Cym considered. Fourteen had a point; it could be a trap. It was entirely possible Cym was letting his desire to have at least one family member on his side cloud his judgment. But what about the note Sterling mentioned? Cym had taken it with him, and only the person who had left it would have known of its existence. “Yes, I trust him.”
The hesitant smile Sterling gave him burned away any lingering doubts he’d had.
Fourteen simply nodded and hauled the imposter’s body over to Sterling, dropping it to the floor at his feet with a faint look of disgust. “What can you do?
Sterling regarded the woman he had thought to be his mother and turned even greener. “I don’t know if it will work, but if a witch has a connection to someone, emotional, spiritual, or through blood, they should be able to share their power. Since she’s both my mother and great-whatever grandmother, I might be able to tap her power and limit her in what she can do. If I can drain her enough, it should be safe to tie her up. I’m just glad she’s unconscious because this would be impossible if she was awake.”
“I could kill her.” It was so very Fourteen to bring up the elephant in the room without batting an eye.
As tempting as it was to solve the problem of Hester in a more permanent fashion, Cym didn’t have it in him to allow Fourteen to kill a defenseless person in cold blood. “Let’s let Sterling try before we go too far down that rabbit hole.”
Sterling nodded in agreement then bent over Hester, placed a hand on her head, and closed his eyes, concentrating.
Looking back at Cym in his crate, Fourteen frowned, then gave a muffled swear. “I can’t believe you did this to yourself.” With two long strides, he was at Cym’s side, eyes boring into his coldly.
“And I can’t believe you allowed yourself to get captured just to find me,” Cym retorted.
“At least what I did was actually useful. This?” Fourteen gestured to Cym’s mangled arm and equally mangled and trapped leg. “This served no purpose at all.”
“I was trying to escape!”
“You didn’t need to. I would have gotten you out.”
“I was worried about you, okay? I was afraid they would hurt you, you idiot. Though now I wished I hadn’t bothered,” Cym grumbled.
Fourteen’s face softened. It was only a tiny bit, but it gave Cym hope that Fourteen wouldn’t ditch him at the first opportunity once they escaped.
“You don’t have to worry about me so much, you know. I’m more durable than you are.” Fourteen yanked at the padlock on the crate, and while the metal creaked alarmingly, it refused to give way. Fourteen gave it an icy stare for a moment like he could cow it into submission, then said, “I don’t want to waste time picking this lock. Just stay still, okay?”
Mystified, Cym complied and held as still as his loudly complaining body would allow.
Fourteen gripped the twisted metal trapping Cym’s foot and pried it apart, freeing him. “Okay, scoot back as far as you can.” Grabbing one bar with both hands, Fourteen sat down and put a foot on the bar opposite and pushed out with his leg. The side of the crate peeled away like the top of a sardine can with an ear-piercing shriek.
“Gods, can all norms do that?” Sterling asked in a reverent tone.
Cym smiled, feeling proprietary. “This one can.”
Fourteen shrugged. “I work out.”
“Riiight.” Sterling drew out the word into two syllables, his brows raised over wide green eyes. “Okay, so I’ve taken as much as I can without killing Hester. I think she’s safe to tie up.”
Fourteen located a rope on a nearby workbench and tossed it to Sterling, then turned back to Cym and asked, “Can you crawl out?” The crate was too small for anyone to come in and help him out, and his demeanor suggested he would tear the entire crate apart if Cym’s answer was no.
“I think so,” Cym said quickly to avoid seeing what Fourteen would do if pushed. Flying bits of metal going in every direction wouldn’t do anyone favors right now.
Tucking his injured arm against his side, Cym leaned heavily on his good arm and pushed himself forward. He sucked in a sharp breath when his ankle let him know it was incredibly put out about how the evening had gone so far.
Fourteen backed up to give him room but remained close enough to hover protectively. When Cym was out, Fourteen looked him over, going quieter and more distant as he saw the extent of his injuries. Fourteen’s gloved hands were gentle as they patched up the worst of the damage, but the terrible blankness that had settled on his face sent chills down Cym’s spine. He had fallen back into his conditioning again, and it was breaking Cym’s heart.
When Fourteen finally spoke, it was in the robotic voice Cym had grown to fear. “You’ve dislocated your shoulder. I’m going to pop it back now before it gets too swollen.” He stated it like a fact, leaving no room for discussion.
Fourteen was going to fix Cym’s arm whether he liked it or not.
Part of Cym wished that Fourteen had just done it without asking. Anticipation of pain was far worse than it happening in the heat of the moment.
“O-okay,” Cym croaked through dry lips.
“Lie on your back,” Fourteen ordered. He cleared a table with a sweep of his arm and gestured for Cym to lay on it.
Cym complied, shaking with fear and hating himself for how weak it made him look.
“This is going to hurt.”
“No fucking shit,” Cym said through gritted teeth.
Cym kept his eyes fixed on Fourteen’s face. His features were stone as he took Cym’s injured arm and pulled on it slowly, creating traction. Cym tried and failed to hold back a whimper of pain as Fourteen increased the pressure. Sweat broke out on his skin, and Cym started panting.
He tried to keep eye contact with Fourteen. If Cym could only keep looking into Fourteen’s cold, storm-cloud eyes, maybe some of that cold would seep into Cym and numb the pain.
Fourteen turned Cym’s arm slightly, and the resulting pain changed his panting into short mewling sounds of agony.
“Breathe.” Fourteen’s gaze held Cym’s and hints of his personality broke through his conditioning, telling Cym without words that Fourteen knew he could bear it. That Fourteen knew he could do anything.
A sharp pop was accompanied by an immediate sense of relief. A gray fog settled over Cym’s vision and he welcomed it. He was so done with being in pain.
“Hey, it’s okay… it’s over now. I’ve got you.”
The world came back into focus, and he found himself on Fourteen’s lap with a gloved hand stroking his cheek.
