The Supreme Mage in a Loser's Body

Ch 4 - The Family Kael Chose

Kael covered the crest with his thumb when footsteps approached the rear doorway.

Maya came back carrying a clean shirt. She stopped beside his chair and glanced at his closed hand, but Kael slipped the ring into his pocket before she could ask about it.

“Lift your good arm first,” Maya said, unfolding the shirt. “I'll help with the other one.”

He let her pull the torn sleeve over his bandage. The movement stretched his injured side, forcing him to pause with one arm raised. Maya waited without complaining, then eased the clean shirt over his head.

The ring could wait. Whoever had made it was beyond his reach for now, and he could barely get dressed without help.

Thomas entered from the shop with Elena behind him. Dust marked the front of his trousers, and he leaned heavily against the doorway before taking another step. Elena carried a small box of electrical parts that she placed on the table, away from the leaking window.

“I've moved everything I can,” Thomas said. “We'll need to cover the front before tonight.”

He reached for the phone lying among the tools. Kael recognized it as Ethan's, the same device he had touched after waking in the room.

“Who are you calling?” Kael asked.

“The police,” Thomas replied. “They broke the window, beat you, and pulled a knife. I'm reporting it.”

The word brought a memory Kael had not searched for. Ethan had once stood across the street from the shop and watched Rafe talking to two uniformed officers. One officer accepted an envelope, tucked it beneath his jacket, and laughed at whatever the collector said next.

There was another memory after that, worse than the first. Ethan sitting at a desk in a small office. A man in uniform telling him to settle his debts before wasting police time.

“Rafe pays some of the officers here,” Kael said.

Thomas stopped with the phone in his hand.

“How do you know that?” he asked.

“I saw him give one money,” Kael replied. “When I tried reporting him before, they told me to pay what I owed.”

Elena turned toward him. “You never told us you went,” she said.

Kael felt the shame attached to the memory. Ethan had hoped to return home with help. Instead, he had walked past the shop twice before finding the courage to go inside.

“Nothing came of it,” Kael replied.

Thomas lowered the phone but did not put it down.

“That doesn't mean every officer works for them,” he said. “There must be someone who will listen.”

“Maybe there is,” Kael replied. “But if the report reaches Rafe first, he'll know exactly what we told them.”

Thomas stared at the screen. His thumb rested above it for several seconds before he placed the phone beside the box.

“Then we keep the knife,” Thomas said. “And we take pictures of the damage. I'm not pretending this didn't happen.”

Kael nodded. He had no reason to argue with that. Thomas took the phone again, this time to photograph the broken lamp and the blood on the floor.

Elena pulled a chair close to Maya.

“I'm going to call my cousin,” she said. “You can stay with her outside Graybridge for a while.”

Maya looked from her mother to her father. Thomas stopped taking pictures but said nothing.

“And what happens to school?” Maya asked.

“We'll speak to them,” Elena replied. “A few missed days won't matter.”

“You don't mean a few days,” Maya said.

Elena reached for her hand. Maya let her take it, though she remained standing beside Kael's chair.

“Rafe pushed you against a wall,” Elena said. “He could have done worse. I can't stand here tomorrow wondering whether he'll come back while you're alone.”

Maya glanced toward the shop. Rain tapped against the pieces of glass still caught in the front frame.

“You finish work after dark,” she said. “Dad stays here alone when I'm at school. Ethan can barely move. Sending me away doesn't make any of you safe.”

“It makes you safe,” Elena replied.

Maya pulled her hand free, then seemed to regret it. She sat in the chair her mother had brought and kept her hands together in her lap.

“I don't want to sit in someone else's house waiting for a call,” she said. “I want to know what's happening here.”

Thomas put the phone down. “Your mother isn't trying to punish you,” he said.

“I know,” Maya replied. “I'm not trying to make this harder either.”

Kael listened while Elena explained the bus route and Thomas asked whether her cousin had enough room. They had not called the woman yet, but already they were working out how little Maya could take and how much the journey would cost.

Ethan's memories filled the gaps in their conversation. Elena accepting extra shifts. Thomas staying at the worktable after his leg began shaking. Maya saying she did not need money for a school activity, then hiding the notice in the bottom of her bag.

Every choice returned to the debt. Every small need became a reason for Ethan to apologize.

“We can't keep arranging our lives around what Rafe wants,” Kael said.

Elena stopped speaking. Kael leaned forward, keeping one hand against his sore side.

“That debt has decided when you work, what you buy, and whether Maya can stay with her family,” he said. “It won't keep deciding everything in this house.”

Maya looked at him, but Thomas pulled the stool closer and sat down slowly.

“All right,” Thomas said. “How do we stop it?”

Kael had expected resistance. The question required more than a promise.

“Rafe knows he can't walk in here and beat us without consequences now,” Kael replied.

Thomas rubbed his knee before answering.

“I saw what you did,” he said. “I'm grateful you stopped him. But hitting Rafe doesn't pay for that window.”

He pointed toward the shelves without looking away from Kael.

“Those appliances belong to customers,” Thomas continued. “Some have been waiting too long already. We need food, rent, and medicine. We need people to keep bringing work here, and the Iron Vipers have men all over this district.”

Kael almost said he could deal with those men as well. Then he felt the bandage tighten against his arm and remembered how close he had come to falling after three attackers.

Thomas was not questioning his courage. He was asking how they would live after the fight.

“You're right,” Kael said.

Thomas's hand stopped moving over his knee.

“I can stop a man at the door,” Kael continued. “That isn't the same as fixing this.”

Elena sat beside Maya. Some of the tension left her shoulders, though she kept glancing at the swelling on Kael's face.

“Then start by staying alive long enough to help,” she said. “No going after Rafe. No walking into whatever place Marcus runs.”

“I won't go there tonight,” Kael replied.

“I mean more than tonight,” Elena said.

Kael lowered his eyes to his bandaged arm. “I know,” he replied.

For the moment, that was all he could honestly give her.

Maya offered to help cover the window. Elena agreed after Thomas explained where he kept the plastic sheeting and tape. Before leaving, Elena set a glass of water beside Kael and made him drink some.

“I'll call about a doctor once we've covered the front,” she said. “You still haven't convinced me you don't need one.”

Thomas stayed on the stool while they went into the shop. He tried to straighten his left leg, but a sudden pain stopped him halfway. His fingers gripped the brace until his knuckles paled.

Kael moved his chair closer.

“Let me support it,” he said.

“You shouldn't be lifting anything,” Thomas replied.

“Then rest your foot on the box,” Kael said. “I'll keep it from slipping.”

He drew an empty wooden box closer with his good foot. Thomas raised his heel onto it, letting Kael steady his calf through the fabric of his trousers.

With his hand resting there, Kael guided a faint trace of the energy he had taken from the ring into Thomas's leg.

The damage was old. He could feel the uneven response along an injured nerve, with strained muscles around it from years of favoring the other leg. Repairing it would require far more power than he had, along with time the family would not give him without questions.

He could ease the pain around it.

Kael sent only a little energy through the tense muscles. He moved slowly, keeping the warmth too faint for Thomas to notice. His own ribs began aching more sharply as he spent the power, warning him to stop.

Thomas released his grip on the brace.

“That's better,” he said.

Kael kept his hand beneath the calf a moment longer, then withdrew it.

“Don't try to stand yet,” he said.

Thomas shifted his heel on the box. His eyebrows drew together as he tested the position, waiting for the pain to return.

“It hasn't eased that much in years,” he said. “Usually it takes half the night.”

“Leave it there for a while,” Kael replied.

Thomas leaned back against the wall. The leg remained damaged, and the brace still held it in place, but his breathing became less strained. He watched Elena and Maya through the doorway as they argued quietly about which side of the plastic should face the rain.

Kael checked the small reserve of magic he had left. He could have used what he had just spent on his own ribs. He might have saved it for another attack, or for the difficult work of preparing a new inner core.

Thomas flexed his fingers, no longer needing to grip his leg.

Kael did not regret the choice.

“You borrowed that money for my operation,” Thomas said after a while. “I know you think everything that followed is your fault.”

Kael looked up. The older man's voice had softened, but he was watching him closely.

“Those men chose to hurt us,” Thomas continued. “You didn't ask them to do that.”

Kael had no answer ready. He knew what Ethan would have felt hearing those words, and for a moment the dead man's memories made it difficult to speak.

“I should have found another way,” Kael said.

Thomas shook his head. “We all should have,” he replied. “You weren't the only person in this family who ran out of choices.”

From the shop, Maya called for more tape. Thomas started to lower his foot, but Kael stopped him with a hand on his knee.

“Tell her where it is,” Kael said. “She can get it.”

Thomas hesitated, then gave her directions. He left his foot on the box.

Kael sat back and listened to the three of them. His parents and sister still knew him as Ethan. They had no idea who had entered the body they were trying so hard to protect.

Somewhere beyond this shop, there might still be a vessel capable of holding his former strength. He had intended to search for it as soon as he could walk out of here.

Now leaving would mean abandoning Thomas on this stool, Elena at the broken window, and Maya with men who knew where she lived.

He would not seek another body while the Coles were in danger. First, he would make certain they could live without waiting for footsteps at the door.

The phone vibrated against the worktable.

Thomas reached for it, then passed it to him when he saw the message on the screen.

“It's for you,” Thomas said.

Kael took the phone. An unfamiliar number appeared above a short message. He read the first line and sat upright despite the pain in his side.

“What is it?” Elena asked from the doorway.

Maya came up behind her, still holding the tape. Kael kept the screen in his hand, but Thomas had already seen enough to stop rubbing his leg.

The message read:

Your debt is now $200,000. You have three days to pay in full.  ---  Marcus Vale