Smoke and Survival (Best Wishes Book 2)

by A. J. Macey

  I followed the two agents closely as we headed to the library. It had been closed off pending further investigation into Lucie’s kidnapping. I had heard the grumbles and complaints of the students as we walked across the quad, eyes straying toward us before continuing their whispering. I kept my eyes forward on Agent Garcia’s leather jacket. Nik’s power prickled against my skin, and it crackled seconds later in warning for the students who continued to stare, making it clear that we weren’t in the mood to be gossiped about.

  The heat of the library seemed oppressive, and I immediately regretted the thick sweater and coat that had seemed like a good idea in case we’d had to scour the wooded areas again. Shedding my layers until I was in a short sleeve shirt, I sat down at the checkout counter. My eyes closed, and I tried to connect with Lucie mentally. Yesterday, the connection was barely there, only a wisp in the wind, but today it was a bit stronger. I latched on tightly, refusing to let her go. I thrust myself through the connection taking no chances since I could lose it at any moment.

  My body immediately started to ache, a bone deep throbbing burn in my wrists and shoulders. Lucie’s eyes were half shut, and delirium overpowered other emotions. I tried to focus on what I could see from her position. A hazy picture of her body filled my mind, a grey dirty floor underneath her almost free-dangling legs. Unsurmountable fury filled me when I saw the start of a bloody puddle, red rivers dripping down her pale skin. I pulled back just enough to think properly, making sure to hold on to that connection.

  “What?” Dr. Tanner was standing on the other side of the counter flipping through a book of spells, but my lip pulling back in anger had caught his attention. “See something?”

  “She’s been beaten, and I’m pretty sure she’s being suspended from her wrists,” I ground out, catching Nik’s and Agent Garcia’s attention. “She’s barely conscious, but more so today than she was yesterday. At least enough for me to form a connection.”

  “Describe what you saw,” Nik’s harsh demand was strong, his rough voice no longer soft or quiet. I relayed everything I could see, but in the middle of one of the statements I felt the connection flare.

  “She’s awake,” I mumbled, already slipping into the link. I mentally prepared myself for what I was about to see and experience, reminding myself that I wasn’t actually being hurt physically. Emotionally was a different matter.

  “Let’s try again, seeing as how you slipped away yesterday.” A face that I recognized from the photos I had seen stepped into my line of sight. His eyes calculating and yet leering at the same time. “What powers do you have?” Powers? Why would he be concerned with that when he considered us freaks? I tucked the unanswered questions in the back of my mind and focused.

  “Wish granting,” Lucie’s words were slurring together. The effort sent jolts of agonizing pain through my jaw, head, and neck. Something was wrong with her eyesight too. One of her eyes is swelling shut, I noted in disbelief.

  “What else?” he demanded. My eyes finally noticed what he had leaned back against, and I couldn’t stop myself from gagging. I didn’t care how my body looked to the agents and Nik, I couldn’t control the queasiness that came with seeing a literal table full of torture tools as our girl hung from the ceiling like an animal prepared for slaughter.

  “Reality warping,” she mumbled. Between the swelling in her face and her still tenuous grip on consciousness, her words came twisted, sounding more like re-all-tee wohp-ing. Noah’s anger flashed dangerously close to the surface, Lucie’s delirium making it look like his eyes had blackened like Logan and Landon’s. It lasted for only a moment before his dark-brown, almost black eyes were right in Lucie’s face. The smile that curled his lips had my heart stopping. Lucie! I mentally screamed as he started, his fists and open-handed slaps making contact in quick precision.

  Each hit had me screaming to the point that I didn’t know what was Lucie and what was me. When I thought I couldn’t take anymore, a fist clamped over my windpipe and arteries, squeezing with deadly accuracy. Air refused to fill my lungs while I was tied to Lucie through both remote viewing and sensory scrying. Her attempts to pull away from his choke hold were futile, and dark spots filled my vision as she neared blackout. When he finally released her throat, sweet air filled my lungs in ragged, choppy breaths, and I was pushed back from her as she lost consciousness.

  “Cam!” Someone’s shouting and shaking jostled my disoriented and sick body. I groaned, immediately rolling to my side and vomiting over and over until my consciousness had centered. “Jesus!” I heard someone bellow in the middle of my retching. When I could breathe finally, I rolled onto my back, somehow ending up lying on the tile floor behind the counter during my RV and sensory scrying. Opening my eyes, I met Dean Renaud’s and my brothers’ worried gazes, the agents standing off to the side still watching with serious expressions.

  “I need to sit up,” I coughed out, my throat raw from being sick. Dante and Hudson immediately hooked their arms around either side of me and gently sat me up making sure to turn me slightly so I could lean against the glass of the library offices.

  “What happened?” Landon demanded, fear shining bright on his face. I swallowed hard trying to emotionally separate myself from the memories. I wanted to convey the information as accurately as possible, but I found it near impossible to keep the tears at bay. As soon as they started flowing, they knew. They paled significantly before I even started talking.

  “Camden?” Dean Renaud’s normally calm and commanding voice was soft and wobbly with emotion. I steeled myself.

  “It’s bad. It’s really, really bad,” I managed to get out before I choked on a sob. “If we don’t find her soon,” I sucked in a breath, “I don’t know if she’ll make it.” Curses went up around the group. Logan and Landon lost control on their rage, quickly pacing back and forth while muttering obscenities to themselves. I worried my lip as I struggled to keep control of myself, trying to piece together the broken, jagged edges that had shattered at seeing Lucie in such a state. The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth, telling me I had punctured through my own lip in my emotional struggle.

  “I know it’s not easy, kid.” Agent Bronstad squatted in front of me, his tattooed hand landing on my shoulder in a reassuring squeeze. “But we need to know what you saw.”

  “She’s been strung up, hung from the ceiling by her wrists. He’s asking about her powers. I could barely get anything through the pain. He’s done a huge amount of damage already to the point that there’s a blood puddle forming under her.”

  “What about where she was at?” Agent Bronstad continued his questioning, but even he looked sick. I couldn’t take the chance of glancing around the guys or I would lose myself in my own emotions.

  “She’s in a single car garage, there was a wall full of workshop tools,” I hesitated only briefly before continuing, “he had a table set out.”

  “What was on it?” Agent Jenkins asked from behind the counter. Taking a deep breath, I pushed away another wave of nausea.

  “Torture tools,” I murmured. That’s when Logan lost control for the first time in years, hands going up in hellfire that quickly spiraled up his arms and slowly engulfed his torso. Landon’s hands were burning, but he was keeping more of a lid on it than his brother. I had to try and calm him down. “None of them have been used.”

  “I don’t give a fuck!” Logan roared, his chest heaving. The FSID agents’ eyes widened, and they moved to stand in a loose circle around the Raging daemon. Dante joined the circle, hands going out to calm him.

  “Logan,” he soothed, his voice firm, but not harsh. “Close your eyes.” Logan snarled for a moment before Dante gave him an encouraging look. After a tense stand-off, his eyes closed. Landon stood outside the circle, his hands having stopped burning, his eyes worriedly locked on his twin. Based on the look on his face, he was mentally talking to Logan. “Breathe deeply and remember when we first met Lucie.” Dante continued to guide Logan through his relaxatio
n exercises until the hellfire was doused and his daemon side retreated. His shoulders sagged in regret, his eyes on the floor. Logan prided himself on his control after what had happened with his older brother Lance, and shame reddened his cheeks at this loss of control. When he got this bad, Dante and Landon were the only ones who could talk him down, Hudson’s calming magic being a last and very extreme resort.

  “Hey.” Landon broke the circle, going up to his brother. “Let’s go take a walk and get our heads cleared, all right?” Without another word, Logan led the way outside, leaving his twin to catch up. Landon turned to us. “We might not be back until tomorrow unless you find something.” We all nodded in understanding. I turned back to the agents and Dean Renaud.

  “Now what?” Nik asked.

  Question of the century…

  26

  December 10th

  Monday

  Logan

  My body thrummed with nervous energy as we waited. The rest of the guys were seated within the room we were standing outside. I didn’t want to come back until I had something of use. I wasn’t helpful if I was busy feeling sorry for myself, so as soon as Landon and I left yesterday, we got to work.

  “Any more information?” I heard Dean Renaud ask. The reigning silence in answer had me shuffling from one foot to another as I spun my phone in my palm. Hurry up, I pleaded.

  “They’re going as fast as they can, dude,” Landon’s voice filtered through my head with his unwanted nosiness. “You know they’ll find her.” I bit back the urge to snap at him because he was right, and I knew they wouldn’t fuck me over, not with the position I held.

  Well, used to hold.

  “Do we know any other trackers or locators?” Dante’s deep voice questioned next.

  “Fuck, this is bad,” Hudson muttered when there weren’t any other responses. The vibrating buzz in my hand had my pulse skyrocketing, the numbers flashing on the screen sending my heart into my throat.

  “Ready?” I mentally questioned my twin. Landon had a notebook and marker ready as I rattled off the location. The text that had come in was spelled to delete exactly one minute after arriving. When the coordinates were scrawled on the paper, I took the notebook and shoved into the room. My strides were purposeful as I tossed Lucie’s location onto the table.

  “We found her,” I stated. Everyone surged forward and out of the room in a rush.

  “How?” Agent Bronstad questioned, his eyebrows shooting up as he plugged the latitude and longitude into his phone.

  “I called in a favor.” My voice was even and cold, knowing the reaction my actions would cause among the group, but not caring, not right now. To me? Lucie’s safety was worth more than my brothers being pissed off at me.

  “We’ll fucking talk about this later,” Dante promised darkly, his eyes hard as he glared at me. I glared right back, feeling my eyes blackening slowly as we nearly sprinted to the parking lot.

  “I don’t need a fucking lecture. I did what I had to do,” I fired back. Anger and irritation at his reaction mixed with the already negative emotions I had swirling around in my head. Dante opened his mouth to argue, but I sliced my hand through the air. “No, Dante, I did what I had to do to find Lucie. Her life is more important than anything they could ask of me.” Dante growled, muscles pulsing and twitching with the urge to shift, but it was Dean Renaud who intervened.

  “All of you, shut up!” he shouted, his power pressing dangerously against my ward. “Let’s go get Lucie.” We swallowed our qualms and hopped into our vehicles. Tires squealed as we took off in a caravan towards Lucie’s location. We’re coming, Love, hold on.

  Lucienne

  I faded in and out of consciousness, lost in a sea of pain and agony. My stomach clenched painfully in hunger, having only been offered bread and water three times. The first two I refused but finally gave in on his most recent attempt. I spent half the time trying to not throw up from his fingers brushing my lips, the other half trying not to throw up from my stomach rebelling at stale bread. I didn’t have access to a window or any way to tell what time of day it was or how much time had passed since being moved to this makeshift torture chamber, but I knew I needed to eat, and so that’s what I did. After he left that last time, all I did was focus on trying to breathe through the pain and pray Noah didn’t come back out into the this makeshift torture chamber to beat the shit out of me again or ask me questions I didn’t want to answer.

  I lifted my head as much as I could, my mental and physical faculties sluggish and strained. I couldn’t lean my head all the way back, welts and cuts on my neck searing in pain. Thankfully, I was able to lift it enough to see my hands above my head, but just barely. Calling on all my strength, I tried again to loosen the ropes and chains binding my wrists. I swallowed the screams of frustration that wanted to erupt from me, the restraint unmoving despite my best efforts.

  I hung my head down, tears freely flowing from my good eye. My left one had swollen completely shut after Noah’s third time out here. I wanted to fight, yet I also wanted to give up, to have it end, despite knowing that I couldn’t. I had my mom, Charlie, my guys, and my friends at RSU. I had people who were fighting for me, who were looking for me. I just had to get out of here.

  With renewed vigor, I looked toward my wrists deciding to try one last ditch effort to escape knowing I would probably permanently damage my hands and arms in the process. If they aren’t already, I thought darkly. I mentally locked on my hands and wrists, visualizing what I wanted to do with my reality warping. I had attempted to use my powers on the rope and chains the first day out here, but nothing had happened, most likely due to the runes etched and branded into the restraints.

  I took a deep breath, counting to three while imagining my wrists, forearms, and hands collapsing inwards to slide them out of the bindings. When I reached three, I pushed my thought to my limbs. There was no pain, no odd feelings in my arms, and at first I didn’t think it had worked, but my feet were now flat on the ground, my body’s weight bearing down on them.

  I looked up.

  My hands and arms had started to turn to pearlescent smoke. The wisps dissipated around the knots, reforming into a steady cloud. I have to be going crazy. This is it. I’ve officially lost my mind.

  The longer I stared, the more I realized what I was seeing was actually happening. I focused on solidifying my limbs, and after some finagling I stood in the middle of this hellhole no longer hanging from the ceiling. My arms fell to my sides, and the burn from the sudden movement and rush of blood was so intense I wanted to scream. I held my breath until the pain subsided enough to think. As the pain dulled, hope surged in my chest. I can escape, I frantically thought, turning unsteadily on my near useless legs. There was a closed garage door behind me, and I nearly did a little dance. Pay attention! my brain shouted. He could be back at any minute. With that, I focused on shifting into smoke.

  It was difficult to get my entire body and head to shift and stay that way. I jumped at any little sound, fearing Noah was on his way out. But my luck held, finally, and I was able to filter through the edge of the metal garage door into the outdoors. I didn’t solidify, keeping focus on staying in smoke form as I drifted away from this place. As I floated farther and farther, reaching the tree line at the end of the drive, I turned and looked to see where I was.

  It was a small house, practically the size of a bread box, where the living space looked as big as the single car garage where I had been held. There was caution tape on the door and a construction sign in the yard to keep any unwanted visitors away.

  Shaded and blocked by the large wooded area, I finally took in the space around me. It was dark, but I couldn’t feel the cold bite of the winter air or my injuries when I was smoke. It was like I was wrapped in my own bubble, safe from the elements and what had been done to my body. Unfortunately, I was losing my mental hold on this new form, the throbbing in my head growing steadier and more intense with every foot that I floated deeper into the tr
ees.

  I shifted back, stumbling into the frozen brush, my injuries flaring to life at my body’s change back to its corporeal form. I whimpered to myself, biting down on my tongue to keep from crying out. I couldn’t bring Noah’s attention to anything suspicious. I stood and started to run, solely focused on one thing and one thing only.

  Survival.

  Nikolai

  We had been ordered to wait in the vehicles on the very edge of the property, tasked with interfering only if Noah evaded them. The twins’ claws and horns were out while the others shifted and fidgeted in the wait, Dante struggling with controlling his urge to shift. My fingers brushed against the small pouch of spelled objects and potion orbs, ready to throw if Noah made it past the Agents and Dean Renaud. Though I likely would not need it. He would not make it past us alive based on the expressions I could see us all wearing. Grigori shifted on my shoulder, hunkering down in case he needed to launch himself at the psychotic asshole we knew waited in the house.

  After an excruciatingly long five minutes, Dante’s phone rang. He did not even say anything after accepting the call, and a couple seconds later, he hung up.

  “They got him,” he relayed. That was our cue to approach. We took off, running as fast as our legs would carry us towards the little ramshackle building. Masculine screaming could be heard all the way outside. Agent Bronstad and Agent Garcia clamped down on either side of his thrashing body. I stopped in front of him as they exited the front door. His eyes widened slightly in surprise before falling into a mask of arrogance.