Page 67 of The World Undone

After I explained what I saw, what I felt, the more we spoke the connections into reality, the easier it became for everyone. Wade and Darius picked it up fast, then Eli begrudgingly followed an hour after them.

Atlas took the longest, but I think that had more to do with his hesitancy around connecting. He’d made great strides with Max, had been more vulnerable with her than he’d ever been with anyone. But it would take time for him to fully open that wound for us all.

Even still, he managed it a few times.

We also quickly discovered that it was only Max’s powers we could share. None of us, Max included, could mobilize Wade’s power, or Darius’s, or Atlas’s. Just hers. And she rarely grew tired with the siphoning. She was like the sun, shining her light, her power, down on us all—freely, happily.

Well into the night, with a soft fire lighting our little work ground, casting dancing shadows around us all, we started working on teleportation. Darius and I were the only ones able to access it just yet, and we were both nauseated with every shift. It would take time, pushing through it over and over again and eventually, Max assured us, it would get easier.

Charlie and Bishop had run food out to us a couple times, bringing updates about the med center each time and occasionally sticking around for a few minutes to watch. Izzy and Ro were handling the medical ward like pros. Greta had, thankfully, left rigorous and thorough notes on each of the patients, which made their care more manageable.

Charlie suspected that the nurse had been expecting something—preparing for it. She’d always had a sort of preternatural knowing, like she could sense when something was coming before the rest of us could. And it didn’t help that she’d run herself into the ground for her patients, both at The Guild and here—that kind of stamina could only last so long. We only had so much strength, so much power, and Greta had dedicated her life to giving hers to everyone she met.

It made perfect sense that she’d left behind a clear set of notes, directions to help guide us, to help us, even when she was no longer here to directly do it herself.

Well after midnight, we came back to fire conjuring, all of us needing a morale boost after the rigors of teleportation before we finally hit the cabin for some much-needed rest.

The rest of The Lodge had settled down, but Bishop joined us once more to let us know there were still no new updates with Seamus, and that Levi would be crashing in the medical center tonight in case there were any issues. Levi seemed to have the best handle on Seamus—something that clearly rankled Eli, but he was doing a good job of letting those jealousies slide off his back right now.

Bishop came with two six packs of beer dangling loosely from his hands. He raised them up a few inches, brow arched. “You’ve been out here all day and all night. It’s almost three a.m. You deserve a beer and a good sleep after today’s shitshow.” He paused, glancing briefly at Darius. “All of you.”

Bishop didn’t exactly look refreshed and revitalized himself. The dark bags under his eyes were full-on suitcases at this point.

“So do you,” I said, grabbing a beer and a spot around our magical little bonfire.

He considered for a moment, indecision warring across his expression.

In the months we’d been here, Bishop had been a bit of an enigma—a phantom moving from one mission or task to the next. The brief time he’d spent watching us practice using Max’s power today was maybe the closest I’d seen him to relaxing or hanging out since we got here.

Atlas nudged his shoulder, grabbing a beer. “Come on man, just one.”

“Promise I won’t bite,” Darius said with a grin as he sat down next to Max.

Bishop shot a glare at the vampire, though it was absent the vitriol he usually reserved for Darius.

I was certain he’d refuse, that he’d make up an excuse about getting back to Charlie checking on supplies. But after a defeated grunt, he nodded, grabbed a beer, and fell back on his ass next to Wade. He propped his arms on his knees and took a long draught of the beer, his eyes watching the flames with wonder.

They were quite a sight to behold. Even I found them difficult to look away from, and I’d seen Max conjure this fire countless times over the months.

Hellfire wasn’t just orange and red—it was layered with blues and purples, the colors merging and diverging in an elaborate dance that was impossible not to find beautiful—hypnotizing, even.

No one said anything for a few moments.

It had been so long since we’d been able to simply exist, to sit and enjoy each other’s presence, I wasn’t entirely sure how to do it anymore.

“To Greta,” Max said, raising her beer. Her eyes were glazed with emotion, sadness for the loss, but there was gratitude, strength, there as well. “She was the first person to ever encourage my rule-breaking.” She bumped her elbow into Darius. “And if it weren’t for her slipping me her key card, I probably would never have met Darius.”

“Well then,” the vampire cleared his throat, raised his beer, and said, “to Greta. Apparently, I owed the woman a deeper gratitude than I ever realized.”

“To Greta,” echoed around the fire, a solemn peace settling around us.

“I’ve lost count of how many times that woman saved my life.” Bishop shook his head, the shadow of a grin on his face as he took a pull of his beer. “She always had a soft spot for the rule breakers at The Guild.” He shrugged, features softening slightly. “Makes sense now, of course.”

“She was the best at keeping us the fuck out of trouble.” Wade smirked. “I swear, the number of times she caught me spying on you all down there after your missions.” He shook his head, “Alleva would have had my head before I managed to reach puberty if she knew the half of it. But Greta found ways to keep me busy, slipping me bits of information and casually looking the other way whenever I found myself hovering outside of one of your rooms after a bad sparring session.”

“She let me hang around in the medical ward on weekends,” Eli said, his stare distant, “when things got really bad with my mom, when my dad would disappear for days at a time—” he a blinked a few times, voice thick, before a soft smile lit his face, “she’d bring me down with her—insisted that learning basic medicine for the field was a better outlet for my anger than moping around Headquarters or shuffling through women.” He took a drink, then shook his head. “Stubborn woman, but she taught me everything I know about healing.”

Bishop laughed into his beer, then shook his head. “She said something similar to me, but I wasn’t smart enough to take her up on the offer. Not often enough, anyway.” He took a deep breath, leaned back on his hand. “She was good at that, training people without them even realizing it. I reckon most of us living in this community have more expertise in field medicine than half the medics working in The Guild. Which is good, something tells me we’ll need it.”

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