The Rephaim: Burn Part 6

Everyone is looking at me, waiting to see what I'm going to do. The fact there's even a question has brought a new air of uncertainty into the piazza.

'Can we talk?' I say to Jude.

A flicker of surprise. 'Now?'

'My room.' I shift without waiting for an answer.

I arrive by my window in a patch of sunlight. My bloodied t-shirt is crumpled on the floor. I kick it towards my dirty clothes basket. Wait for Jude to arrive. The seconds stretch out, hollow.

Finally, my stomach dips.

'What's going on?' Jude is by the door. Unsettled.

'I thought it was only you and me leaving?'

'Isn't this better?'

'Better how?'

'We're not walking away from everyone.'

'No, only most of our friends.' Anger stirs. All he cares about is that Rafa and Mya are coming. 'And what happened to telling everyone about Nathaniel killing our mother?'

'We save it.'

It takes a second before I understand. He doesn't want the others to know about our secret, not now that so many of our friends are out on the limb with us. Ez and Zak. Jones. Rafa.

'Then why leave today? We can stay here, bide our time, drop the bombsh.e.l.l when the time is right.'

He crosses the room to me. His face is flushed, full of urgency. 'We can't stay here, not after everyone stood up with me. We have to go. Now.'

'Go where?'

'Anywhere, Gabe. It doesn't matter as long as we're together.'

Blood rushes in my ears. Can't he see the problem? It was supposed to be the two of us. I try to picture this new life, trying to coexist with Rafa, having to explain to everyone why we can't be in the same room without hurting each other. Watching Mya flirt with him and manipulate Jude. Jude treating her like she's his equal. And then I imagine everyone finding out Rafa slept with Mya and me within hours of each other. And I was second. Shame washes over me. I can't do it.

'I'm not leaving.'

It takes a few seconds for the impact of my words to hit. When it does it's like I've sucker-punched him. It almost finishes me.

'Why not?'

I look away. How can I tell him I've humiliated myself with his best friend?

'Because of what Daniel said?'

I swallow. My throat is packed with dirt. 'You know he's right about weakening our defences-'

'Bulls.h.i.t. It's Mya, isn't it? If she was staying, you'd go.'

'And if I said yes, would you leave her behind?'

His expression shifts, guarded now. 'Is that what you're asking me to do?'

'G.o.d forbid.' I push past him. He reaches for my arm and I knock it away. Harder than I intend.

'You're serious. Gabe, what the f.u.c.k has got into you? This is what we've been talking about since the day we found Jason-'

'That's right, Jude, we've been talking about it for over a century, so why the urgency now?'

'Because I just had an almighty showdown with Nathaniel and I drew a line in the sand!'

'He'll get over it.'

'I won't. f.u.c.k, I'm not backing down now. I can't.'

'I'm not leaving today.'

'Then when?'

'I don't know.'

'You'd stay here knowing what we know?' He sniffs, something he only does when he's really wound up. 'Does Daniel's opinion mean that much to you?'

'This isn't about Daniel and you know it.'

'Then tell me what it is about, Gabe, because this makes no sense.'

I pick up my bloodied t-shirt and hurl it into the wastepaper basket. It hits so hard the bin falls over. b.a.l.l.s of scrunched-up paper from my notebook spill onto the carpet. Torn pages of short stories that aren't working. 'I'm not running out the door because Mya thinks it's time to leave.'

'It's a little late for that now.'

We stare at each other and I watch it all play out across his face: the anger, the anxiety, the betrayal. 'I haven't got time to argue. There are people waiting down there who do want to leave.' The seconds draw out, each one clawing at me, ripping tendon, sinew, bone. I don't answer him. I can't say no again, not with him looking at me like that, so much hurt and anger.

'Well, thanks for not humiliating me in front of everyone.'

He hesitates for another second and then he's gone.

My eyes stay fixed on the indent in the carpet where he was just standing. The shaking starts in my legs. I walk to the bathroom, my steps wobbly. I stare at my reflection, sick and numb.

It's not too late. I can still shift down there, stand with Jude and fix this.

But all I see is Rafa, smug. Daisy fretting. Micah, uncertain. Mya, triumphant.

And I can't do it.

I have to let him go.

NOW.

WIPE OUT.

My feet pound the rainforest track. I focus on the ground, scanning for the roots that jut from the hard-packed soil around the next bend. Ferns reach out, brush my arms as I pa.s.s. Parrots flit through the trees ahead, flashes of yellow and blue, shattering the quiet with their squawking. I smell damp leaves, rain-sodden earth. A hint of salt from the sea beyond the fig trees and palms. The morning sunlight is muted in here, the forest full of shadows.

I'm running hard, arms pumping, legs aching. Twisting and turning along a track I know like the back of my hand. Sweat trickles down my face and neck, cool against hot skin. My t-shirt clings to my back, my heart thunders in my chest.

And still every jolt brings a new memory, each undercutting the other. Burrowing into me.

Jude walking away from the Sanctuary. From me.

Rafa goading, humiliating me. Both of us lying bleeding in broken gla.s.s in the Sanctuary piazza.

Memories from the Sanctuary. Memories from the past week. Real memories, fake memories. All pieces that belong to different puzzles. There's no way they can all fit together.

I reach a fork in the track and veer towards the beach out of habit. Patches of blue appear between the trees. The breeze picks up, carrying sounds of seagulls and pounding surf. I sprint right to the edge of the rainforest and then skid to a stop and collapse under a clump of panda.n.u.s palms, hands on knees, chest heaving. The sand blurs and I taste salt-sweat mixed with tears. It's a while before I can draw enough air to fill my lungs. Finally, I slump back in the sand. I draw my knees to my chest and stare out at the horizon, try to tell where the sea ends and the cloudless sky begins.

I feel exposed. Like I've been walking around naked and I've only just noticed.

Movement catches my attention closer to sh.o.r.e: three dolphins leaping out of a wave. Synchronised, playful. Water trailing from tailfins. I'd been in Pan Beach for two days the first time I saw a dolphin launch itself out of a breaking wave. It was one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen: still is.

And it hits me, hard and fierce: I love this place.

Further along, the water is crowded with surfers. A figure jogs down from the dunes, board tucked under his arm. Dark hair curling to his shoulders. Everything about him so familiar it makes my chest ache. He looks in my direction, shields his eyes. Sees me. I have no idea where he got the board, but it's no surprise that he did. When I need to think, I run towards water; when Jude needs to think, he needs to be in it or on it. Of course this is where we'd both come.

More memories crash in, these ones from the past two days: Jude on the dock in Hobart. Me, falling to my knees, clinging to him, sobbing. Jude defending me on the roadside near Pan Beach, putting Mya in her place. Standing beside me to stare down the Outcasts and the Five at the Sanctuary. Back to back with me last night, fighting Gatekeepers, the commissary on fire behind us.

I know I should talk to him. I need to talk to him. But first I have to work out where everything fits. What's real and what's not, what feels real-and if there's a difference.

Jude waits to see if I'm going to at least acknowledge him but I take too long. He bends down, secures his ankle strap. Then he turns to the sea, spends a good minute watching the sets roll in and break. He must feel my eyes on him, but he doesn't glance my way again as he jogs into the water. He jumps on his board, starts to paddle out.

Yesterday-or was it earlier today? I've lost track of time-he told me he hadn't surfed for a year. And as I watch him dive under a wave and come up the other side, I see how much he's missed it. He might have spent almost a year on a yacht battling the freezing ocean south of Tasmania, but he dreamed of a sun-kissed sea every day. I know this without him telling me. I knew it even when my memories of him were a lie. So much of him is the same as it's always been: att.i.tude, sense of humour, obsessions. Exactly the same. The bits that aren't are the ones I'm wrestling with-and his role in shaping the lie I've been living for the past year.

Out on the water, Jude sits on his board and waits. The surf is decent, but it's breaking hard. The swell rises, lifts him. He lets the wave go. Two younger guys further along the alley chase it, miss it. Jude lets another wave pa.s.s. When the next swell rolls in, he waits until the last second and then flattens himself on his board and paddles hard. And then he's up, carving the face of the wave. Balanced, focused, as if doing this only yesterday. I don't have to see his face to know he's lost in the moment. He twists sharply to avoid a kid on a board too big for him. The wave peters out well before sh.o.r.e and Jude dives in. He surfaces near a girl in a black vest and hipster bikini-n.o.body I know. He says something, she laughs, and then they grab their boards and head back out.

Jude catches three more waves before I notice another figure on the beach, standing at the base of the boardwalk steps.

Rafa.

My heart gives a startled thump. His hood is up so I can't see his face, but even from here I recognise the tension in his shoulders. Images from the past week rise up, smudge all my edges.

Rafa turning up in Pan Beach. Telling me who I was. Lying to me about our history.

Rafa putting himself between me and the Outcasts in Dubai.

Kissing me on the beach. This beach.

Rafa caked in blood in the iron room, his life leaching out of him. Willing to die to keep me safe.

Me wrapped around him naked, wanting him more than air...

Jude rides a wave all the way in to sh.o.r.e, milking it for all it's worth until he has to jump off in the wash. He scoops up the board and walks to Rafa, hair dripping down his back.

Rafa starts talking before Jude reaches him. Jude's hand comes up, as if Rafa needs calming. There's gesturing. It's not angry-more...emphatic. Rafa flicks his hood down, pushes up his sleeves. He's frustrated. I could get up and go over there, find out what's going on between them. I don't. I'm not together enough for one of them, let alone both. They talk, heated, for a few more minutes. They're guarded. I've never seen them like this, not with each other.

And then Jude gestures in my direction.

My breath catches. Rafa turns, sees me sitting in the shade twenty metres away. He knows. Jude's just told him. I can tell from the way he's standing, shoulders slightly hunched, hands jammed deep in the pockets of his cargoes. Neither of us acknowledges the other. We stare, twenty metres of sand and a hundred and thirty-nine years between us. A line of sweat snakes down my spine. I can't push back the memories clawing at me, but I can't ignore everything I've felt for him this past week either. A rush of sensations: the feel of his body pressed against mine, the taste of his skin. Heat flares. Confusion. Shame. The pang that hits is painful, knots my insides.

Rafa watches me, motionless, and before I can untangle my thoughts he turns and walks back to the boardwalk. Away from Jude.

Away from me.

NO BEACH FOR YOU.

I walk towards the esplanade, sweat cooling on my skin. I should go home and shower, but I'm just as likely to run into Rafa or Daisy or anyone else I'm not ready to face. I have to work out how to wear my old life. I've been someone else for a whole year; I'm a different shape now.

I take the stairs to the boardwalk opposite the Pan Beach library and gallery. The gla.s.s catches the morning light and turns the facade golden. A flock of lorikeets fuss and squawk on the rooftop. The parrots are obsessed with the gleaming arc of sea green that dominates the gallery roofline: a sculpted wave that's become Pan Beach's most controversial piece of public art. Half the locals don't think it's art; the other half do, and hate the fact it's always covered in bird s.h.i.t.

Next door, the tables at the Green Bean are already filling up on the footpath. I head for the library.

I sense it as soon as I step through the automatic doors. The stacks crammed with books; the quiet hum of air conditioning; the smell of freshly ground coffee from the Green Bean. It feels like home-as much as the smell of leather and sweat in the gym at the Sanctuary ever did.

Jane, our head librarian, is at the service counter with her back to me, searching the reserved shelves. What day is it? If it's Monday, I'm supposed to be working. I look around for Gaz, spot his dyed black hair and army fatigue t-shirt through a gap in the shelves. He might be lazy but he's covered my shift without me asking. And it's not the first time he's done it in the past week.

I duck behind the Firefly display I set up a fortnight ago-comics, posters, small-scale replica of Serenity, a mannequin in a brown coat-and go upstairs to the gallery. Jacques' freaky installation pieces dominate the s.p.a.ce. It feels like forever since I interviewed him downstairs, but it's only been nine days.

Nine days. My world has tilted dangerously on its axis since then. I don't even remember what it felt like before Rafa came to town.

I wander over to the wedding dress, meticulously created from blonde hair and nail clippings painted a pearlescent white. From memory, the piece has dead skin woven through it too. Lovely.

I've hacked limbs from h.e.l.lions and beheaded Gatekeeper demons, and Jacques' collection still makes my skin crawl.

'This is some weird s.h.i.t.'

Micah is standing at the top of the stairs studying a birdcage made from tiny braids of human hair. I'm so distracted I didn't hear him come up. He's changed into a white t-shirt and dark grey boardies. With his broad shoulders, spiky blond hair and chilled vibe, he more than any of us could pa.s.s as a local surfer.

'What are you doing here?' he asks. 'Did you forget that your town's had a sudden influx of agitated Rephaim? You bring us all here and then and you go AWOL-'

'I needed s.p.a.ce.'

'Interesting timing.' He glances at a dove made from toenail slivers, shakes his head. 'Daisy's in your kitchen sharpening swords and getting twitchier by the minute. You've got the redneck brothers champing at the bit to barricade the town and stockpile weapons on the beach, the Outcasts wanting answers about Mya-'

'I know, Micah.'

I cross the room and open the French doors to the deck. The sea breeze ruffles flyers on the information table. The esplanade hums with cars and cyclists. Beyond the beach, another set of waves rolls in. There are twice as many surfers out there now jostling for position.

Micah's tennis shoes squeak on the polished wooden floor. 'Why the urgent need to get away from us?'