Chương 48: 48 Loop 2, part 2

"Awake? That's debatable," I said. Finn's hands were already moving on me. One went to my wrist, two fingers pressing for a pulse he clearly didn't need to check for. The other hovered near my face, green mana surrounding it. I knew he was doing his whole healer routine—the one he ran whenever anyone so much as stubbed a toe.

"Don't move. How many fingers am I holding up?"

"I'm not concussed, Finn."

"That's exactly what a concussed person says." He held them up anyway, but I didn't bother counting. He was crouched over me with his patented golden retriever look. Then he said, "You went down hard. Stay there a second." But I got up. And I started floating, three inches off the ground. One thing I hadn't gotten used to about the time loops was seeing people who had died, or gotten hurt, or almost gotten hurt, alive and well. And Finn was alive and crouched in front of me, wholly intact.

"I'm fine," I said. It was a bald-faced lie, but.

"I'm fine, really."

"You are anything but fine, dumbass. You've been out for almost eight hours." He finally let go of my wrist.

"Where were you even going, man? You shouldn't be leaving here until tomorrow, at the earliest."

"Eight hours?" I asked. So it was, what, late afternoon? Fuck. I had missed breakfast. Hell, I had missed most of everything.

"I don't know, why was I out?" I wasn't sure how I wanted to play things yet. So I acted a little unaware.

"Did something happen to me at breakfast?" Finn blinked as if he were thrown by the question, despite it being the obvious one. Then he ran a hand through his hair. For a second, he wasn't looking at me. He was lost in the memory of that morning.

"It was bad, Laz. Really, really bad." He blew out a breath.

"Davos went after Kalin, same as always. Except this time, he put some extra mana into it. I think it may have been what actually knocked you out. He sent Kalin flying, and Kalin hit you in the head when he landed. And then he jumped up and summoned shadow wolves right there. There was even a big one that almost killed a kid." I knew exactly how big that one was. But had it really almost killed someone? My first time through the day, I'd dropped all four before they'd gotten that far. Well, sort of.

"It was pandemonium," Finn went on.

"People went over benches, plates flew everywhere. I tried to get a ward up around you, but a shadow wolf hit me before I could, and I spent the rest of the fight on the floor."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. You're the one who was knocked out all day." He waved it off—which was rich, coming from the man who was treating me like I'd died.

"So, how'd the fight end?"

"A third-year student stopped it." Finn shifted, as if he was trying to shake the memory loose.

"Some girl, I don't know. She cast this spell called [Blinding Light], and it just packed the whole hall with… well, white. Couldn't even see my hands. When it cleared, the wolves were gone and Kalin was on his knees." Huh. I wondered how much that one cost. Smart of her.

"She almost got hauled off for it by a teacher, you know, casting combat magic in the hall. But Bain, of all people, stepped in and smoothed it over. And then some dude from the ministry in a grey suit arrested Kalin. Had people take him off campus and everything." I raised an eyebrow. Bain smoothing things over. That didn't make sense to me. Though I guess he could've been playing the reasonable man angle in front of the ministry. I saw a flash as the masonry fell on his head. I winced.

Finn was watching me, and he didn't like it.

"Hey. Earth to Laz. You're doing the faraway thing. That's not good. You took a knock to the head, and you were out for eight hours. This could be a symptom of something worse." But I wasn't listening to him anymore. My brain had caught on a sentence I'd ignored earlier. They'd arrested Kalin. Something warm and entirely too pleasant unfurled in my chest. Fuck, I'd woken up on the right side of the bed today. I floated straighter.

"They arrested Kalin. They actually took him away?"

"Yeah, that's just what I said."

"Oh, that's great. Finn, that's fantastic. The best thing anybody's said to me all day." The grin came up so fast it felt like I'd pulled a muscle. I was relieved, but right behind it was the soul ache flaring, deep and bone-level. I grabbed the edge of the cot to steady my floating. Despite the rush of pain, it was worth it. Entirely worth it. Finn's whole expression changed. He didn't look happy.

"Laz," he said slowly.

"A kid got dragged off campus by the government this morning. And you're celebrating." This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

"I heard you the first time, man. You don't have to sell it. That's wonderful news." I had a full-blown manic grin now. For five days in a row, I'd been dealing with the consequences of that little asshole and his attempts to burn down the world. And now his entire thread of cascading consequences was gone.

"Honestly, whoever that grey bastard is, I could kiss him on the mouth."

"You don't mean that. Surely."

"I absolutely do mean it, and don't call me Shirley. That man just bought me all the freedom in the world." Finn didn't say a thing. Just looked at me, worry heavy on his face.

"That—are you okay? Listen to yourself." He stood up off his heels and studied my face.

"That's not a thing you'd normally say. You're talking about a student. A person. Who got hauled off in front of the entire school. And you're celebrating."

"A student who summoned four shadow wolves and assaulted you."

"Because Davos cornered him," Finn said.

"Davos always fucking gets away with it. You complain about it more than I do. And he's never punished." His voice climbed.

"Kalin didn't start this. It's not his fault. Do you even know what it's like to be a scholarship kid here? He's been getting picked apart since the day he got here. And nobody does a fucking thing. Not the teachers, not your uncle, nobody. And the one time he fights back, he's the one they drag off in chains. It's bullshit. You're cheering for the exact thing you're always complaining about. So what the fuck, man?" Finn didn't say a single thing that wasn't true.

It was the whole sad situation laid out in front of us. But it didn't matter why Kalin had done it. It only mattered that he had.

"You're right," I said matter-of-factly. He blinked. He'd been winding up for an emotional tirade, and I'd taken the floor out from underneath him.

"I am?"

"Davos is a bully. And Kalin's had a miserable run. And none of it's fair. But here's the thing nobody likes to say out loud, Finn. Hurt people hurt people. But douchebags are douchebags. And sometimes victims can be douchebags. Being cornered is one thing. But harming others to address your grievances just makes you a bully, too."

"That's—" I scrubbed a hand down my face. My arm felt like it belonged to someone heavier than me. I was getting real tired of arguing this point.

"He murdered you," I blurted out. Finn's mouth opened and shut. For a second he looked like he was waiting for a punchline.

"Murdered me," he repeated.

"Laz, I'm sitting right here. Nobody murdered anybody." He let out a short laugh with no bottom to it. When I didn't laugh with him, it fell apart.

"You hit your head. You've been out for eight hours. And now you're telling me I'm dead. Do you hear yourself? What are you talking about?"

"You asked why I'm not crying over Kalin? It's because of that. Sure, it was a different version of him, but he still killed you, so forgive me if I'm short on sympathy. Fuck that guy. Being a victim isn't a free pass to make everyone else one, too. My uncle's in a coma right now, and you don't see me summoning wolves in the dining hall about it." Finn stopped. He stared at me for a second.

"Wait." He shook his head.

"What's that about your uncle?" He leaned in.

"Do you know where he is, Laz? Corwen's been missing all day. Nobody's seen him since last night. Bain's been telling everyone he's headed to the ministry for last-minute Exhibition prep, but… do you know something?"

"I do know something," I said.

"That's the whole problem. I know a lot of things I shouldn't, and every one of them is going to sound insane, and I'm going to tell you anyway. Because Kalin didn't just assault you this morning. He was going to do something worse Thursday. If he hadn't been stopped, he'd have killed a lot of people. You included." Finn started to say something. I kept going.

"And you don't remember any of it, because it hasn't happened yet. Or it has, and got unmade. I've relived this day. This week, twice now, and it always ends the same way."

"What?" But I ignored him.

"It ends with you dying." I could feel the exhaustion in my voice.

"The first time, the dragon's breath caught you full in the chest. It turned you into a husk. The second time, you'd have gone the same way, except I shoved you clear and took the brunt of it instead. That's what reset it." I was rambling, but Finn didn't answer me. Instead, he cast another spell. There was the green telltale shimmer of [Mana Sense], and the cool pressure of him reading me. Then his hand jerked back like he'd touched a hot stove. The easy healer facade fell off his face.

He canceled the spell, then recast it, as if it would give him a different result. But I watched him go paler as the readout told him the same thing.

"You took a real hit to the head this morning," he said quietly, except his voice was way less steady now.

"But that's—that's not the problem here. Your mana's all wrong, and your soul is—" He swallowed.

"I don't even have a word for it. It's like part of you is just gone. I've used [Mana Sense] on hundreds of people, and I've never felt anything like this. What happened?" Oh. The tethers and the soul sickness. Of course he'd be able to figure those out. He was the best healer in our year, after all.

"I'm fine. It's, uh, a new passive." I laughed it off.

"That's not funny."

"That wasn't a joke. Not really." I pushed his hand away, and he dropped it.

"Finn, I'm not concussed, and I'm not raving. I know it sounds weird. But I'm stuck in a time loop. I'm reliving this week until I die, and then I wake back up on Monday. Admittedly, today I woke up in a hospital cot. Which was, you know, weird. But I promise. I'm not crazy." Finn looked at me for a long moment. And then he did the most infuriating, but kindest thing he could have done. He pretended to believe me.

"Okay," he said softly.

"Okay, Laz. You're in a time loop." The reason it was infuriating was because, instead of just accepting me at my word so we could move on from the conversation, now he was going to try to logically talk me through why I wasn't in a time loop. He smiled at me warmly. I'd have respected it if it weren't aimed at me.

"You relived the week." Easy as anything. As if we were just having a conversation over breakfast.

"Twice, and you died both times. That sounds awful. I'm sorry you've been carrying all of this guilt. Why don't you lie back in the bed and tell me all about it? I've got nowhere I need to be. So I'll listen."

"You don't believe a word of this," I said.

"I believe you believe it." Which was code for of course I don't, you fucking idiot. Honestly, I couldn't even be mad. If our situations were reversed—no, well. I'd probably humor him just for the lack of effort required. The inanity of it. But it meant anything I said was practically dead weight. I needed something he couldn't fold neatly into "poor Laz hit his head." Something I had no business knowing about.

"Fine. Don't believe me." I caught his eyes, and I did my best to make mine twinkle.

"But once I prove that I'm in a time loop, I'm going to mock you. As much as I can." That got through his poor Laz-has-a-concussion-protocol phase. He smiled and said, "Prove it."