Watched as his chest rose and fell. Arrhythmic. Labored. Watched as his lips cracked and bled, his face lost color and the fingers next to his hips flexed as if trying to hold on to the life seeping out of him.
Wren walked closer, swallowing against the acid in his throat as he met those bloodshot eyes. Unfocused and hazy.
“P….pl…” Kellan tried, widening his eyes at Wren, desperate.
The part of Wren that respected life above most things faltered.
But nature wasn’t as kind.
She was righteous.
The liger roared, launching himself through the air and landing with those gigantic front paws directly onto Kellan’s heaving chest. A sickening crack reverberated through the air as the liger delivered the final blow with a swipe of one giant paw to his neck. Blood sprayed, pooling under his head as he twitched. His fingers flexed once more before stiffening in pain to be locked like that forever.
His head fell at an unnatural angle and Wren stepped in his line of vision. He wouldn’t allow for Teddy to be the last thing he saw.
No.
He got to die knowing he had lost.
Kellan sputtered one last time before a final breath rushed out of him, the light gone from his eyes.
He’d died with all the magic he’d ever coveted.
Wren raced to Teddy’s side, finding the others already trying to figure out the machine. Wren cupped his lolling head between his hands, searching for a pulse. “Teddy,” he whispered. “Teddy, please.”
It was there, but faint.
“Turn it off,” Wren called.
Avery jumped to look at the machine, a worried frown creasing his forehead. “I don’t know how to do it without hurting him more,” he said finally.
Wren felt a surge of the venom inside him and he cried out, trying desperately to control it. The animals around them grew agitated.
“Woah!” Ash said. “Uh, Wren?”
“Saint,” Wren called and Saint materialized at his side instantly, crouching and leaning in to hear him. “I can’t hold them much longer. You’ll have to…”
“On it,” Saint said without a moment of hesitation. He jumped up, stood with his back to a wall, and started pulling things out of his pockets. Wren couldn’t focus, he couldn’t pay attention to anything but Teddy’s too-softly beating heart beneath his palm and the magic pulsing inside of him, unnatural and exhausting as he used it to keep the animals still while Saint broke their curses and the rest of the guys put them carefully into cages, one by one. Blu followed each one to their cage, gently chirping at them as if comforting them. Because he knew what it felt like.
“Gently,” he whispered to Black when he gripped a snake lying still next to Wren’s leg, and Black nodded, transferring the little one into a terrarium.
He felt some measure of relief.
He’d keep them all safe. He’d saved them all.
The floor got emptier with each passing minute. The flurry of voices around him grew, and Wren looked up to realize police were there. Nexus was there. PUMA was there, milling about as if they finally cared about the lives of the expendables.
People began rifling through drawers and boxes and files.
Trace put the last cursed animal into a cage and Saint finally told Wren he could let go. He breathed out, the last of the magic still burning through him, but he could let it run wild now. He wasn’t sure what it would do to him, but he also wasn’t sure it mattered anymore.
People took photos and taped things off. They swabbed and asked questions Wren couldn’t have answered even if he’d had the strength to. Teddy was still out and he was the one who knew the most.
Wren tuned out the questions and the mayhem around him to focus on Teddy. He didn’t know how to unhook the machine. Didn’t know if he was even allowed to. So he held him close and kissed his closed eyelids, counting each breath and fearing it would be the last.
“Show us,” someone said, and Wren looked up again to see the man from the computer being held by a Nexus instructor and a PUMA officer under each arm.
“I t-turned it off,” the man stammered. “You can j-just take it off. I’m sorry. I didn’t know… I didn’t think…”
