Chapter 59.3

Wandering the halls, the layout of which she still hadn’t completely memorized, Vee followed the voices to try and find their source.“—which is why we needed to keep quiet about the whole affair. Anyways, after that, one of the cultists came back with weird magic powers and he tried to break down the barriers between this plane and Purgatory. I got caught in the middle of that fight, and that’s how I got this way. Most recently, we had a run-in with a coven of witches that wanted to hijack the whole network of magic circles for themselves, but thankfully we were able to—Oh! Vee! Hi!”

After rounding the final corner, Vee found herself face to face with Chloé and the two students that had been caught up in the chaos last night. With everything that had been going on, Chloé had volunteered to onboard them into the AV Club, something Vee had completely forgotten about until this moment.

“Chloé! Hey! I didn’t expect to see you down here,” Vee said.

“You’re the girl from last night!” one of the students said. They had sharp, vaguely feminine facial features and short, tousled brown hair. Their gray eyes went wide in recognition, and their voice betrayed a slight British accent.

With an awkward smile, Vee held out a hand. “Uh, yes. I’m Vee, and you?”

“Sorry, I’m Oaklyn,” they said, politely shaking Vee’s hand. They then gestured to their friend, a shorter man with faint features, a hint of a mustache, and short black hair. “This here’s my friend Darren. We were practicing late last night when we heard the commotion. We ran over when we saw your friend collapse, and then suddenly your hands were glowing! Chloé says you’re an angel?”

A twinge of discomfort appeared in Vee’s gut. “Y-yes, that’s correct. Sorry you got caught up in all this.”

“How’s Nick holding up?” Chloé asked quietly.

“He’s going to be fine, except…”

“He got bit?”

Vee nodded. “Right now, if nothing changes, he’ll be a werewolf for the rest of his life. However, Tadhgán says his partner back home has a cure. Amara is going to escort him home, grab the cure, and then try to make it back before the next full moon. If Nick fully transforms, then reverts back to himself, the cure won’t work anymore.”

“Just the two of them?” Chloé asked nervously. “I don’t know much about The Wilds, but every time Tessa talks about them, she seems pretty nervous. Although, no, that makes sense. If you go with them, we lose our second heaviest hitter, and that’s not a great idea…”

After casting an awkward glance towards the newest members of the AV Club, Vee cleared her throat. “Oaklyn, Darren, did Chloé tell you about the wolves we’re watching over right now?”

Oaklyn gasped in excitement to such a degree that they might as well have just won the lottery. “Wolves? Where? Are they nearby?!”

Vee pointed down the hallway. “Head that way, take a right, then your second left. There’s a massive central chamber that we’ve blocked off with a few pet gates, and there are four magical wolves hanging out there. As long as you don’t cross over those gates, you can watch them all you like.”

“Okaythanksbye!!” Oaklyn stammered. Before even finishing their rushed sentence, they’d already grabbed Darren to pull him towards the central chamber.

Now alone with her friend, Vee’s shoulders slumped and she turned back to Chloé. “Look, about that… My powers have been fading over the last few weeks. I have no idea why, and I don’t even know what might happen to me if they vanish entirely.”

Chloé’s feet touched the ground and she pulled Vee into a hug, holding her tight before whispering, “Vee, that’s terrible! I’m so sorry to hear that.”

Sinking into her friend’s body, Vee allowed herself a moment of vulnerability. She knew how difficult it was for Chloé to manifest herself this much, and the gesture meant the world. “I know I should have told everyone sooner, but things have been pretty quiet, and I didn’t want to make you all worry for no reason.”

Kind hands gently rubbed Vee’s back as they talked. “Don’t worry about it. You just focus on you, alright?”

Vee nodded slowly. “Anyways, because of that, I’m not exactly the most helpful person right now. In terms of sheer magical ability, you’re probably the second strongest person on the team right now, which is all the more reason for you to stay here. Without Amara’s illusions, you’re the best chance we have at keeping things quiet if the worst happens.”

“I’ll keep everyone safe, Vee. I swear it,” Chloé said, her voice filled with grim determination. “At least we got a month without any massive drama, right?”

With a quiet chuckle, Vee pulled away from the hug to let Chloé return to a more comfortable state. “Should we hang a big scoreboard in the main chamber? One that says ‘Days Since Planar Incursions’ and tracks how long it’s been?”

Their conversation was briefly interrupted by a shout elsewhere in the facility. “OH MY GOD THEY’VE GOT CAMOUFLAGE?!”

Chloé sighed. “I should get going. Oaklyn is pretty excitable, and I still need to get them both caught up about everything. Give me another hour and I should be able to join up with you all again.”

“That’s okay,” Vee said. “Tessa said she’ll need until the end of the day to get the portal ready anyways.”

As Chloé returned to their newest recruits, Vee slipped back into Nick’s chamber as quietly as she could. There, it seemed like Ruby had accepted there was nothing more to do for Nick, and she had instead shifted her attention back to Tadhgán. While at first this was purely to inspect his injuries, the two quickly started up a conversation about what to expect from Nick’s transformation. With the understanding that Tadhgán would be leaving as soon as possible, this was their only chance to speak to a werewolf expert about how best to support Nick over the coming month.

While Ruby busied herself by taking detailed notes about anything and everything Tadhgán said, Vee cuddled up next to Amara, who’d recently allowed herself to sit down next to Nick. Her eyes still nervously flicked towards Tadhgán from time to time, but at Vee’s insistence, she managed to redirect her energy to supporting Nick, at least in spirit.

The hours passed painfully slowly. Chloé eventually finished up with the new AV Club members, eagerly joining everyone else to watch over Nick as he rested. While the group occasionally managed occasional bursts of small talk, the mood overall was unusually dour. Any onlookers might have assumed that Nick had been given a death sentence, not that he was only a day away from springing back to consciousness in the best shape of his life.

Tessa and Imani returned just before sunset, determined to be in the room in case Nick or Tadhgán ended up transforming tonight. Thankfully, although Tadhgán felt the temptation to give in to his wilder instincts, he was able to hold it together. Not only was this good news for tonight—everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they realized they wouldn’t need to restrain two werewolves—it also meant that Amara and Tadhgán had an extra day to return with the cure.

The realization came with another thought, one that no one dared voice, but Vee had a sneaking suspicion everyone was thinking it. Should the cure fail, or Amara not return in time, Nick would only need to be restrained three nights out of the month instead of five.

Shortly after confirming that tonight would be safe, Vee managed to convince Tessa and Imani to stay for dinner. She knew that Tessa would keep working until she dropped dead if not stopped, but a part of her also really wanted everyone to be together tonight. She was growing more and more nervous about Amara leaving them to visit another plane, her mind racing with fears about what they might encounter over there.

Thankfully, thoughts of food and the company of friends helped pull her back to reality, at least for the moment.

“What do we want? The normal burger place?” Amara asked.

“Sounds good to me,” Chloé said. “Who wants to order?”

The girls looked around for a moment before Vee pieced together the confusion. “That’s normally Nick’s job, isn’t it?”

Tessa quietly laughed. “Yeah, it is. He’s got notes in his phone about everyone’s favorite orders; not just from there, but from all sorts of different restaurants. He knows how we like our coffee, how our tastes vary when we’re stressed out… I guess I tend to overlook stuff like that, especially when we’re all running around stopping planar incursions left and right.”

Vee suddenly remembered that Tadhgán was still in the room with them, and they would need to provide food for him as well.

“What is Nick’s favorite burger? We should get one for Tadhgán,” she said.

“Nick’s usual is… hold on, I know this…” Amara bit her lip and furrowed her brow as she dug through her memories. “Okay, I think it’s—No, that’s the one he didn’t like. Tess, come on, help me out here.”

“I’ve never ordered for him!” Tessa protested. “He’s always the one feeding me!”

Both girls’ moods sank slightly. “Some friends we are,” Amara muttered. “We don’t even know what kind of food he likes…”

Vee leaned against Amara to try and comfort her, their hands lacing together. “What about two weeks back when Nick was busy with that pickup game? Didn’t he ask you to order because he’d forgotten his phone at home? Just look through your order history.”

“Oh, fuck, that’s right!” Amara kissed Vee on the cheek before pulling up her order history, and soon they’d successfully placed an order for everyone present.

A proper meal seemed to lift everyone’s spirits, mostly because of how enjoyable it was to watch Tadhgán eat his first meal on Earth. He marveled at the complexity of the ingredients, adored the novelty of a caffeinated drink, and practically fell in love with the dipping sauce they’d ordered for the fries. While he lamented that he couldn’t share the meal with Nick, who was still tossing and turning in the pile of blankets nearby, he found solace in the fact that he was at least experiencing Nick’s favorite meal.