2.7.2

Content warnings: bodysharing, depictions of abusive/manipulative parents (detail below; skip if you prefer surprises)

• Two characters are depicted sharing a body. It is implied that this is by choice.

• A character is emotionally manipulated by his abusive parents.

~.~

Dani had no problem with being defended all night. In the grand scheme of things, it made sense to allocate resources that way—to have the more vulnerable conserve their strength while the more powerful fought on the front lines. It especially made sense given their lack of food and water. So what if Ridwan had overexerted themself? Karyme seemed upset about it, but Dani couldn’t care less about the immortals’ well-being.

Then there was the Felix situation.

Dani wasn’t sure how to feel about the fact that Felix and Ridwan were apparently sharing a body—and had been this whole damn time. Ridwan was asleep now after a full night of fighting, and that was why the group was now following a 5 foot 3 figure skater through the rocky terrain instead. Thinking about how easily Felix had taken over the shared body made Dani shudder. It must take a lot of trust to uphold that kind of arrangement, and she didn’t trust anybody that much.

Dani was snapped out of her thoughts by a boom in the distance. A pillar of sky blue light erupted into the air, and for almost a whole minute, Dani had to shield her eyes to even see. The light was far away—too far to reach over the course of a day, even—but it was still blinding.

“Jinal,” Felix breathed. “Oh gods.” He seemed conflicted for a second as he looked between the rest of the group and the rapidly fading pillar of light.

“You look worried, skater man,” Juli noted. “What was that light, anyway?”

“Jinal,” Felix murmured. “She must have been hit with a soul stealing rifle.”

Dani froze. “I thought all the enemies in here were beasts. As in, not intelligent enough to fire a gun.”

“I thought so, too,” Felix muttered. “I guess things have changed.”

Dani and Juli exchanged worried glances. Both of them had seen first-hand what kind of damage a soul stealing rifle could do to a mortal. Learning that the soul stealing rifles could also hurt immortals—and deeply—didn’t boost Dani’s confidence. Dani didn’t love the group’s chances if the enemies could wield a weapon that could one-hit kill most of them.

Felix sighed and straightened up. “We need to keep moving. I’ll—”

He was cut off by a loud, high-pitched shriek. A giant shadow beast—larger than the ones they’d fought yesterday—scrambled over the edge of the canyon wall and skidded to a stop in front of the group.

Dani grimaced. He was hungry, and his limbs felt like lead despite the night of fitful rest he’d gotten, but that didn’t matter. It was go time.

Felix and Juli shot forward, one cloaked with flame and the other with ice, and Dani created a shield around herself and Karyme. After fighting several rounds of shadow beasts yesterday, the group had settled into a pattern. Karyme would direct Juli’s attacks to the enemy’s weak points, and Dani would protect Karyme. Dani didn’t love being relegated to the sidelines, but considering how useless her pistol was (and how little ammo she had left), she could understand the need.

It was interesting to watch Felix fight. The immortal had at some point turned his shoes into ice skates, and an icy path materialized at his feet as he skated circles around the giant beast, looking for an opening. Every now and then, he leapt upwards in a rapid spin, using the blades on his shoes to slice into the beast’s flesh. If figure skating were a contact sport, Dani figured this was how it would go down.

Juli and Felix worked well together. One would catch the beast’s attention, and then the other would attack the beast’s exposed back. Every time the beast unleashed a fireball, either Juli would directly take the hit—he seemed to be fireproof—or Felix would nullify the fire with an icy wind. Somehow, Felix managed to not step on Juli’s toes, either; he was very aware that his ice had the power to ruin Juli’s fire attacks, and he was judicious with using it.

“Why doesn’t Juli just manipulate the fireballs?” Dani wondered aloud. “Must hurt less than getting hit.”

“They can’t,” Karyme explained. “Juli can only control their own flames.”

“Huh. That’s interesting,” Dani murmured. Every power came with a drawback—some more disadvantageous than others—but that was an interesting one. Dani had never heard of a pyrokinetic who couldn’t control pre-existing flames.

At that moment, the beast let out another shriek, and the sheer force of the sound pushed Dani backwards as she struggled to maintain the shield. For a second, Dani was afraid her shield would shatter. Then, something even worse happened.

Dani couldn’t see.

There was a rustling sound as the paper bag over her head was removed, and then her fingers closed around the familiar grip of a pistol, except her hands were shaking, because when she looked up she was standing in a familiar shooting range, staring down a human-shaped target.

“Cual es el problema, niña?” a voice hissed in her ear. Dani didn’t dare look back, because she knew what she’d see: a stout, balding man with tan skin, a bushy brown mustache, and dark sunglasses. She hadn’t seen her father in years, but his image was still burned into her brain.

He wasn’t the one to be afraid of, though.

Dani shuddered as a hand grasped her shoulder. Nails dug into Dani’s skin as fingers pressed into her shoulder joint, forcing her to raise the gun. Dani knew this hand. Many times this hand had slapped her, fed her, pulled her along. It was the same hand that had given Dani her first bullet wound.

With shaking hands, Dani turned the gun on her mother.

“Ah, ah, ah,” her mother said coolly. “Don’t threaten me, mija. You wouldn’t want to see what happens to those who cross me.”

“I’m not working for your boss,” Dani said hoarsely. Her voice came out weaker than she intended. “I won’t—I won’t kill people for a living. Not like you did.”

Dani’s mother laughed. “But isn’t that exactly what you do? You may not work for the Soul Stealers proper, but you still fell into the mafia life anyway.”

Dani cringed. It was still one of her biggest regrets—running away only to end up right back where she’d started. When she had originally run from home, her goal had been to enroll in community college, but her parents had pulled on every single connection they had in the Soul Stealers, making it impossible for her to even get official documents. And that was how Dani’s dreams had died.

“You’re a killer, Dani, plain and simple,” her mother said smoothly, circling around her like a snake around its prey. “It’s in your blood. And when your new friends find out exactly how much blood is on your hands, they’ll leave you behind. It’s always the same.”

Dani’s grip tightened on the pistol in her hands. Friends? She wouldn’t call these people friends. Colleagues, maybe—and nothing more.

Why, then, did the taunt hurt so much?

Dani pulled the trigger. Nothing happened; the gun was unloaded.

“Looking for this?” Dani’s father gloated. He held a bullet in his fingertips, dangling it inches from Dani’s face. Dani bit the inside of his cheek. Of course her dad had the bullet—his powers of teleportation allowed him to unload guns without even looking at them.

Her parents’ laughter filled the room, and Dani shrank back. She felt so small and insignificant, just another speck in the system. And when it came down to it, had anything she had done in the six years since she’d run away actually mattered?

A small, unfamiliar voice echoed in the background. “They’re dead, Dani! They have no power over you! You—you were strong enough to quit the mafia, so—so come back to us!”

A surge of confidence rose in Dani’s chest. That’s right—her parents were dead. They’d been killed two years ago in a work incident. Dani didn’t know the details, and she didn’t care—by that point, she’d been long gone.

“You’re not real,” Dani said smoothly. “Get out of my head.” She fired the gun three times in quick succession—first at her father, then at her mother—and this time, the bullets hit their mark.

Dani was pulled out of the memory just in time to feel the heat of a fireball coming towards him. As a reflex, he threw up a shield, and the fireball dissipated as it hit the translucent barrier.

“Oh, good, you’re back!” Dani turned to find Karyme standing next to him, a relieved look on her face. “I was worried that you’d never snap out of it.”

“Snap out of what, exactly?” Dani asked, surveying the battlefield. At some point, three more shadow beasts had appeared, flanking the giant one. All four beasts were trapped in a block of ice, though the latest fireball had melted a hole.

A few feet away, Felix was shaking Juli awake and simultaneously shielding the both of them with a translucent turquoise barrier. A translucent turquoise version of Felix was keeping the beasts at bay, skating around their feet and reinforcing the cracking ice at even intervals.

“According to Felix, the bigger beast—the one in the middle—can force people to relive their worst nightmares every time it screams,” Karyme explained. “Even your shields can’t block the sound. It looks like your shield just absorbed the sound, forcing you into an even deeper trance.”

“Oh.” Dani stood up and brushed himself off. “Juli was right. This is hell.”

Karyme laughed nervously. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

For a second, the two locked eyes. Dani knew that Karyme had seen his nightmare, and they were going to have to have a conversation about that later. But for now—

“Let’s just get this fight over with,” Dani mumbled. Across the way, Juli was starting to stir. “I don’t think the ice is going to hold forever.”

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