Darkest Before the Dawn (male/male)

Felix

Cade was sitting in the corner of the couch, elbow on the arm of it, right leg crossed over her left knee, her bare foot bouncing. One curated eyebrow was raised. She avoided eye contact with anyone. I think she was deciding who to direct her wrath at.

Wine-colored eyes flicked to Marigold. We all stayed silent.

Then they passed to me. I would be her first victim, then. “You put him back on this case,” she started. “What was all that at your house, when we agreed he shouldn’t be working this?”

“He was going to go anyway. You know he would have left as soon as he was out of my sight.”

A little, “hmph”. “Then you could have kept him at your house or something. You should have done that.” She tipped her head, now targeting Akiya. “And you. What were you thinking – you know what happened to my brother, but you permitted all of this. You’re just as guilty as these two are.”

“Careful,” Goldie warned, eyes large towards Cadence.

All that did was make Cade snap her head towards the nymph. “Careful? Really? I don’t give a single fuck if he’s a reaper, I can be mad at whoever I want right now. My brother is missing. He’s likely going to die. And none of you in this fucking room did anything to help him.” The venom in her voice was painful.

“I tried!” Goldie’s eyes were wet again. Her voice was shaking. “I really tried! They caught us off guard.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have even been on this case. All I see is incompetency on this goddamn team.” Her horns had sprouted at this point, brassy and longer than Mew’s.

“You don’t mean that.” My voice was hard. Arguing with Cadence wasn’t typical for me. We always got along, scheming over how I could impress her brother. It was a reminder that she was Mew’s sister and just as hot-headed. “You have every right to be mad but lashing out at us isn’t going to bring Mew back.”

“Mad isn’t even the beginning of what I’m feeling. How the fuck do you think I felt, getting the call to come meet you here because neither of you could tell me on the phone what happened. I should have known about him immediately! The goddamn second it happened! Not now, hours after the fact when we have no fucking chance of finding him.”

“Cade—” Goldie had started.

“And you fucking reapers and your stupid goddamn rules about not being able to help!” Cadence continued, slamming her dainty fist into her open palm. “You could help my brother, Akiya, but you won’t because of some stupid moral code.”

Akiya didn’t flinch. He stayed seated next to Evander, as if he had been expecting the tirade. “Cadence, I understand your anger; however, I will not mess with cosmic agreements and rules to help you. I can’t—”

“Fuck off with the explanations.”

“You’re going to get yourself fired,” I snapped.

“Fire me then! You should be fired for your neglect and failure to keep him safe. I thought you cared enough about him to protect him.” Her manicured finger was inches from my nose.

My fangs popped at the same time the adrenaline sprung from my stomach. “I love your brother. I would have been there to help him if I could, but we both know how incredibly stubborn he is! He would’ve gone and gotten himself into even more trouble if I told him not to go. At least he had Goldie there to help him this time and see who took him.”

Rage turned into bewilderment, softening her features enough to lower my guard. “You love him?”

I hadn’t meant to say it. A strangled, complicated weave of feelings had emerged because of Mew. I hadn’t considered what that all meant. Maybe I didn’t need to ponder it, recognizing the immediate rush of placidity and belonging whenever I was around Mew. “Yeah,” I whispered, imitating Cadence’s expression. “Yeah, I love Mew. And I did fail to keep him safe. Goldie did more than I could have done.”

Cadence finally took a seat in one of the armchairs, rubbing her hands along the tops of her thighs. “You better not be lying to calm me down.”

“I didn’t think anything could calm you down.”

“’m sorry,” she muttered. “I know I flew off the handle. I’m scared for him, and not knowing if he’s alright is going to drive me crazy.” Her knobby elbows were on her legs, and she buried her face in her hands. “I didn’t mean to call you guys incompetent. You’re not.”

Goldie shook out of her stupor, her magic flowing throughout the room as she moved to stand by Cadence. “We’re going to find him, you know. He’ll probably talk their ears off, and they’ll deliver him back to us.” That earned her a stiff smile from me and Cadence.

“And you really can’t help us at all?” Cade asked Akiya.

The reaper shook his head, scowling. Next to him, Evander elbowed him gently in the side and tilted his head at an angle. “I’m sure you can think of a loophole,” he whispered, hand on his husband’s knee. I wondered if that’s how Mew and I had looked the night before, sidled up next to each other, limbs touching, an open expression of admiration on each other’s faces.

Akiya sighed, pushing a hand through his hair. His eyes maintained their golden hue. “I can’t give much information on his location or anything specific. It has to be something unrelated to this operation since you have to find things out on your own.” He pulled his lips to one side, furrowing his brow. “However, I suppose since Felix is already aware that some demons are being held for blood farming, I can report that Mew, like Thomasina and Ruby, is alive. In a professional sense, I would also advise you to question your prisoners to determine whereabouts of the demons.” He looked at his husband like he was verifying that he did the right thing.

He smiled when Evander nodded once at him.

“Unfortunately, given the time and travel distance, I would suggest waiting until tomorrow to venture to Mazerene,” Akiya continued, frowning like he hadn’t wanted to deliver that part. It was pushing 1 AM. By the time we drove to the Mazerene-designated airport, flew over, and did our questioning, it would be nearly four in the morning. Goldie was already yawning, worn out from a day of traveling, detective work, and magic usage. She wouldn’t have been useful that early in the morning.

“We’ll leave from here as soon as the sun goes down, then,” I grumbled, voice feeble. The longer we waited, the more dangerous it became for Mew. “If anything changes, let me know, Akiya.” I stood, gripping Goldie’s shoulder. “Go get some sleep. I’m going to have you go out tomorrow and interview some local supernaturals about any information they have. You saw the van Mew was in and the humans that were at the motel, so maybe someone else has spotted them around town. Cadence can go with you.”

“And you?” Cade asked hoarsely.

“I’m going back to the motel tonight to search for evidence. That was a vampire lair—they likely left things behind when they escaped in a hurry.”

“You can’t go there alone. We can—”

“I’ll be alright. You two stay here with Akiya in case anyone tries to take Evander again, and I’ll be back before you wake up in the morning.”

“We’ll walk you out,” the reaper offered, gesturing towards the front door. “Ladies, please make yourselves at home. We’ll find you something to wear for bed in a bit.”

The temperature was mild when we stepped onto the front porch. Fall in Florida was never like fall in other parts of the country—the humidity was thick, almost oppressive, and it was still warm enough to make a T-shirt seem too much. The ocean breeze couldn’t cut through it enough to make a difference. I wanted it to be last night again, tucked away in the intimacy of my bedroom with Mew, entangled together under the blankets.

“I apologize that in your efforts to help me and my husband, one of our detectives was abducted,” Akiya started, focused on the ground, toeing it with his socked foot. “Frankly, I hadn’t thought to check into Bartholomew or Marigold’s futures because…” He grabbed Evander’s hand. A frazzled Akiya made me uncomfortable. “I think I had gotten overwhelmed. Between almost losing Evander, and then killing the intruders out of anger, I wasn’t thinking correctly. It jeopardized Bartholomew’s life, and I apologize for it. My own concern for my partner cost you yours.”

I licked my bottom lip and hugged myself. “Don’t apologize for that. I’m trying incredibly hard to hold myself together and focus on my work because if I let myself think about him for too long, I’m going to lose it. You behaved no differently than how I would in that scenario, including killing them.” Pacifism be damned. I’d slay anyone who stood in my way of getting Mew back.

Akiya smirked at that. “Bartholomew said the exact same thing.”

That left me with a flame in my chest, encouraging me to return to that motel faster than I could process. My equilibrium had barely settled back into place when I stopped, staring at the vacant, dilapidated building. It was only a crescent moon out, making it hard to determine features, my eyesight having to work overtime to catch details and outlines of the building in front of me.

Doors still hung off hinges, vines shot out from beneath the flooring, and a lingering odor of blood and mildew had the place in its clutches. Nobody had reappeared here since we left it earlier in the evening.

I found the room Mew must have been shot in, the blood faintly hanging there. The fragrance of a Parisian bakery, caked in grime and dust, came to me, that tell-tale scent of his that clawed at my heart. He’s okay, I had to keep reassuring myself.

In the center of the room were swaths of vines and roots, tangled together, a clear sign of someone’s previous imprisonment. They had escaped at some point, probably when everyone was rushing off. I smelled humans, Goldie’s magic, and Mew. The room didn’t have much else in it.

In another room were the smells of demons, ones of rose water, strawberry wine, cocoa butter. Thomasina and Ruby. On the walls were the remnants of the portals they must have made in order to escape, once Mew and Goldie had found them. There were two IV drips laying on the bed, half full. Tearing the top off one, I dipped my pinky into the odorless liquid to taste it, the bitterness of it alerting me to morphine, a painkiller I was all too familiar with after my emancipation from a POW camp.

The BRF had some medical involvement, then. Some backroom doctor or an unethical surgeon who could turn a blind eye with the right amount of cash.

I found three more morphine bags in two other rooms, abandoned. I tried piecing it together as to why here. Thomasina and Ruby belonged in Georgia, but they were found a state below. Three other demons were also missing, but from where? Goldie had reported that the demons in Jacksonville and St. Augustine were all accounted for.

There were humans involved now. I wondered where they had stumbled onto the BRF. Maybe they were lured in by the mystification vampires – we – brought about. But humans were also creatures of habit and comfort. Being in the Florida heat for too long would become sweltering, if not downright deadly in some cases. There wasn’t any aircon in this motel. No luxuries, no electricity. They couldn’t have been here for long at all.

“This was a temporary stay, and Evander was their first check in,” I murmured to nobody.

The vampires needed somewhere to sleep during the day, then. They were traveling somewhere, and Mew and Goldie happened upon them purely out of coincidence. They were likely involved with the vampires that broke into Akiya’s house, given the distance.

I was humming to myself. Some song Mew had shown me the night before. “Follow You”. I loved that I had guessed his taste in music, falling under the rock and metal category. He was my favorite open book.

“Traveling south, originally with five demons, now with four. Four humans that Goldie reported. Unknown number of vampires, traveling in a van. This was a one time stay. Are they still traveling south, though?” I paused the record button on my phone screen, scowling as I made my way around the motel, towards the back where Goldie said Mew had been taken. “That’d be a large van, though. Originally nine people, not including the vampires.”

The back of the motel was exactly how Goldie had described it: blown up. Plants of all sizes had been shredded and yanked up from the ground, roots raveling over each other and trying to trap whatever it could. There was a clear path that Goldie had made with the foliage in her attempt to stop the van. Following it, I found the tire tracks after about sixty meters. They had barely escaped. If Mew hadn’t been in the vehicle, Goldie would have stopped it without any apprehension. She was worried about hurting him, probably.

The tracks were headed south, back towards the road. Dirt had been tracked onto the concrete from driving through mud, but the trail was lost after a few feet. They had gone west, away from St. Augustine. Evander would likely be safe for the time being.

Thankfully, the road stretched on for several miles, no random turns or side streets, other than to a gas station or junkyard. Nowhere suitable for vampires to stay for the night. I kept waiting for some scent to come to me, be it the one of Mew’s blood or another vampire. I didn’t care which, I just wanted something. Anything.

My throat closed when I hit a major highway, the roads surrounded by woods. I went a mile or two in either direction, finding houses with their porchlights on or with remnants of an autumnal bonfire out front. None of them had vans in their yards. If I traveled much farther, I wouldn’t have allowed myself to stop until I spotted the black van Goldie said contained Mew.

I wouldn’t let my bottom lip quiver again. Instead, I gritted my teeth to the point of a headache and smashed my fist into the trunk of a tree. It stung for a second, the skin already starting to heal when I pulled it away. For the briefest of time, it allowed my head to clear, focusing on the needle pricks in my knuckles.

I hit the tree again.

And again, until it was splintering and cracking.

And again until the blood from my knuckles painted the bark like some morbid Jackson Pollock piece.

My jaw was trembling. I wiped splintered pieces of wood from my clothes.

Tracking Mew would have been next to impossible. The veins of Jacksonville and north Florida met as an artery, leading that van anywhere it needed to go.

Kneeling, I washed my healed hands over my closed eyes. Clearing my head was important before I did anything too stupid. Returning to Cadence and Goldie without any answers may have been facing my guilt, but it was at least a logical choice. They needed me as much as I needed them.

As painful as it was to stand and prepare to return from the place I had come from, knowing I had failed this mission, it was the best thing for me. Being surrounded by two people who brought me such comfort was a better option, in lieu of standing around and dreaming of the ways I could have – should have – prevented this.

Because, once again, I was becoming the disappointment Mew thought I was to begin with.