We Are Bulletproof

I'm not
I can't let you
Tempie
don't do this

No! Don't do this!

No. No! There has to be a way!!!

No! I have to take you with me!

TEMPIE?!
WHERE ARE YOU?

It was now or never. Charlie wanted to pounce forward, to get the drop on their enemy before they got the drop on them but Robbie simply wouldn't stop. There was no time to sit and think and he hated it. Frowning, he listened to the footsteps with trepidation. They were going to meet up with whomever owned those footsteps soon. They could get placed somewhere much more difficult to escape from. And from the outside, at least Charlie could get Tempie back.

He hated it so much, though. He hated having to walk away. But there was no time.

"Fine...!"

He finally allowed Robbie to lead the way out but even as they did, he whispered back fiercely, "But I'm coming back for her, first thing. With or without you and Kor."

True, if they were killed, they were no use to anybody. But Charlie had that strange invincible streak in him, where he just felt that if he was doing the Right Thing then everything would work out in the end. This was the Right Thing now, to make sure that Tempie was okay. Sure, they had her guarded but there had to be a way to reach out to her.

"She didn't, though!" Charlie argued. "Not really! She just... says things like that to keep me from getting close."

He had been telling himself that for a while with some hint of doubt but now he was sure. The way she held onto him, the embrace she gave him... Despite everything, he was sure now that she trusted him. Maybe she didn't love him or didn't love him the way he wanted her to, but she trusted him. No way could he betray that trust.

"We have to find a way to at least contact her. I can't just leave."

"No..." They couldn't help if they were caught but they couldn't just LEAVE. It went against everything Charlie was, everything that made up Charles Ayer as a person. If it was Robbie, he wouldn't leave him and now Tempie had grown to be an important part of his life, too. And Kor. Well... Kor was a demon and he could probably find a way out on his own but Charlie couldn't help remembering the lifeless form of a helpless cat.

"But we... if we just leave, they're going to think we abandoned them."

Kor probably wouldn't. Kor didn't have the same kind of feelings they did. If anything, he'd be more irritated with Charlie for leaving him behind than anything else. Anyway, Kor was easy enough to get back. All Charlie had to do was summon him; the contract was still his so whatever happened to him, he could be brought back to him no matter where they were.

But Tempie...

"She's going to think I abandoned her," he amended. "She'll never trust me again if I leave her. We have to find her, Robbie."

"Wait," he said, tugging on Robbie's hand to pull him closer. Yes, he understood they were in a basement and they might even have a prime moment to escape but...

"What about Tempie? What about Kor? We can't leave them here."

Again, he could never live with himself if he didn't do everything he could to help them. He had no idea where that sense of justice and charity came from. Charlie had just always been that way--the little boy that fixed broken airplanes and nursed drowned squirrels back to life. He could never leave broken things broken.

Charlie gently ran a reassuring thumb over Robbie's hand, ever the big brother. He couldn't help it. Even if he was the weaker one that needed protection right now, he had to protect his brother. Even if it was just his feelings. He didn't want to see Robbie hurt or worse. Naively, he thought life would be better here, when he was married and they were settled in. If he'd known that Robbie would have been thrown into danger, he never would have let him come with him.

"Where in the house?" Charlie asked in hushed tones, peering around to see what hallway they were in. It was no hallway he remembered. And the room they'd been in seemed to be some kind of... he didn't know. Some kind of storage room without much in it. Where would that be situated in a house like the manor?

"Basement?" he hazarded a guess. "Old cellar, maybe?"

"Yeah," Charlie said, trying to remember just what happened to Kor during the entire event. Had he been left lying there, a dead cat? No, no. He was alive. His presence was there. Charlie could probably even find him if he followed that presence. He rubbed his aching chest. So many people hurt in their attempt... They should have planned better. He lowered his head.

"I think he was... eating him. His energy."

He couldn't be sure but... it sure seemed like that. The energy was going somewhere and it wasn't going into the shield. Charlie was pretty sure that Tempie's brother was doing to Kor what he'd tried to do to Charlie. He bit his lip and shook his head at Robbie's insistence that he not try to summon another demon. Actually, he was right. If Charlie tried right now, the demon would tear right through him. When he summon Kor, he was strong, he was at his prime, he had a lot of energy. Now he was on empty, zero percent.

"How?" Charlie asked, looking up tiredly. With great effort, he used the wall behind him to get to his feet and he stumbled toward Robbie, watching him. Of course Robbie was a witch, too. He wasn't useless. The hinge seemed to melt away, molten metal dribbling down the side of the door.

"You're doing it!" Charlie tried to push against the door and it groaned. One hinge did not a doorway make, it seemed.

Maybe...

Maybe this had all been a mistake. But if it was, Charlie didn't want to admit to it because he didn't regret meeting Tempie or falling in love with her. He might have fallen in love with her even if they weren't meant to marry but Tempie said there was somebody else. Somebody they took from her and he saw the pain in her eyes when she said it. She'd been hurt so much by her own family.

Charlie didn't want to be that for Robbie. His little brother was counting on him. The big brother had to be smart and cunning and protective. He had to make sure they got out of this alive. Or at least, that Robbie did. Gently, he laid his head against Robbie's head and he sighed so heavily that it felt like his very soul had left his body.

"I'm so..." Tired, he was going to say, but Robbie suddenly popped his head right back up and Charlie jerked his head back so as not to be head-butted.

"Kor..." He wiped at his face again. How long had they been out? Not long enough because Charlie really did feel more tired than he had ever felt. He almost believed that if he laid back down and closed his eyes, he would fall into a deep sleep and never recover, never wake up. Drawing a knee up to his chest, he narrowed his eyes, and then closed them, feeling for Kor somewhere in his mind, where he always dwelled.

"He's... I don't think he's doing so well... But he's alive. Just not answering me."

He could feel Kor in there, curled into a tight little ball of pain and anguish. But he was there.

"I don't think he's going to be able to do anything for us right now." He took in a breath. "Maybe... Maybe I can try reaching out to a new demon. I... I felt others, when I was helping Tempie try and break that shield. Maybe some of them are still around."

"Well," Charlie said, "I thought they needed me. But maybe they'll just kill me off and find her a more... compliant husband."

He didn't like that idea. The way they were using Tempie just didn't feel right. She was a person, not some tool for them to use. But by the looks of things, the Hazletons viewed their children as little more than exactly that--tools. Tempie was to marry into some demon summoner like himself. And that boy... what did Tempie call him... Teddy? He could have sworn he had a very different name, some uppity upper class name--but he couldn't remember for the life of him what it was. It didn't matter. Tempie mattered and he had to get out, to find her.

But... he also cared for Robbie. They were blood. They were brothers. For a long time, it was really just them. Although Robbie had been strangely quiet lately and maybe a bit of a creeper (Tempie's words, not his), Robbie was still Robbie, that kid brother that came to him with his skinned knees and his math homework.

Charlie slid an arm around his brother's back.

"I'm sorry, Robbie... for getting you into this. But we'll find a way out of it. We always do."

"Nmgghhh..."

Why did everything hurt so much? Charlie coughed and his hand twitched slightly under the hand of somebody else. The voice that spoke his name...

"Robbie?"

He was lying face down on a stone floor. Ugh. His everything ached as he forced himself to sit up. When he reached up to wipe something off his face, he found it crusty. Looking down, he could see flakes of something on his hand. What the...? Then he recalled the magic, the power, and Tempie.

"Tempie?!" He reached out for Robbie's arm. "What'd they do with her, Robbie?"

"No!"

He could taste blood dripping down his nose into his mouth as he cried out. The crumbling shield was back up, stronger than ever and he was so drained that he could hardly stay on his feet. The dimensions snapped closed around them but the screams were still in his head. Worst of all, Tempie was crying and her family was ripping them apart from each other, no matter how hard Charlie tried to hang onto her.

"No! What are you doing?!"

They ripped her away and when he went for her, there were several members of the coven grabbing him and pulling him back and away from Tempie. They were so close. So close and this...

"No..." His legs wanted to give out so badly but he refused to show such weakness in front of these people. He tried to pull his limbs from them but they held him firmly in place. And there she was, the matriarch of Tempie's family, walking calmly toward them. But there was something not so calm in her eyes as she looked at Tempie.

"Leave her alone!" Charlie struggled to get to her but his throat was grabbed in a chokehold to prevent him from trying again.