Page 11 of Gunpowder

“Hey, don’t worry about it. You tried.”

Blair didn’t have much of an appetite, either. He wanted to bring Phantom down as much as the next person if not more but it wasn’t worth it if they lost Felix. He was the whole reason Blair took an interest in Incindious. Blair had been spending more and more time away from home when he crossed paths with the scarlet haired man, and everything just fell into place. Felix had given him more than a gang to join, he had given him a family. He felt guilty for the thought as he looked at his brother but his mom and siblings just hadn’t needed him after she got remarried. They were nuts about her new husband, and Blair, well, wasn’t.

A knock on the door shattered his reverie and sent his fork clattering to his plate. It was a hard, fast knock, nothing like anyone from Incindious. They found me. Phantom was there to finish what they started, they had to be. He stood up and waved Tristan down the hall. “Go, and remember what I told you.”

Tristan nodded and rushed to lock himself in the bathroom. It had to be some scary shit for a kid, but Blair had figured it better to have a plan in case of something like this than just wing it when the time came. He was glad he’d prepared Tristan, now that a second knock was shaking the apartment door.

Blair drew his Beretta without knowing what was more sad, that he kept it on his person in his own house or that it was looking like the measure might have been necessary. Pain shot from his leg up his spine as he approached the door but he forced himself to ignore it. He couldn’t use crutches and be in a stance to shoot at the same time.

This had to be the only apartment that didn’t have a peephole, for fuck’s sake. Spencer really should have insisted on one of those while he was going ham on making everyone get security systems. Blair flipped the lock and pulled the door open as fast as he could, gun readied in front of him. He returned to a two handed grip as soon as the door was open.

Most people threw their hands up or screamed when they found a gun pointed at them.

They didn’t usually look at the gun, then further down to its owner because they happened to be clad only in a pair of jersey shorts, and smirk like a lethal weapon wasn’t in their face.

But Wren didn’t seem to be most people.

His eyes traveled back up to the gun as slowly as they left it, lingering on Blair’s naked upper body long enough to make Blair wish that he was wearing a shirt. “Interesting way to answer the door. You need to get your brother and come with me to the hospital.”

Blair lowered the gun and clicked the safety back on. “Why the fuck would I do that? And how do you know where I live?”

Wren stepped into the apartment, put his hand around the barrel of the gun and pushed it to the side. “I accessed your patient file.”

A torrent of sensations hit Blair as Wren stepped closer, into his goddamn apartment like he owned it, and he was assaulted with the smell of coffee and cologne. It wasn’t unpleasant. Wren actually smelled good, nothing like the constant scent of antiseptic Blair assumed clung to doctors when they weren’t at the hospital. That was what bothered him, though—this cocky shit had grabbed a loaded gun and was standing so close that Blair knew what he smelled like.

Wren’s eyes lowered again and Blair was reminded of his bare chest. He wasn’t particularly insecure, he might be on the shorter side at five-six—okay, so pretty far on the shorter side—but at least he was muscular. His scattered freckles had mostly been swallowed up by his tan. Nothing special but nothing to be embarrassed about, either. He just didn’t like the way he was being stared at when the person looking was a relative fucking stranger who strode into his apartment uninvited.

“Where did the iguana come from?”

Blair startled out of his thoughts and blinked. “Huh?”

“Tristan said he had an iguana. The one Dr. Evans thinks he contracted a Salmonella infection from. Where was the iguana purchased?”

Blair thought back to the conversation he had with his mom when he had called to tell her he was going to keep Tristan for a couple days. Once he’d listened to her lecture that he better not be swaying his little brother toward his evil lifestyle, he explained how Tristan probably got sick. She had shouted about how that wasn’t possible, how much she paid for that lizard from— “The Caribbean. A client came back from the Caribbean with it and sold it to her, charged her a small fortune because of how much it cost to have it brought here.”

A vise grip around his forearm shocked Blair into silence. Wren’s appraising stare sharpened into something more demanding. “Is Tristan here with you? If he is, get him. We need to get him back to the hospital.”

This guy was giving Blair whiplash. He briefly considered the danger of letting Wren any further into the apartment but if the student was part of Phantom, he would have disarmed Blair when he grabbed the gun. Blair looked down at the pale fingers around his arm. Given Blair’s injury, Wren could have easily gained the upper hand with a grip like that if he wanted to.

Blair put the gun back in one of his deep pockets. “I’ll go get him… or you can just come with me, I guess,” he added when he noticed Wren following him.

He knocked on the bathroom door. “Hey. Pineapple.”

“What an odd nickname for a child,” Wren said.

“It’s the password, I told him not to open the door unless I gave him the password. Tristan, open up, it’s me! Everything’s okay.”

Blair heard a low groan from inside. He tried the doorknob without expecting any luck, as Tristan had done just as he was told and locked it. Blair was already limping without his crutches; there was no way he could get enough leverage to force it open with his shoulder.

“Tristan?” Blair called.

He was answered by a horrible retching sound.

“Move,” Wren said.

It seemed to be more of a formality than anything since Wren was already in motion. Blair stepped back the best he could before Wren’s leg arced up and his foot connected with the door, right above the lock. It flew open and hit the bathroom wall.

Blair didn’t waste time asking how the hell a med student could do that, as he was met with the sight of Tristan slumped against the toilet. The vomit in the bowl was streaked through with blood. Blair put a hand against Tristan’s forehead and found it cool to the touch. He grabbed a washcloth off the counter and wiped his face, Tristan watching him all the while with watery eyes. Tristan’s clothes were tacky with sweat but otherwise clean.

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