed, a dresser and a table.
“And the rest?” Gable asked Fortune quietly.
He didn't need to ask her what she meant. His lips pursed as he glanced down at the table, his finger poking at a knot in the wood. She had a feeling he was reliving some awful, awful memories. “The rest will take time,” he admitted. When he looked back up at her, it was with a smile plastered across his face. Gable was sure it wasn't entirely genuine, but that didn't matter much. Fortune was clearly a man who liked to remain positive, and she wouldn't judge him for that. “But I'll get there. We all will,” he added, his eyes flickering towards Sacha.
“What will you do now?”
A heavy sigh escaped him, and he rolled his neck around, cracking it. “I'll go back to England, tell my folks I'm not really dead. My death was faked, so. . .that'll be intense, I suppose.”
“One time he even took a fire elemental who was traveling the world and made it look like he'd drowned at sea so his family wouldn't come looking for 'im.”
Gable flashed back to what the reaper had told her in the hospital that day. It made her sick to think she'd ever been a part of Pablo's lies and deceptions.
“After that,” Fortune continued. “I have no idea. Perhaps I'll travel again, though the wanderlust seems to have faded from my heart. I guess Pablo took that from me too.” He stood then, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder. “I should go. Apparently they're all getting pissed around that fire and I could do with getting good and bloody hammered right now. Besides, I think you two have earned some time alone.”