Shattering

There is total silence in the living room for what feels like forever.

Mia, her fists balled, speaks first through clenched teeth. “…I’m going for a walk.” She manages, before storming off outside.

None of us make any move to follow her. We’re all too busy processing.

Paige, without a word, stands up from her spot on the couch, and departs the room. She heads up the stairs towards our bedroom.

Distantly, I hope she’s not going to go completely back into her isolation.

“I knew things were going too smoothly. There had to be a catch.” Olivia mutters to herself, shaking her head slowly.

“Fucking shit…” Belle says quietly, her voice filled with a kind of helplessness I haven’t heard from her before.

“Those bastards have my fucking brother?” Lena spits out, her entire body trembling.

I look at her, shocked. I’ve never heard her mad before. It’s a reasonable reaction though, to be fair.

Emma pulls Lena into a hug. The water mage barely moves as her girlfriend hugs her, tears welling up in her eyes.

“Shhh babe, it’ll be okay. We’ll figure this out, I promise. We’ll make sure he’s okay.” Emma coos, doing her best to soothe Lena.

“If he gets hurt at all…I will end him. I don’t care if it’s wrong. Mathias touches Jonathan, and he’s a dead man walking.” Lena vows, shaking and struggling to keep her eyes open from the tears.

Elsa and Ivy both watch on helplessly, paralysed to indecision about how to help.

Skylar sinks to the floor, bringing her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on top of them. She leans against the wall as a vacant stare settles on her face. I can’t blame her. Her worst fears have just come true.

I sit down on the couch, resting my head on Ivy’s shoulder as she sits with me. I’m feeling a little numb myself.

How on earth am I supposed to handle this?

As the leader, I’m responsible for pulling everyone together and making sure we’re all okay, am I not? What am I supposed to do here?

Ivy squeezes my arm, sensing where my thoughts are headed.

You’re not alone. She tells me mentally. You never are.

The reassurance does help a little, but the problem of what we’re supposed to do now still looms over my head.

For somebody who’s supposed to eventually have the power to overthrow Mathias easily on my own, it’s hard not to feel powerless here. He can bring our progress to a screeching halt like this, as easy as pausing the TV.

I snuggle into Ivy, my heart thudding in my chest as I wonder what to do about this latest development.

Though it was something I suspected he would do (and hoped he would not), the expectation of it happening doesn’t change the feeling of it.

On the surface, the fact that he has hostages doesn’t change a whole lot, viewing it from an objective level.

He’s still a dangerous man with a ridiculous level of power, who is our biggest obstacle in trying to live a free life in this place. The only reason we enjoy the level of safety we do is because of the Kingdom barrier.

It was a debate between us in the first few days of time dilation as to whether or not we should try to communicate with our friends and families, to give them some kind of warning that they may be a target.

In the end, we decided that the warnings might do more harm than good, because any attempt at communication could lead to Mathias having an easier time figuring out their location.

We did nothing because we hoped it would spare them from Mathias finding them. A load of good that did for us.

If anything, it makes it even more important that we fight and defeat him. We knew he was going to use hostages anyway.

As much as I would love to take the objective view and say that Mathias taking the family and friends of the people I care about, changes absolutely nothing about how we’re going to approach Saturday…I can’t say that.

The fact that he has hostages, changes everything.

Do we even want to fight him anymore? I shudder at the thought of even asking that question. To contemplate that would be to contemplate an impossible choice: potentially sacrificing some of our own to guarantee the safety of others.

Instead of thinking about that horrible choice, I steer my mind towards what we want to do in the immediate term, as my gaze refocuses on the living room around me.

That’s it love, just focus on the now. Ivy encourages me, giving me a soft kiss on the top of my head.

After a few words exchanged between them, Olivia leaves Belle’s side and sits down next to Skylar, wrapping her arm around the shadow mage and pulling her into a gentle embrace.

Skylar wraps both arms around her friend and sinks into her, her expression still completely blank.

Elsa, with a sympathetic nod towards Ivy and I, stands up and walks towards the front door, exiting outside and following where Mia departed.

Belle, left standing by herself, seems to have a rapid internal debate, before ultimately choosing to head outside and follow Mia and Elsa, to my surprise.

Lena and Emma take a seat on the couch, and Lena openly sobs into her girlfriend’s arms. Lena weakly pounds her fist against Emma’s thighs, as if hoping the action would change anything.

I guess the first and the best thing we can do right now is to take some time to process everything.

How are any of us supposed to process this though? It’s been almost easy for a few days now, to cope with the threat of Mathias hanging over our heads.

Because it’s only been our heads on the chopping block.

Sure, he threatened the lives of innocent random people, but that’s not as personal as this. This is a whole different level.

I look towards the door to where Mia stormed outside. She left her family in the hope that it would keep them safe. This is exactly what she fought about with her father, what feels like forever ago now.

Her dad disowned her in the hopes of keeping the rest of the family safe from Mathias, and we all believed it had worked. They couldn’t communicate, but at least they were safe.

And that security, fragile and illusory as it was, is gone now.

Paige joined our guild, not fully understanding the danger of the abyss, being lucky enough not to get on anybody’s radar, and having mostly lived a carefree life up until this point.

Thanks to her involvement with us, two of her closest friends outside of the guild have gotten mixed up with everything.

The poor girl has had to face so much in the short amount of time that she’s been with us, learn so many of the harsh truths about the life that we live, and the hits just keep on coming.

I look over to Skylar, where she numbly rests her head on Olivia’s shoulder, a thousand yard stare in her eyes.

The betrayal and heartbreak she and her family have been through, having already lost her older brother to the cruelty of this place. This kind of risk is the whole reason Skylar’s parents didn’t want her joining our guild.

Because of her ultimate decision to join us anyway, in defiance of her parents instructions, they’re now also in the line of fire.

My gaze falls to Lena, still sobbing against Emma’s shoulder.

The poor girl is very much like Paige. A carefree spirit, and although she’s seen her fair share of horrors, she’s persevered through them and come out the other side as resilient and cheerful as ever.

I don’t think she ever imagined that her brother would get caught up in this though. Her and Emma are safe for now, but what good is that when her brother is in danger?

We put him in danger too, just like the rest of the people Mathias kidnapped. By way of their family and friends associating with me and us, they’ve all been put in the line of fire by an evil man, determined to win by doing whatever is necessary.

I put these people in danger. I might not have meant to, and I never wanted to, but I did.

Ivy squeezes my arm, and she doesn’t even have to tell me for me to know what she’s thinking.

It’s not your fault. She says mentally, and I nod softly.

I know it isn’t my fault. Mathias kidnapped them, not me. Mathias is the one threatening their lives.

It might not be my fault, but it sure as hell is my responsibility to lead us through this and get them all back safely.

And I’ll fight my hardest to make sure that happens. Or I’ll die trying.