Page 188 of Cherish

I take one more deep breath and let it out slowly. “Well, then, I think today’s a good day to make that bedtime story come to life, don’t you?”

“Hell, yeah, I do,cher!” he answers, his New Orleans accent especially thick and syrupy.

“Okay, then.” I turn back toward the cell doors, determined to do whatever I can to help him.

“Are you sure he can do this?” Heather whispers. “He doesn’t look strong enough to—”

“He’s plenty strong enough,” I tell her firmly.

Remy walks over and lays a hand on the prison wall, right above his scratched drawing of Calder. He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes as he exhales, and…nothing happens.

Not a single thing.

Jaxon lets out a pained scream that makes us all shiver, and Remy grits his jaw, pressing his weight into the wall.

And still nothing happens.

Eden’s sudden shriek skates along my spine, and I can tell Remy is having trouble focusing. And I get it. I do. He’s probably too in his own head, too crushed by the weight of every single person screaming in agony on him to save them, if only he could get his shit together. I would be.

So I do the only thing I can think of. I call out to Remy, “You know what Calder would say right now, yeah? She’d tell you to forget about the people crying out—just ignore them. Everyone’s got troubles, and they ain’t yours to carry.” When he glances over at me under his lashes, I add, “She’d tell you to just focus on getting her to the nail salon. They have a new design she’s”—I toss my hair over my shoulder in a fair imitation of the manticore—“just dying to get. Now hurry up, will ya?”

He chuckles under his breath, then leans back and shakes his hand a couple of times, rolls his shoulders. He tosses me a wink and says, “Do you think they’ll paint little T. rexes on mine?”

“Wearing pink tutus,” I deadpan.

“Well, all right then,” he drawls. “Consider me properly motivated.”

And then he slams his palm against the thick metal wall and mutters to himself, “Fuck this place.”

One second, two…and the walls of the prison start to tremble around us. The floor shakes as cell doors begin to rattle against their hinges. But that’s all that happens. No walls come down. The ceiling doesn’t cave in. The floor doesn’t crumble beneath us.

She must not have gone far, because the Crone comes strolling back to our door and laughs, a dark, sarcastic sound. “Do you really think the God of Order’s construction would be easy—”

“Well, let’s add a little chaos then, shall we?” I interrupt, one eyebrow raised as I lay a hand on Remy’s shoulder.

I dig deep, grabbing my platinum string, shifting immediately, and then I grab my green demigod string with every ounce of energy I have—and pour my chaos magic directly into Remy, the dark forest green of his magic meeting and melding with the bright emerald green of mine.

He jolts when it hits him, his whole body lighting up in all the various shades of green as he starts to meld my magic with his own formidable power. And then, when he’s stored enough up, he lets it all go, exploding out of him in all directions.

This time, the floor shakes hard enough to make the Crone stumble. Watching that sarcastic half smile get knocked right off her bitch face might be one of the most satisfying moments of my life.

But I can tell Remy is having a problem controlling this much power, can see the way he’s nearly shaking apart under the strain of utilizing every ounce of both our magics. His feels like the most brilliant star in the night sky, but mine…mine is pure chaos. Wild and hungry and impossible to contain, no matter how hard Remy struggles to bridle it.

Remy strains against the power raging in him, and my eyes go wide. “You can control it, Remy,” I say. “There has to be a way to control it.”

Still, I’m not ready to give up. There has to be a way. There has to be—

“I’ve got you,” Heather tells me as, all of a sudden, she reaches out and puts a hand over mine, right where Remy’s and my magic meet.

“I don’t understand.” But even as I say it, I see the magic pulsing out of her. Not green like ours or gold like the Crone’s, but a bright, stalwart, shining red that’s impossible to miss.

There’s not a lot of it—but what there is is pure and powerful and so, so strong.

“Gods and paranormals aren’t the only ones in this world with magic, you know,” Heather says. “Humans make order out of chaos every day. We build skyscrapers. We create symphonies. We write poetry, carve art out of boulders, travel to the moon. We love each other so much and so well that we can save the world over and over and over again. Do you really think there isn’t power in that?”

“There is,” I answer, because I can see it. More, I can feel it spinning and winding around deep inside me. It’s exactly what I need right now. More, it’s exactly what Remy needs.

I feel Heather’s power flowing into me, flowing into Remy, giving him just the tiniest edge he needs to contain mine, to build a channel to funnel all of that chaos into the heart of this fucking prison.

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