The Rephaim: Burn Part 18

Taya lifts her bandaged hand to get my attention. 'In the commissary, you said those women in Iowa believe we're the key to finding and releasing the Fallen.'

'No,' I say carefully. 'Not finding, just releasing. The family agrees with Nathaniel-the only thing they agree with him on-is that the Fallen are trapped in another dimension. But they believe the only way the Fallen can be freed is if we all agree to it: each and every one of the offspring who are alive, if and when we find them. That's why the old man didn't kill Mya when she was baby. He needed her alive, but separated from us to guarantee we'd never be able to free the Fallen if we found them.'

'And they knew about Jason, too?'

'Not until 1940. Someone in the family had a vision and they found him in New York. They warned Jason he had to stay away from the rest of us. Until this past week, he didn't know about Mya and Mya didn't know about him.'

'There's been a lot of vision-having over the last century or so,' Taya says, 'between this family, Jason's family.'

'But what about Mya?' Jones presses. 'How are we supposed to feel about that? About her?'

Ez crosses the gra.s.s and positions herself between us and the rest of the gathering. 'Mya spent her life with people who treated her as an abomination. Try to imagine what that was like.'

'I thought she ran away from home when she was seventeen,' Malachi says, ignoring the black look Daisy gives him.

Ez shakes her head. 'Something bad happened then, but she didn't leave.'

I picture Mya in that barn as a seventeen-year-old. Defiant and angry. Scared. I imagine her older cousins circling her, predatory.

'She got her own back,' I say. 'Brother Stephen said she torched the family church in the forties-we saw the photos.' I feel Rafa and Jude watching me but I keep my eyes on Malachi. 'And meanwhile, Brother Roberto and then Brother Stephen were playing spy at the Sanctuary, keeping the family in the loop on what the rest of us were up to.'

The mention of the traitor monks brings more muttering.

Brother Stephen, so frail now. It must have been tough for him when Virginia finally sent Mya to the Sanctuary. Had he even met his infamous relative before that? Did he talk to her? Was Mya so aggressive towards Nathaniel and the Five because she knew he was watching and would report back to Virginia?

Malachi scratches his neck, frowning. 'If she was meant to stay away from us, why'd she end up at the Sanctuary?'

I think about what the old monk told us. 'The family needed an insider to replace Brother Stephen, who would've retired by now if everything had gone to plan. Mya was meant to win our trust and then "sow seeds of discontent".'

'So she came to the Sanctuary to cause a rift?' Malachi's wrestling with it all, maybe trying to reframe his brief and disastrous hook-up with her.

'Pretty much.'

More silence, heavier now. Even Taya and Daisy-always so quick to sledge Mya (they learned that from me)-keep quiet. Jones slides off his beanie, runs his fingers through his hair. 'Then why did she stay with us after we left the Sanctuary?'

'That's something I hope we get a chance to ask her,' Ez says.

'Do you know where she is?'

'The last we heard she was with Virginia and Debra. And Jess.'

Jones frowns. 'LAPD Jess?'

'She's Virginia's other daughter.'

Ez lets the Outcasts absorb that piece of news: that Mya's contact in Los Angeles-one of only a handful of humans who know about demons-is connected with the farmhouse in Iowa. 'But...' Jones looks to me, confused. 'You've met her, Gabe. Jess isn't a psycho. If her family thinks Mya's an abomination, how can she and Mya be so tight?'

'Maybe the rest of the family isn't as hardcore as Virginia.' And then I remember Sophie, Virginia's teenage granddaughter. All lip gloss, jangling bracelets and righteousness. Butchered alongside her mother by Zarael and his horde. The old rage rises up. Blasting that farmhouse with a rocket launcher wasn't enough. We should've turned it to rubble.

Jones drags a knuckle down the middle of his forehead, presses it between his eyebrows. 'I don't get it. Mya must have known about the iron room...' He's looking to me for answers. Me. The person who blames Mya for everything that happened eleven years ago and everything that's happened since.

Last year, I would have used this information as a weapon. I could pretend otherwise, but I'd be lying to myself and I'm done with that. If I'd known the truth about Mya while I was still at the Sanctuary, I'd have phoned Jude, dropped the bomb, and sat back and watched the Outcasts implode. Waited for my brother to admit I'd been right all along about her.

It's not like she doesn't have it coming. She intentionally tore the Sanctuary apart. She took my brother from me, my friends. She screwed Rafa in the training room and spent a decade gloating because he and Jude chose her over me. Always so full of herself. And all the while, a traitor. Just thinking about it tightens my chest: another muscle memory.

But.

The same Mya saved my life this past week. Twice. Both times she could have walked away. And I've seen what being an Outcast means to her-watched her convince her crew to return to that G.o.dforsaken club in LA to save damaged kids from a fate worth than death. I've argued with her and fought beside her. Copped her criticism and her backhanded compliments.

'You should hear her out.' I say it quietly. 'If she wants to explain, you should let her.' I can feel Rafa staring at the back of my head.

'That's easy for you to say,' Daisy says. 'You don't remember what she did. What it felt like.'

I swallow. Feel clammy.

s.h.i.t. I have to tell them. Nothing I say now means a thing if I don't.

But I can't. They'll turn on me. All of them. They'll forget the past week and go right back to judging me on the Gabe scale.

I'm taking too long. I should say something-anything-but all I do is stare at the flaking rust on the car behind Daisy, aware of every muscle on my face, hoping I don't look as rigid as I feel.

Jude leans in, turns his face away from the others. 'Do it.' He says it so only I can hear. A parrot squawks down in the valley. Our eyes lock. I see understanding-and a glint of fear. He doesn't know what will happen either, where the conversation will lead. I chew on my lip. He leans even closer, his shoulder touching mine. 'Carefully.'

I wait three more seconds-everyone's watching, now, waiting-and then I blow out my breath. 'Actually, Daisy, I do remember.'

Her mouth drops open. 'What?' She looks around, sees that this is as much a surprise to everyone else as it is to her. 'Since when?'

'Since we shifted here this morning. Something happened to Jude and me on the way. When we came out this side...we remembered a lot of stuff.'

I feel the heaviness of those words in the silence that follows. The implication. And the reality that I can't unsay them.

Micah stands and walks towards me with startling purpose. I slip from the car, tensed. The only sounds around the camp are his footfalls. He reaches me in six steps, and I instinctively lift my hands, defensive-but then he grips my wrist and drags me into a hug. I resist for all of a second and then lean into him, my throat closing over.

'I've been wanting to do this since I saw you at the cabin but I didn't fancy a punch in the head.' He pulls back to look at me. 'G.o.d, I missed you.'

I blink once, twice. If I start crying now n.o.body's going to believe I remember being Gabe.

'Thanks,' I manage. 'For everything.'

He knows what I'm talking about: taking risks for me, even though I wasn't the Gabe he remembered; rea.s.suring me I wasn't a complete tool in that other life. Being willing to come to Pan Beach, to protect this town I care so much about.

'The least I could do.' Micah kisses the top of my head and steps back.

I feel a pang of regret. How would he feel if he knew Jude and I tried to free the Fallen on our own?

'So what happened last year?' Malachi asks.

I glance at Jude. Do we- 'Bel and Leon caught us off guard,' Jude says before I work out how to answer. 'Gaby took a blade to her spinal cord.' He pauses for a second, takes a breath. 'Next thing I know I'm in a world of pain in hospital, thinking I'm a backpacker and I've been in a car accident-and that my sister is dead.'

'That's all you remember?' Daisy directs the question at me and I nod. It's not a lie: that's all I remember.

'But we remember everything else before that.'

Rafa repositions himself on the car so he's facing Jude and me. His eyes are storm-dark. 'Where were you when you were attacked?'

'Idaho.' I try to say it casually. Fail.

'What the f.u.c.k were you doing in Idaho? Is that where Goldilocks took you to see Dani?'

The mood in the camp slides sideways again. This is news, even to Ez and Zak.

'Yes.' I hold Rafa's gaze, hope the tension between us doesn't cloud his judgment.

Somewhere to the west, an explosion shakes the mountain. Rafa turns towards it, briefly, and when he looks back he seems to register my expression. He lets his breath out loudly through his nose.

'It's been a year,' he says, his voice gruff. 'Why remember everything now? What happened to miraculously bring it all back?'

I feel the solid blackness again, that icy touch. If an archangel took our memories, it was most likely an archangel who gave them back.

'I have no idea,' I say, and I know Rafa doesn't believe me.

LIGHT THE FUSE.

The questions keep coming, and Jude and I try hard not to lie.

I wait for someone to mention our mothers. It's ironic: the secret we were most afraid to share-the bitter slice of history we kept from everyone for more than a century-is the very thing we laid bare a few hours ago. Our parting shot to Nathaniel before we left: that he killed them and stole all of us.

But n.o.body brings it up. I don't know if it's because the news is still too raw, or too big to grasp. Either way, I'm relieved when I hear the Butlers' four-wheel drive in the gully.

Conversation stops as the battered car clears the trees. The boys park where the track ends, at the edge of the sagging tarp. They climb out and face us, shoulder to shoulder: Mick, Rusty, Joffa, Woosha and the blond mullet.

Mick glares at the Rephaim. Rusty folds his arms. All of them on edge. They smell of petrol and cigarettes. It's a wonder they didn't blow themselves up.

'Okay?' Jude asks Mick.

Mick sniffs, nods. 'The fireys and cops'll be up there in an hour. Then they'll come looking for us.' He digs a nail between his two front teeth and flicks away whatever he finds. 'Sarge won't believe us no matter what we tell him, but he'll have nothing so it won't matter.'

'Plus,' Rusty says, 'there'll be serious s.h.i.t going down by the time they get around to hara.s.sing us. You come up with a plan yet?'

Mick hawks up something thick and wet from the back of his throat and spits it on the gra.s.s. 'I dunno about you lot, but we're clearing out the town.'

Jude raises his eyebrows 'And how are you going to do that?'

'Simple.' Mick taps the side of his head. 'We make a bomb threat and get the town evacuated-let a coupla charges go on the esplanade to get everyone moving. Then when the place is empty, we blow up the main road either end of town and block access. n.o.body gets back in for at least a few days.'

'Yeah,' Rafa says. 'Genius.' He leans his leg against mine, almost absently. I don't move away.

Mick looks around the campsite. 'Okay, so what's your big plan then?'

'We're working on it.'

'What's so f.u.c.ken hard?'

Jude sits forward, his boots resting on the car b.u.mper and forearms on his knees. 'It's not hard. It's the first time we've had to plan a defence. Usually, the demons are already wreaking havoc wherever they've set up shop. We go in, check out the situation and make a plan to ambush them.'

I've only been on one Outcast 'job'-two if you count the farmhouse-and that's pretty much how it went down.

'This time we have to wait for Zarael and company to show,' Jude says. 'We know they're coming during a storm, but not exactly when. No idea of numbers, no idea where they'll strike.'

'They've never come after humans before,' Ez says. 'Not like this. So that's a whole other issue.'

Malachi catches my eye. 'It'd be better if we could draw Zarael away from the town.' He's still standing behind Taya's chair, katana loose in his hand.

'It won't work,' Rafa says.

'Why not? The Gatekeepers are only attacking Panda.n.u.s Beach to draw us into a fight. If Zarael knows we're already here, we could jump-start the whole thing on our terms.'

And, like that, everyone has an opinion.

'How? Send back Zarael's Immundi scout?'

'As if Daniel will hand him over.'

'Where do we take the fight-beach or forest?'

'When's that storm due?'

'Do we have the numbers if he's recruiting Immundi?'

And then: 'It doesn't matter what we do, Zarael's going on a rampage through the town anyway.'

The last comment-from Taya-cuts through the noise. The Rephaim fall quiet.

'He's coming to do damage,' she says. 'Trust me.'

I catch the look she and Rafa exchange. After their time with Zarael in that iron room yesterday, they know his appet.i.te for fear better than the rest of us.

'It doesn't even have to be a rampage,' Zak says. 'Zarael might let Leon loose with his new toy. h.e.l.l, they might have a dozen rocket launchers by now.'

Rafa shifts his weight beside me. We flattened the farmhouse in Iowa with Mick's bazooka. Zarael retaliated by taking out a wall at the Sanctuary, blowing up the commissary. The Gatekeepers are definitely enamoured with the firepower now.

'What exactly did Dani see?' Malachi asks.

'Zarael and his horde advancing on the beach as a storm hits,' I say. 'Not hiding, wanting to be seen.'

'Has she ever been wrong?'

My skin p.r.i.c.kles and I can't help but look at Mick and his banged-up crew. Dani saw that happen and nothing we did could stop it. For all I know, we caused it.