The Rephaim: Burn Part 10

'Both of you stay calm,' Jude says. He doesn't get between us, which is optimistic-and uncharacteristically naive.

'She's the last person who should know about this place.'

's.h.i.t, Rafa, and all these years I thought you trusted my judgment.' Jude says it like he's joking, but there's a hard edge to him. A warning.

'It's not your judgment I'm worried about.' Rafa's watching me now. His gaze flicks to my hands and I flex my fingers, shift my weight. Subtle, threatening. 'So what's the deal, Gabe? What's brought on this sudden need to talk to your brother?'

'That's between me and Jude.' My pulse kicks up a notch, adrenaline building. Rafa comes closer, stays on an angle to give me less of a target. I move forward to meet him away from the table-fewer objects to get in the way. Jude clicks his tongue in annoyance.

'For f.u.c.k's sake, you two, get over it. There's nothing to fight over anymore.'

Rafa and I lock eyes, share a bitter, knowing look. Yeah, there is.

'Gabe.' Jude's voice cuts through my anger: the way he says my name, more entreaty than censure. 'Please.'

I take a slow breath. I can do this. I'm here for Jude, not Rafa, and things were going fine until he turned up. Better than fine. I don't take my eyes from Rafa, try to breathe through my need to hit him.

'Daniel sent you, didn't he?' Rafa pushes. 'Of course he did, you're his puppet. Does he pull your strings in bed too?'

I lash out, pure reflex. My fist connects with his nose and Rafa's head snaps back in a mist of blood. Pain explodes across my knuckles, forks up my wrist.

'Hey!' Jude is between us before I can follow up or Rafa can counter. My brother pushes me back, not rough, and holds a hand out in warning to Rafa. 'Don't.'

'Come on, man, she f.u.c.king broke my nose!' Rafa holds his palm against his nostrils to catch the blood, glares at me through his fingers.

'You got what you were asking for.' Jude eyeb.a.l.l.s him, leaves no doubt he's not in the mood for an argument.

Rafa shifts his weight. 'So, what, you two have made up, just like that? The past decade doesn't count anymore?'

'It's a conversation with my sister, Rafa. We're not talking about the Sanctuary and we're not talking about our crew. It's twin stuff.'

Twin stuff.

Even before the split, neither of us had played that card for at least five years. It was the excuse we always gave when we wanted time on our own.

'Twin stuff my a.r.s.e,' Rafa says.

Jude doesn't react, he simply watches Rafa. Waits.

Rafa draws a slow, intentionally loud breath. Blows out a cynical laugh. 'Fine.' His eyes slice back to me. 'But next time I see you, it's on.'

I respond with a tight smile. 'Not a problem.'

A second later, Jude and I are alone again on the patio.

Slowly, I relax, rub the soreness out of my knuckles. I go back to the table and sit down. Jude does the same. He takes another mouthful of dessert, chews it thoughtfully. He swallows, wipes his mouth, and then lays his fork back on the plate. The sea breeze tousles his hair.

'Okay. It's time you told me what the h.e.l.l happened between you and Rafa.'

AN AWKWARD CONVERSATION.

I fold my arms and stare at the crescent moon on the table.

'Don't tell me it's nothing. I just had front-row seats to the drama between you two and I can see how personal it is.'

I wet my lips. 'A lot's happened since you and he left the Sanctuary, you don't think that's got something to do with it?'

'Oh, no doubt at all. But the day we left, you threw him through a second-storey window and forgot to let go. I know how much damage you did to each other: Zak saw you-and that was after the first shift with Micah.' Jude sits forward. 'Gabe, please. I need to know what it was about. I need to know why you didn't come with us.'

I hear the whisper of pain in his voice, an echo of the hurt and confusion from that day. It crushes the air out of me. I grapple for that old, familiar anger-the one thing that's protected me from the weight of the past-and come up empty. It's gone. All I feel now is sad. Fractured.

'Does it matter?' I ask quietly.

'Yes, Gabe, it matters.'

I pick up my coffee cup. I swirl the grounds, watch the sludge stick to the sides. 'But it's humiliating.'

He rests his fingers lightly on my wrist, so tentative and uncertain it breaks my heart a little more.

'I need to know.'

I close my eyes, breathe in and out. 'Okay.'

I tell him about me and Rafa, and Rafa and Mya. I can't sit still. I lean forward. Sit back. Retie my hair. Cross my legs and uncross them. Play with the fork. I avoid his eyes the whole time. By the time I finish, I've ma.s.sacred the remaining galaktoboureko. It's now a forlorn mess and when I press the fork into the mush, I leave a deep imprint.

'So, if you'd come to San Fran with me that night after the island and you and Rafa had never hooked up, you would've left with me?' Jude's voice is quiet.

I nod, still flattening the dessert. 'I was always coming with you. The only reason I didn't was because Rafa and Mya said they were going. I couldn't face the humiliation if people found out what happened.'

'You stayed because of your pride.'

My head comes up so fast my neck cracks. 'What? No-'

'What else would you call it?'

'Self-respect?'

'Self-respect?' He stares at me. 'Do you want to know the reasons I thought you stayed?'

I don't, but he's going to tell me anyway.

'First, I thought it was about Mya. That you were so threatened by the fact I occasionally valued her opinion over yours-'

'Occasionally? Jude, she was in your ear constantly-'

'Let me finish.' He shifts his weight. 'I thought you were so threatened you were trying to make me choose between her and you.' He holds up a hand before I can argue. 'Then I thought maybe you liked life at the Sanctuary too much to leave. That even though you knew all of Nathaniel's bulls.h.i.t, you'd rather put up with it and live a lie than take a risk and walk away. Which meant you'd either lied to me or yourself every time you told me you were willing to leave if we had to. I know you didn't want to leave Daisy and Micah-or even Taya and Malachi, for that matter-but they would've followed you if you left.'

'You don't know that.'

'Yeah, I do. And so do you. And then'-he runs a hand through his hair-'when I heard you'd hooked up with Daniel...s.h.i.t, Gabe, I thought you'd stayed for him. That you'd been on with Daniel before we'd left and you'd kept it a secret.'

I gape at him. 'You honestly thought I'd lied to you-and I did it to be with Daniel?'

'What else was I supposed to think? You never told me the truth, and Rafa's never let on, so all I had to go on was a.s.sumptions. And you'd been changing that year-'

'Not to mention a certain someone putting that idea in your head, no doubt.' I mean Rafa. It must have been easy for him to convince himself I stayed for Daniel too.

He shrugs but doesn't argue.

'Jude, let's not forget that you had some pride issues too. Once you gave Nathaniel that ultimatum you were never backing down, even if it meant leaving without me.'

Again, there's no argument. He slumps back in his chair, drags his hand through his hair. 'I've gone over that day a thousand times, Gabe. Beaten myself up over it a lot more. And if I could do it again, I'd do everything differently. All of it.'

'Me too. But we can't.'

'No, we can't.'

For a while, we don't speak. I face the sea, watch a pa.s.senger ship cruise towards the harbour, a long trail of churning water in its wake. A weight has lifted from my chest but I honestly can't tell if it's made me lighter-or if it's made me vulnerable.

'Are you going to tell Rafa you know about what happened?' I ask.

Jude looks at me as if I've suggested he take an axe to Rafa's Kawasaki. 'Are you insane? That's not a conversation I ever want to have.'

'Good.'

'For what it's worth, he and Mya haven't been together for years. These days all they do is snipe at each other.'

'Has there been anyone for you?' I ask. I don't want to hear about Rafa and Mya.

Jude laughs without humour. 'It's been a decade: there's been plenty. But that's not what you're asking, is it? No, there hasn't been anyone like that.' He studies me for a moment. Shakes his head.

'What?'

'I always used to think you and Rafa were kind of inevitable. What do you think would've happened if he hadn't f.u.c.ked it up? Would it have gone anywhere?'

I shrug, look away. 'I was embarra.s.sed about anyone finding out-and that was before I knew about Mya.'

For a moment I allow myself to remember that night: the playfulness, the intensity. The sensation of being completely dismantled and put back together. And then falling asleep resting against a body as familiar as my own. Exhausted. Satisfied. I shove the memory away. It's meaningless now.

'It doesn't matter, because he did f.u.c.k it up.'

Jude sits forward, looks at me seriously. 'Yeah, but so did we, and we're talking.'

'Slightly different circ.u.mstances.'

'That's true, princess'-and I feel a comforting warmth at his use of my nickname-'but forgiveness is forgiveness.'

I nod, but...I can forgive Jude for walking away from me-I know that now-but Rafa? What he did to me? What he said to me before I put him through that window? All the ways we've hurt each other since, with feet and fists and words?

I don't know if I can ever get past that.

I CAN SEE YOU.

Nine days later, and Jude still hasn't heard from Jason. But we're talking on the phone every day now. The first few calls are a little stilted but once we get through the awkwardness, the conversation starts to flow. Some days we chat about the people we've missed. Other days we catch up on each other.

He asks about my writing and I confess I haven't done much since he left. I don't tell him the backpacking stories became meaningless without him to share them with.

I ask him about surfing and he tells me he doesn't get to the beach as often as he'd like. I get the impression Outcast life isn't all that different from the demands at the Sanctuary. Only once do we tiptoe through a conversation about respective recent missions, neither of us wanting to say anything that might undermine us with our own people.

I certainly didn't tell him about my trip to Iceland today.

It's nine o'clock now, and I'm alone in my room, getting ready to fall into bed. I stretch out my legs on the bedcover, flick through channels to find something to drop off to sleep to. My fingers brush over the new scar above my left knee: a ten-centimetrelong reminder of the demon blade that sliced through tendon and muscle a few hours ago. Taya, Malachi and I ran into the Gatekeepers outside Reykjavik. The surface wound has healed over thanks to Brother Ferro and multiple shifts with Taya, but muscles are always slower to repair: the dull throb radiating up my leg and into my hip isn't going anywhere in the short term.

There's a soft knock on my door.

'What?' I call out.

'It's Zebediah.'

'Hilarious, Micah.' I pull on pyjama pants and shuffle to the door. I wrench it open and falter. 'Zeb. s.h.i.t, sorry.'

Zeb stands there looking startled, but he can't blame me for my reaction. He's hardly left the scriptorium wing in five years: not since Nathaniel let him convert an office there into a bedroom and add a bathroom. All he does is study and attend Council meetings. I've probably seen him twice in the last month and both times were in the library.

'May I come in?'

He's wearing a light woollen jumper and jeans that look almost new. His black hair is short and wiry, his beard neatly trimmed. I glance down at my threadbare t-shirt and baggy flannelette pyjama pants.

'Ah, sure.'

I clear newspapers and swords from my couch, gesture for him to take a seat. I sit on the bed. 'What's up?'

He clears his throat, looks uncomfortable.

'Spit it out, Zeb. I need sleep.'

'I'm curious about your reconciliation with Jude.'

Unbelievable.

'Daniel sent you.' It's not a question.

'No...Well, yes, but that's not why I'm here. I would like to know if there is a reason behind it.'

'Other than the fact he's my brother and we're tired of not talking to each other?'

'Yes, other than that.'

'What makes you think there's more? You don't think we've missed each other this past decade?'