Chapter Seven.

Jenna entered the warehouse and made her way around the crowd, walking up towards the arena. As usual, other mages and supernats moved out of her way, a custom for the strongest fighters there.

She turned her gaze past the vampire fighting the werewolf to focus on Eden, who was present again. Along with a shorter figure dressed the same as him, only in a dark pink mask and with his right hand scratching behind the ears of a dog. Kris was there as well, along with another boy and a girl, the five of them and the dog grouped together, a stern-looking man standing behind the unfamiliar boy.

Cam, if that was the figure in the dark pink mask, had his gaze fixed on her. She couldn't see them, but he was definitely staring at her. Jenna wondered if their presence with Kris meant that they had agreed to help her with the situation.

She rubbed her temples as a headache came on. It felt like something was slowly squeezing her head. There was a massive crowd there, and a lot of magic in the warehouse itself, so it was likely it was just the intense magical pressure around her.

The headache continued to worsen, and as she decided to step outside for some fresh air, Jenna blacked out, dropping to the ground like a rock. The supernats around her looked at her, one beginning to call for a medic just as Cam appeared beside her.

The small mage lifted her up and slung her over his shoulder, then teleported back to Eden.

"I didn't realize how much magic it takes to teleport with someone," Cam projected to Eden. "Mind teleporting us to your apartment? You said you could do three people, and I think she needs some fresh air."

"Couldn't we just leave her here?" Eden asked. "I'm sure the medical mages here will be happy to take care of her."

"No, no, let's go back to your apartment."

Eden sighed, then teleported Cam to his apartment.

"Why are we kidnapping the girl who wants our help?" Eden asked. "I know you aren't going to invade her mind for answers."

"She clearly needs some help," Cam told Eden. "You can go back to the matches, we'll be fine."

Eden sighed, then returned to the arena and looked at Lucas Tules, who was staring at him with a questioning gaze.

"I have no idea," he said. "But that's the girl we were telling you about, who said her brother was kidnapped by some mage traffickers. Cam must have identified her by her thoughts – she was probably thinking about us. I'm not sure why he knocked her out, though. Or how he did it so easily, he's had issues controlling his strength ever since he unbound his divinity."

"He slowly applied pressure to her mind," Callum projected to them. "Until she passed out. I'm returning to the apartment."

Callum vanished, and Eden sighed.

"I should probably go, too," he said. "Cam gave you his number, right, Kris?"

"Yeah," Kris responded. "Thanks. And, uh, good luck."

"Thanks," Eden teleported back to his apartment and froze.

Cam had removed his mask and was on the couch, kneeling over Jenna and strangling her as Callum watched from the dog bed he'd acquired to sleep on.

"-were you thinking, leaving me alone in the night like that?" Cam ranted. "I could have been killed! You're lucky I had the voices around to guide me, or I'd have probably starved again! Where's Tyler, so I can strangle him, too?"

"Shouldn't you stop him?" Eden asked Callum.

"He's not actually hurting her too badly," Callum huffed. "And it's not my job to protect others from him, just him from others and teach him how to use his magic. Besides, I think his father would have my hide if I interfered in his son's love life."

Eden froze as he heard those words from Callum, slowly turning his gaze back to Jenna, who was wrestling Cam's hands off her throat. Then he processed what Cam had said – she'd disappeared on him during that night. And what little he'd gotten out of his roommate was that he and his crush had not parted on good terms.

Was this the girl that Cam had a crush on?

Jenna eventually managed to stop Cam from strangling her, though he continued to sit on her stomach, folding his arms across his chest and glaring down at her.

"You go by Cam now?"

"Yes," he answered. "Now where's Ty so I can beat him up, too?"

"That's-" she started to sniffle. "Ty got kidnapped by some mage traffickers. I barely managed to escape, Jared. I've been looking for strong mages ever since to help me. I tried going to DoSS, but they wouldn't take the word of a girl. It's been a few months now, and I'm so scared. You're said to be one of the strongest mages in that arena, Jared. And your two friends kicked my ass. Can you-can you get them to help me? Help us rescue him?"

Stolen novel; please report.

"Tyler was what?" Cam nearly went hysterical. "Where? How long ago? When? Why? Who?"

"I don't know," she answered. "I know the place they took him to, but he's not there now. If I can just get enough powerful mages, we can get them to tell us where he is. We can rescue Ty. Please, Jared, please help me."

"Alright," Cam said. "We're going to rescue him. Eden, you're helping. Callum, please help?"

"But-" Eden began.

"No," Cam climbed off of Jenna and went into the kitchen. "Ty and Jenna are twins. Their father is Lelmaris, the High God of chaos and destruction. Their powers work together. In a sense, they're eternally linked. And they're my friends. And one of them was kidnapped."

"I thought they smelled like Lelmaris."

"Did your dog just talk to us?" Jenna jumped up, staring at Callum.

"He's our cousin," Cam told her as he brought her a glass of water. "He's really, really old. He knows lots of cool stories and songs. He doesn't like singing, though, so don't try to ask him to sing. He shifted into a dog 'cause he's really insecure and doesn't like attention being on him. He should've become a pigeon instead."

"I prefer a dog form."

"Your loss," Cam shrugged, then looked at Jenna. "Where do we need to go? We'll need to figure out what to do to try and get them to talk. I'd rather avoid fighting, if possible, but Callum can rip the information out of their heads if needed. I'd rather avoid that, though."

Cam hated the idea of forcing information out of people, especially after having a compulsion serum used on him a couple of months prior. It caused all of his voices to start talking, and there were fifty-four of them – three for each school of magic, each there to teach a specific spell.

Not that they did that, as only a couple had. The voices were Cam's root magic, the basis for all of his spells. It enabled him to hear them at all times, even when they weren't teaching him, and they often guided him places.

One of them was obsessed with pencils, and the other was, at the moment, informing Cam that he should have taken the opportunity after he stopped strangling her to kiss her.

His face quickly flushed a deep shade of crimson, and Jenna snorted. She could guess what had happened based on the blush and what she knew of the voices from when she had hung out with Cam before.

"Sorry about abandoning you like that," she told Cam. "Ty and I wanted to go do something, and we knew you wouldn't want to tag along for it, and it took us a couple of weeks. We'd only known you a couple of months and didn't want to drag you into something dangerous."

"And now Tyler's been kidnapped," Cam sighed. "And in the mage slave trade, probably bound up and sold off to the highest bidder. I didn't see him at the auction, though. There were a few ice boys, but he wasn't among them. Do you know where he was taken?"

"Yeah," she answered. "It's a security warehouse over in the Lake Warehouse Sector. It's a front for a mage trafficking circle run by a man named Derrick."

"Some of his goons tried kidnapping me," Cam nodded. "Seph took care of them once we were in the Blood."

"The vampire?" She asked. "You made a deal with him?"

"I have a friend who relieved me of it," Cam answered. "That's a huge relief. I didn't like it. Feeding him blood and learning compulsion. No way, not for me!""

"I know the warehouse," Eden shook his head. "That place is heavily guarded. There isn't a chance in hell we're getting in there. I mean, not unless we force our way in, Cam."

"There might be a way," Callum took on his human form. "But we'll have to go shopping."

"Shopping?"

"Yes," Callum nodded. "Shopping. Who are you calling?"

Everyone looked at Cam, who had his phone pressed to his ear.

"Hi, Adam," he said. "Can you summon your dad? I want to talk to him and I think he's taken his island off of Earth again, his phone's out of its service area. No, I want one of his universal keys for the mage slave collars. Well, then I'll best you in that area! Yeah, well, I am a kid!"

Cam blew a raspberry, causing Jenna and Eden to laugh.

"Thanks, Adam. Let me know what he says," Cam said. "What? Oh. They kidnapped one of my friends and probably put him in a collar. I want the universal key so I can free him. Though maybe Callum could break them through brute force? But I'd rather just use the key and see them pop off. Thanks! Please do it soon, we're raiding the place soon so we can find my friend. Well, sort of raiding. We're not actually raiding. Gotta go, gotta get them to stop giving me funny looks."

Cam hung up the phone and looked at the other three in the room.

"What kind of shopping?" He asked. "Also, did you tell Greyson's dad what was going on?"

"No," Eden said. "I didn't know, so I just left him there. He's probably wondering it."

Cam sighed, then texted Greyson to let him know what was going on. Back at the arena, Greyson checked the message, still at the warehouse, then looked at his father.

"Cam said that Jenna's an old friend of his," Greyson told his father. "And that he was pretty mad at her because she abandoned him on the street. He wanted to talk with her in private about what happened, and they're at Eden's apartment right now."

"Okay," Lucas said. "Anything else?"

"Yes," Greyson said. "He said that I should tell you to be ashamed of your department for not taking the word of a teen just because she's a teen when she reported a security company kidnapping her brother. He also wants to know how big of an issue it would be if they blew up the security company's office and wants you to warn your office that sometime in the next couple of weeks, to have a lot of cells ready for mage traffickers. More details to follow once they flesh out their battle plan. And yes, he said 'battle plan'. I guess he really liked this friend who was kidnapped. There's also a lot of angry faces.""

Lucas took his son's phone and checked the messages. There were, indeed, a lot of angry faces in it – one for every two words. Another message popped up as Lucas was reading them.

"Greyson," Lucas snorted. "Cam's asking where you're taking Jess on your next date."

"What?" Greyson's face flushed as he snatched his phone back from his father. "Cam! No!"

He furiously tapped away on his phone to reply as Lucas chuckled and Jess watched in confusion and amusement. When he finished, he slipped it into his pocket and slipped his hand back into Jess's.

"So," she whispered in his ear. "Are we… are we dating?"

"Do you want to?" He whispered back. "You'll see another side of me if we do."

"I want to," she whispered. "So where's the next date?"

"I know a good restaurant," he responded. "But, uh, it's owned by Eden's parents, so it might not be a good idea to go there."

"The taller guy in the mask?" She asked. "His parents own a restaurant?"

"His mom's a famous chef," Greyson nodded as the ref called for another fighter. "I think the brawling matches are over. Wanna see a real mage fight, now?"