Jessica Andersen - Spellfire

And whoever he was now, his wristband read 1:01:34.

“Rabbit?” Myr didn’t care that her voice shook. Her arms and legs throbbed where she had wrestled with the vines, but that was nothing compared to the pain and fear that was suddenly lodged deep within her heart. “Are you okay?”

It should’ve been a dumb question, because he certainly looked okay. Hell, he looked amazing, standing there with the ruined temple at his back, looking bigger and badder than he ever had before. His hair moved in the faint breeze, but other than that, he was utterly still.

She stopped just a few feet away from him. Tell me you’re okay. Tell me what I just saw wasn’t as scary as it looked. Because even as she and the others had fought off the maize god’s attack, they had seen the golden magic and felt Rabbit’s new power.

He had become the crossover . . . but she wasn’t sure what that meant.

“I’m not hurt,” he said. His eyes, though, were bleak.

“Talk to me,” she urged. “You’re scaring me.” More, he was shutting her out again.

He looked beyond her to where the others had dispersed to gather up the equipment. After what just happened, it was a no-brainer that they needed to head for Chichén Itzá. “We should go.”

He’s right, she told herself. Deal with it after. This isn’t the right time. Or maybe, like Anna said, it was exactly the right time to focus on the personal stuff and remember what they were fighting for. More, Myr was still the one who knew him best, the one who needed to warn the others if he was going off the rails.

“What happened to you?” she pressed, stomach knotting at the sight of a strange new light in his eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”

He hesitated, then held out his hand. “I’ll show you. It’s probably better this way.”

Which sounded ominous and put a new quiver in her belly. But there was no time to hesitate, no time to shore up her inner defenses. She would have to be strong enough to deal with whatever came next.

Taking a deep breath, she clasped his fingers in hers, and opened herself to the mind-bend.

Emotions poured into her—determination, fear, grief, regret, relief, all the things she’d felt from him when he’d first returned to Skywatch. Now, though, there was also an edge of instability, of volatility. As she saw things unfold with rapid-fire in his mind—the stasis spell, the voice, the dark and twisted emotions he’d let back into his head—her heart leaped up to clog her throat. And then it broke.

He had hidden the anger from her, hidden the danger from her. Hidden himself from her.

She reeled back, breaking the connection. “Oh, Rabbit.” She didn’t know what to say, or even what she was feeling, except that it was huge and terrible, and it made her want to weep.

“I was trying to protect you.”

Anger flared, bright and righteous. “Bullshit! You were doing what you always do, which is exactly what you want to do, when you want to do it. You were afraid I would be mad because you’ve gone back to being your old self? You’re damn right. More, from where I’m standing, it looks like you never stopped being that guy. You just camouflaged it better for a while.” And if the words didn’t feel exactly right, the fury did. The panic did. He was back to being the man she feared, the one she couldn’t trust.

His face blanked. “You used to love that guy.”

“I outgrew him three months ago, when I regained consciousness and remembered what he had done to me.”

“Two minutes to ’port,” Dez bellowed. He made it sound like he was announcing it to the entire team, but his eyes were on the two of them.

Rabbit reached for her. “Give me another chance, later.”

She backed off and shook her head as a tear tracked down her face. “I can’t. I won’t.” She took a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry, but I waited too damn long to run away from the Witch. I refuse to make the same mistake again.”

“Myr—”

“No. That’s it, we’re done. I can’t do this anymore.”

“Myr, please, for the love of the gods, don’t. I love you.” His throat worked. “And that’s not leftover from before, and it’s not just because we’ve been great together these past few weeks. It’s all of it. I never stopped loving you, damn it.”

She choked on a sob. “I don’t . . . I can’t. I’m sorry.” And she was. So sorry that it felt like green flames were burning her from the inside out.

But just because it hurt didn’t make it the wrong decision.

Nearly blinded by tears, she turned and headed toward where the others were finishing up packing the essentials, and she didn’t let herself look back, even when he called her name. Because he’d been right all along when he’d said they needed to move forward. She just hadn’t realized until now that in order for her to move forward, she was going to have to leave him behind.

Chichén Itzá, Mexico

The Nightkeepers ’ported into the shadow of the main pyramid, heavily shielded and weapons hot, but there was no attack, no sign of the enemy.

The atmosphere crackled with magic, though, making Rabbit feel itchy and twitchy, and like he was going to jump out of his damn skin if he didn’t get to fight, and soon. But at the same time, there was a deep darkness inside him, a chill that was impervious to the magic.

He looked over to where Myr stood beside Anna, the two of them talking with their heads together, carefully not looking at him.

He didn’t blame her—or he was trying not to.

Trying really fucking hard.

“This is definitely the right place,” Dez said, but his eyes were on the empty sky, his brows furrowed.

“The maize god needed Red-Boar’s sacrifice to materialize,” Lucius said. “That suggests that the big guns still can’t get through the barrier, at least not yet.”

“Why not send makol, then, or the xombis?”

“No clue.”

Dez glanced at his wrist. “Fifty minutes to the hard threshold.” He directed the winikin to summon their totems—the ghost animals they commanded—and put them on outer surveillance. Then he waved toward the raised limestone road that led to the sacred cenote. “Eyes open, people. We can’t be alone.”

Rabbit found himself walking alone as the others hung back or shifted away. He didn’t know if they were afraid of what he could do, or wondering what he would do, but that was nothing new. If anything, it felt too fucking familiar.

The prophecies had said the crossover was supposed to be a lone warrior, he thought. Guess they got it right.

As they moved out of the pyramid’s shadow, they saw scorched earth, splintered wood and other garbage, seeming very out of place on the grounds of the normally groomed tourist attraction.

“Riots,” Anna said grimly. “The believers are making illegal sacrifices, the nonbelievers are trying to stop them and get them to shut the hell up, the cops are trying to keep people out of the hot zone, and everyone wants the outbreak to be over, one way or another.” Her eyes went to the tent city she could just see in the distance. Twin columns of smoke rose up from one end, but the camp itself looked intact.

Beside her, Myr had her shields up and her magic at the ready, and was staring intently into the shadows of each ruin they passed, then the jumbled pile of rocks that marked where the roadway led out of the main city and continued on to the cenote. She caught Rabbit’s eye in passing, hesitated and then nodded, like one teammate to another. Like she was already living in Let’s Just Be Friends Land.

“Well, fuck that,” he muttered under his breath, suddenly pissed at himself, at the situation. How had he let this happen? How had it come to this?