She let him go. Ashton rushed to the others who were at the edge of the driveway looking at their house burning. "Ash, that's everything." Victoria said.
She collapsed into his arms. Max looked at him, and the two boys he was herding whispered in his ears as he held them. "Ashton..."
Ashton shook his head. "Max. You can do this without them."
Max shook his head. "It's better this way."
Ashton would have reached out to stop Max but Victoria was wrapped up in his arms as Max bolted with the boys in his arms into the house after Nox and the scary lady departed. Victoria screamed "Max...."
Ashton barely had time enough to grab her before she followed them into the burning house before it collapsed on top of them. Tears ran down Vic's cheeks and the sounds she made were pitiful and sad. She was lost to the pain of losing her family.
None of her shoves were gentle. However he’d ended up in this shithole mess, she was angry at him for it, and injured or not he deserved the roughness she dished out. On the steps outside he reached for her, presumably to steady himself, but she let him fall. Over his crumpled form, Ori’s gaze cast over the figures huddled at the end of the drive. Enshrined by vengeance and flame she knew they must look monstrous as the house burned behind them. A lesson learned in blood: one those spared ought to heed. She felt no guilt.
And she didn’t once look back.
Cords of power hauled Nox away. She ignored the shadows which hurtled past them, and the sobbing that followed, instead fishing Nox’s wallet from him. His skin scorched hot even through his clothes, and it only deepened her fury. At him. At the dead fuckers in the house. Nox’s unconscious carcass was going to be a pain in the ass to move even with the power. His pulse thrummed shallow and fast, and it made her want to shake him until his fucking teeth rattled.
Ilya’s girls would come to Kallisti if she asked. Zeke had cleared her debt, and in any case Nox was on Almaz’s roster, so she had no concern that they would come. But she knew first hand the toll it took, and she’d heard the horror stories that circulated in the pits; of those too far gone to survive it. When Ori had been healed there herself she’d been unconscious and had barely any memory of the experience beyond how it felt after. Pure, soul-deep exhaustion. And her burns had been severe, but help had also come quickly. There hadn’t been any infection to contend with.
Nox wouldn’t thank her for a hospital, but it might be the safer bet if he wanted to live long enough to be mad about it. Fortunately, Ori also had an experience of healing she did remember, when she’d fucked around with Ivan at the fundraiser and driven the glass shard into her own hand. That time it’d had no cost; in fact, she’d felt rejuvenated after in a way she’d never felt since. Jensen James was a name that had been entirely blacked from the records since then, and she wasn’t stupid enough to advertise the secret, but it didn’t take a genius to realise the whispered miracles of Iásōn amounted to the same thing.
Air lashed Nox against her back on the bike. She revved the engine and set off as she called Sage on Nox’s phone. Lucky for him he had interesting friends, and she had no idea if Sage was really as useful as Nox always made out, but she guessed she’d find out.
“He’s fucked. You heard of Iásōn? Pull some strings, sweetheart. We’ll be at the Guardian.”
Nox's number pulled through the call logs and Sage answered it quickly. He'd barely said hello before Oriena was giving him a status report and then hung up almost immediately. It took a while for him to figure out who she was talking about. Jensen's latest cover was still new to him. And he actually had a connection to the man. Serendipity. Probably not. He wanted Jensen and Nox to meet maybe not like this. But Oriena sounded worried and angry. The guardian was a good place to take him but he could have had an ambulance there sooner than she could get him to the hospital on whatever she was zipping throught traffic on.
Sage tapped away at the keyboard in his cold server room and pulled up Jensen's phone. He didn't just have him on speed connect like Nox or some of his other friends.
Remember that friend I was talking to you about. He's in bit of a bind. He's at the Guardian. If you are free I can meet you there in the morning.
The message on his phone was quickly returned. “Of course. As soon as I can get there.”
It wasn’t a masked messenger that entered the Guardian, it was just Jensen. His helmet was stowed with the ducati, but the leather jacket and jeans spoke to a motorcycle ride through the chill of Moscow’s pre-dawn air.
In Dallas he could flash his chaplaincy credentials and be admitted to any hospital, but he had none here. The Guardian was more locked down than most, and no amount of asking to visit a certain friend, whose full name and other identity-verifying information, he lacked.
Desperate, he replied to Sage, hoping he was awake. “I’m in the main lobby, but security won’t let me up. What do I do?”
Sage was curled up with Aiden again when the call came in. He hadn't expected a call so early, but then again he hadn't thought he'd be asleep either, but Aidien's presense always lulled him to sleep. "Helping Nox." He said as he slipped out of the room and back into his server room. He had intended to meet Jensen, in a sense anyway.
"Give me a second." He said as he sat down in at his server wrapping his sweatshirt around him. He didn't start tappying anything on the keyboard but he was using the resources to hack the Guardian's system. It didn't take too long to get inside. He'd been in before. He actually remembered being there himself in person before the new board was installed. Sage's speech was slow, "All. right." while he put Jensen's name in the system for Nox. "Okay. Just tell them you are there to see Nox Durante. He was just admitted, and you are on his list of family." Which was no more a lie than saying he was on the list. If Sage knew Nox, and he felt he knew Aurora's little brother pretty well. He knew that once Nox met this guy he'd be all over saving him and keeping him safe. His ability alone was something to preserver but Nox had a way of collecting people who didn't have much else. Himself included.
Consciousness fell in and out. He felt wind whipping around him, cars honking. The darkness came and faded with a bright white light, beeping sounds.
Hands on his body held him down. "Shush. Sleep now." He remembered Oriena, but that wasn't her voice. Nox struggled to wake up but soon he was back in the darkness flittering about with flames and sharp toothed smiles bearing down on him.
A sharp stabbing in his arm woke him to bright lights and many voices around him. He was burning up yet there was cold all around. It was an odd sensation. A strange voice spoke softly, "He's waking up."
Nox struggled against the hands trying to hold him down, remnants of the nightmares he'd been having clinging to the reality with the sharp pain in his arm. But that fleeting moment passed another strange voice spoke clearly, "Sedative."
The darkness came in hard and fast and the nightmares picked up with fire and death and kids, more faces added to his death toll. Things he barely remembered doing yet his mind picked their faces clearly from the memories he did have. The only clear memory of the night he'd just had.
The soft hum of florescent lights pulled Nox from his slumber. The occasional click of the machine next to him as it released a tiny drop. Movement outside his open door.
Nox's eyes fluttered open and the bright lights stared him down and he had to blink several times before the lights gave way to actual sights. His head hurt. He was no longer floating in a ball of inferno and ice. The sheets covered him and he felt naked underneath. "Where the fuck am I?" Nox tried to speak but his mouth was dry and it came out more like a croak than anything.
The small tube in his arm ached. He didn't look. He knew he'd find an IV.
At least he wasn't dead... Or being eaten alive... The hospital was much better. Though not any safer. He knew his blood was not contagious now -- that was one fact he'd gladly learned -- he wouldn't make anyone else like him with that. But they'd have a lot more questions. He needed to get out of here.
Nox tried to move to get out of bed and find his things. But it was a lot more difficult than he anticipated and slumped back in the bed and closed his eyes. "Maybe a few more minutes won't kill me."
After receiving Sage’s response, he turned back to the security guard. “Can you check again? It’s Jensen. James.” There must have been something desperate to his expression, because the guard mumbled in acceptance.
He blinked in surprise. “Actually. Yes, you are cleared to go up.”
Relief swelled. As soon as he was given proper directions, he hurried deep into the Guardian.
He passed ward after ward of desperate souls, and his was just as desperate to go to each and every one of them. He promised himself he would do as much before leaving, but first he owed a promise.
He counted the room numbers, and only had to double back once upon realizing he’d taken a wrong turn in the maze of hallways. Finally, he stopped outside Nox’s room, heart beating hard from the frantic searching, and tried to compose himself before entering.
The patient was in bed, as expected. The tubes and beeps didn’t phase him, but some of Nox’s injuries wrenched Jensen’s stomach into knots.
He looked around to see who else was in the room. Friends or family, maybe?
“Hello?” He asked.
She broke the speed limit. Swerved through the traffic dangerously. Any other day it might have been a thrill, but tonight her teeth only grit with the irritation of her own motives. By the time they reached the Guardian, Ori’s temper was black and volatile. She wasn’t in the mood for explaining herself, or for civility. In the middle of the hospital foyer she made an unceremonious show of letting Nox’s body fall to the ground. Emergency staff swarmed, and she only snarled at the insistence she wait somewhere out of their way. The power lashed about her still. It took nothing to compel her own way.
She told herself she stayed because Nox was injured and unpredictable, and if Sage fucked up the doctors were his best chance – which they wouldn’t be if he incinerated them and half the hospital in his delirious state. As they worked to stabilise him she glimpsed the ruin of his body, and had already pieced enough horror from the boy in the cage for some sick understanding of what he might have been through. Medical intervention might easily be mistaken for whatever sliced away the literal missing chunks of Nox’s flesh, and she knew something of his lightning reflexes.
She hated seeing him vulnerable, and she hated the sounds of the beeps once it was just Nox and the machinery. She considered leaving now, but didn’t. For once the ijiraq were mostly quiet, and not because Ori was half insensible. In fact by now she felt mostly sober. But perhaps the silence was because their constant whispers were actually a mirror for her own thoughts, which didn’t make her feel any better. She sat in a chair as far away as she could be from his bedside, like the distance could excuse the fact she stuck around at all.
“About fucking time,” was all she said, when it became apparent Sage had actually pulled his weight. Her gaze scoured the face which entered with no pretence for warmth. She’d been expecting the mask, but apparently Sage carried greater influence than she’d thought considering half the time he simply seemed high. An interesting risk for Jensen James to take. She neither knew nor cared if he recognised or remembered her. That night she’d been one of them, dressed in wealth, all sweet and innocent smiles and charm. Tonight was a truer face.
Nightmares plagued him. They always did. Wasn't a big deal. They felt different this time.
The next Nox woke he felt a presence sitting at the far end of the room. He cracked an eye to see the scowling face of Oriena relaxed in the chair. A dark shadowed figure slunk in the shadows behind her as he blinked the light away.
He didn't get a chance to say anything before someone came in the door. Nox didn't recognize the voice and turning his head was almost as difficult as getting up had been.
Oriena answered gruffly. She appeared to be expecting him. He'd seen enough images of the night Aria had fallen to the Atharim. The night the Ascendancy had been gravely injured. Of Jensen James himself. He must be fully bad if someone called for a healer. Though he didn't think the Ascendancy cared as much. And it wouldn't be past Sage to have sent a stranger for some strange reason.
"Did Wicked send a gift?" A second gift, Oriena would hate to be thought of as a gift. He didn't want to bring light or attention to his words he said when he saw her in the flames. He'd been grateful to see her. Oriena was a damn fine friend but he'd never tell her that.
"Ori, do you know where my wallet got off to? I'd like to call Wicked."
As Jensen stepped into the dimly lit hospital room, a figure rose from the shadows in the corner—a woman whose presence immediately felt familiar. She muttered something about it being "about time," her voice tinged with impatience and colorful words. Jensen's heart skipped a beat as recognition dawned; he knew this woman from a dramatic night at the Kremlin.
Her face was etched in his memory, not just for the life-threatening injury she had sustained from a broken glass shard but for her haunting words after he healed her: ’God is dead.’ The chill from that night lingered with him still. She had walked away without a word of thanks, a ghostly figure disappearing into the throng, and he was left reeling.
Before Jensen could fully process her presence, a gravelly, slurred voice cut through his thoughts. It was Nox, the man he was here to heal, lying on the hospital bed wrapped in bandages, his condition severe. At the sound of Nox's voice, another thread of memory unspooled—Jensen had met him too, on the same tumultuous night at the ball. Nox, with his distinct American accent, had playfully called him 'Duckling' after an embarassing encounter near the bar.
The pieces clicked together with startling clarity. Sage, who had sent him here, must be connected with Nox, who was connected to Oriena, all part of a circle that seemed to be closing in around him now.
“Ma’am,” Jensen addressed the woman first, though he did not know her name. "I remember you. You were severely hurt, but I know you have not been entirely well since then. Please know, if you ever find yourself in need again, I'm here to help, and all you need do is ask, but if your life is threatened again, I’ll do everything I can to come to you.” He smiled softly, no hurt feelings between them.
Turning to Nox, Jensen approached the bed and sat beside him, trying to offer a semblance of comfort amidst the sterile chill of the hospital room. "Nox, do you remember me from the ball? I didn’t realize you were the same person that Sage described when he asked for my help.” Jensen explained, his voice soft and clear. "You called me 'Duckling’.” His smile was meant to build comfort and trust between them. It came naturally for Jensen.
He studied Nox's face for any sign of recognition, any hint that the memories held as much weight for Nox as they did for him. Though he must surely be on so much medication that his mind may not be entirely clear.