“I have to see if he’s here,” Wren said, pushing against the pain and exhaustion.
“IF he’s here?” Hart asked.
“Did you fill them in?” Wren asked Midas, who nodded shortly, standing the farthest from everyone, Avery sitting on a rickety wooden chair next to his hip.
“Midas and Avery told us what they could, but none of it makes sense, Wren,” Ash said. “A machine filled with magic. What is it for?”
“I don’t know,” Wren said. “We only found it yesterday and I doubt Avery had any time to properly look into it.”
“Actually,” Avery said, turning in his chair so Midas could see his signing clearly. “There is one piece of information I did manage to figure out. The machine—”
“I came as soon as I heard,” a deep female voice said from the door, interrupting whatever Avery was about to say.
Wren snapped his head in the direction of the door, all of his pent-up rage and helplessness bubbling to the surface. He had no answers, he had no idea where Teddy was, he had no way to reach him or even see if he was okay and this…this bitch had the audacity to show up like it wasn’t all her fault.
“Gwen,” Fix said, keeping a hand on Wren’s chest to stop him from launching himself out of his bed and tackling the woman to the ground. He would have. He fucking would have if he had just been strong enough to even stand.
“GET THE FUCK OUT!” Wren screamed at her, pushing at Fix’s hands, limbs flailing everywhere.
Someone caught him around the waist and held him down, the grip too strong to be fought out of.
“Wujia,” she said, slightly taken aback but trying to cover it. Wren’s vision went black.
“Don’t you fucking dare call me that!” he snarled, Ash’s arms viselike around him still.
“It is your name,” she said, but before Wren could protest Hart stepped forward.
“It might be a good time to reexamine your fixation on that name, I believe,” he said.
“Reexamine your fixation on the whole fucking operation you’re leading because as soon as I’m out of here, I am coming for all of you,” Wren said. “I will not rest until everything is gone. Until every last child you have ripped from their family is safe.”
“Safe?” She walked closer, fake confusion written on her face. Condescending as always as she stared at him as if he were a nuisance she couldn’t wait to get rid of. “There is nowhere safer than Nexus.”
“Really?” he asked, sarcasm dripping from his lips like venom. “Everywhere and anywhere is safer than inside the headquarters of an institution that turns a blind eye to one of their own torturing and abusing the children they’re supposed to care for.”
“That is quite a tale, Wujia,” she said.
“Gwen.” Fix spoke up, voice heavy as he looked at her. Wren knew she meant more to Fix than she did to any of them. She was a mother to him. Or the closest thing any of them had. But he couldn’t bring himself to care at that moment. He couldn’t spare one thought for anyone else but Teddy and what was being done to him while Wren sat there confined and questioned as if he hadn’t seen it all with his own eyes.
“Fix…” Gwen said, but he just shook his head, pain written all over his face.
“You will have to hear what he has to say.”
“You believe him?”
“I do,” Fix said. “You know Nexus was home, and you know I respect you beyond most things, but I am not blind to the faults of Nexus. And you shouldn’t be either.”
“Not being blind is not the same as being aware,” Gwen said. “I have been running Nexus for decades now. All of our instructors are trustworthy and only have the cursebreakers’ well-being in mind.”
“Children,” Wren said. “Until they are placed, all of them are children. And you are not only blind but also deaf and apparently an idiot because the things that happened right under your nose are countless!”
Wren watched her look around the room, clearly looking for support, but he knew his brothers had his back. No matter what their alliances were, they stuck together. The rejects. The unwanted ones.
“And you are all on his side in this?” she asked.
“There are no sides here, Gwen,” Fix said. “Wren does have a chip on his shoulder that makes it hard for you to believe him. But I don’t. I see both the good and the bad in Nexus and want it to be a sanctuary for everyone the way it was for me. I think it can be that. If we weed out the bad.”
She stared at him for a long moment, Wren clutching the stiff sheets between his fingers, ready to explode if she denied them again.
