CHAPTER 192

The sasquatch deflated, his eyes brimming with tears. "You speak for the forest," he muttered beneath his breath. "You're just full of surprises." He wandered off with Leeds, his shoulders drooping. It was clear that the sasquatch had mixed feelings, but even clearer to Mike that this was the correct choice. Allowing Leeds to wander off again would just create a problem in the future that he might not have a solution for.

Even worse, someone else could die because of it. He winced, feeling the pain of Velvet's death anew. Though his anger was gone, his sorrow had been planted deep.

"Abella." He walked over to the gargoyle and put his hands on her shoulders. "Are you okay?"

She looked at him for several moments, then shrugged. "I've had better days," she told him.

With a sigh, he touched the dog tags around her neck. The soft jingle reminded him of Velvet, her head tilted to one side with a smile on her face.

"Here." Abella started to lift the tags off her neck, but he stopped her.

"Hold onto them for me," he said. "I'm about to be neck deep in shit soon, and I know you'll take care of them."

She looked away from him, her tail thumping on the ground. "I can barely take care of myself, much less anyone else." Her voice was harsh and laced with venom.

"You are nothing short of amazing," he said, then placed his forehead against hers, his voice wavering. "I'm broken inside, and it feels like the world is spinning, but if I had lost you too, I want you to know it would have killed me."

Firm hands gripped his back as she held him close.

"She lost her life saving me," she whispered. "How can I live with that?"

He tried to answer her, but the spinning sensation intensified. He mumbled something, the words dripping from his mouth like molasses as he lost consciousness.

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It would have taken them far longer to return to the cabin if not for the fact that the forest seemed to sense their urgency to return. Abella cradled Mike's unconscious form as they were led by deer through a series of glittering portals that returned them to the cabin.

Smoke rose from the chimney, and Quetzalli burst out of the front door, her cheeks and eyes red from crying.

"You left me here!" she shouted, then paused when she saw Mike. "Is he okay?"

"Exhausted," Dana replied, then took Quetzalli by the hand. "Sorry we ran off, it was everything we could do to even keep up with him."

Yuki put her hand on Quetzalli's shoulder. "We need to get him inside, he's freezing."

"Yeah, okay." She walked back toward the cabin and opened the door. Emery shot out through the gap and hovered overhead.

"Big sister!" he cried, then zoomed down to hover in front of her face. "You've been injured!"

"I'll be fine," she replied, a little surprised that the imp could tell she had been hurt.

"Where is Miss Velvet?" he asked. "Did you catch up to her?"

"She didn't make it."

The little imp let out a pained cry and simply fell out of the sky, clutching his chest and landing on the ground with his wings outstretched. Dana picked him up and held him to her chest as they went into the cabin.

Despite the warmth of the fire, the space felt lonely, as if the building itself knew that something had changed. Abella took Mike to his room and placed him on the bed. Yuki helped cover him up with blankets as Quetzalli pulled his shoes off.

"What happened to his arm?" Quetzalli asked, staring at the purple mass.

"I'm not sure." They had walked back in silence, so she hadn't bothered asking. However, Abella had noticed that everything from his right elbow down to his fingers had turned a mottled purple color, like one giant bruise.

"He channeled a massive spell through it," Yuki replied softly. "Essentially used living tissue as a magic wand. His fingers are all cut up, we may need to stitch the wounds."

"On it." Dana walked in carrying the suture kit Eulalie had made for her last year.

Mike groaned in his sleep as Dana and Yuki started working on his arm. The kitsune was fairly certain that there were broken bones, and Dana stitched up the worst wounds on his hands, licking her fingers off when she was done. Yuki created some ice compresses to help mitigate swelling in his arms, then used a tarot card and a kitchen knife to fashion him a makeshift brace.

Abella watched them in silence. When they were done, they tucked him in. Yuki transformed into a fox and took her place at the foot of the bed. Dana and Quetzalli left, leaving Abella to watch over him.

Almost an hour passed before she took off the dog tags and set them on the bedside table. Trying to move silently, she walked out of the room and shut the door behind her.

Emery sat on the kitchen table across from Dana, the little imp was staring forlornly at nothing. Quetzalli was scrounging up food for a proper meal, which consisted solely of soup cans that hadn't gotten consumed earlier.

Despite Abella's phenomenal hearing, the house was eerily quiet.

Unable to do anything of use, she went outside. The air was crisp, and the forest around the cabin was actively shaking off snow. It was surreal to see trees moving their own branches, and the animals of the forest seemed to pay their movement no attention.

Abella walked over to the remains of the barn. The fire had burned hot, and there wasn't much of anything to go through. Still, she picked her way through the scorched timbers until she found the melted remains of the jeep.

"Merde," she muttered, then spent several minutes clearing debris off the top of it. Once the cabin was revealed, she dug her talons into the dashboard and ripped it away to reveal the contents of the glovebox. Inside there were chunks of melted plastic and what looked like melted wax from a box of crayons. She dug through the mess, grumbling to herself as she paused every couple of minutes to wipe her fingers off on a nearby piece of metal.