Sophia: Doesn’t she have her phone?
Kade: Not tonight. Hand me over.
Sophia: Hi, Kade. It’s Ellen. Did it work?
Kade: It worked. I’m on my way. We’re on our way.
Sophia’s room didn’t have a TV. The healer’s phone was internet-disabled—a condition the hospital she was in imposed on all phones in its rooms. She could text, and she could call, but that was it. The idea was that she was supposed to focus on herself, not on everyone—and everything—else.
Ellen could see how that might be hard for Sophia. The team’s healer had—multiple times—thrown herself into danger on the off-chance that it might save someone’s life. Her sense of self was…not weak, but…tied up in her value to others, and in her ability to help them. A selfless sort of self. Ellen couldn’t understand that, but she could respect it.
Everything she’d done since her trip to Tucson had been slowly maneuvering toward this moment. Every decision—including her willingness to tie her future to Kade’s—had been to get herself out from under Bob’s thumb.
And now, she was.
It was a strange feeling, being free yet still tied to Kade and his team. If anything, she was connected to him even more closely and more permanently than to Bob. The Dual Skill Progression they’d undertaken meant they were together until they didn’t want to get stronger anymore. Ellen thought about that every day, but she hadn’t really considered it in the light she was now. It…wasn’t the same.
Kade didn’t demand anything from her. He didn’t have expectations of her, except that she’d keep doing what she was doing. Sure, she owed him—a lot. He’d put himself on the line for her, just like Sophia did with complete strangers. Multiple times, in fact. But Ellen doubted that Kade would ever call in that debt. He’d probably forget about it in a week.
Ellen wouldn’t be able to, though. She’d pay it back somehow, even if Kade didn’t know she was.
She stood up, checked herself out of Sophia’s room for a moment, and headed down to the lobby. It took Kade almost twenty minutes to arrive. When he did, he looked drained. Exhausted. Jessie was asleep in the passenger’s seat, and Yasmin and Jeff crawled out through Deimos’s driver’s side.
“Bob had one more message for you. He insisted you see it,” Kade said.
He handed the paper—the one that guaranteed she was her own person, free from any debt owed to the Traynor family or corporation—to her. She read it over, then signed it with a pen Kade provided. Then he flipped it over.
Eleanor Traynor,
I had hoped to give you responsibility over the Traynor family when you were ready for it. Your sister is—
Ellen handed the paper back to Kade. “Let’s get this filed first thing tomorrow. I don’t need to read this.”
Kade nodded. “That’s what I told him, but he insisted. I’m going to head up and visit Sophia for a few minutes, then we can go. Jeff, Yasmin, you okay with waiting?”
“Nah, we’re going to get something to eat and have a talk,” Yasmin said. “We’ve got some shit to figure out.”
Jeff shrugged helplessly. “Whatever she says.”
“Well, I say Chinese food.”
“Fine.”
They started walking off toward the center of downtown, and Kade turned and headed inside as Ellen got into Deimos’s driver’s seat and collapsed backward into her seat.
She’d won.
Ellen didn’t say much as Deimos drove toward my apartment. She had a hotel room downtown, but she hadn’t even suggested that she go there. Jessie was still asleep in the passenger seat, so I sat behind them, in the middle.
I didn’t say much, either. We’d lost in that last moment. Bob Traynor was too on top of the game not to have caught Jessie’s slip-up, and the route out that she’d accidentally/on purpose revealed had been a mile wide. He’d missed it—but why? I needed to talk to her, but she started snoring, and I set that goal aside for now. It had been a long night for all of us.
The car pulled up outside, I moved Jessie into her chair, and we went home.
And Ellen came with us.
I didn’t exactly ignore her. But I didn’t say anything until Jessie had woken up, brushed her teeth—protesting the whole time—and gone to bed. When I made it back to the living room, Ellen had found her favorite chair, and she was leaning back in it and staring at the ceiling fan as it spun. She didn’t say anything either.
I found my bed, pulled off my hoodie, and closed my eyes.
When I opened them, Ellen was lying next to me. She was breathing steadily, but when I twitched, she stopped. “You awake?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Good.” She pulled one of my arms over her and pushed her back against me. “I’ve been thinking a lot over the last few hours. It’s been…a lot.”
“I bet.”
“Yeah. Can you run me through what happened?”
So I did. It took a good half-hour, lying there and answering Ellen’s questions, then remembering things and backtracking. My brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders—I kept forgetting important details—but I muddled through it. The whole time, Ellen’s breathing stayed steady, and about halfway through, I realized she’d changed into pajamas at some point in the night.
When I finished, she pushed herself up and sat at the edge of my bed. “That…doesn’t make sense.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Yeah, Daddy…Bob…wouldn’t let himself get outmaneuvered. The plan should have failed the moment it changed and gave him an out. So…”
“So, something changed.”
“Do you have a copy of that paperwork?” Ellen asked. “The one we filed?”
“Yes.” I got up, sliding past her, and walked to the kitchen. Jeff wasn’t back yet, and Ellen followed me. We sat on the stools and pored over the paperwork.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
After a minute, Ellen shrugged. “This looks solid. There’s no loophole that I can see here. He can’t reverse it—only I can do that.”
“Then if it wasn’t something in the contract, it was something outside of it.” I closed my eyes, trying to visualize the room. What had we been missing that he hadn’t? What could he see that we couldn’t?
“Something on his monitors?” Ellen asked.
I nodded slowly. “It had to be. Should we check…”
“We should,” Ellen said slowly. “The TV’s right there, but…Kade, I really…”
As she trailed off, I smiled and grabbed her hand. “The news will be there in the morning, and you’re tired. Let’s get back to bed.”
Ellen nodded and let me pull her along. She slid under the blanket, then patted the bed. I hit the lights and climbed in behind her. Then, fifteen minutes later, she coughed once. “Kade, I’m not that tired.”
I rolled over. Ellen was staring at me, and her eyes twinkled in Phoenix’s reflected light.
The next morning, I woke up with Ellen’s arms wrapped around me like a teddy bear.
I didn’t try to extract myself for a while. Instead, I lay there and thought. We had a busy day today, but I wasn’t ready to start dealing with it yet. Ellen’s hair was in my face, and the bed was warm but not unpleasantly hot—a mercy on a late summer morning in Phoenix. So I relaxed, let her hold on to me, and closed my eyes.
A half-hour later, I heard voices in the living room.
The process of escaping from Ellen took almost five minutes—I didn’t want to wake her up—and then another minute to throw on a shirt and shorts. Then, it was out to face the world.
And more importantly, to face Jeff and Jessie.
Jessie had me on ignore. She was cooking pancakes, and the kitchen was a disaster. Flour stuck to the counter where an egg had broken outside the bowl, the stove was covered in batter, and the whole house smelled like syrup. I raised an eyebrow, but she ignored that, too. After a few moments, I turned to Jeff.
He was on his couch—as usual—but unlike the previous month-plus of mornings, this time he was fully dressed and all his bags were packed. He looked good, too. Not exhausted or lost. Focused. Almost too focused. “Kade, Kade, good job last night. We did it,” he said.
“You’re up and ready to face the day, huh?” I said.
“Yep.”
Jessie cleared her throat from the kitchen. “He wasn’t before I got started in here.”
“That is true. Pancakes are a powerful motivator.”
“So, what’s going on?” I asked.
“Jessie looked at our finances this morning, and—“
My sister cut Jeff off before he could get rolling. “After breakfast. We’re going to be out all day dealing with this, and I want five minutes of sanity before we get started. Just five. That’s all I’m asking. It’s all going to be on me, not on you, Jeff.”
“Sanity, huh?” I looked at the kitchen and raised an eyebrow.
“Shut up.” Jessie raised a fist, and I flinched away theatrically.
“Fine, fine,” Jeff said. “Anyway, the good news is…good. And I’m sure those pancakes are going to be just as good.”
Jessie glared at him over her phone screen, then turned back to the kitchen apocalypse. I caught a glimpse of her screen; it was a recipe for pancakes. Had I failed her that badly?
“What’s going on out here?” Ellen asked from the door. She’d gotten her pajamas back on, and her hair was a disaster, but she was awake, and something had shifted in how she carried herself since yesterday. It took me a moment to figure it out. Tension. I’d never seen her without tension in her shoulders, back, and neck. There was still a little, but nothing compared to what she’d been carrying.
“Pancakes,” Jessie said. She piled three on a plate, handed them to Ellen, and started the next batch. “Eat them while they’re hot. Syrup is on the counter.”
Ellen looked at the disaster zone sprawled out across the kitchen, then at the dripping plastic jug and spreading puddle next to the refrigerator. She stared for a minute, then snorted. “It sure is.”
“Shut up.”
Over the next twenty minutes, Jessie slowly fed all four of us. The pancakes were…serviceable. Not the best, but not bad for a first attempt. Jeff didn’t seem to mind; he had seconds, and then when there was still batter left, thirds. Ellen ate and ate, too. Then, when Jessie had finally finished hers and started her wrist stretches, I sighed and started the clean-up.
Jessie watched for a minute. Then she coughed. Twice. “Okay, time for a guild update. As of last night, the guild is sitting at approximately eleven million dollars in donated funds. That leaves us with a nine-million-dollar gap between where we need to be and where we are. That’s…going to be unsolvable unless—“
“Yeah, yeah,” Ellen said. “I’ve got the money. Kade and I talked about it last night. I owe all of you so much more than that—“
“No, you don’t.” I wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in for a hug. “You don’t owe us anything—“
“Yes, I do, Kade. Throwing money at it won’t pay this debt back. You can’t put a price on what you did for me last night. I’m my own person. I’ve never been my own person before. So, I’m going to throw money at this, because it’s what I can do right now, but I still owe you all so much.
Jessie clapped her hands. Flour erupted out from them and covered her face. She coughed again, sputtered, and turned red under the white powder. “Great. So, our agenda today is full. We need to buy the building from the Portal Tyrants, file the last of the Guild Intent paperwork with the Governing Council, I need to resign from the GC—assuming I’m running the admin side of the guild—and we need to visit our new place. That’s the first thing.”
“What’s the second thing?” I asked.
“The news.”
As Jessie said it, Jeff flipped on the TV. They’d clearly rehearsed this.
“…The combined guilds of Phoenix are aware of the dangers posed by an unrestrained, active Carlsbad Portal Break, and are taking steps to ensure the city is safe until the break can be contained or—strategy and personnel permitting—shut down. Until that time, the city of Phoenix is to be considered under siege.”
The news anchor’s voice continued, beating against my ears in a familiar cadence. “The Governing Council stresses that, while the areas outside of the 303 Wall are to be considered under the control of a monster tide, the city of Phoenix is safe, and life within its walls will go on as normal. They also wish to state that additional information will be delivered to the city’s delvers in the next hour or two, as they finalize their announcement. We go now to Tanner O’Reilly with more information on monster tides.”
“Thanks, Bonnie. Monster tides happen when a portal break that has existed for a long time becomes much more active suddenly, releasing larger numbers of monsters onto Earth from its portal. Though generally not a problem, an S-Rank tide like this one has potential to—“
I stared at Jessie. “How long have you…”
“Known about this? Since last night, before we got Mr. Traynor to sign the paperwork. It was why I changed the plan. We knew he was working on a deal with another company from San Diego, building portal metal weapons that’d allow regular people to fight back against monsters. With the convoy team and Carlsbad delvers beaten, this was too high a profit opportunity for him to miss, and I gambled that he’d do what he had to do to make this whole scandal go away.”
Ellen whistled. “Well, you were right. But now what? What do we do about—“
Her phone buzzed. So did mine. And Jeff’s. And Jessie’s.
Governing Council Message:
Status: Medium Priority
An unexpected change in an ongoing portal break has led the Governing Council to announce the shutdown of all unnecessary open portals within the 303 Wall and the activation of the wall’s defenses. While the Governing Council does not require guild contributions in order to power the Wall, it does require guild cooperation with the portal shutdown process.
Those guilds with their own portals are required to clear them within ninety-six hours. The Guardians have agreed to cede partial control of the Wickenberg Portal to each of Phoenix’s other guilds to confirm that it remains under control.
The Governing Council will decommission the Fallen Delvers Memorial Portal in two weeks.
All delvers between C-Rank and A-Rank are encouraged to take part in the Fallen Delvers Memorial Tournament. The prize is the opportunity to face off against the E-Rank boss within, along with a hand-picked team of delvers, and claim the wealth of the portal for yourself. While an E-Rank portal may not appear impressive, the Fallen Delvers Memorial Portal is a unique case, and those expeditions inside have reported significantly higher-than-expected value—as well as commensurately higher danger.
The tournament’s rules are as follows:
- All bouts will take place in a special sparring facility being constructed within the E-Rank portal inside the Fallen Delvers Memorial.
- All delvers’ power levels will be reduced to E-Rank in the sparring chamber due to the Fallen Delvers Portal’s unique characteristics. Abilities will remain at level, but damage, duration, and impact will be reduced, as well as effective Stamina and Mana levels.
- Any conflict between competitors outside of the sparring room will result in disqualification.
- The first bout will begin in three days, and the final will take place eleven days from then.
- Any and all skills, spells, and abilities are allowed within the sparring room.
- Fights will go until either one delver yields, a delver loses consciousness, or the Spark of Life declares the fight over due to insurmountable injuries.
The Governing Council looks forward to hosting the Fallen Delvers Memorial Tournament and wishes all interested delvers luck.
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