Chương 34: Aftermath

Grim drifted in and out of consciousness. Someone called her name, and there was a brief feeling of weightlessness, but it wasn't enough. She wanted to wake up, knew she needed to, but she was only capable of it for brief, blind glimpses. She couldn't remember her dreams besides the heat, it was always the heat, and when she felt herself wake, the heat did not dissipate, although it was a different kind. Warm instead of burning.

Her sleep was not restful, brief flashes of pain would wake her just enough to stop her from getting any peace. She tried to speak, but the way she was being moved was putting pressure on her bruises and cuts, so the only thing that came out was a weak mumble. Fortunately for her, that weak mumble took the last of her strength, and sleep reclaimed her. *"Grim, wake up!" someone yelled as she felt herself being shaken.

Her hearing in her right ear was entirely gone, while her left merely rang with a dull ringing noise. Her eyes opened to darkness, and for a moment she thought she was still dreaming before her body remembered how much pain she was in. She hissed as she tried to sit up, but she couldn't, and a moment later she felt herself being held down.

"Let me up, what's going on?" Grim asked, hating that she had to ask in the first place.

"I-I'm not sure, the house is swarming with the Watch right now, I think they even have a Witch right now," Jeremy explained. Grim felt around her surroundings; she could tell by the leather around her that they were in a vehicle. Who's she wasn't sure, but somehow they weren't in the Gate World anymore.

"Hey, I don't know what kind of business you both are into and it's none of my concern but maybe it'd be best if you left," A mans voice from the front spoke up, he sounded older but was caught between being forceful and not trying to piss off the two potentially dangerous people in the back.

"How'd we get here?" Jeremy ignored her for a second.

"We're not involved in anything, we just needed a ride." Grim heard a sigh and the sound of skin hitting a steering wheel.

"Please sir, I don't want any trouble. If they run my license, I'm going to end up out of the job. I can't afford this right now, I've got a family." Jeremy grabbed something out of his bag and gave it to the driver.

"Just give us a moment, this'll cover it if you run into any problems." There was a moment of silence before the driver spoke, "You've got five minutes. Any longer than that and I'll drive us up there right in front, and I'll let them figure it out. Maybe it'd get me some leniency."

"Whatever," Jeremy said.

"What do we do? Do you think it's because of us?" Grim thought back to the past couple of weeks, the way Lifeline looked as his body was impaled. She thought of holding Hazel as she died in that tree, she thought of everything that had happened the past couple weeks, then she shook her head. It couldn't have been any of those, right?

"I'm not sure, nobody should've seen us enter. How'd we get here?" Jeremy took a deep breath, one that spoke without speaking that he had just been through a very long day, "… It's a long story, one I probably shouldn't tell here, but I carried you out. Hazel, uh, I'm not sure what happened to her. I don't know if she's dead, I couldn't find her." That sent a spark of alarm up her spine, she didn't know what happened after she passed out. How were they alive?

She tried to summon her [FRIENDLY SHADOW] and felt her vision darken as she almost passed out again. She was still almost entirely out of energy. From that little pull she could tell Hazel was still there, nothing weird had happened, but her skill was burnt out. Was how she was feeling right now how Hazel felt? If they lived through this, she'd have to spoil the shit out of her for putting up with this. She'd earned it.

"You did good, she'll be okay. Just, what happened after I passed out? Like, how are we alive?" You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"I didn't see anything as it was happening, but after it ended all I could smell was burnt flesh. I looked up and there was a partially melted ice block in front of you, both of us. At first, I thought the smell was coming from you, and I mean, you need to see a doctor or something but no," Jeremy paused as he tried to hide a gag.

"There was still skin attached to the ice."

"Shit. Okay. We can't go back to the house, we both look like a mess, and they're going to have way more questions than we have answers for. I know somebody we can go to, we'll be safe there," Grim said as she reached into her bag for her phone.

"What we did isn't that bad, maybe a fine? Are you sure? Maybe we should just go talk to them, I'm sure Jin could get us out of anything too bad."

"Maybe you," Grim said, barely more than a whisper as she shook her head.

"Just let me make this call."

"It's been almost five minutes," the driver reminded them.

"It's just a phone call, and then we'll be out of your hair," Jeremy said. Grim didn't hear his reaction as she tried to look at the phone in her hand. It didn't appear damaged, but she'd run into one critical error. She couldn't see the screen. Her phone vibrated from a wrong PIN input, but she got it on her second try. Now that she was in, though she knew there was almost no hope of her being able to navigate to the phone app by feel.

She wasn't able to navigate solely through memory, and she didn't want Jeremy to know she was blind yet, so she used her phone's voice command to call Phil.

"Who's Phil?" Jeremy asked.

"Don't worry about it, the less you know the better," Grim said as her phone dialled. On the third ring, he picked up.

"Do you know what time it is? We're not supposed to meet for another couple hours." He sounded like he'd just woken up, which, to be fair, he probably had. Grim sighed internally as she dreaded what she was about to say. Unfortunately for her and her pride, she just didn't have any other options left.

"My house is swarming with the Watch right now, and I'm drained. I can barely move and I nearly passed out when I tried to use one of my Boons." There was a short pause before Phil let out a string of profanity. It went on for an impressive amount of time, only interspersed by the sound of him getting out of bed.

"Where are you?" He asked.

"I'm in a taxi with my brother and the driver, he's been threatening to turn us all in."

"Who are you talking to? Who is she talking to?" The man asked.

"Put him on," Phil said, his voice stern.

"What?" Grim asked.

"I said, put him on. I need to speak to him." Grim shrugged and put the phone forward, hitting the seat in front of her before she adjusted.

"He wants to speak to you."

"Why does he want to speak to me? I don't want to speak to him." Grim felt Jeremy nudge her with her elbow, "Shit, I think they noticed we've been idling here, two of them are walking over."

"Fuck, take the fucking phone, dude. We don't have time for this." He finally grabbed the phone.

"Hello?" Grim couldn't see him as they spoke, but their driver didn't speak very much after that, in fact, he went very, very quiet as Phil spoke to him. Their conversation was short, only thirty seconds or so before he handed her phone back to her.

"Okay, we can go," the man said, his voice barely a whisper.

"What'd you say to him?" Grim asked Phil.

"I explained to him the reality of the situation. Don't worry about it. What you need to do is focus on yourself. Your aura is drained and right now, if you pull any harder on it, you're gonna give yourself a brain hemorrhage. How much does your brother know? He's going to need to come with us, it's not safe for him there."

"He knows about Hazel, but other than that, nothing."

"He. Knows. About. Hazel?"

"Yeah, and also one more thing."

"What do you mean, one more thing?"

"Well, we kind've raided an E-rank Gateworld together."

"YOU DID WHAT?" Grim had to put the phone away from her ear as Phil screamed at her.

"Well I didn't get like this sitting in my room."

"Forget it, just come here as soon as possible," Phil ordered.

"We'll talk about this when you get here." Phil hung up and Grim shoved her phone back into her bag, "Okay, well, let's get out of here before the Stripes get any closer."

"Stop, I'm not coming," Jeremy said.

"They're getting closer, can we hurry it up?"

"What do you mean you're not coming? You have to," Grim said. Jeremy unzipped his gear and started dropping it in the backseat, to the protests of the driver, "No, I'm not sure what you've been getting yourself into, but I don't think I want to get involved. I'll leave my gear behind. Don't get me wrong, I'm gonna want it back, but if I don't have anything on me, I doubt they can pin me with anything. I won't say anything about tonight, but I'm not ready to be on the run just yet."

"Okay, okay, you've got a good point there."

"I'll let you know whats going on as soon as I know and Grim?"

"What?"

"Thanks for letting me come, I know it went all wrong there at the end but I appreciate it."

"I mean, I think you saved my life, so we're probably even. Here, I should still have an E-rank Boon in my bag. I want you to have it, you earned it," Grim said as she dug into her bag, only she wasn't able to find it anywhere.

"Uhh, I may have already used it."

"Oh, okay, well, I guess I can't blame you there. What did you get?"

"What did you say earlier when I asked you that question?" Jeremy asked.

"Oh yeah, you're not gonna believe this."