Page 74 of Take You Home (Redwater Demons #3)

Right now, they have to focus on getting to the Fount of Blessings and saving Obie.

If they’re not too late already. Fear claws through Chester’s insides at the thought.

Maggie said she didn’t think Obie would last more than another hour, right?

How long have they been here already? It feels like years and mere seconds simultaneously, time and space ceasing to exist in a world where they don’t have any bearing on existence, and Chester??—

Chester can only hope and pray that they make it back in time. He counts his steps, counts his breaths, keeps his arm tight around Bryant’s shoulders and his eyes fixed into the dizzying distance??—

Suddenly, a solid-looking structure appears out of nowhere just ahead of them, its shape strikingly similar to the three-tiered fountain in Redwater’s Courtyard and what looks like electric crimson smoke churning over its edges. His heart leaps. “There! That’s it, right?”

“Ugh, finally,” Bryant grumbles. “I was starting to think we were seeing two entirely different dimensions.”

“Micah said to bring back as much as possible,” Roma says, wobbling forward and resting her hands on the thankfully solid fountain for balance. “So do we just… reach in and grab some?”

“I guess,” JJ says, his eyes drifting upward. “I mean, that’s what the rest of them are doing, right?”

“The rest of them?” Chester repeats, following JJ’s gaze. All he sees are colors and more colors, although he will admit that the colors seem to be bending towards the Fount rather than zipping directly past it. “What do you mean?”

JJ points. “The other demons. You?—you do see them, right? ”

Chester’s jaw drops. Roma looks incredulous. “The colors?” she sputters. “The colors are demons?”

“Oh,” Bryant says slowly, squinting back at her. “You, uh. You didn’t figure that out?”

Chester fights back an unhinged laugh. “Man, you half-demons are wild,” he says, and the words catch on that same part of his brain that says something is about to click, that something is about to fall into place.

Shoving the sensation aside, he stumbles forward to stand next to Roma.

“All right. Let’s just start grabbing handfuls of it, and??—?”

Carefully, he reaches down, swiping his hand through the billows of crackling red.

His fist closes on empty air. Horror floods through him. “No.”

“I?—?” Roma rests one knee on the Fount and reaches down with both hands, but the Blessings slide through her fingers. Her eyes flash to JJ, panic threading through her voice. “Please tell me you can touch it.”

JJ’s eyebrows are furrowed. He reaches down with cupped hands, effortlessly lifting a blob of smoke-like crimson with him. “Looks like it. But it’s weird that you can’t. I mean, it’s solid. It’s literally right there.”

Chester lets out a shaky breath, relief curling through him. “Guess this was only meant for demons,” he says, and he nods at Bryant. “Could you grab some, too?”

“Sure,” Bryant says, and to Chester’s utter disbelief, she takes two handfuls and shoves them into her pockets. “Roma, can I use your backpack? I need more storage space.”

Roma meekly removes her weapons from the bag and hands it over, her mouth hanging slightly agape as she watches Bryant and JJ pack away the Blessings.

Frankly, Chester can’t blame her. Do Bryant and JJ seriously not realize how incredible it is that they can navigate here, walk steadily here, touch things here?

Do they really not understand how difficult it is for Chester and Roma to just stay upright, much less walk through this fever dream of a dimension?

How powerful are they in Tamaros?

All at once, the answer?—the answer to everything? —crashes into Chester, so hard and fast that it nearly makes him dizzy. “That’s what they’re after,” he stammers, the pieces rushing into place. “That’s the Sanctum’s endgame. That’s??—?”

Bryant gives him a sharp look. “What?”

Chester’s heart slams against his ribcage. “Nothing. Or?—or something we can deal with later, at least. For now, we need to get back to Obie.”

“Right,” JJ agrees, pushing the last of the Blessings into his pockets and straightening up. Unexpectedly, he cocks his head to one side, peering at a point over Chester’s shoulder. “Bryant, do you think we can take that shortcut?”

Chester turns to follow his gaze. He’s not altogether surprised when he can’t see anything except the same swirling vortex of colors.

Bryant, though, looks pleased. “Good call, Jackson,” she says, pulling Chester’s arm over her shoulders again. “That should cut our time nearly in half.”

Chester squints at her. “Can you two actually track time and distance in here?”

JJ stares at him. “Of course,” he says, gesturing at the erratic pulses of light around them. “Time is controlled by the lights, you see? And space is controlled by the sounds, so if you can get those two parameters to line up correctly, then??—?”

“Do the things you’re saying actually make sense in your head?” Roma demands. “Because the words ‘time is controlled by the lights and space is controlled by the sounds’ do not exist in that order to any rational person. ”

Bryant sniffs imperiously. It’s such an old-school Bryant Nehemiah reaction that Chester can’t fight back a grin. “Well, you humans may not understand it, but JJ and I are in perfect sync. Right, JJ?”

Instantly, JJ brightens. “Right!”

Chester’s heart swells. He can tell by Bryant’s tense shoulders that she’s still not completely comfortable with JJ?—probably still not completely comfortable with Roma and Chester, either?—but she’s trying.

Chester knows firsthand just how hard Bryant took it when her two strike team partners left her behind, like their years of fighting side by side meant nothing. The sting of that abandonment will probably take a while to heal, but at least they have the chance now.

It may have taken over half a year, but they’re finally back together. And it’s like??—

Well. It’s not like nothing has even changed. Actually, it’s more like everything has changed.

But maybe that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

Chester’s eyes widen when he finally sees the rift back to Earth looming ahead of them.

“There it is!” he says excitedly, craning his neck to look through it.

The silhouettes on the other side are indistinct, but is that Gregorio and Ez trying to squint into Tamaros?

And Sawyer and Maggie pacing in the background? And??—

“Yes, Locke, it’s been there the whole time,” Bryant drawls, and three steps later, they walk through the rift and land straight back in the bedroom of Obie’s safe house.

Chester stumbles through the rift with Bryant mostly supporting his weight and immediately collapses. Obie’s heart drops. “Chester?” he croaks, feebly trying to reach towards him. “Chester??—? ”

“Oh, I am so dizzy,” Chester moans, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Is this, like, the interdimensional version of seasickness?”

He sounds annoyed, not hurt. The relief is just enough to make a dent in Obie’s pain-addled brain, and he slumps back onto the mattress, trying to concentrate on breathing. Chester is okay, Chester is okay, and that’s all that matters, that’s??—

That’s all he needed to know.

If he’s about to die, then at least he knows that Chester is safe.

Cass bolts to his feet. “Did you get them?” he demands, his voice shaking. “Chester, Bryant, did you??—??”

At that moment, JJ drags Roma back through the rift, and Roma’s knees buckle just as quickly as Chester’s did. Ez hastily catches her before she hits the floor, finally letting the rift evaporate behind them. “Roma? Roma, talk to me??—?”

“I am writing such a bad review of that place,” Roma groans, burying her face in Ez’s shoulder. “Zero out of ten, would not recommend.”

Bryant squints down at Chester languishing on the floor, apparently decides that he’s not getting up for a while, and looks back at Cass.

“Yeah, of course we got them,” she says, holding up Roma’s bulging backpack as evidence.

Obie’s heart stutters when he sees the Blessings?—the Blessings that he put there so many millennia ago?—drifting dreamily out of the opening.

“JJ got a few handfuls, too. What do we do with them?”

Just give them to me. Obie tries to make his mouth work around the words, but his body refuses to cooperate with his brain. Just let me touch them.

“Obie.” Chester clambers to his feet, falls gracelessly back to the floor, and curses under his breath, crawling towards the bed. “Obie, tell us what you need. ”

Cass rakes Obie’s hair back from his forehead, his face bloodless. “Back in Tamaros, we just went through the Fount to access the Blessings, but with how different Earth is and how different our physical bodies are?—?” His eyes cut to Ez. “Any ideas?”

“I don’t?—?” Ez swallows visibly. “I don’t know. And we might not have enough time to find more Blessings if we get it wrong, so??—?”

“Baby.” Chester uses the bedframe to drag himself up to kneeling, reaching for Obie. “Obie, baby??—?”

His fingertips don’t quite reach Obie’s palm. Hastily, Cass grabs Obie’s limp hand to put into Chester’s, and immediately, Chester’s warm, soothing voice cuts through the screaming agony in Obie’s head. Obie, what do you need? Tell me what you need, tell me? ? —

I just?— Obie tries to hold Chester’s hand, but a weak twitch of his fingers is all he can manage. I just need to touch them. I just need? ? —

Chester squeezes Obie’s hand, turning to Bryant and JJ. “He said that he just needs to touch them. So?—so just dump them on him, I guess?”

“Good enough for me,” Bryant says, and she takes two steps forward, holds Roma’s backpack over Obie’s shaking form, and unceremoniously flips it upside down.

Obie gasps at the sudden cool rush of the Blessings, flowing over him and through him and into him as they fix his body and wash the curse off his skin.

Power dances just underneath his veins, so familiar and yet so different in this dimension, healing him and strengthening him and making him whole again.

Not Nostringvadha. Just Obie.

Exactly who he wants to be.

Slowly, Obie opens his eyes. His vision is clear this time, clear enough to see the scared faces around him, all of them holding their breath to make sure he’s all right.

His friends. The ones who moved heaven and Earth?—moved Tamaros and Earth?—to save him. He shoots them a small smile. “Did you really think you could get rid of me that easily?”

Ez lets out a noise that sounds suspiciously like a sob, sitting heavily on the bed next to him and dragging Roma along with her. Cass sags forward to rest his forehead on JJ’s shoulder, like all the energy and adrenaline and fear of the past few hours just evaporated at once.

Chester’s voice winds through Obie’s head. How do you feel?

Heart swelling, Obie turns to his hunter. Chester is still kneeling next to the bed with just his head and chest visible, his shaky legs probably not recovered enough to support his weight yet, but his grip is steady around Obie’s hand and his eyes are soft and concerned.

And this is real. Obie gets to have this, gets to have someone he loves, gets to have someone who loves him in return??—

Gets to have Chester Locke, the hunter who was willing to run headfirst into Tamaros to save a demon god. Better now, Obie pushes through their telepathic link, and he shifts forward on the mattress, slips a hand behind Chester’s head, and pulls him in to kiss him.

Chester melts into the kiss like there aren’t nearly a dozen people watching them, pressing back against Obie and framing Obie’s face between still-trembling hands. Obie takes his time, breathing Chester in, committing the warmth of his lips to memory, savoring the taste of him??—

It’s not the same heady rush as last night. This time, it feels like comfort and safety and familiarity. This time, it feels like affection and devotion and loyalty.

This time, it feels like coming home.

Obie breaks the kiss first, pulling just far enough away to meet Chester’s eyes. “I love you, too. You know that, right?”

Chester’s eyes are shining. “I mean, I’d kind of hoped so,” he says, hugging him tightly. “But yeah. Yeah, I know that. ”

And, with his newfound family gathered around him and the love of his life?—of all his lives?—holding him close, Obie closes his eyes and lets himself relax for the first time in what feels like years.