Page 84 of Vanish Into Light

Gallo kept his gaze fixed on Gavin, who took a breath, clearly intending to repeat whatever the thunder had drowned out. Gallo didn’t give him the chance.

“Look, I don’t care what your deal is” – though he thought it was mostly to do with having hero-worshipped Lance more than he’d ever let on, and being woefully disappointed in his personal decisions, not that they were any of Gavin’s business – “but this isn’t about you. If Beck has to go, well, then, he’ll go. Or we’ll send him, or whatever.” He raised his voice when Gavin started to protest. “But Rose and Lance are our friends, and they care about him, whether you like the fact or not, and they’re gonna be devastated afterward. What good does being a dickhead do?

“You think Lance doesn’tknowthis is weird?” he stressed. “Trust me: he does. But you can’t help who you fall in love with, so just shut the hell up about it already. Or I’ll make you shut up.” He lifted and flexed the gleaming back metal of his prosthetic hand for emphasis.

Gavin’s face had slowly blanked throughout Gallo’s little…well, it was a threat. More or less. At the end, wide-eyed gaze flicking to Gallo’s metal hand, he whistled. “Shit, dude. When’d you get so badass?”

“He always has been,” Tris deadpanned, though a glance proved his gaze was touched with pride. “You’re just too damn stupid to notice.”

Warmth flooded Gallo’s chest, and he smiled at his boyfriend – earned a fast wink in return.

Just before the radio on the table started buzzing.

Tris answered it, and Bedlam’s scratchy voice floated out into the room. “Where the fuck is du Lac? He’s not answering his comm.”

When Gallo blinked, he saw Lance’s face as he’d seen it last, once Beck and Rose had left, and he’d gone slumping out of the dining room, devastation writ large in every feature. “Uh…” he started, and Tris stepped in.

“His comm got busted,” he said. “All this rain.”

Gallo sent him a silentthank you.

Bedlam made an unhappy noise on her end. “Shit. I don’t think it’s the rain. There’s–” The sound cut out for a moment, and thunder cracked like a gunshot overhead. The windows rattled in their frames. “…getting worse,” she said, when the radio finally flickered back to life.

“What’s getting worse?” Gavin asked.

Static crackled. Then: “…goddamnweather!” She was shouting on her end of the transmission. “There’s – something about – pressure. Looks like…fucking hurricane…on radar.”

Tris fiddled with his tablet a moment, and then his brows lifted a fraction. He turned the screen toward Gallo, and the radar imaging had changed completely in a matter of minutes. The patches of orange and red had converged; the system bearing down on the city did, in Bedlam’s words, look like a hurricane: a massive, slowly-rotating storm cell with a visible eye.

Gallo’s throat went dry. “I’ve never seen anything like that.” And he hadn’t. For most of his life, the rain that plagued the post-Rift world had shaken across the country in trackable bands, the occasional hard storm bubbling up if the conditions were right. This was something else entirely.

“You need to abort,” Bedlam said, the static lessening. The connection clear enough to hear the note of strain in her voice.

“Abort?” they all there said together.

Gallo said, “Ma’am, there’s been some developments here.”

“There have been at base, too,” she snapped, without giving him a chance to explain. “We’ve had four conduit attacks in the last twenty-four hours.”

“On base?” Gallo asked, startled.

“Yes. Fifteen casualties. We’re on full lockdown – we couldn’t get you ground or air support if we wanted to, and the drones are picking up more heat signatures by the minute: the city’s collapsing. You have to get out of there.”

The next clap of thunder reverberated through his chest.

As it faded, Gallo thought of a sword through Raphael’s heart, and ofLucifer, and it felt like things were reaching a climax. A tipping point.

“You need to–” Bedlam started, and then the connection died.

Gavin picked up the radio. Clicked it off and on a few times; smacked it. “It’s just…dead.”

Then the power went out.

EIGHTEEN

The storm worsened on their flight back to the mansion. Rain stung her eyes, soaked her clothes through until the warmth of Beck’s touch gave way to full-body shivers. Lightning strobed almost constantly, and the percussive force of the thunder that followed echoed in her stomach.

Beck’s grip was strong and solid, though, where he held her – as were his wings, pumping steadily as he bowed his head over hers and flew flat and straight, right into the wind.

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