Chapter 39.1

Late last year, Chloé found a small note-taking app in her

Tessa was a witch with mild telekinetic abilities. Her biggest asset to the party, as far as Chloé could tell, was her vast knowledge of the runic language of magic.

These new sections had been slowly filled out over the last few hours, in between her assigned work. With the campus under siege, her friends needed to focus on battle strategies, which left no time to wrangle the crowd of panicked students that had been inadvertently wrapped up in the chaos. According to Amara, Chloé’s volunteer experience made her the perfect person to touch base with all the other students.

After creating a new section in her notes app, she’d held brief interviews with each and every student presently hiding out in the cafeteria. They all got their own pages, and she did her best to record how they felt about the day’s events. Most of the students were shocked and confused, unsurprisingly, and several of them had gotten injured in the earlier chaos; despite Amara and Vee’s best efforts, one reaper had gotten loose on campus. Thankfully, Nick and Tessa had been able to guide students to safety while mostly avoiding the beast.

After interviewing everyone, Chloé shared her results with the rest of the group, who briefly helped her calm down some of the more excited students. Afterwards, they retreated to a corner to plan their final assault on Brandon.

Chloé didn’t fully understand why she was present for that particular conversation and tried to convince herself they weren’t including her out of pity. She stayed quiet for most of it, watching them debate the merits of their different plans. Despite the fact that they were debating the best way to take down a mad cultist and save the campus, they seemed incredibly composed.

Despite Amara’s insistence to the contrary, Chloé was having trouble seeing her earlier task as anything other than busy work. She reminded herself time after time that talking to everyone was helpful, it kept them from panicking, but it felt so quaint in the shadow of the literal tear in reality just outside the window.

Before long, it was time for the fight to begin. Tessa was spinning her switchblade around in her hand, examining the magic runes she’d just finished applying. After some additional feeding, Amara was practically glowing with power and presence. Vee was leafing through pages in, if Chloé remembered correctly, an incredibly powerful angelic artifact that held thousands of years’ worth of Enochian magic. She had briefly left the cafeteria to grab it from her home, which had worried Amara considerably.

Chloé planted her hands on the table, jumped to her feet, and walked over to them.

“—and there were no problems getting your book, Vee?” Amara asked as Chloé walked within earshot.

Vee shook her head. “No, he’s got the reapers glued to the quad, presumably to keep him safe. Thankfully, all the school buildings are blocking the view from the streets nearby, so I don’t think anyone has noticed the portal yet. Tess, how’s the dagger?”

“I mean, as good as it’s gonna get. There’s only one way to test it out, sadly. You might only get one shot at this, Vee, so make that fucker bleed.”

As Tessa and Vee started talking about the knife, Amara looked over at Chloé. “Hey, Chloé, how are you holding up?”

“I’m… good. I guess,” Chloé muttered, looking around at everyone. “Is there anything I can do to help? I don’t really have anything else to do here, I’ve already talked to everyone, and I hate the thought of you fighting that cultist all on your own.”

Amara stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Chloé. “We’ll be okay. I promise.”

Chloé returned the favor, hugging Amara tighter than she’d ever hugged anyone before. She took a deep breath, fighting to hold back tears as she spoke. “I-it just looks really scary out there, and I don’t want to see you get hurt again!”

“Hey, look at me,” Amara whispered. Chloé pulled away to look deep into Amara’s glowing amber eyes. “We’re stronger than we look, and the last time I fought Brandon, I was running on fumes. Besides, even if there were something you could do, I would still ask you to sit this out. Brandon’s certifiably insane, and he won’t hesitate to hurt you if given the chance.”

No response sprang to mind, and instead Chloé buried her face in Amara’s shoulder again. She squeezed Amara tightly, scared to let her go. After a minute, Nick walked closer and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“C’mon, Chloé, it’s time for them to go,” he said. “I’m here too, don’t forget. There’s no shame in leaving the fighting to the people with the strength to hold their own.”

With a sniff, Chloé wiped away her tears with her sleeve. She ran over to Vee and Tessa, hugging them both tight while she still had a chance. “Good luck, everyone,” she managed to say. Nick said his goodbyes as well, and with nothing left to prepare, Amara, Vee, and Tessa walked out of the cafeteria.

Watching them leave, Amara’s words rattled around in Chloé’s head.

She knew what Amara meant, and tried to convince herself the words were well-intentioned, but she couldn’t help but fixate on them. In her own way, Amara had admitted that Chloé was useless.

She clenched her fists and shook her head.