Page 59 of Wrong Squad, Right Mess

His gaze shifted over to the cabin. His expressions didn’t soften, didn’t seem as though he were smitten. Instead, he stared with an intensity that screamed trouble. “She is resting. She seems to have lost some of her abilities over her time away—she gets tired more quickly now. Or perhaps it has just been such a long time since I received quality guiding that it was more taxing?” He frowned, then shook his head. Was he having some sort of fight with himself? I wouldn’t put it past him—the asshole was clearly crazy. He looked back at me, locking in as though I were prey. “You shouldn’t have come back. I would have let you all go, even with our history. She understood that you couldn’t win, that this was a hopeless fight, which was why she left you in the first place. You should have returned through the portal and found a new guide instead of wasting all her efforts.”

“You don’t get it, do you? We don’t leave people behind.”

“You left me behind.”

“Because you left us. You were the one to abandon the squad first, to not know how to be a team player. You were assigned to us, but you never wanted to be a part of our squad. Yun’s different. She left to save us, so understand this, we aren’t leaving without her.”

He smiled brightly. “Oh, but you are. See, Yun is mine, and she’ll be by my side so long as I am breathing. You, on the other hand, are going to be handed over to enemies you can’t imagine. It may have taken me ten years, but I do believe that goes to show that I am the one to come out on top.” He strolled away toward the cabin, out of my reach.

I watched him go, shaking my head, because there was no bigger weakness to a person than their own ego. Let’s see who ends up on top.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Yun

I was off the bed the moment I woke, stumbling and hitting the doorframe when I couldn’t see yet. It was like waking mid-fight, like coming to swinging.

My brain just told me over and over again that I needed to help my men, that I had to lay eyes on them. I tripped when I threw open the door, catching myself with one hand in the soil before I righted myself and looked around, searching.

There.

A little off from the cabin, I spotted Ingram. My legs nearly gave out again. His features were pinched in furious lines, but fuck it, he was alive. My eyes burned, but I forced myself forward, needing to speak to him, to see if the others had made it as well.

Through the trees, I was able to see each of them. They had no obvious injuries, all of them upright and alive.

“Stop.” Carter’s voice struck me like a physical blow, my feet skidding in the dirt as though I was powerless to disobey him. His order also made the others look my way, my relief mirrored in each of their expressions. “There’s a barrier,” Carter explained, tone gentle.

His words meant nothing for a long moment, since I couldn’t get past the fact they were alive. Anything else didn’t matter that much, didn’t factor into how I felt right now. Everything else could be dealt with later, since they were still breathing.

“I think she’s gonna cry,” Kenyon said, panic in his voice. “We can’t even hug her!”

That woke my brain, reminded me where we were, that I needed to be far smarter.

It also reminded me that they’d shown up for no good reason and risked themselves after all I’d done. Suddenly relief transformed into anger.

“You assholes!”

“And, she’s back,” Ingram said, smirking. “Our little spark there is mad.”

“What were you thinking? You could have died.”

“Oh, I don’t think you get to say that,” Carter responded, crossing his arms, some of that humor disappearing from his face. It always made my chest tighten when I glimpsed his real feelings, when he didn’t hide. “You didn’t just run out while we were sleeping—you knocked us out, first. Do you know how many people have managed to get one over on us?” He paused, then let out a soft laugh. “Well, Corsa just did, but still, it’s a pretty small list of people. You could have died.” His voice dropped lower, a pain I hated him feeling in that one word.

“I’m stuck here—you aren’t,” I pressed. “There wasn’t any good reason to have us both in danger like this.”

“And you really thought we were just going to walk away?” Ingram asked. “You figured we’d wake up and go, fuck it, guess we’ll head on home?”

“I was hoping that, yeah. I mean, like you said, I attacked you. You all haven’t been the type to let things like slide. I thought you’d wake up and realize that it was the best option.” I sighed, never having expected to have to explain myself. “This was the right choice. This all started because of me, so it was stupid for us all to suffer because of it, for you to suffer for it.”

No one answered for a moment. It didn’t shock me that Carter was the one to bridge that gap, to speak up. “You know, sometimes you give Kenyon a run for his money when it comes to stupidity.”

“Hey, that’s too mean to her,” Kenyon said, then frowned as though he’d just realized that he’d insulted himself as well. “It’s mean to me, too, but I’m used to that.”

Carter didn’t seem to notice Kenyon’s objection. “This isn’t your fault, any more than Corsa is our fault. Even if it was your fault, who fucking cares? We’re here for you, Blizzard, and we’ve got your back no matter what.”

“For all the fucking good it did us,” Ingram muttered.

Carter cut him a sharp look, then glanced back my way. “We knew what we were getting into from the start, and there isn’t a fucking place you could run to where we wouldn’t follow.” He paused, then shrugged. “No matter how stalkerish that might come across.”