Page 83 of Gunpowder

Blair’s eyes were misted with tears but hard, and he pulled Wren’s hands away. “I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”

“We weren’t a mistake,” Wren said, and god, was that really his voice cracking like that?

“Goodbye, Wren.”

“Don’t you walk away from me,” Wren hissed, but his fingertips were numb, legs rooted to the ground, his heart heavy. Fuck his heart. Fuck the fickle thing that was betraying him, making him feel this way, after it had never let him feel anything before. “Blair.”

Blair stopped. It was an instant that seemed to last forever. Wren saw his hands ball into fists, and then he reached for the door. The door closed. The numbness spread, until Wren couldn’t feel the ache. He didn’t realize he had fallen back until he found his hand closing around the edge of the counter to steady himself. His phone started vibrating. It was probably Reymond. He swiped the green icon, but his throat had closed, caving in around his words.

“Wren?”

The word came out like he was choking on it. “Reymond.”

“You don’t sound like yourself. It’s graduation, can’t have a cat getting your tongue now.”

Wren choked again but rather than words, the feeling in his chest erupted once more from the numbness and rushed into his face, into his eyelids. There was an unfamiliar sting in them. “Reymond,” he repeated, and he no longer sounded like himself to his own ears, either. He didn’t know what was happening. Or what had just happened. Or what he was supposed to do now.

He didn’t know how Reymond heard the questions in his voice or how he seemed to know of the burning that left hot trails on his face and scorched a salty taste in the back of his throat, but he heard Reymond sigh. “Oh, no.”

His back hit the cabinets and more of those wretched sounds came as he slid down to the floor, and Reymond sat silently on the other end of the line.

23

GRADUATION

Walking up to the red door of the bar used to feel like coming home. Hell, this was the place that taught him what home was supposed to feel like. Blair stopped and stared up at the brick building. Everything that had given him a sense of safety before had been ripped away. Where this place had once been a haven, now he couldn’t look at it without anger and resentment boiling in his chest. He’d always thought that nothing could hurt him as long as he had Incindious. Nothing could hurt worse than losing his place here. His eyes burned but no tears came. He didn’t think there were any left. They had streamed freely the whole drive back from Manhattan, mixing with the rain, and he could have cried as many tears as there were raindrops in the sky and it never would have amounted to the pain in his heart.

Blair found the door unlocked and went inside. How am I supposed to look at the boss? For fuck’s sake, he had admired, idolized Felix from the moment they met and now all he could feel was the barrel of his gun against his forehead. Those fiery gold eyes had burned out and gone cold as they seemed to look through Blair rather than at him. He quelled the nerves trying to form knots in his stomach. Friend or not, Felix was their leader. He could be as angry as he wanted as long as he did it quietly but confronting Felix would be suicide at best, and the slower, more painful alternative of having his mark burned off his skin at the worst. He shoved his feelings as far down as they could go and walked into the bar.

“Blair,” said a small, distant voice.

He looked over at Julian, curled up on one end of the couch where Felix usually sat. The coffee table was still on its side from the last time Blair had been there. Julian was looking out the window at the rain, his hazel eyes dark as if the clouds covering the sun had covered the ever present light in his eyes as well. It was an unnerving expression for him.

“Hey,” Blair said, planting his foot on the edge of the upturned table.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

He pushed the coffee table back onto all four of its legs. He didn’t ask Julian to elaborate. There was no need. Everything going on was wrong, it had been going to shit since the night he was shot. Maybe in a way gangs were supposed to be like this, violence and bloodshed were commonplace for them after all, but he felt like the wounds they all had on the inside from this war far surpassed any damage their bodies had taken.

“We the only ones here?”

Julian nodded. “Felix and Spencer are upstairs. Spencer found him.”

Him. Isaac.

“Hey, Blair?”

“Yeah?”

Julian looked at him finally and he could see the swelling in his eyes, knew that him and Julian had been doing much of the same thing lately. “About Wren,” and his next words came quickly when he saw Blair flinch, “even if he did… something. I still don’t think it was ever to hurt you.”

Blair didn’t say anything. He knew with every fiber of his being that Wren didn’t betray him, but he let Julian continue.

Julian looked away and plucked at a thread on the couch. “People do bad things with good intentions sometimes. We’re proof of that, aren’t we?”

Blair smiled. It was feeble, but it was genuine and the first one he’d managed since Felix gave him the ultimatum. Leave it to Julian to try and comfort him even when he thought Wren had sold them out to the enemy. He was amazed that a life of being a senior member of Incindious hadn’t diminished that kindness but he was glad. “Thanks, Jules.”

He turned at the sound of the door. Julian didn’t; he had probably seen them through the window. Blair swallowed as Spencer and Felix walked in. He didn’t know what to expect, from them or himself. He stared at Felix while he was saying something to Spencer. His eyes were ringed with the darkest circles Blair had seen him have yet. His shoulders seemed to slouch a little deeper into that long coat than usual. Some of his anger waned. He couldn’t help but resent what he had been made to do but it hurt his heart even more to see Felix worn down. He wondered if Felix was even thinking clearly right now.

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