“Saint!” Eerie gasped, hurrying over to his unconscious brother as soon as he spotted him.
“Be careful, everyone, we don’t know what’s going on here. Our cursebreakers have clearly been hurt by this strange place,” Kellan said for show.
Wren wanted to scream the truth, but all that could make it out of his mouth was an angry croak of pain, everything warping in front of him.
Kellan strode over, not hiding any of his rabid fascination with the scene before him. The fruits of his labor and research.
“What have we here?” he murmured as he crouched, the tips of his shiny shoes just at the edge of the carnage. “A bird that’s been caught in a cage?”
Wren bared his teeth but couldn’t lift his head.
A hand struck out and grabbed his bare wrist, something hot pressing against his skin. Wren could barely react, only seeing fragments before his hand was dropped again.
As Kellan drew out a handkerchief to dry his hand Wren could have sworn he saw Blu fly over to sit on his shoulder.
“Instructor Kellan?” a voice asked.
“He’s hurt. Help him. I’ll help Damir.”
Steps drew closer and a hand reached for him. The glove they were wearing slipped slightly, and Wren caught a glimpse of an eye tattoo before everything all went dark.
Chapter 20
Teddy
“Sir, they said the Head of Nexus is on the way—”
“Stop talking.”
“But, sir, Gwen—”
“Is the least of your worries if you don’t stop,” Kellan said. “Unless, of course, you’d like to take our dear Damir’s place?”
The Nexus lackey quickly snapped his mouth closed, glancing across at his compatriot on the other side of the rusty metal door.
Teddy kept his head low where he sat strapped to a metal chair in the center of the dim room. The air was damp and earthy in this underground facility, making every breath feel heavy in his chest. There was also the sharp and primal stench of cursed magic in the air. It made his hair stand on end and his instincts scream at him to run.
There was no escape, however. Not for him, and not for the strange, cursed animals lining the walls around him in sterile glass enclosures, agitated and butting against their confines. Jellyfish in bioluminescent colors swam in circles while reptiles and snakes hissed.
The space was a mad scientist’s lair.
Artifacts and machinery Teddy couldn’t identify filled the area, papers and books strewn over every available surface. On the wall were projected photos of what looked like past failures. A mixture of dead people and dead animals interspersed with molecular and engineering drawings and insane notations.
It was a carousel of horrors.
What was most disturbing wasn’t the images of cruelty and insanity though, it was the mechanism that looked menacingly similar to the one they had found in the facility, only much more refined, which hung above his head. Instead of a cylinder to put a body inside, this one had metal arms outstretched, with enough space to cradle a skull when it was lowered.
Teddy couldn’t help but feel afraid.
He was just grateful that Wren wasn’t there.
Was he okay? He had to be. He felt his heart would know if he weren’t. It would simply stop beating.
Teddy had been half out of it as they’d approached him to remove the conduit from his hands. He’d felt life return to him only to be placed in worse hands as he opened his eyes to see Kellan.
He’d known immediately that something was wrong.
Kellan had looked gleeful. And possessive.
