“I don’t want that. I can’t give up on the Word now, and I don’t want to lose you. I love you,” I murmured.
He stilled, his gaze softening as he looked at me. “I love you, Kale. I need you here, with me, alive. And I don’t think that’ll happen if you keep going down this road.”
“We’re about to surrender to Ta’Zan.” I sighed. “Any chance we could postpone this Word-related argument for later? Maybe till after we kill him?”
He blinked several times, then exhaled sharply and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close. His natural scent filled my mind with ideas of lazy summer nights in the redwood forests of The Shade, making my heart skip beat after beat as I held him tight.
He shoved his hand in my curly hair and gently pulled my head back. A low growl escaped from his throat, sending my senses into a frenzy. “Kale, if you don’t survive this, there will be nothing for us to argue about,” he whispered.
Pain cut through me like a hot knife. Death was the last thing on my mind, and for good reason, because it meant I’d never see Hunter again. The mere thought of that broke me down on the inside. I parted my lips, slowly, noticing the effect it had on him. I’d dreamed about moments like these before we even knew Strava existed, back when Hunter and I were just friends. Ah, those were the days. Before Ta’Zan and his dumbass Perfects.
“I need you to back me up here, Hunter,” I replied. “How am I going to pull through the apprenticeship if I don’t have you by my side, huh?”
He chuckled softly. “So, you want me to be okay with you potentially dying?”
“No, I want you to be okay with me potentially becoming a better version of myself. Glass half-full and all that,” I answered, smiling.
He nodded slowly, his expression warm and his soft lips begging to be kissed.
“I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose you,” he managed. “I didn’t think I’d be so deep in these feelings I have for you. And it’s too late to undo anything, my darling witch.”
“Then don’t lose me. Help me stay on the path. Remind me why I’m doing this. Make sure I always know that I’m coming back to you, no matter what,” I said. “You’ve brought me out of the Word-mode before. You might be the only one who can.”
“Ever the optimist,” Hunter replied, then kissed me deeply.
I needed him now more than ever. “I need you to promise me,” I said, my voice uneven. “Promise me that, no matter what happens, you’ll bring me back.”
His forehead smoothed. “Are you expecting another blackout anytime soon?”
“I have no idea. But I’ll breathe easier if I know you’ve got my back rather than being mad at me for insisting on doing this,” I replied. “Besides, you know it already. I can’t quit. It’s a one-way street I’m on, and I need to reach the end in order to survive.”
His pained expression made me cry a little on the inside. He didn’t like the prospect of losing me, I knew it. He’d made that perfectly clear before. But I held on to the hope that maybe, just maybe, I could get away with both.
“You do know we’ve got an evil overlord out there waiting to chop us into spam, right?”
“I know, bad timing. But none of us saw it coming, so the best we can do right now is adjust and adapt,” I said.
He rolled his eyes, then kissed me again. This time, however, there was a certain tenderness in it, enough to bring tears back to the surface. I locked my arms around his neck and refused to let go.
“Fine, I’ll adapt,” he muttered against my lips. “But I won’t let you go, do you hear me?”
I giggled. “I don’t expect you to.”
“Good, because I plan on introducing myself to your mom and dad as your boyfriend when we see them again,” he answered, making me laugh.
“I can’t wait to see what Grandma Corrine has to say about it.”
“Frankly, I’m more worried about your Grandma Mona. She scares me, sometimes,” he whispered.
I stifled a chuckle. “Yeah, well, she’s a determined witch. It runs in the family.”
“Yeah, let’s just hope she’s not determined to skin me alive.”
“Only if you break my heart,” I replied.
He sighed. “I’m afraid you might break mine first, Kale.”
I kissed him, this time. I put all the love I had into it, hoping he’d feel it like sentry couples did.
“I’m in this all the way, if you are,” I murmured, firmly cupping his face. “Hunter, come on. Let’s grab this big-ass problem by the horns and tackle it. I don’t want to do this alone.”
“You won’t,” Hunter said, smiling. “I’m with you all the way to the end, you crazy… crazy girl…”
Our lips met once more. I closed my eyes to enjoy it to the fullest. Once the shock collars were mounted around our necks, there was a slight chance they would never come off. I didn’t want to go in with even the slightest idea of potential failure, but I wanted to be realistic, as well.
If, by some misfortune, our plan failed, I was going to be stuck there, forever being poked and prodded by Ta’Zan so he could get his claws on my swamp witch magic. However, knowing how the Word tended to react in times of pressure, I was aware that I could easily turn into a friggin’ nuclear bomb without even being able to control it.
That was my worst-case scenario. Death by Word.
I tried to open my eyes but couldn’t. Hunter’s lips were gone. The firm softness of his embrace had vanished. I was stuck somewhere, in some kind of limbo…
Darkness everywhere. My body missing, and yet my heart racing as panic began to seep through and make a mess of my psyche. I knew what this was. I’d experienced it before, and I dreaded it the most. I’d lost control.
I was going into another Word-mode, and what truly terrified me was the fact that I didn’t know why this was happening or how I could stop it before I hurt anyone again. Hunter had just been holding me, which meant that he was still out there, by my side, probably livid to see me blank out like this.
Wait… Hold on… Why am I conscious?
This felt different from my previous seizures. I was sharp and fully aware of my surroundings. I knew there was a physical world outside. Time seemed to flow strangely slow here—or maybe the complete absence of matter made it feel this way.
