by May, W. J.
“I re-opened a few stitches, that’s all. Stop worrying, please. I’m fine, I promise.”
“Hey, uh, not to interject, but…does anyone want to tell me where I’m going?” Julian called from the front seat.
“We’re a little busy back here, Jules,” Rae shot back.
“Take your time. I’ll just keep lapping the city…”
“…freakin’ fugitives…”
“Dude, just let me fix it,” Gabriel said again.
“Not a chance.”
“Why not?” Rae asked sharply.
“One, because he doesn’t have a medical degree.”
She threw up her hands. “Julian doesn’t have a medical degree.”
“Yeah, but I watched it three times on YouTube,” he called from the front.
Devon nodded seriously. “And I trust that.”
Rae rolled her eyes. “And two?”
“Two…” Devon looked Gabriel up and down. “Because he would like it too much.”
Gabriel glanced down with a chuckle. “Can’t argue with that.”
“Enough!” Rae blew back her hair in exasperation. “Gabriel—fix it. Now.”
With a victorious smirk, Gabriel leaned across Rae and anchored his hands on Devon’s chest and shoulder. Then, with surprisingly merciful efficiency and precision, he snapped it back into place. Devon cried out in pain, before falling back in his seat, cradling it tenderly in his other arm.
“You’re right,” Gabriel grinned, leaning back in his own seat, “I liked that way too much.”
“Heaven help us…” Rae moaned, burying her face in her hands.
Julian piped up again, “Yeah, uh, not to keep harping on it, but we’ve crossed the bridge like five times now and I’m running out of gas. Do we have any sort of destination in mind?”
“Just pick a place and park,” Devon groaned, leaning his head against the window.
“Hey, do you think you could conjure us up some coffee?” Gabriel asked suddenly.
“…legit, on the run, fugitives…”
“Okay, that’s it!” Rae yelled. “Julian, stop the car!”
Five heads lurched to a stop as they swung suddenly up against the curb.
“Thank…” Rae started to say. Then her voice trailed off as she realized where they were.
“What the hell are we doing here?” Devon asked in alarm, staring up at the swanky London penthouse. “Get us out of here, Jules!”
“Nice place,” Gabriel commented appreciatively. He turned to Rae with a wink. “Yours?”
Rae glanced up and down the street in fright. “Seriously, Julian! Anywhere but here!”
But Julian merely shook his head and got out of the car. The others scrambled after him in dismay, all in various states of worry and panic.
“Jules, have you lost your freaking—”
“They won’t come here,” he said simply. “They think it’s too obvious and that we wouldn’t dare. In no possible future do they come here.”
In a sign of the utmost respect of his skills, no one said another word about it.
Instead, Molly looked longingly up at her once-and-future home, before turning to Rae with a teary sigh. “…Rae?”
“Yeah, Molls?”
Molly’s lip quivered as she finally said the words for the last time.
“We’re all on the Council’s hit list now. All of us. Fugitives.”
Standing in the middle of the darkened London street that night, the five of them finally paused their perpetual forward motion and shared a most peculiar look.
Then Rae turned to her little friend and clapped her gently on the shoulder.
“Welcome to the club. We’ll get matching strait jackets.”
* * *
“Well, I love what you’ve done with the place.” Gabriel laughed as he looked around at the bare walls and stacked boxes.
“Yeah, well,” Rae helped lower Devon down into a chair, “I’ve been a little busy trying to thwart a psychopath and then break out of jail.”
He clucked his tongue and shook his head. “A good housekeeper knows there are no excuses for shabby work.”
“What are you? Martha Stewart?”
“That reference doesn’t work here, America.”
She rolled her eyes and turned back to Devon. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s get you into the shower. Molls, do we have hot water in this place yet? Uh…where’s the bathroom again?”
Molly lifted her hand to point, but Devon cut her off.
“Not before we talk about what the hell happened back there.” He was pale from the loss of blood, but determined to see it through. “Since when was there a trip-wire alarm set behind Carter’s desk? He never said a word about that.”
“He couldn’t have known,” Julian said, taking a seat behind him. “When the thing went off, he was as surprised as the rest of us were. In fact, he actually knocked out Carlton and Blanchard from behind so you could set off the gas.”
Gabriel remained quiet—looking at them with troubled eyes.
“So where does that leave us?” Rae asked in frustration. “Someone else put it there without Carter’s knowledge? Meaning someone inside the Privy Council suspects Carter now? It doesn’t make any sense.”
A loud throat cleared from the corner, and they turned to look at Molly.
“Let me be the first to say, I no longer care.” She sighed in exhaustion. “So something else went tragically wrong. Honestly, at this point, did anyone expect anything different? The bars wouldn’t move, Devon broke his arm again, Julian got caught in a trance and fell into a fountain—”
“Wait…what?” Devon asked curiously, turning to look at his blushing friend.
“The point is, instead of clearing our names, we’re freaking fugitives! So I’m not dealing with it—I’m not going to try to puzzle it out. I’m done.” Molly’s bright eyes flashed as she stared at them. “We’re not going to get any answers until we can talk to Carter, and we’re not going to be able to do that any time soon. So in the meantime, I’m going to forget about the Privy Council, and try to enjoy what will probably be the only night I ever get to have in my own freaking apartment!”
In a blur of auburn hair, she hopped back down and held out her hand in front of Rae.
“Vodka,” she demanded, with no further explanation.
Rae very calmly conjured a glass for Molly, and they all watched as she stomped across the tiled floor and slammed the door to her bedroom.
Her words and the frustration behind left a profound effect on the room, and no one spoke for a long time afterwards. It was several minutes before Gabriel finally glanced at Julian.
“You fell in a fountain?”
Julian flushed, and gestured to his dripping clothes. “This whole time, none of you guys wondered why I was wet?”
Gabriel and Rae stifled a smile while Devon gave him a painful shrug. “You didn’t wonder why I was covered in blood,” he countered.
Julian conceded with a yawn. “Honestly, you’re usually like that now. I think maybe your dad was right; ever since you started hanging out with this one,” he gave Rae a nod, “you’re always all messed up from something or another.”
“Thanks, Jules,” Rae said scathingly, but he shot her a grin and she had to smile.
Gabriel watched the entire exchange with a rather strange expression on his face. His eyes flicked from Molly’s closed door, to Julian and Rae’s lighthearted teasing, to Devon slowly bleeding onto the new couch.
“You guys have really been through a lot together, haven’t you?” he asked softly.
Rae turned to him in surprise, but the other two boys seemed too fatigued to notice his sudden change in tone.
“It’s something you get used to,” Julian said distractedly, wringing his sleeve onto the floor.
Devon flinched as he flexed out his arm. “It’s not like we really had a choice. Cromfield’s insane—he’s a murderous freaking psychopath.” His eyes leveled on Rae. “And he happens
to be after the one thing that matters most to me in the whole world.”
“He means me,” Julian whispered loudly.
But Devon had locked eyes suddenly with Gabriel, staring at him like he’d just noticed he was sitting there for the first time. “And on that note…”
He stood up so suddenly that Rae jumped up as well. Gabriel took a step instinctively backwards—probably afraid he was about to get hit. But Devon didn’t hit him. Instead, he crossed the room and did the last thing that anyone present would have ever expected.
Devon gave Gabriel a hug.
Gabriel froze dead still, staring at Rae over Devon’s shoulder with wide eyes.
“What the hell is happening right now?” he muttered. He glanced at Devon nervously, “You don’t…like…have a knife on you or something, right?”
Devon chuckled, but when he pulled away he couldn’t have looked more sincere. “I wanted to thank you. Back in the cavern when…when you caught her.” His eyes travelled over to Rae, and an automatic smile warmed his face. A smile that still lingered when he turned back to Gabriel. “She’s my whole…” He shook his head. “Anyway—thank you. I mean it.”
Gabriel shifted a bit uncomfortably, like he had never been on the receiving end of a hug before. “I think you lost a bit too much blood, my friend,” he joked, trying to shift the attention.
Devon grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m serious, man. You’ll get no more complaints from me. And if there’s ever anything I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to—”
“You could let me sleep with your girlfriend…”
Devon’s smile faltered a moment as Rae covered her face. His hands clenched into momentary fists before he smoothed them out and said, “Look, I’m really trying here—”
“I know, I know,” Gabriel cut him off with a genuine smile of his own. Rae suspected that Devon’s little speech touched him more than he let on. “I’m just messing with you. And it’s cool, about before. Anything I can do to help.”
Without thinking about it, he clapped Devon cheerfully in return…on his torn shoulder.
“Son of a—”
* * *
It was a testament to how physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting the day had been that they were able to get even a wink of sleep that night.
Of course, the last hours of the evening hadn’t exactly helped. Julian had downed half a glass of whiskey to steady his nerves before trying to sew shut Devon’s stitches, which had re-opened. What had resulted was a yelling match between the two boys that paused on a note of terror as Molly came storming out of her bedroom in a facemask to see what all the fuss was about. The argument then shifted to whether or not ‘green mud’ actually did moisturize your face. Rather than getting in the middle of it all, Rae and Gabriel had sat quietly on the couch, watching and holding in their amusement as accusations and bits of green sludge flew around the room.
Things finally cooled off when Rae gave Devon a shot of morphine for the pain, and gave the remainder of Julian’s drink to Molly to help calm her down. After that, it was nothing but a quick brawl over showers before the lights snapped off and the house settled down to sleep.
But not everyone was asleep, a fact that Rae discovered as she tiptoed across the living room a few hours later to get a glass of water from the kitchen.
Why am I even getting up to do this? she thought as she padded across the tile. I could have just conjured this in my room. Yeah, but then Devon would have woken up and—
It was then that she saw a pair of green eyes watching her.
“Gabriel!” she whispered, clutching her chest. “You scared me.”
Julian was passed out on the couch next to him, an arm thrown haphazardly across his face, but Gabriel was sitting exactly where Rae had left him on the couch. She doubted he had slept at all. As his bright eyes studied her in the dark, she suddenly wished that she was wearing more than a pair of pajama shorts and a thin camisole. But for one of the first times ever, Gabriel wasn’t leering at her body. In fact, he was gazing deep into her eyes with a very thoughtful expression on his face.
“Devon’s a good guy,” he said suddenly.
Her eyebrows shot to the ceiling. “Devon’s a good guy?” she repeated sarcastically. “Are you drunk or something? Who am I talking to here?”
A faint smile flashed across his face, but he looked steadily into her eyes. There was something almost appraising about his expression, like he was considering something.
“I’m serious—he’s one of the good ones. You all are.”
Rae was surprised to be included in his assessment. Had he not thought so before?
“Um…thanks, I guess?” She phrased it as a question, giving him an inquisitive smile.
He chuckled softly, running his fingers back through his blond hair. “Sorry. I guess it’s just been a long day.”
Indeed, there was a note of weariness in his voice that Rae hadn’t noticed before, along with a look of deep exhaustion beneath his lovely sparkling eyes.
After glancing at Julian to make sure he was still asleep, she settled tentatively beside Gabriel on the couch, curling her legs up beneath her and angling towards him. The mission had taken its toll on him just as it had on the others. But while she and her friends got through days like this by playfully bantering and leaning on each other—Gabriel didn’t have anyone. She was pretty sure of it.
And he saved your life…
Her skin flushed pink as she dropped her eyes to the couch. She remembered every second in painful, terrifying detail. The way her heart had seized up as her fingers slipped away from Devon’s. The feeling of sickening horror as she started to fall. And then the moment of blinding, exquisite relief as another strong hand latched onto hers.
“What’s wrong?” he asked softly, misreading her expression.
“Nothing’s wrong, I just…” she looked up quickly, then paused when she saw his face.
They stared at each other for a long moment. Then she took his hand.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “For catching me. I didn’t say it before, but…thanks.”
He didn’t say anything. He just stared at their hands. Then, slowly, his fingers wrapped around hers.
“It felt like the right thing to do…” he murmured, almost in himself.
Wait …what? She slowly pulled back her hand, and for the second time that night, she felt like she was falling. He stared steadily back—absurdly beautiful and unnervingly intent—until, finally, it was she who had to look away.
From the corner of her eye, she saw his shoulders drop half an inch. When he spoke, he almost sounded disappointed. But it wasn’t at her; that was the strange thing. She might not understand it, but none of it was directed at her.
“You should get some rest, Rae.” He twisted around so he was lying down himself, his blond hair fanning out around him like a halo. “It’s going to be another long day tomorrow.”
For a moment, she just stared. There was something about his words that chilled her skin, like he knew something she didn’t. Like there was something else about to come.
Then Devon stirred in the next room, and she pushed to her feet. She forced a tight smile and bid him goodnight before disappearing back into her bedroom. As she settled down on the mattress beside him, Devon’s arm automatically wound around her waist.
But for the first time, she took no comfort in the gesture. The warmth of his skin and the steady pulse of his heart did nothing to steady her nerves.
She wasn’t sure anything could…
She couldn’t remember falling asleep. She couldn’t remember much of anything after she’d floated back to her room just a few hours before.
The morning sun made no sense to her.
Rae didn’t need to guess what Molly was going to say a moment later when she burst into the room the next morning. She knew what had happened the second she heard the scream. Exactly what had happened.
“Gabriel’s gone
! He took the bloody brainwashing piece!”
* * *
“I told you, I didn’t see a thing!” Julian exclaimed for the fifth time, wiping dried blood off his face. “The bastard knocked me out in my sleep. Must have known I would have seen when he decided to—”
“Why was it in his jacket?” Molly said accusingly.
“Why not?” Devon shot back, pacing angrily through the penthouse. “Carter trusted him, so we trusted him. He helped us break into the Privy Council, for crying out loud. We had no reason not to trust him.” His face darkened menacingly. “I swear, when I get my hands on that piece of shit—”
“But why was it even in his jacket?” Molly insisted. “Rae’s the one who recovered the piece.”
“Because I gave it to him,” Rae spoke up for the first time.
She remembered the look on Gabriel’s face when she slipped the device through the bars; the way his eyes had flicked between it and her before he finally pocketed it and reached down to help. Why had he even bothered? He’d gotten what he came for.
“Jules, can you see anything yet?” Devon pressed, glancing at his watch. “Who knows how much of a head start he already has.”
“I should have known,” Rae said quietly.
Molly tossed her hair back dismissively. “Come on, Rae. How could you have known?”
“When I talked to him last night…something was off. I could feel it.”
Devon paused mid-step, his eyes flashing uncertainly to her face “You talked to him last night?”
Rae shook her head, lost in thought. “Just for a minute. I was getting a glass of water from the kitchen and he was still awake.” She played the whole thing back in her head, heart quickening as she glossed over certain parts. “There was just something…weird about him. He looked disappointed…I think it was with himself. Kept talking about what good people we were.” She glanced up at Devon. “Said that you were a good guy.”
Molly leaned over with her hands on her hips. “That didn’t cue you in?”
“Come on, Molls. Lay off.”
“He’s going to the train station,” Julian said with sudden authority, his eyes darkening from their opaque white. “And he’s alone. If we leave now, we might be able to catch him.”