Prices to Pay//Michael Langdon

The First Lesson

He holds my face and starts crying as hard as ever, "I love you," He says as he pulls me into a kiss.

Letting his lips linger on mine for a few seconds, he pulls back. "Please!" I scream, but he stabs me in the chest. Watching myself fall to the ground, I decide that it's finally time to get the fuck out of here. "Michael, let's go, now!" I scream to him, and he snaps out of his trance. He runs towards me and I lead him towards a door, we walk towards the light and both wake up in his house. 

I wake up inhaling sharply as I gasp for air. Since I wake up a few moments before Michael, I get ready to embrace him. I remember how hard it was my first time seeing my hell and it was enough to make me never want to see anything of that nature again, that was until Michael came around. I sit over him, slowly stroking his hair, waiting for him to get back. 

Soon enough he wakes up almost screaming, he sits up swiftly as he chokes for air. As he grabs ahold onto reality he looks to me. The tears start forming in his eyes and I decide to pull him into a firm hug, "I-I couldn't find them, Natalie. I'm so sorry!" He says in between weeps of pain.

I continue to pet his hair in an attempt to make him feel better, "Shh, Michael. I know how hard it is, you were never going to find them that way." I say in my softest voice that I contain.

"I was just trying to fix what I did, why did I do that to them?" He asks me and I don't reply, mostly because I can't fix how he feels. He has to get through it to get through it. 

He stays on my chest, listening to my heart, for about half an hour. I finally convince him that things are going to be okay and that I was not going to die. Helping him off of the ground, we walk to his bedroom and almost immediately fall asleep in each other's arms. 

We both wake up hours later and he's finally able to talk about his experience without sobbing, so we evaluate the situation. 

"So, I guess this counts as your first lesson," I say sighing, and he nods his head. 

"I knew I could come back, I just didn't know how. I was so distracted by everything that was going on around me that I forgot that I could." He says looking back at the situation. 

"You're not the first I've had to retrieve, and you definitely won't be the last." I say, "The point is, that you got through it at all. Many don't come back, ever." I tell him trying to help him understand more.

"How were you able to come to where I was? Wouldn't you be in your own hell?" He asks me and does a head tilt. 

"I've trained my entire life to learn magic, and then to extend it to its fullest. I've learned many tricks that not even the supreme knows." I say, putting it in a way that he can understand. "I knew, that with every spell I learned, that the spell was only about 10% of it. The rest I needed to learn on my own." 

"Is this the lesson?" He asks me and I nod my head. 

"The fact that you even know the spell is a whole lesson," I say and lean in "And for what it's worth, I'm really proud of you Michael. You did the right thing." I say smiling and he gives me a grin large enough to lighten up the entire room. 

"Tell him that I am proud of him as well," Constance whispers over my shoulder, she still chooses to not be seen by Michael, but she wants to congratulate him.

"Your grandmother says she's proud of you, Michael," I say rubbing his shoulder. If you thought his smile was large before, you would be overwhelmed. He is the happiest he has been in a while, and that makes me happy. I look in the corner of my eye and see Tate standing against the wall watching us, and I know that he has slightly changed his opinion about Michael. Everything is working out in his favor.