Page 91 of Gunpowder

Julian pulled and Blair held onto Wren for dear life, and Wren held onto him. It was slow, the impossible feat of hauling them both up, but Julian stubbornly pulled until Blair’s upper body was back on the roof. As soon as Blair could plant his knees under himself he threw himself backward, bringing Wren with him, almost crying when he felt the roof under his back and Wren’s body land on top of him. Jinx was nowhere to be seen.

Blair pushed himself onto one elbow and brushed Wren’s hair away from his face, frantically trying to assess his condition. “Wren, baby, are you okay? Please wake up.” Blair grasped his face. “Talk to me, Sunshine.”

He heard Julian sit down heavily behind him. “Blair, he passed out. Leave him be, it looks like he’s lost a lot of blood.”

That was exactly what Blair was afraid of—he had no idea how serious Wren’s injuries were, if it was even safe to not keep him awake. Blair forced himself to sit up, cradling Wren’s head in his lap as he looked over at Julian. “What did you mean when you said it was over?”

Julian gave him the saddest smile Blair had ever seen. “I don’t have time to explain. Come on, we’ll take the elevator down.”

Blair wanted to point out that an elevator ride gave Julian plenty of time to talk, but surely Julian knew that. It was like Julian didn’t want to explain. Blair got to his feet, pulling Wren up with him and looping Wren’s arm over his shoulders. Julian reached out to take Wren but Blair shook his head. His leg was screaming at him, but he’d just gotten Wren back. He wasn’t letting him go.

On the elevator, Blair started checking Wren’s injuries. An inch-wide wound on his upper arm slowly oozed blood; not fast enough to be life threatening, Blair didn’t think, but the sight of it still made him sick. “I’m so sorry,” Blair murmured, picking up one of Wren’s bloodstained hands. Something black protruded from the edge of Wren’s sleeve. Blair furrowed his brow, pushing Wren’s sleeve up, and found a small throwing knife holstered on Wren’s wrist.

Did Wren go to graduation thinking he was in danger?

Blair’s first and horribly irrational thought was, Why didn’t he call me?

Then he felt like a fucking idiot, because yeah, of course Wren didn’t call him. Blair had just broken up with him and said their relationship was a mistake. Blair swallowed back the knot of emotion trying to form in his throat; he wasn’t going to make this about himself. He could wallow in self loathing all he wanted once Wren was safe.

The elevator doors opened to the ground floor and Blair followed Julian out. He couldn’t imagine it was doing Wren any favors to be dragged along at Blair’s side like he was, so Blair paused in the empty lobby to gather Wren into his arms. Julian kept walking at the same steady, eerie pace, like a puppet on strings.

“Spencer!” Blair called out when he saw their strategist emerge from the stairwell.

Spencer’s steps echoed on the tile floor as he hurried towards them. “Isaac isn’t on the top floor, I checked the roof and didn’t see you so I came down to regroup with Felix. Is Wren okay?”

“I don’t know,” Blair said, the words feeling like shards of glass in his mouth.

“Isaac is down here,” Julian said. He started walking again. “This way.”

Spencer lengthened his strides to fall in step with Julian, and when he looked over at Julian, Blair could see the confusion on Spencer’s face. And the suspicion. Blair hadn’t wanted to think it, and he knew Spencer would find such a thing even more unfathomable, but Spencer was a master at deducing the facts from the evidence before him and even Blair knew something wasn’t right. Julian could have found out where Isaac was while they were split up, but the hollowness in his voice, the way he refused to look anyone in the eye… something was off.

A gunshot rang out.

Julian flinched, but he didn’t look surprised. Spencer ran towards the sound and Blair followed as fast as he could while carrying Wren, who stirred at the noise.

“Wren?” Blair cried, stumbling to a halt.

Wren blinked, eyes staring upward and unfocused for a long moment before finally drifting over to look at him. “Put me down,” he said hoarsely.

Blair did, but he kept an arm around Wren to stabilize him. Wren leaned into him heavily, and Blair wanted to think it was by choice, but he doubted it. “I’ve got to go see what just happened, you should wait here,” Blair said, guiding him towards the wall.

“I’m going with you,” Wren said.

The wail of sirens was getting closer. Against his better judgment, Blair didn’t argue with him. They walked as quickly as they could down the hallway, with Blair’s limp and Wren’s various injuries, to where a pair of double doors stood open at the end of the hallway. Spencer stood just inside them.

Blair saw it as soon as they entered the room. Blood, pooling under Felix’s boots. Isaac was slumped in his wheelchair with a grisly red hole gaping open on his forehead. Reymond was there, too, and Blair couldn’t spare the attention to wonder when he’d even shown up.

One wall of the pristine office was made up of computer monitors, displaying everything from the Phantom app interface to countless security camera feeds. The wealth of information and technology over which Isaac had reigned.

“He was inside,” Felix said, lowering his gun. “Isaac was inside the building I burned down back then. He was the kid whose legs were crushed by the support beams collapsing. When I got out of prison and went back to crime, he decided I needed to be taken down.” He shrugged out of his coat. “He gave me a choice: kill him and go back to prison where I can’t hurt anyone else, knowing an order for Phantom to disband would be sent out upon his death, or leave him alive, and he would never stop until all of Incindious had paid for my sins.

“I asked why he didn’t just keep trying to kill me after Adrian failed, but he said Adrian acted on his own. Adrian was too attached, thought he could keep Isaac from getting himself hurt if he took me out himself. But Isaac thought prison was a more fitting punishment than death.”

Blair stared at Isaac’s body. “But you don’t have to go back to prison, we can still get out of here.”

Julian stood in silence next to Spencer, tears gleaming in wet tracks down his face.

Felix stepped forward and pushed his coat into Blair’s hand. “They’re already here. Somebody probably heard all the gunshots. Go, all of you. The cops around here have been dying to arrest me for years—that should buy you guys some time.”

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