Page 104 of Outlaw Witch

I wander through the piles and piles of boxes while they get mad and start tossing the empty ones aside. It’s only once they’ve cleared a space of twenty or so boxes that I spot something on the wall.

“Guys, what’s that?” I point at the red marking. It looks almost like—

“Someone’s graffitied the wall.” Zeph throws a few more boxes out of the way, no longer seeming to care whether they hold anything.

“Time’s up,” I read the words, as that feeling of wrongness redoubles and I can feel the hair at the back of my neck standing on end.

“Anyone else have a really bad feeling about this?”

There’s the telltale sound of a door slamming and bolting shut and I freeze in place, ice filling my veins as I realize what’s going on here.

We’ve walked into a trap.

“Shit. We need to get out of here.”

We make a mad dash toward the door, but find them locked and unmoveable, no matter how hard Zeph slams his shoulder against them.

“Fuck.”

Something explodes. A burst of light and heat surges from the center of the wall of boxes. Glass shatters as debris flies everywhere.

Another burst of thunder bursts from Zeph just in time to form a kind of protective shield of energy. The force of it blows all three of us off our feet, slamming into us with a wave of pure energy.

I smack into the ground and my head slams against the concrete, making me bite my tongue until my mouth fills with blood.

My ears are ringing and I feel dazed, barely knowing which way is up. When I open my eyes, stars fill my vision and I quickly snap them shut again.

Fuck.

I lie there for a moment, slowly feeling my way through my body, checking for broken parts. My head is ringing and I ache all over but nothing seems to be damaged too badly.

Sitting up slowly, I groan.

“What the hell just happened?”

Someone trapped us in here and set an... explosion? Tried to blow us up.

Holy shit, if Zeph hadn’t reacted so quickly, things would have been a lot worse. Whatever that energy shield is that he can summon, I’m pretty sure it’s saved my life twice over at this point.

There’s no reply to my words from either Zeph or Roscoe. I crawl on my hands and knees until I’m beside them both, gently shaking first Zeph and then Roscoe. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I know that we need to get the hell away from this building. From this part of the city.

Patting Roscoe’s face, I try to cradle his head gently. “Hey, Roscoe? Wake up, man. I need you both to wake up.”

My hand comes away wet and sticky. I glance down to see that it’s covered in blood.

Shit.

He’s breathing pretty steadily, but I think he’s knocked out with a possible severe head injury. Zeph’s looking even worse. His face is pale and one of his legs is sticking out at a weird angle, definitely broken. Even if I could wake them both up, I don’t think we could make our own way out of here.

I need help.

My first thought is to call Fabian. But I don’t know what he’ll be able to do. He’s probably sleeping right now and the poor guy needs his rest more than anybody.

Then I consider that we were lured down here. This entire thing seems to have been planned out, and it’s likely that at least some of the Nexus mages people were behind it. The last thing I want to do is tip them off that they weren’t successful and bring them down here to finish the job off.

So I contact the only other person that’s always there for me whenever I’m in a jam.

“Hey, Ember?”

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