The Rephaim: Burn Part 19

'Not in our experience.'

Mick nods. 'Then the place has to be empty when they get here.'

'I agree,' Ez says. She's back beside Zak. 'But we're not setting off explosions. Anywhere.'

'If we don't blow something up, the cops'll think it's a hoax. It's the only way you'll get those fat a.r.s.es out of the station.'

Mick flips open a packet of smokes in his top pocket and pulls one out with his teeth, stows it in the corner of his mouth. He holds out a hand and Rusty pa.s.ses his lighter. Mick fires up the end, takes a slow drag and then blows it out through his nose. 'I'm not hearing any other ideas.'

Mick's right. n.o.body's got anything else. Maybe they all agree it's the best plan. Maybe they're waiting for Jude or me to come up with something better. I might have my memories back now, but it's not a magic bullet. Ez was right when she said none of us had faced anything like this before. Certainly not Sanctuary Rephaim: we were too busy ignoring demon activity unless it held up our search for the Fallen.

The Fallen.

Jude and I need to decide what to do about them. Or, more importantly, what to do now we remember who our father is.

'Does Pan Beach have an evacuation plan?' Ez asks.

Mick shrugs. 'Has to. We're on the coast, right-cyclones and all that s.h.i.t?'

'What happens if it's activated?'

'No f.u.c.ken clue.'

Ez takes a calming breath, right as her phone rings. She takes it from her back pocket, frowns at the screen before she answers. 'h.e.l.lo?' Her free hand strays to Zak's shoulder. Mick carries on talking-something about remote detonation-but I'm watching the way Ez's grip tightens on Zak. Enough to make him look up. 'Slow down.' She turns away to concentrate on the voice on the other end. 'When?' She listens. 'Okay. Stay where you are. Leave it with me.' She disconnects and her eyes meet mine. 'That was Jess.'

Jones twists around so he can see her. 'Is it Mya?'

'She's gone back to the club looking for a fight.'

'In LA? Shouldn't that be out of action by now?'

'The bas.e.m.e.nt and club are crime scenes, but the bar is still open.'

'Which means Zarael will still have someone in play. They'll tip him off.'

'I imagine that's the point.'

n.o.body asks why Mya would put herself in Zarael's path: provoking conflict is her idea of stress relief. But this is offering herself up to Gatekeepers. It's suicidal.

'She took two handguns and a katana,' Ez says. 'She plans on going down fighting.'

Jones grunts. 'And we're going to let her?'

Daisy uncrosses her feet, crosses them again. Doesn't look at Jones, or Jude. I can read what she's thinking. Not your problem.

Jones stands up. 'Are we going to let Mya get herself killed?' His voice is harder now. The Rephaim look everywhere but at him. They don't know what they're supposed to do now Mya's a confessed traitor.

'We've got a situation to deal with here, too,' Daisy says quietly.

Jones levels his gaze at her. 'We're never going to get answers from Mya if a Gatekeeper takes her head as a trophy.'

Daisy lowers her eyes.

'Ez should go.' Zak gets up from his chair. 'And Jude.'

Jude stiffens.

'No,' Ez says. 'He's the last person she needs to see.' She walks around the fire pit to my brother. 'Your opinion means more to her than anyone else's and if she sees that look'-she gestures to his face-'it will gut her quicker than any sword.'

'What makes you think my opinion means anything anymore?'

'Yours is the only call she's taken in the last eight hours.'

Jude gives nothing away. I wonder if he's feeling the betrayal. Or is this more about the fact he spent a decade fighting beside her at my expense? How does that fit now?

Either way, Ez needs back-up.

'I'll go.'

All eyes shift to me.

'Yeah,' Rafa says, 'that's a brilliant idea.'

'No, it could work.' Ez measures me. 'a.s.suming you can keep your temper?'

'I'm not coming along so I can hug her.' I manage a tight smile. 'But there are a few things I'd like to sort out before she throws herself on a demon blade.'

YOUR SHOUT.

We arrive in the alley behind the club. It's late afternoon in LA, the sky washed out and hazy. The air still. I breathe in exhaust fumes, stale bourbon and something funky from the bins; freeway traffic hums a block away.

I hate this place. The gate to the caged portico around the back door is shut and locked. The last time I was here, Bel had me pinned against those bars. I'd be dead if Mya hadn't put two bullets in his forehead and one in each biceps. Gave me a fighting chance before she ran off to help Jess get the kids to safety-the trembling, dull-eyed kids we found cowering in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Mya's responsible for a lot of s.h.i.tty, underhanded things, but what happened here on Friday wasn't one of them.

I still don't know what to do with all these shards, all these pieces of Mya. I'm hoping for an epiphany when I see her.

Ez takes a moment to check her knives. 'Gabe, can I say something?'

I nod, unsure if I want to hear it.

She lifts her free hand to shield her eyes against the sun. 'You've always been fearless, that goes without saying. But what you've coped with this past week-how you've handled yourself, not knowing who you are or who to trust...It's the gutsiest thing I've ever seen.'

I swallow, try to hide how much that means to me. 'I didn't do it on my own.'

'That's part of my point. You let us help you.'

'Ez, I didn't remember who I was. Who you were.'

'You knew we hadn't been allies in a while. Zak and I made that pretty obvious.'

I give a short laugh, remember their reaction to me in my kitchen: bracing for an attack. 'You stuck around.'

She studies me. 'You remember who you are but you're not the same Gabe anymore, are you?'

'What makes you think that?'

'The fact we're standing outside this club having this conversation. And because you haven't started throwing punches.'

She doesn't mention Rafa, but there's no missing her meaning.

I head for the end of the alley, look back over my shoulder. 'It's still early.'

A few traces of last week's riot remain in the street: a burnt-out van, blackened and gutted; graffiti-covered rollerdoors peppered with bullets; crime-scene tape over a broken window. The front door to the club is covered in spray-painted phallic symbols and scarred with cigarette burns. Bolted to the side of the building are vertical neon letters that spell out Angels Den, lit pink even under the insipid Californian sunshine. A twenty-four-hour taunt to the Outcasts.

I push open the door and we step into murkiness. There are no voices. No thumping music. More crime-scene tape hangs over the entry to the strip club, empty darkness beyond it. I draw my sword. Ez has hers pressed to the side of her leg.

We pa.s.s through a curtain of faded purple and green beads-they jingle behind us as they settle-and into a narrow, badly lit bar. It smells like every other s.h.i.tty dive I've been in: stale beer and musty carpet. Cheap cigars and cheaper aftershave. The only sounds come from a television mounted on the wall. A baseball game. Even before my eyes adjust I know there are only three people in here: a skinny barman with bony shoulders; an old guy hunched over a beer gla.s.s; and Mya. She's at the far end of the bar. Her katana is laid out in front of her, a bottle of rum and a shot gla.s.s beside it. The resentment rises, old and familiar. But it slips away before I can work out if I need it. Or want it.

The barman notices our swords. He grunts and shuffles to a back room. Mya pours herself another drink, ignores us.

'Hey,' Ez says as we approach. She pulls up a stool, gives Mya plenty of s.p.a.ce. I stay standing.

Mya throws back the drink, bangs down the gla.s.s and finally looks our way. Her face is ashen, kohl smudged around her eyes. She looks older than the last time I saw her, worn down and strung out. She scowls at me.

'Have you come to rub my nose in it?' She slurs enough to suggest the rum bottle was full not too long ago. Annoyance stirs. I can't help it.

'I've come to keep you alive long enough so I can.'

A bitter smile. She gestures to the katana in my hand. 'If you remembered how much you hated me, you would've used that thing already.'

'Mya, she does.' Ez says it sharply enough to drag Mya's attention to her. 'Gabe remembers.'

It takes a second for the words to penetrate the rum haze and then Mya stumbles back from the stool. She s.n.a.t.c.hes up her sword, knocking over the empty shot gla.s.s. Points the blade at me as she backs away.

'We came to talk,' Ez says and lays her weapon on the bar.

Mya's not listening. The tip of the katana trembles, pointed at my throat. 'You must be so happy with yourself right now.'

'Oh for f.u.c.k's sake, you really want to play the victim?' I don't have time to coddle Mya. We need to get back to Pan Beach. 'After everything that went down between us, you had a chance to do things differently and what did you do last week, Mya? You dragged me to this s.h.i.t-hole to score points against the Sanctuary.'

'Does it kill you, knowing you did a job with the moneygrubbing mercenaries?' she says. 'Or is it the fact you did something useful instead of cowering behind Nathaniel?'

'Save the martyr act. It might work on Jude. It doesn't work on me.'

A harsh laugh. 'I knew the second you remembered who you were you'd turn straight back into the same old uptight, heartless b.i.t.c.h.'

I lunge at her and pin her to the wall by the throat. A stool falls sideways and I kick it clear. I bang Mya's wrist against the wood panelling. Once, twice. She drops the sword and I lean in closer. 'Then what does that make you?'

Her face hardens. 'The piece of s.h.i.t you always said I was.'

I tighten the grip on her neck, smell the drink on her breath. 'I didn't like you. I never said you were a piece of s.h.i.t.'

'You thought it, though.' She tries to push me away but I slam her back into the wall. She could shift. She doesn't. 'You never gave me a chance-'

'You didn't want one.' Anger thuds in my chest, at my temples. Our voices are loud now. 'You came to the Sanctuary with one goal: tear the place apart. And that's exactly what you did.'

'Maybe if you hadn't treated me like I was something you'd stepped in, things might have been different.'

'Bulls.h.i.t. You were always going to create a rift. That mightn't have been the original plan when your psycho grandfather let you live, but it served his purposes just as well.'

Her eyes go wild. She thrashes against me, throwing punches and lashing out with her boots. I toss my sword aside and block a punch. She swings again; I catch her by the wrist, wrench her arm behind her back and shove her against the wall. I grab her neck and press her face against the timber. Ez stays out of the way, but I feel her anxiety.

'You had everything,' Mya spits at me. 'You had Jude. You had Rafa. Everyone thought you walked on water. How much would it have hurt you to cut me some slack?'

'So your scheming was my fault?'

'I wanted a home,' she says, teeth clenched. 'You have no idea what it's like to be despised by your family, to be the abomination, the thing that has to be tolerated because it's their holy duty.'

'And that gave you the right to take away people I cared about?'

She glares at me through one eye. 'I didn't take them away: you let us leave. And you were fine without us. You still had Malachi and Micah. And Daniel. And Daisy and Taya worshipped at your feet for staying loyal to the Sanctuary.'

I should tell her how wrong she is. How losing Jude almost crippled me; almost cost me every relationship I had left at the Sanctuary. She'd understand: she's feeling that debilitating remorse right now. We've both paid the price for our pride and our lies. The realisation steals the oxygen from my anger because there's a sting of truth in her accusations: I did think I was better than her.

'You're not helping yourself, Mya,' I say, lowering my voice. 'This is where you remind me how you saved my life twice in the last few days. How if it wasn't for you, Rafa and I would both be dead in that iron room.'

'Doesn't matter, does it? I'm a traitor.' All the fight goes out of her with that last word. All the rage. She sags against the wall. 'You win, Gabe.'

I have a brief moment of perverse satisfaction-closely followed by shame. I lean in. 'Of course it matters. That's the whole point of me being here.'

She stays slumped against the grimy wood panel, not moving. Her neck is blotchy, her blonde hair flat and lifeless. 'Do what you have to do.'

It takes a second for me to understand: she thinks I'm going to kill her-and that Ez is going to let me. And even thinking that, the most reckless of all of us isn't putting up a fight.

'You're a lot of things, Mya, but I didn't pick you for gutless.'

She stirs under my grip.

'Do you care at all about my brother? About your Outcasts?'

Mya closes her eyes and a tear slips out from her lashes, leaves a watery grey streak down her cheek. 'I would have died for them.'

'Then suck it up, take responsibility for your own mess. And get your head back in the game.'

I give her neck one last squeeze and walk back to the bar, pull up a stool. I can't look at her anymore. It would be so much easier if I could keep blaming her for what happened a decade ago. So much easier if I still felt superior to her. But I don't. I'm in no position to judge. I never was.

'Mya,' Ez says, her voice thin. 'Come and sit down.'