Tragic Magic 2: Black Magic [boyxboy]

Chapter Seven

I was sitting on the pavement with my face between my knees and my arms folded behind my head when I heard the familiar sound of Tristan's rented car pulling to a stop a couple of feet away. A minute later he had dropped down to sit beside me and wrap his arms around me, pulling me into him and holding me tightly while I breathed in his smell and tried to calm my shit down.

My heart was still racing and adrenaline was still pumping through my system and I felt like I was going to throw up.

'What happened?' he asked eventually, when it became clear I wasn't going to volunteer an explanation.

'I don't know,' I mumbled. I felt disorientated and numb, like I'd taken a sleeping pill but woken up from a nightmare.

'Come on,' he said quietly, starting to pull me to my feet. 'Let's get you home.'

I let him prop me up and looked around to see Kaley and Maya both sitting in the car, leaning over the side doors to peer at me with concern.

'You didn't have to bring the cavalry,' I muttered, as he opened the back door and Maya moved to the side so I could sit in.

'Yes he did,' Kaley countered from the passenger seat, frowning at me. 'Whatever is going on with you is scary, Cody.'

'Who're you telling?'

Tristan got back into the driver's seat and pulled away from the pavement, and I jumped in surprise when Maya scooted over next to me and threw one arm casually around my shoulders.

'Come here, you little shit,' she said affectionately, pulling me into her. 'We'll get you all figured out, don't worry.'

'Okay, yeah,' I said, wrinkling my nose but letting her squeeze me. 'This is scarier than anything else that happened today.'

She grinned down at me, baring her teeth. 'That's the point.'

We had a couple of hours before my parents were due home from work and all four of us settled on the bed in my room, the Darlingtons all wearing expressions of steely determination.

'We talked with Gregory and Edwin today,' Kaley started.

'Yeah?'

'They're definitely concerned,' she went on, chewing her lip. 'But they didn't really have any insight. They haven't seen anything like this before. Where only one of us would be aware of something supernatural going on. Especially to this degree. Like it's clearly taking over your whole body. You feel it intently all the time. And we just... Don't.'

'He is the most powerful out of all of us,' Maya pointed out. 'That could have something to do with it.'

'Probably,' Tristan conceded. 'But it's still really odd.' He turned back to me. 'Talk us through what happened with Axel again. This definitely has something to do with him.'

I shrugged. 'We were just talking about university and stuff. And he was trying to like, relate to me. He was trying to come up with things we have in common. And then he touched me,' I reached out and put my hand on Tristan's forearm to demonstrate, 'and it was like... I don't know. It was like I didn't exist anymore. Or... Like I was the only thing that existed.' I shook my head. 'I don't know,' I repeated helplessly. 'It was just... Like I was saying before, about being stuck on the negative end of the spectrum?' Tristan nodded, his eyes boring into me intently. 'It was like that, but all at once, and... Just worse.' I sighed. 'I can't really explain it. But...' I glanced at Kaley and Maya. 'The worst thing you've ever felt. The most frightened and hopeless. You guys know. You thought you lost each other once.'

Looking at one another and then back at me, they nodded carefully.

'Right,' I went on. 'And I thought, you know, the worst thing I could ever feel would be when I thought Aldrich had...' I trailed off, glancing at Tristan for a split second and then back down at my hands; I'd never quite gotten over the embarrassment of having literally exploded when I thought he'd died. 'But this was worse. It was worse than the worst thing to ever happen.'