“Quin,” Roxy said, snapping her long-nailed fingers at him, “we’ll need you to stand in front of us.”
“Naked?” he clarified.
“No,” Roxy said. “Everyone will be keeping their clothes on.”
“For once,” Shaun commented under his breath, to DJ’s clear amusement.
Kit, however, had a frown creasing his brow. “Will the magic hurt Quin?” he asked, coming and standing next to him, one hand reaching out to grasp Quin’s shirt.
“It won’t,” Xavier said. “Well…as long as the ghost doesn’t give us too much trouble.”
“All Lawrence gives us is trouble,” Kit said.
“I shall endeavour to get him out of you with haste, in that case,” Xavier said to Quin.
There was the faintest of impressions in Quin’s mind. He tried to concentrate on what Xavier was saying, but was distracted by what felt like scratching inside of his skull. “Lawrence isn’t pleased,” he said.
“You can sense him?” Roxy asked.
“Sort of.”
Xavier looked at Kit. “Best that you go sit with the others, little one.”
“Stop calling me that,” Kit grumbled.
“You are little, and you are young. It fits.”
“Whatever, old man.”
The corners of Xavier’s mouth tipped up.
“Go,” Quin said, pressing a kiss to the side of Kit’s head. “I’ll be fine.”
Kit didn’t look happy about it, but he perched on the arm of the sofa, crossing his arms over his chest.
With the necklace held up in the air, Roxy began to murmur. Xavier ran a finger over one of his countless rings and then mimicked Roxy’s words. Soon, they were speaking in a disjointed cadence, Xavier’s words coming a few seconds after Roxy’s. It was, despite the odd intonation, arresting.
“Hold out your hands,” Roxy commanded.
Quin felt silly following their order, and more so when Roxy and Xavier took a hand each. Roxy made a pulling motion in the air with her free hand, and pressure rose in Quin’s chest.
Xavier echoed Roxy’s hand movement, yanking at nothing. Quin gasped as his chest began to burn. Phantom nails scraped across his brain, ten sharp claws unhooking one by one.
Kit stood up, looking like he was seconds away from intervening. Quin shook his head at him, and Shaun grasped Kit’s wrist.
“You’re hurting him,” Kit hissed at Roxy and Xavier.
“We’re trying to save him,” Roxy said through clenched teeth. Her free hand repeated the pulling motion, but all it did was make Quin’s chest feel like it was about to crack wide open.
A wounded noise burst unbidden from Quin’s lips when his brain exploded with pain, Lawrence’s intangible talons digging in without warning.
Kit broke from Shaun’s hold and was there beside Quin in a flash. “I don’t think this is working,” Kit said, the undeniable panic in his voice hurting Quin more than the internal ravaging he was facing.
“Wehadthe ghost,” Roxy said. “It’s just proving far harder than expected to extricate him.” She needled Quin with a sharp look. “You ingested some of Kit’s blood, didn’t you?”
Quin was too busy trying to stay conscious to search his memory for the answer. Blackness crept in, like it had when Lawrence first possessed his body.
“He did,” Kit answered. His fingers had been hovering around Quin’s waist, not touching, but he seemed to not be able to handle the non-contact and slipped them under Quin’s loose t-shirt. The cold touch of Kit’s palms against Quin’s bare skin calmed the maelstrom inside of him, even if only for a moment before it whipped up again, Lawrence’s fury evident.
