Page 9 of The World Undone

“Max, that’s too much.”

My fingers tensed around Sarah, like they were searching for purchase, for other entry points.

“Max.”

This time, there was a note of pain in Eli’s voice, and I stumbled back. His hands weren’t at my shoulders anymore—they were clutching his head, his face contorted in pain as he took deep, heaving breaths.

“Oh my god, I’m sorry,” I crawled towards him, pulling his hands away and replacing them with my own. Had I somehow pulled energy from him? “Fuck, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I did. I wasn’t thinking.”

Finding the thread tying me to Eli took almost no time at all. It was strong and thick and as familiar to me as my hand.

“No, don’t—I’m okay.”

I ignored his protests, healing him quickly. I hadn’t taken too much strength from him, and healing Eli from something so small came with an absurd ease when compared to my ragged attempts to heal Sarah.

The muscles in his face loosened. “Thanks, you didn’t have to?—”

“Eli, shut up. This is nothing. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize what I was doing—sometimes healing puts me in a weird sort of trance.” When I accessed that power, all I could think about was helping the other person, all self-preservation gone, every atom of my body ready to surrender for the cause if needed. Khalida had warned me of it—the power that came with healing others was addictive and all-consuming. Difficult to control. You lost yourself in it.

I stood up, pulling him with me, as I turned back to Sarah. I studied her for a long moment, searching for the small spark, but finding the same blankness I’d tried to fight all week.

Had I imagined it?

“There you are, Max.” Charlie stood in the doorway. Her lips pressed into a grim sort of grin—the smile unable to quite reach her eyes under the weight of everything she was dealing with. She turned to Eli and nodded. “Eli. I’m sorry I haven’t been available to either of you for a few days. Things have been—” she scrunched her nose, “hectic, to say the least. As I’m sure you’ve both noticed.”

Charlie was one of the leaders here. She’d welcomed us in—along with everyone else who’d been ostracized by The Guild or the outside world, whether demon, protector, or human. Charlie was mostly the latter, though she had some protector ancestry. Her partner, Bishop, was ex-Guild.

And apparently Atlas’s cousin—long assumed dead. Small world.

I didn’t know either of them particularly well, but they’d treated us with respect and kindness, even knowing that we were keeping secrets from them. That counted for a lot. Especially when The Guild operated on a platform of distrust.

“Good to see you, Charlie,” I said and, surprisingly, I meant it.

We didn’t know the people here well—Eli and I especially. We hadn’t had the time here that Darius, Declan, Wade, and Ro had while we’d been briefly locked in hell.

Even so, I couldn’t shake the innate trust that Charlie and those she surrounded herself with seemed to inspire and demand from me. There was something about her that called out to me, a kinship that I felt deep in my bones, even if it didn’t make much sense from a logical standpoint. Trust was an expensive commodity these days.

But if I’d learned anything over the last few months, it was that I needed to trust my intuition.

“I heard you were going to see Seamus today. Thought I’d swing by and say hi, see how you were doing before I get on with the rest of my morning tasks, walk you down.” She turned to Eli, compassion almost leaking from her pores. “Greta says you’ve both been helping tremendously in the med center this last week, we really appreciate it.”

His fingers twitched in mine, and I knew he was uncomfortable under her praise. “Least we can do.”

Charlie and Bishop had taken in everyone who’d followed us here. Bishop was protective of this place, understandably, and had instituted a rigorous vetting and acclimation process for the new recruits—they needed to make sure everyone who was here wanted to be here and understood the rules, the magic of this small community. The need to keep it, and the people here, safe.

But even through his surly facade, they’d also used all of the resources at their disposal to help everyone who needed medical attention, treating them all with the same attention and care they bestowed on their regulars here—without even questioning the utility or cost of it.

There’d been a few fights I’d heard about over the week, a vampire attacking another, a few protectors lashing out as well, caught between disgust and mourning over what they’d learned about The Guild.

Unlearning was a difficult thing. And they’d been indoctrinated in Guild practices and beliefs their entire life. It wasn’t easy recognizing how many of those beliefs were built on lies. History was a fragile concept when you started to interrogate who penned it.

But it would all be worth it, all work out. I hoped, anyway.

The goal was, as Charlie had explained it, that this community could create a space for that unlearning—a space for people to come together and grow stronger through shared goals and values.

Even a trickle of hope could wield uncompromising power and strength, if given the chance to spark and grow.

Charlie nodded and turned out of Sarah’s room, signaling for us to follow.

---