Page 89 of Gunpowder

Wren let go of the knife and left it right where it was, embedded in Jinx’s foot. He heaved himself up to stand, sending Jinx stumbling backward. The longer strands of his bangs were stuck to his face with sweat or blood or maybe both. He was hypersensitive to the knives between his fingers. Adrenaline. It had to be, it was the only thing that could be keeping him alert through the growing list of injuries he was obtaining.

Then, over both of their heavy breathing in the small room and the whir of computers still left operational after his collision with the desk, he heard a gunshot. No, two. Almost simultaneous.

Jinx’s head jerked toward the sound and Wren knew this was the best chance he would get to escape this room alive. Jinx didn’t lock the door when they came into the room. At least not that he’d seen and he had to hope he was right. He threw the door open and staggered into the hallway that was twisting from side to side like the illusion tunnels in a fun house. Was he still bleeding or was the dampness he felt only from sweat? He didn’t know, didn’t have time to investigate. He had to run.

His brain made a hurried assessment of what he saw. One door to his left with a plain doorknob, two more to his right that were the same. One additional door to the left with a metal handle. That one, it had to be that one. No sooner than he grabbed the handle and pushed it open did he hear boots crunching through the aftermath of their fight in the computer room. Fuck. He’d known that even the hole he put in their foot wouldn’t deter Jinx for long but he had hoped for a little more time than this. The door he chose let him into a stairwell and climbed the stairs as fast as his aching body would allow. The gunshots had come from below so that was the last place he needed to be.

He had barely reached the next landing when he heard the door he had just used crash open. Well, he thought, pulling himself up another flight of stairs, maybe not the last place, but it’s probably not ideal.

The gap between them was closing too fast. Every time he heard Jinx’s footsteps they sounded closer, so he pushed through the next door he reached. Wren gasped as wind blew around his body and stung his wounds. He pressed his back against the door. The roof. He was on the motherfucking roof. He hadn’t even realized there were no more stairs to ascend even if he’d wanted to. He heard Jinx reach the other side of the door. I won’t be able to hold it. Jinx is too strong. Of course he had managed to get away, only to end up at the deadest of all dead ends. He looked up at the day bleeding out of the sky, the ruby colored sunset stretching out before him as though it meant to see him off.

The door flew open and knocked him forward, onto his knees. He was barely able to roll onto his back before Jinx snatched him up. His head lolled back in their grip and he laughed softly; what a ridiculous way to die. Jinx was talking but their voice was a distant hum and their face swam in and out of focus. The pain in Wren’s body had ebbed to numbness.

Wren couldn’t die yet, he still had too many questions. What the hell was Jinx talking about with my family?

And Blair. The blurry image of Jinx before him faded into green eyes and lightly calloused hands, soft lips against his and making him ask more questions than he ever had before. The biggest question of them all was still unanswered and it was the only pain he could still feel at the moment. Blair, he thought, why did you leave? You said you couldn’t be distracted, but—

Jinx was walking them both forward and Wren thought they might have been approaching the edge but he was already being held off the ground, so he couldn’t tell. Plus, his vision was too blurred to make sense of his surroundings.

But—

He could feel Blair’s fingers, capable of so much violence and destruction, clasping the necklace that still sat against his skin among blood and tattered clothes. Blair’s eyes looking at him with such terrifying and unfamiliar things reflected in them.

I don’t believe you.

Jinx shook him and briefly jarred his vision back into place. They were still talking but Wren didn’t hear a word of it. Also, there was now a second Jinx, the mirror images occasionally joining before blurring apart again. Wren knew he wouldn’t be conscious much longer. He stood on his tiptoes, trying to breathe, but Jinx’s grip under his jaw only tightened further.

Blair, loopy on morphine, smiled at Wren from his memories. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine? You know, from the song?”

Then it all went dark.

Blair squeezed the trigger and the man before him crumpled to the ground. Another lunged at him from the side and Blair struck them in the temple with the butt of his other gun without looking. He just kept moving forward. They had parted ways with Felix on the ground floor but his confusion and concern over Felix’s absence was a distant thought in the back of his mind now. Blair’s sole focus was his ascent of the building, clearing one floor at a time, searching it for Wren before moving to the next one. Spencer had his back but Blair’s rampage left little room for assistance.

On each floor, Blair left the last one alive long enough to shove the barrel of his 92 under their chin and ask, “Where is Wren Masters?”

None of them had been able to answer him. None of them were alive anymore.

There were two people in the last room of the tenth floor. Blair held a gun out to either side and shot them both in the head. The interrogations clearly weren’t working anyway. He turned and walked out of the room, kicking the twin empty shell casings aside as he went. Spencer fell in step with him as they made for the next floor.

Blair heard a crashing sound from above them. He jerked open the door to the stairwell and raced up the stairs. It could have been anything, but he had an undeniable feeling in his gut.

Wren.

25

GOODBYE

The commotion had already ended when Blair found the source of the sound. He did a quick sweep of the room with his guns raised before he determined that no one was there. The first thing he saw was a computer desk that seemed to have been split down the middle by force, and there was blood both pooled and streaked on the floor in the aftermath below. Beyond that was a plain wooden chair with broken zip ties lying around it. There was blood in front of the chair, as well.

Blair’s head pounded. If this was where Wren had been kept, and this was his blood—

Blair plucked a piece of fabric from the broken desk. It was bloody, most likely ripped off its owner’s body by the splintered wood and raking some flesh in the process.

He stood up to examine it in the light and his stomach plummeted even further.

The white cloth was soft and high quality. From a dress shirt, most likely. It could have been anyone’s, but Blair knew whose shirt it belonged to. He had just seen it not that long ago, white cloth against white skin, blue eyes widening in confusion as he said goodbye.

Blair balled the scrap of fabric up in his fist and realized he was shaking, but not with fear. He checked his guns and made sure they were both full. Something had come over him when he found out Wren was taken, something dark and ugly that roared even louder at the sight of Wren’s blood. It was something Blair had only ever seen before from a distance, in gold eyes reflecting the dancing flame of a lighter, in the twisting ink of a red dragon on a scarred back.

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