Mates for Quinn

The Kid

Greyson

“S*hit! S*hit, s*hit!” My stepbrother repeats as he runs towards the cursed staircase in a desperate attempt to stop the kid from falling to his doom.

Too late though. The thief’s body reaches the basement floor a moment later and Markus is running toward him not even thinking about himself, as usual. The wardens are still in place and if he crosses that threshold, he will get zapped too and the curse will spread to him as well. Doom for life and all that dramatic crap Ian and Geneva pulled when they cast it last year.

I am still too stunned, too shaken to do anything about it. My blood is frozen in my veins and I can’t even think past what I just saw, through what happened. Frozen in place. Just like I’ve always been when it mattered the most.

I watch in slow motion as the only person I care about in this world runs to his end and I am just… hollow. The darkness inside of me is trying to take over and I can barely fight to contain it, let alone get out of my head and start functioning properly in order to do what I have to do. For a split second I am tempted not to do anything at all.

I know there is no real danger for Markus. That’s not how he dies - slowly killed by a witch’s curse. Oh, no, f*ucking fate has other plans for him and his future. There is no one who knows that better than me. After all, I am the one who is going to kill him one day. I know exactly how it is going to happen, I even know why. I just don’t know when. But it’s definitely not tonight, and not because of this.

“W-wait!” I finally manage to shout, just as he is at the staircase. “Mark, don’t!”

He is not listening to me. And I am not thinking clearly, shaken by the visions that got truly vicious this morning when I rushed past him and accidentally touched him, and all the feelings I can’t handle on my own came pouring down on me. Goddess, what am I doing? My damn best friend is about to get hurt if I let him go in there. Death is not the only thing that can cause pain.

Finally, my instincts kick in and I am ready to act. My limbs start moving on their own accord and I am next to him in a heart beat, pushing him out of the way.

Markus lands on his a*ss on the dirty floor and looks at me with wide eyes, a smart comment already on his lips, but I ignore him as I focus my eyes down to the unconscious kid downstairs. I can barely see him in the shadows and it is a weird feeling. I mean, I can’t see him. It’s like he’s hidden.

“Grey, he’s going to die!” Markus yells at me a second later and jumps back to his feet.

“You can’t go down there!” I reply mechanically, my voice just as calm as always even if I am burning from the inside. The urge to just grab him and take him out of here to a place where nothing is going to hurt him, even me, is overwhelming. Just keep him safe and call him mine even if he isn’t and will never be. For some reason my eyes remain locked on the place where he’s squeezing my arm, trying to shake me out of my stupor, not even realising the pain that simple touch is causing me.

I grit my teeth, pushing through it, bringing that song, Red, back to my mind, the goody lyrics grounding me a little as I manage to swim through up from the bottom where Markus’ divine scent and the knowledge of his impeding doom are dragging me. Losing him was blue like I’d never known… missing him was dark grey all alone… Yeah, Taylor, you and me both, sister.

“We can’t just… let him f*ucking die! He’s just a kid!” Markus’s fingers dig into my flesh and I squirm with the need to tear away from his touch. “What the f*uck is wrong with you?”

I cast another glance to the body on the basement floor. The kid is still unconscious, knocked out by the residual energy from the witches’ curse. He is pale but not morbidly pale, not for now at least. He actually looks healthy. At peace, as if he’s sleeping. Angelic - high cheekbones, pointed chin, and those loose blond curls framing his face… I bet they are soft to the touch. I bet the touch to him will be just as agonisingly horrible as it is touching every other person in the world, except for Geneva who is not exactly a person, but that’s another thing. And I know the kid’s healthy look is only temporary. I know how that curse works. It’s Geneva’s masterpiece, woven from the darkest depts of her black heart. A few months back when she cast it, I couldn’t help but feel proud of how good she fits the image of a nasty vindictive witch. Now, I am terrified.

“Ian will remove the curse if we manage to get to him on time,” Markus’s voice reaches me again through the haze that’s gripping me and I just stare. “Damn it, Grey! Knock it off, whatever the f*uck is going on inside that thick skull of yours!”

I stare at him. Has he forgotten that no, Ian can’t remove the curse on his own. It’s by Geneva’s design, and she’s made sure no one can cross her, or use whatever is inside that basement against her and our family ever again. Also, she’s too far away to arrive on time to reverse it. But he’s right, we can’t just leave the boy to die now just because he’s doomed to die a few days later.

The gears in my brain start switching finally, and I take a look at my surroundings. We have to move. We can’t leave these people here, not to mention we still have to figure out how they got this far in the first place. We need proof against whoever tipped them off about the spells at the doors and the curse and the guns, hidden downstairs, and all that s*hit. Not to mention we need to find a way to bring our cousin back from the other end of the world to help. Knowing her, she’d be really, really happy about it.

“I’ll go,” I say finally, not looking at my brother anymore.

I rush downstairs before Markus got any chance to protest. The moment my feet cross the invisible line, the wolf inside me stirs, cussing me, but I grit my teeth, ignoring him. He’s useless anyway in this situation.

My skin prickles with the electricity that rushes through my entire skin as I slide downstairs, fighting the nausea that spreads through me like wildfire. It’s like tar being glued to my insides making it heavy to breathe, but I don’t give much of a damn about it right now. I am a soldier first and a person later. That’s all that I’ve ever been and I’d be damned if I ignore my duty now. It’s my reason for existing, my reason for still clinging to life the way I am - help others, pay my debt to the man who took me and my mom, the man who I tried but couldn’t save.

“Hey, kid,” I murmur when I get to him, poking him with the sole of my polished shoe.

Markus scoffs at that. Probably thinks I am a posh a*ss for not wanting to touch a measly human, having no idea why I can’t touch him. He can’t ever know. Keep it to yourself. I do, I keep it all to myself. Goddess, if he only knew…

My stomach churns, all the dark thoughts from earlier rushing back ten times stronger with the curse now in my veins. Ignoring the pain, as I always do, I blink to clear my vision and crouch to face the kid. He’s prettier up close. Prettier than anyone I’ve ever seen. A face like his should be on the cover of a magazine, or on an icon in a church, put right at the centre to be worshipped by all. Such a face does not belong to a nameless human burglar who believed he could escape the wrath of witches and lycans. Not that he’d ever know we exist, but still…

He’s not responding. If it wasn’t for the slow lift of his chest with each exhale, I’d say he’s dead. I mean, the curse is strong enough to take down shifters, who knows how it would reflect on a human.

“Grey, come on, man!”

With a sigh, I reach out to touch him, my heart beating like crazy in my chest. The goddess knows I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to know. Such a pretty kid, I don’t need to see how he dies. Then again, maybe it’s for the best. Maybe for once my personal little curse will give me hope by showing me him on his death bed at a hundred years old, surrounded by loved ones and having lived his life to the fullest. Maybe he will survive the wrath of a nasty witch and her lycan cousins.

My hand lands on the kid's shoulder and I freeze by instincy, expecting the nausea, the guttural feeling of falling, always falling.

I brace myself for the assault f the vision, but it never comes. Eyes bulging, heart beating like crazy, I shake my head with disbelief as I stare at the kid. Nothing. I can’t see even a glimpse. It’s not like it isn’t there, that weird gift that I have been born with. It is, it’s trying to poke and prod around the place where I am touching him, my dakrer skin in complete contrast to his young, paler one, but it gets nothing in return. I can’t read him. I can’t see how he dies.