Page 20 of Cherry Moon

Eventually, we reached the outskirts of Camden, plunging into an underground carpark beneath two non-descript buildings. At first, we were enveloped by pure darkness, then a veil of golden light shimmered to life around the first bend.

The van slowed to pass through the anti-magic barriers, a series of soft electrical shocks shooting up my arms.

G took my hand. “Okay?”

I gave him a squeeze. “Yeah. You good?”

A small nod, his attention focused on the windscreen.

The van passed through three more veils before taking a steep slope into a darker section of the carpark. A few anemic lights spotlit the parking spaces, leaving the rest of the area cloaked in shadows.

“We’re here,” the driver announced.

Yeah, no shit.

The agents did their thing—opening the doors, then shepherding us through a doorway down a long concrete corridor with the same weak lighting above our heads.

My skin prickled with goosebumps, the air chilly down here. I should send my babies ahead to scope the place out, but my head felt, well, too full.

London again.

The heart of all the storms.

G stayed close to me as we passed loads of closed metal doors, making like six right turns before we reached a set of double doors with a red light blinking above them.

“Fancy spilling the beans on where we are?” I asked an agent.

She smiled, placing her palm on the white panel left of the doors.

The light turned green, and the doors opened inward.

Immediately, familiar voices hit me. Sarah, Riku, Uncle Ryoka.

“Whoa!” I cried, dashing forward, a spring in my step.

There they were, my family, including Zach.

He beamed at me, and I beamed right back, charging at him for a massive bro bear hug.

Man, did I crush him hard, his presence a massive comfort. I felt his gun holster press against me. He never left the house without it nowadays.

“It’s Aki!” Riku declared, scurrying over to wrap his arms around my legs.

I chuckled, pulling back from Zach, meeting his single silver eye, a blue eyepatch covering the loss of his left one.

His small, elven mark remained under his right eye. Even though he’d lost his elf and wolf nature to save his life, the color of his eye and the mark were reminders of the elvish blood he used to have.

Should I tell him I saw a fake version of his mum? We talked about almost everything, our bond solid. But I didn’t wanna upset him. She’d almost killed him, used me to take both his elf and wolf nature to curse the moon. After that, he’d had to live a new life as a human.

Zach smiled, using sign language to say hi and a, “Long time no see.”

Oof. Hit me right in the feels.

We shared the same skin-tone and the same slender build, though he was a little taller than me. He always rocked torn jeans and some cool T-shirt. Tonight’s was a dark, bottle-green with three golden leaves on it. To me, it looked awesome.

I signed a greeting back at him, having become fluent in it to communicate with my deaf brother. Mentioned how much I loved his new hairdo.

His wavy, raven-black hair once came down to his lower back. Now it was shorter, cut into a stylish design similar to a Korean Perm. It really suited him. And those soft, honey-blond highlights made it pop.