Rylie and Mark left the agency, taking in the cool night air to clear their heads. They stayed quiet, slowly walking the few blocks to his apartment building. Hugh had taken in Guardian during the battle at Grandhall, so Mark was in no hurry.

“I want to become fully connected to Traitor,” Rylie said.

Mark stopped, sighing, then looked at her, “Have you not been listening? I’m weak. I can’t protect you or have your back. You need a better partner first.”

“How aren’t you the best option, Mark?” Rylie said in a hushed anger.

“You’re already stronger than I was before I got that stupid coin, Rylie. You are on a fast track to a great career. I was mediocre as a Guardian, mediocre as a human. And now I’m less than that because I don’t even have that coin to fall back on. I’ve bonded with two people, and it didn’t make me stronger. It made me a burden and then they were both taken away anyway. Even now, not bonded to anyone, I have multiple collectives breathing down my neck, causing problems for the entire agency.”

She took a deep breath, then shifted her stance. Where she was standing ready for a fight, her body language changed to sympathetic. He could sense her calming, an almost sad quality to it.

“You’re the only one I trust, Mark.” She looked at the sidewalk then back to him, “I’ve been through a lot of shit before I ever walked through those doors. And I’ve been through a lot since. I don’t trust anyone in there. Except you. So, you can throw a pity party, you can tell me you’re not worth it, but I know you are. I refuse to have another partner, so unless we’re going to be desk buddies doing paperwork for the next fifty years, I need the same from you.”

“Fine, let’s go back to my place.”

They kept walking the last few blocks to his apartment in silence. He checked in with the front desk, then hit the elevator button, almost expecting Lane to be on there, then remembering she was back at the agency in lockdown. They rode up to the twenty-sixth floor and made their way into his apartment. He gestured for her to sit on the bed, and he leaned on the wall across from it.

“The bonding ritual is three parts. One is physical. It’s a mixing of blood. I told you about Keith giving me his. It’s like that, but not one sided. The second part is emotional. It comes with fully trusting someone. It pairs well with the blood, because it will cause our powers to work on the same wavelength.”

“And the last part? I’m guessing mental,” she asked.

He nodded, “We can’t have any secrets between us. At all. The best way to do all of this is in the reverse order I told you. We share our stories, which cause us to emotionally trust each other, then we give the physical component to merge our magic. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

“Do you want me to go first?” He asked.

“No, I’ll go.” She began the story of her life, the things she went through. Her darkest secrets. He listened, holding onto them fully, sensing the emotion behind her words. He was shocked, but not fully surprised. It explained a few things about her.

When she finished, Mark let out a slow breath, “That was a lot.”

She smiled, “It feels good that you know now.”

He nodded, “I’m glad. My turn.”

“Growing up, our parents were always on something. Sometimes it was booze, sometimes it was drugs. Sometimes it was as simple as gambling or pyramid schemes. No matter what, we were always in the way. We were a waste of food, a waste of breath, a waste of time. They would beat us, verbally abuse us, taunt us. My mom once cut off Hanna’s hair because she was jealous of it. My dad once threw me into a wall because his team cost him five thousand dollars.”

“So, we got brave, and we left. Hanna and I lived on the streets for quite some time. We would steal food, steal clothes, fight people. But at the end of the day, no matter what, we would always have each other’s back. For awhile we lived with a homeless population, and one of us would stand guard while the other slept. Eventually, someone tried to cause trouble. They wanted Hanna. She was about nineteen, I was sixteen. They tried to grab her when she was on watch. The struggle woke me up. I grabbed the first thing I could find and swung it at the guy. I thought it was a golf club, but when the sword cut into him, then disappeared, I knew it was something else.”

“Soon after, Hanna realized she could disappear into shadows. We would get a small amount of money and I would go distract a shopkeeper with a purchase while she took a bunch more. I protected us with muscle, she protected us with resources. One day, a man saw my sword appear and approached us. I was ready to use it on him when he told me he was a member of an Agency for people with magical powers. I was eighteen by then. He said his name was Jay.”

“Jay took a special interest in me. He said his ritual magic was more adept at allowing someone to take damage and attack while he geared up big spells. Aside from that, he was also able to buff me to make me stronger. By then my shield had appeared, and when we bonded, Jay’s rituals allowed him to strengthen my armor.”

Mark then explained Boston, not pulling any punches on what happened with Jay or Barnabas. He explained to her that he was afraid to fight after that, until Lily showed up.

“She came in as a rookie like you but was paired up with someone else. I was still riding the desk. I thought that she was beautiful. She was a natural element mage, getting new power after new power. I kept hearing from people how good she was in the field. I was honestly getting pretty jealous. But then I ran into her at Lou’s.”

“She was sitting at a table by herself, nursing a beer. I slid in across from her, thinking I was going to be all charming and whatnot, but she sighed. I realized something was wrong. I’m not that dense. So, I asked her. Turns out she didn’t like how her partner treated her. Or any of the other people that would accompany them on cases. She was about to walk away from the agency altogether, but I asked her not to. I told her everything I told you already, and she told me her story. We formed our bond right there at Louie’s bar.”

“Her partner was pissed. Hanna put on a pissed face, but she was glad that I was back. Jay was also happy for me. He apparently had been worried about Lily’s initial partnering but hadn’t said anything. Lily and I took awhile to get our powers synced up, but we soon learned that instead of one of us being a distraction, we could switch it up. She would cause chaos from a distance, and I could cause damage up front. We also accidently found out that my shield can be used like actual metal. Get it hot and it can burn people. Let it direct lightning. We had a fun time taking it to the enemies.”

“We were both young, both single, both having a good time. We didn’t feel like we could trust anyone outside of Hanna, Jay, and each other. We spent every waking minute together, and before long, we started falling asleep at each other’s places. A comfort settled in over us, and we were all over each other.”

“We would spend the days fighting whatever problem would come up from the other collectives, and spend all night in each other’s arms, planning our future. We both wanted to do field work until we literally couldn’t anymore. Then we would do admin work from nine to five and come home to the kids. She wanted four. I wanted two. We would have eventually settled on three. We both wanted a house by a lake, but still close enough to the city.”

“So, what happened then?”

Mark smiled, “We had gotten a mission where a member of The Splurge was attacking a school. We needed a ritualist, so naturally we brought along Jay, the only one we could really trust. He put a protective barrier around the school to stop anyone from getting in. Lily and I went inside to see what we could do.”

“There was a huge man, I mean massive. Eight feet tall, almost as wide. He had blisters and boils covering him, and he was dragging slime on the ground behind him. It sizzled as it spread, and it smelled awful. We carefully avoided the trail, finally finding a way for one of us to get to the other side to flank him.”

“I got his attention and he charged at me. I could see some of the kids peeking out of the door windows at us, but I focused in on him. I charged at him over and over with my hammer summon and any time he started to get a hit on me, Lily would fire a spell to throw him off. By the time he could look around, she would be out of sight, and I would be back on him.”

“The teachers started getting the students out through the windows. They cleared Jay’s barrier and they were safe. It eventually became just Lily and me and this guy. We kept up our back-and-forth attack, not letting up for him to get a hit on either of us. I had the coin at this point and was using it as a spear while doubling up with various summons. Lily switched up her spells, never wanting to rely on any element fully.”

“It was the battle of a million paper cuts, but eventually, he was down and out for the count. We called in our clean up crew and left. Jay let down his barrier, Lily screamed. Before I could look at her, everything went black.”

“I woke up with my wrists chained above my head. The gravity in the room felt off. I chalked it up to being knocked off, but I now know that I was taken to a pocket dimension. I tried to break free of my chains, but they wouldn’t budge. I tried to feel my connection to the coin or my powers, but nothing came to me.”

“Where I was chained to was pitch black. All I could hear was the lack of noise and the rattling of chains. Whenever I tried to speak, my words would disappear into the void ahead of me. I wasn’t sure if I had been there minutes of years. I could feel a deep cut on my chest and my leg was bandaged up, but I couldn’t remember how or why. I know now that Blank had erased my memory between the school and that moment. Keith, specifically.”

“So, I hung there, both in pain and not in pain. Both hungry and full. Nothing and everything swirling around me. I tried to keep my mind active, but that came and went as well. I was scared and worried for Lily and Jay. I would keep pulling on the chains and reaching out to Traitor, but neither would give.”

“Then a light appeared in the darkness. A small pinprick of light. It kept growing and growing. It was the first real thing I could focus on, so I did. It eventually surrounded everything in front of me except a border of nothingness. It was like a massive television.”

“What I saw next would ruin my life.”