~~Young~~

Chapter Twenty

   “It’s no matter,” the Senator continued as he held the indenture out for Gage’s inspection, “you breeched your contract and have left me no choice but to take things into my own hands. I had everything I needed to take the Angels down months ago. I just figured it would be better to have the blood on someone else’s hands.”

      Gage snapped the parchment out of the man’s hand and threw it into the flames without taking his eyes off of the Senator, “ then why am I even here” he growled.

   The Senator shrugged casually, “I needed some way to get you away from Sera so I could take care of what you would not.”

   Pain rocked Gage’s body. Sera, his Sera, this mortal man was going to take her from him.

   He had to get to her! He closed his eyes and focused on that part of her inside him as the world began to grow dark. He was just about in the current when something slammed into his back. But…from the in between? The only way that could happen was if there was someone in here with him.

   He spun in time to see Jerry take form- his true form- just behind the winged chair Gage had been sitting in. And just behind him, Sera.

   He was overcome with a mix of relief and terror. Yes he knew where she was now but in no way was she safe. Jerry had just delivered her into the Senator’s hands. It took the demon a moment, but it was pretty apparent by his expression that he had come to realize the same thing.

   “Suh’ I’m sorry suh, but she-”

   “Grab her!” the Senator bellowed before Jerry could finish his apology.

   Jerry spun back for Sera to grab her, to get her out of the way but it seemed he had lost the power to keep physical form from the transport. He just passed right through. But without him in the way Gage could now see the blood all over Sera. She hadn’t quite come too yet, she wobbled with one trembling hand pressed to her forehead. Dizzy after traveling in such a way no doubt.

   It didn’t take him a moment to take that all in and be by her side, his blade now set firmly in his hand as he put her behind him.

   “Beauty what happened?” Gage asked her over his shoulder. He couldn’t turn around fully without having to take his eyes off one of the five men.

   “Lizzy,” she whispered, “Lizzy she…” another pause to swallow, “she killed herself. She killed herself so we could get away.”

   It was all mumbled together, as if Sera still wasn’t mentally here yet. But to hear that her friend killed herself, that…that was probably a contributing factor to her dazed state.

   “We?” Gage asked as he watched the men begin to close in on him. Jerry- for all the help that he was- stood between them chanting away, probably working some spell to get his strength back Gage hoped because that wasn’t thunder rumbling in, but the sounds of dozen of men coming for them.

   “Chelsea…me…” her breath hitched, “she didn’t want him to hurt her again.”

   Gage’s eyes rolled to the man shoving at his guards to do something, the he undoubtedly responsible for the pain Lizzy suffered. He knew of it, and had put a stop to the brutality he thought when he ordered those men to do as such. But the damage had obviously been done when he saw that girl bleeding on the floor, and not just to her body…

   He spared a glance to his right as a chorus of clicking sounds filled the room, safety’s being switched off. About eight or ten of them. Fucking terrific.

   The smart thing to do would be to grab Sera and transport the hell out of here, but he didn’t think she could take it so soon. As temporal beings Gage and Jerry felt nothing, but while Sera rode those currents her physical form would feel like it was being torn apart. Her soul and body specifically, the two being pulled between their respective realms of existence. She wouldn’t remember it afterwards, and didn’t know that was why her body was shaking so hard. But it was stressing on her body plain and simple. And not the kind he thought her mortal heart could take again without time to recover. And if she should happen to die in the current then Gage would have no chance of getting her soul reunited with her body again, all too quickly it would get swept away without the weight of her physical form to hold it in place.