💎A Collision of Fates💎 (Straight to Gay) (MxM) (18+)

126 - Mark

It was a dense, confused fog. The world was dark, blurry, unremarkable. Mark barely understood what was happening around him. There were sounds, words. There were people moving. But none of it mattered, none of it. How could it have mattered? How could it? After everything that had just happened.

After... After what had happened in The Palace. Mark could barely stand to think about it.

"Headmaster Hiff's office." Breck's voice cut through the miasma.

"What floor?" Another voice. Nick's voice, but exhausted, terrified.

"Fifth, I think. Haven't been up here in a long time. How does the tunnel lead all the way up here?" A shadow drifted passed Mark, something, someone.

"There are no windows. The headmaster's office must be next to the rock."

What had happened to Chris? What had happened to his son? One moment, he had been there, and, the next, he had been gone, scorched away by a pink beam of light. Was he dead? The thought was too awful to contemplate, but what else could have happened to him? What was soul capable of? What would Esteck have done with his son? Could the man really have killed him? It was all so jumbled and confusing, the thoughts flied around in Mark's head like a swarm of hungry, rotten flies, nibbling at the edges of his brain.

"What are we going to do, Nick?" Breck's voice again, calm, deep, stoic.

"I don't know."

The voices echoed around him. He barely listened. Shadows continued to shift through the room, moving, looking around, but Mark stayed where he was. The stone wall was against his back and an eternity without his son was in front of him.

Mark was a man who dealt in numbers, percentages, figures, tables, graphs. He needed something tangible, something to hold onto. An idea, a list, a plan. There must've been something, something that they could do. Through the wild frenzy of terrified thoughts, Mark grasped for something real, for a hope, a twinge of light in the black pit. Could he go back? Could he face down the cult? Could he?

"I can't just leave him... I can't just leave Adam." Nick's words slammed into Mark, a bludgeon to the chest. Chris wasn't the only one in trouble.

"I know. I know."

"He's trapped there with that psychopath."

"There are only three of us, Nick. He has an entire army."

"And... Vinton and Chris..."

There was a pause after that. Nobody spoke. The stone against Mark's back was cool, the only thing keeping him tethered to the world. If it hadn't been for that, he would've been completely lost in his thoughts, a corpse for the niggling flies.

"Vinton..."

"What are we going to do?"

"I think we need to focus on getting somewhere safe. We can't do anything for our families if we die."

Barbara would've been screaming at him, right now. She would've been in his face, begging them to go back. How could he have run after that? How could he have turned around and sprinted away? His son had been taken. He should've found his way back to him, somehow. He needed to find his way back to Chris. But how? How? How?

"Mark." The voice was closer now, familiar. A shadow was right in front of him. "Mark, we need to go." The same voice. Mark blinked, his thoughts swimming, his mind lost in the hazy, grief-haunted fog. There was a snap, someone clicked their fingers. "Mark!" The fog steadied, cleared. Nick was in front of him, leaning down. Their faces were close. When had he gotten there? "Mark, are you ready?"