I trusted Ren about as far as I could throw him, but I had no choice except to agree to his plan after hearing all that he claimed about Atticus's inner thoughts. How could I not? Assuming he was telling the truth, I stood a chance, however small, of reversing the damage done to him in the same way I'd unintentionally healed his psyche the first time around.
Ren hit the nail on the head with his accusations of moping; my catosprophising-prone mind jumped way too fast to the conclusion that all was lost. I presumed that because Atticus didn't immediately heal himself of the new imbalance created by absorbing more power than his body was capable of safely regulating, it meant the damage had been too great, not taking into account the fact that there'd been only a few minutes of contact between us to reverse days of torture before again negating that progress when Tempest, Will-O, and Ferrus proceeded to try to slice, incinerate, and perforate him to death, respectively.
Atticus burned through my healing too fast. At least, I hoped that was the case. Otherwise... I didn't want to think about otherwise, what that meant I'd have to do. For him. For everyone else.
Ren and I were of the same mind when it came time to discuss when we ought to act. Now. As soon as possible. Sooner than that.
Discovering just who amongst the remaining Supers considered themselves allied with Ren was a source of increasingly raised eyebrows, the news overshadowed by a poisonous bitterness that Ren saw into each person's mind and found resentment against how the Constable operated the Guild, yet Ren hadn't, evidently, found a whisper of those same treasonous thoughts in Ezra. Ezra might not have known all the wrongdoing at hand, but surely he'd seen enough. Still, he chose his precious Guild over everything. That betrayal would sting for a long time. How could I be so wrong about someone? How could I have thought well enough of him to call him a friend?
Ren's coup, if I could call it that, began with a text resulting in the disappearance of two of the Constable's personal guards, the first cogs moving to set a much larger machine into motion. Flicker materialized beside us on the rooftop, a shorter girl with long, wavy hair in tow. Her mask covered three quarters of her face, save the space surrounding light, caramel eyes framed by short brown lashes. They flicked to me, unsurprised by my presence, and then back to Ren.
"You know Flicker," Ren introduced by way of a small hand gesture, "and this is Aegis. Feel free to thank them for risking their necks with you. They'll be doing the dirty work of getting you close enough to the target for you to work your magic. I don't care how you do it, just resolve the situation, be it with death or otherwise. As for me, I have the enviable task of trying to draw our dear leader's attention away from your mischief. I would ask you to wish me luck, but, frankly, I do not care, and luck cannot be in my favor where I am going."
Following that bit of melodramatic verse, he clumsily departed alone down the treacherous ladder of crumbling roof, leaving me to my acquaintances new and old.
I stopped myself from asking their motivations, specifically Flicker, a Guild Elder, of all people. He had everything in the world to lose, and very little to gain for his treachery, outside of peace of mind. In my limited experience, peace of mind was rarely enough. It didn't matter. Ren vetted his intentions and found them true, so that was good enough for me. No conversation was worth wasting any more of our precious few minutes of daylight left.
I held out my hand, palm up, for him to take. "Let's get this over with."
*~*~*~*~*
The sudden cold made my breath hitch in my throat. Flicker teleported us to the fringes of the storm, close enough to avoid the other Supers attempting to maintain a safe distance while they attacked, yet far enough that we didn't risk materializing with one of the many frozen projectiles hurtling through the air protruding out of our bellies.
Gooseflesh crawled up my arms, even with Aegis's deflective shield forming a haven of protection around us to keep the physical threats away. I could see why the Constable wanted them both near. Aegis, a failsafe in case danger ever drew too close, and Flicker, a quick escape should retreat become necessary. My nails dug into the meat of my palm at just the hateful thought of him. Coward.
I spared one last look at what appeared to be a domed tornado rising out of the ground, spherical in shape and completely dark at the center, before sinking into it, not bothering to make sure the others followed. Either they would, or they wouldn't. No matter their choice, my only remaining path stretched forward into the abyss that awaited me, the path to him.
After slipping through that threshold, a barrage of wind nearly swept me off my feet and, based on the surprised grunts behind me, muffled beneath the howling gale, the others suffered a similar experience.
I hoped they wouldn't live to regret following me.
On second thought, I hoped they would live to regret it. At least that meant they'd live.
Ice spheres bigger than grapefruit and several times more dense shattered against Aegis's conjured protection with such frequency that it left us nearly blind, like rain battering a windshield during a heavy midnight storm. I directed myself through the thick haze by instinct, feeling my way closer based on the intensity of the current and the thickness of the dark. It was a black fog rolling over us in some places, and in others writhing tendrils that looked almost alive and ready to lash out. In all, it was a foreboding promise of inevitable despair.
When visibility completely failed us minutes later, Aegis fisted a hand through the back of my shirt and took tight hold of the cuff of Flicker's suit to ensure no one strayed too far. From the outside, the space hadn't seemed so massive, so limitless, but a blank abyss devoid of light and sound had us stumbling around unguided in circles, hoping - and fearing - the moment where we ran into something we couldn't detect. Only the sensation of wind remained inside her shield, not sharp and cutting, as I knew it would be on the other side, but blunt and relentless, like the sweeping arm of a giant threatening to slap our bubble of protection into the atmosphere.
Another blast rocked the shield, stronger than the others. It cracked, then instinctually constricted to protect its wielder before it had the chance to dissolve entirely. Left vulnerable to the next barrage of hurricane-level winds, they knocked me onto my side with the propulsive force of an explosion set off beside my feet. Aegis's grip on my shirt slipped, and my only link to them severed all at once.
I whirled, reaching blindly to reclaim her hold, and came up with nothing besides ice battering my outstretched arm.
Damn. I couldn't spare the time to seek them out. They were on their own - and so was I.
"Atticus!" I called, turning back, despite knowing the futility of the effort. It sounded like yelling beneath the surface of water, as though the air was too thick for sound-waves to travel. "Atticus!"
For the first time entirely vulnerable, razor-sharp slivers cut into my forearms, positioned to protect my face. Ice crystalized on my clothes, then melted from my body heat. Refreezing. Remelting.
I had to be getting close, if the wind's ability to nullify Aegis's shield was anything to go by. I kept pushing forward, digging in my heels to prevent myself from being shoved off course.
Unexpectedly, I broke through, and, in my surprise, nearly lost balance from the lack of wind batting me away, my own strength acting against me. In the eye of the storm, it was... calm. No ice. No floating objects carried along by telekinesis. Though still dark, the inky black shadows were held at bay.
And there he was at the center of it all. Atticus. Wan and disheveled and still somehow ethereal, Atticus.
I fully expected screaming and a picture of utmost suffering, but his expression as I cautiously approached was almost serene. Eyes drawn closed, he might have been sleeping, were he not standing upright, arms raised slightly at his sides and chin lifted towards the dark sky of his own making.
"Atticus?" My voice sounded unsteady, even to my own ears. If any part of him heard me, it didn't show on his face. Mostly for myself, I whispered, "Don't worry. I have you now," and stretched out a hand to trace the line of his jaw.
I never made it that far. His own hand shot out, quick and without warning, like a lightning strike, and closed around my wrist, holding me stationary in place.
His eyes were abruptly open and watching me, though without recognition. A horrid blankness stayed imprinted on his entire person. On numerous occasions I'd equated him to a statue by liberty of his appearance and how the ever changing, ever moving world never seemed to affect him, yet he had at least always felt real. I couldn't say the same about the man before me, whose movements lacked human nuance, whose expression might have been carved into permanence by chisel and hammer.
"Lily," he breathed at last, nearly lost beneath the distant roaring wind..
My heart soared, thinking that meant he finally saw me, and our nightmare could come to a swift end, only for that same hope to be promptly shot out of the air by the realization that he wasn't talking to me. Not at all. The closest thing I could describe it to was sleep talking. Our nightmare continued.
"Atticus," I repeated, trying for calm, "wake up. Your grip, you're beginning to hurt me."
His hold only tightened, turning just short of painful, and then exceeding even that threshold. I winced.. Obviously, our very measured contact wasn't healing him fast enough, so I ignored the discomfort and navigated my palm between the countless tears in his shirt to press it flat against his chest. A shudder rolled through his body, and in a blink our small island of peace collapsed in on itself. Every bit of raw power being held at bay slammed into me all at once, and I would no doubt have been tossed away by the sheer suddenness of it all, had Atticus's grasp on my arm not been so unrelenting.
His hair floated at an easy, discordant rhythm, in opposition to how the battering tempest ought to have been whipping the strands wildly against his cheeks. Instead, they drifted languidly, as though through still water, and he rose steadily up into the open air, taking me with him as an accessory, an extension of his own self.
"Atticus!" I twisted my forelimb, until I could grab him in return and brought my free hand to the junction between his throat and shoulder, to allow me to reel myself in, since I held no sway over the weightless space of his creation. Closer, I wrapped that same arm the rest of the way around his neck, hugging our trembling bodies together as one. Although his telekinesis held us aloft, the wind and ice shards sliced through us, not sparing even him the wrath of his own uncontrolled power. Every bit of bare skin I could manage, I pressed against his, arm against arm, cheek against cheek, and chest to chest, willing him to absorb my power faster, to heal himself faster than the four permanently stolen abilities at war with each other inside could tear him apart. I cast my thoughts out for something to say - anything, on the chance he might be listening somewhere deep down. I returned to his last words to me that I never got a chance to respond to. "I wanted to tell you earlier, I also would have liked to live far away from it all, as long as I was with you, and it's definitely," I laughed, a weak, wet sound, "definitely not Stockholm Syndrome."
With all the urgency of someone watching the world ending in fire and brimstone, I kissed him, the way I hadn't been able to down in the prison, as much as I had wanted to. I kissed him as I had never kissed anyone before, and perhaps never would again. It was pure desperation manifested. It was everything I ever wished to convey and couldn't, because I always found the wrong words. Because I didn't know the right ones.
I had been as lost without him as he had been without me, and maybe now he would believe it.
I didn't notice him releasing his punishing hold on my wrist until he wound that arm around my waist, sealing any little remaining space between us. He sucked in a shaky breath against my lips. Everything stopped as suddenly as it came. Soft evening light made his eyes practically glow from the sun setting in gold. Sounds that weren't the result of wind and ice rose from every direction - and I barely registered them. There was only Atticus and the knuckles tenderly brushing my cheek.
"It's not a dream," I told him, because it felt so surreal, like it should have been one. This reality was too good for me, my luck for once too kind to believe.
"I know." He pressed his forehead to mine. The remainder of his power cut out and we dropped several feet in a heap on the ground, both our legs collapsing beneath us, relief robbing us both of the ability to stand. "I could never dream up anything like you."