23. GRADUATION
23
GRADUATION
Walking up to the red door of the bar used to feel like coming home. Hell, this was the place that taught him what home was supposed to feel like. Blair stopped and stared up at the brick building. Everything that had given him a sense of safety before had been ripped away. Where this place had once been a haven, now he couldn’t look at it without anger and resentment boiling in his chest. He’d always thought that nothing could hurt him as long as he had Incindious. Nothing could hurt worse than losing his place here. His eyes burned but no tears came. He didn’t think there were any left. They had streamed freely the whole drive back from Manhattan, mixing with the rain, and he could have cried as many tears as there were raindrops in the sky and it never would have amounted to the pain in his heart.
Blair found the door unlocked and went inside. How am I supposed to look at the boss? For fuck’s sake, he had admired, idolized Felix from the moment they met and now all he could feel was the barrel of his gun against his forehead. Those fiery gold eyes had burned out and gone cold as they seemed to look through Blair rather than at him. He quelled the nerves trying to form knots in his stomach. Friend or not, Felix was their leader. He could be as angry as he wanted as long as he did it quietly but confronting Felix would be suicide at best, and the slower, more painful alternative of having his mark burned off his skin at the worst. He shoved his feelings as far down as they could go and walked into the bar.
“Blair,” said a small, distant voice.
He looked over at Julian, curled up on one end of the couch where Felix usually sat. The coffee table was still on its side from the last time Blair had been there. Julian was looking out the window at the rain, his hazel eyes dark as if the clouds covering the sun had covered the ever present light in his eyes as well. It was an unnerving expression for him.
“Hey,” Blair said, planting his foot on the edge of the upturned table.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
He pushed the coffee table back onto all four of its legs. He didn’t ask Julian to elaborate. There was no need. Everything going on was wrong, it had been going to shit since the night he was shot. Maybe in a way gangs were supposed to be like this, violence and bloodshed were commonplace for them after all, but he felt like the wounds they all had on the inside from this war far surpassed any damage their bodies had taken.
“We the only ones here?”
Julian nodded. “Felix and Spencer are upstairs. Spencer found him.”
Him. Isaac .
“Hey, Blair?”
“Yeah?”
Julian looked at him finally and he could see the swelling in his eyes, knew that him and Julian had been doing much of the same thing lately. “About Wren,” and his next words came quickly when he saw Blair flinch, “even if he did… something. I still don’t think it was ever to hurt you.”
Blair didn’t say anything. He knew with every fiber of his being that Wren didn’t betray him, but he let Julian continue.
Julian looked away and plucked at a thread on the couch. “People do bad things with good intentions sometimes. We’re proof of that, aren’t we?”
Blair smiled. It was feeble, but it was genuine and the first one he’d managed since Felix gave him the ultimatum. Leave it to Julian to try and comfort him even when he thought Wren had sold them out to the enemy. He was amazed that a life of being a senior member of Incindious hadn’t diminished that kindness but he was glad. “Thanks, Jules.”
He turned at the sound of the door. Julian didn’t; he had probably seen them through the window. Blair swallowed as Spencer and Felix walked in. He didn’t know what to expect, from them or himself. He stared at Felix while he was saying something to Spencer. His eyes were ringed with the darkest circles Blair had seen him have yet. His shoulders seemed to slouch a little deeper into that long coat than usual. Some of his anger waned. He couldn’t help but resent what he had been made to do but it hurt his heart even more to see Felix worn down. He wondered if Felix was even thinking clearly right now.
Felix straightened and they all gave him their rapt attention. “We’ve got him.”
Spencer’s mouth was set in a hard line, eyes not visible behind his tinted glasses. Blair looked down at the hardwood. Surely they should be celebrating. Chanting. This was what they had been fighting for, right? To get a shot at Isaac, to put an end to all this.
And then what?
It wasn’t like everything went back to normal. He had a leg that still hurt when he ran too fast and Julian was probably fucking traumatized. Blair had fallen in love and then lost him all during the course of this war. He feared Felix’s mind may never fully come back from the strain it had been put under in the past weeks. They killed Isaac and Phantom disassembled, and then what? How do we ever come back from this?
“We go tonight.” Felix tapped a cigarette out of the pack. “I’ll burn that fucking city to the ground if anyone gets in my way.”
Spencer flipped open his Zippo, and Felix leaned into the flame. Smoke curled away from his cigarette and up to the ceiling. Blair looked at Julian, who had gone pale, sweat visibly beading on his forehead through his bangs. He had his hands clasped together over his knee. Too tightly. Hiding a tremor. Blair wanted to ask, felt for all the world like he was missing something but if Julian was holding something back it was probably from Felix, not him.
Blair was sure it was taking everything Julian had not to speak against Felix, to remind him not to involve innocent people in this fight. If even Julian was staying quiet then he probably knew the same thing Blair did—that Felix was beyond reason.
When Wren opened the door, Reymond took one look at him and asked, “What happened with Blair?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Reymond’s jaw clenched. “Wren. Not worrying about you would go against my entire constitution.”
“He left. Okay? That’s it.” Wren didn’t even know why he’d called Reymond. There was nothing the other man could do.
“Why?”
“He said he can’t be distracted from Incindious right now.”
Reymond looked like he wanted to open a couple new orifices in Blair’s body, but something in Wren’s voice must have stopped him from pushing the matter any further. “We can skip the graduation ceremonies if you aren’t feeling up to it, go and get some air instead,” he offered, resting a hand on Wren’s shoulder.
“I’ll catch up.” Wren shrugged his hand off and rubbed his eyes.
“Are you sure you don’t want to—”
Wren closed the door in his face. He went into his bedroom, then into the walk-in closet. He wrenched open the top drawer of his dresser and stared down at its contents.
Blair may have thought he was fooling Wren with the emotionless act, but Wren knew true emptiness. He knew numbness. That wasn’t what he’d seen in Blair’s eyes. Wren fastened the snaps around his wrists and pulled his sleeves down. He just had to get graduation over with, then he could deal with Blair.
Wren shouldn’t have come to his graduation.
The event hall was packed with people waiting to go into the auditorium where the actual ceremony would be held, and Wren was not doing well.
He pushed through the crowd of students—some of whom tried to speak to him, but he could only stumble past them as he tried to find somewhere the people and the walls and the noise wasn’t closing in on him. His chest ached with every breath. He caught Reymond’s eye as a group of students parted. Reymond started towards him immediately, carving a path with his tall, broad-shouldered body.
Someone bumped into Wren’s arm and it was like shards of glass under his skin. There was too much. Too much noise, too much pain overflowing inside, striking him with the irrational fear it would spill out and turn into bleeding abrasions on his flesh so everyone could see how weak he’d become.
“You were always weak, you’re only just now realizing it,” whispered his father in his ear. Wren looked around but he didn’t see the visage of Eli next to him; it wasn’t him, not the way it used to be. It was just the memory of a voice that had haunted Wren for so long that he could still hear its echo.
Wren couldn’t breathe.
He looked for an exit and tore away from the crowd as soon as he found it, reluctantly entering the teeming sea of people to reach the glowing red sign on the wall that promised him an escape.
Wren thought he heard Reymond calling after him, but it could have just been his imagination. Whether it was real or not, he didn’t slow down, he couldn’t. The hospital was hardly a calm or quiet place, and Wren thought in adjusting to it he had gotten past the panic attacks, but apparently not. He threw the door open and fought to stay on his feet as the fresh air hit his seizing lungs.
The alley he stood in was pinched between neighboring buildings. Cramped but blissfully silent save for distant road noise and the dulled hum of voices within. Wren unbuttoned his vest and hung it over his arm, then loosened the top button of his shirt. Breathing no longer felt like such an impossible task. He leaned back against the brick wall and closed his eyes. The door opened next to him, dragging him back out of the brief solace he’d found behind his eyelids. He looked over, expecting to see Reymond.
The person standing in the alley with him was not Reymond. They were easily over six foot, with long, purple hair. They looked at him with heavily lined eyes and a glossy smile. “Hello, Wren,” they said in a disturbingly pleasant, lilting voice with an accent that was too faint for Wren to identify
Every fiber of Wren’s being, every moment of training his father had put him through, and every instinct in Wren’s body screamed danger.
But the person before him struck as quickly and quietly as shadows falling. By the time Wren moved, there was already an arm clamped around his neck, compressing his arteries and plunging him into darkness.
“I can’t find the safety,” complained a trembling boy who didn’t even look old enough to be out of highschool.
Blair held his hand out for the pistol. Too many kids joined Incindious because they thought being in a gang would be cool, or would miraculously give them control of their life, and now some of those newcomers were realizing for the first time what they’d signed up for. Blair turned the gun sideways to show the boy, “Trigger safety. It’s not on the side of the gun, it’s in the center of the trigger.”
“Oh. Um, thank you.” The boy took the gun back and amended uncertainly, “Thank you...sir?”
“No. No sirs.”
“Right. Okay.”
Blair ran a hand down his face as the teen melted into the throng of Incindious members packed into the bar. Only a few of them were going to College Point and the rest of the gang was staying to defend Flushing in case this was some ruse of Phantom’s to lure them away and then wreak havoc in their territory, but Blair doubted that was the case. Incindious wasn’t a small organization, and Phantom had pulled some reckless moves lately but they didn’t seem quite that stupid.
Shocked murmurs broke out in the crowd. Blair stood from the barstool he’d been occupied, his hand going to his guns. He pushed through bodies to get to the source of the commotion. He found it near the entrance and quickly realized why so many weapons were being drawn around him.
Reymond had Felix’s shirt clenched in his fist, the veins in his hands bulging with how forcefully he had snatched Felix forward. Felix had one hand raised in a clear sign for Incindious to stand down. Guns and knives slowly returned to their holsters, and Blair shouldered through the loose circle of onlookers, into the unspoken no-man’s land surrounding Reymond and Felix.
“The hell’s going on?” Blair asked.
“This is your fault,” Reymond snarled, his grey eyes turned molten silver with anger. He shoved something at Felix’s chest.
Blair dropped his eyes to the bundle pressed against Felix’s chest. Crumpled black fabric. It could have been anything, but his battered heart recognized it in an instant.
A black vest over a white dress shirt.
Wren’s voice cracking. “We weren’t a mistake.”
Blair didn’t realize he’d stepped forward until his fingers curled around the vest and yanked it out of Felix’s grasp. He slowly turned his eyes to Reymond. “Doc,” Blair said, voice coming out low and harsh. “Where is he?”
“They took him.”
Blood surged too fast through Blair’s veins, pounding in his ears.
Julian had been watching in silence from the edge of the crowd, and at Reymond’s words, he looked like he was going to be sick.
Reymond continued, “Someone followed Wren outside that I didn’t recognize so I went to check on him, but by the time I got out there, this was all that was left.”
Reymond and Blair looked to Felix as one, a silent accusation hanging in the air. Blair could see the confusion in Felix’s eyes and knew he was finally realizing what Blair had been trying to tell him since the day before: Felix was wrong.
Now Wren was gone. Taken.
“Describe the person who followed Wren out,” Felix said.
“Six-three, maybe taller. Long, dark purple hair. They looked Asian. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, I only saw them for a moment.”
“Jinx,” Spencer said gravely. “They’re back.”
Blair hadn’t heard him walk up—all of his senses had zeroed in on the vest he held and the faint, familiar smell that clung to it. Where was Wren now? Had Jinx hurt him? Was he being tortured? With every question, the taste of bile became stronger in the back of Blair’s throat. Anger simmered in the pit of his stomach.
“I left him,” Blair said, staring at the black fabric between his fingers. “I fucking left him to protect him, and now—”
Spencer put a hand on his shoulder. “We’re gonna get him back, Kennedy.”
“He never should have been involved in this to begin with!” Blair yelled, all the volume returning to his hollow voice at once. He glared at Felix. Yelling at the boss was a death wish, but rage was making him either brave or stupid.
Felix shook off Reymond’s hand and turned to face Blair, stepping forward so they were almost chest-to-chest. “Then you never should have been involved with him. You knew the risks.”
“I would have been able to protect him, I would have been there if you hadn’t—”
“Kennedy,” Spencer said sharply.
Blair clenched his jaw. Felix cocked his head, inviting him to continue, but the warning in Spencer’s voice was clear. By all accounts, Blair should have already had a cigarette put out in his eye for the way he was talking to Felix, but he knew he was being shown leniency. Whether that was because Felix knew he was in the wrong or because he knew Blair’s emotions were running high, Blair didn’t know, but he was sure there would be a limit to what Felix would tolerate. Especially in front of the entire gang.
Saving Wren would be a lot harder if Blair had a broken arm, or however he would be punished if he didn’t back off. So he did. He took a step back, and Spencer’s hand fell away from his shoulder. Felix held his gaze a moment longer before looking back over to Reymond. “We’ll bring him home,” Felix said.
“I’m coming with you,” Reymond said. “Your loyalty is to your people. Someone needs to be there who will prioritize Wren’s safety.”
Felix’s eyes flicked to Blair, his expression unreadable. “I think we’ve got that covered.”
Blair met his gaze evenly. Not too long ago, Blair would have been mortified for the boss to think Incindious wasn’t his first priority. Then Blair fucked around and fell in love.
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t take your word for it,” Reymond said, and walked out of the bar without looking back. Blair doubted they’d seen the last of him, though.
“Alright, everyone,” Felix said, his voice carrying easily over a room that had been watching the confrontation in apprehensive silence. “Enough Incindious blood has been spilled by Phantom. We’ve all seen enough sleepless nights because of this war. Enough has been lost.” He clapped a hand on Blair’s back as he walked past him, and Blair looked up at him. The shadows under Felix’s eyes were even darker than the last time Blair saw him. Felix continued, walking through the crowd, “It ends today.”
Excited whoops and cheers erupted throughout the room while Blair checked his two guns in solemn silence. Eighteen rounds in the 92. Eighteen in the M9A3. The pockets of his cargo pants were heavy with spare clips.
He was getting Wren back, and he didn’t care how much blood he had to get on his hands in the process.
Wren stopped in the middle of the room and looked around. It was his father’s house, but there was an odd tranquility that it had never possessed before. His steps made no sound, produced no echo in the large, empty space. He looked down. Scrubs? He was sure he had been dressed for graduation. There was a distant sound like drums. Or rather, a drum. A single drumbeat. He approached the staircase to search for the source of the sound, but the closer he got the further away it became. Dread pooled in his stomach. He’d had dreams like this before, but the walls had always teemed with malice, and he was never alone. Eli was always there.
“Wren.”
He looked up at the familiar figure coming down the stairs. “Blair?”
The man coming toward him was not the Blair he had seen last. His hair was disheveled, his clothes bloody and his leg wrapped in what looked like strips of someone’s shirt. He recalled the image of a small form on the surgery table and Reymond cutting away his sodden jeans. He hadn’t realized he remembered so much of that night, but this was unmistakably Blair Kennedy as he had seen him for the first time, when he was just the patient with a gunshot wound, nameless and insignificant.
The beat was getting louder. He could barely hear Blair’s voice over it when he said, “Hey, Sunshine.”
“What are you doing here?” he asked, voice tinged with resentment. You left, remember?
“I came to get you, lazy bones. You gotta go back.”
He held out his hand and Wren reached out without thinking to ask why or where they were going. His body acted on its own, falling to Blair like he was gravity pulling Wren back where he was meant to be. His fingertips fell just short of Blair’s. He tried to move forward but Blair was getting further away, his voice getting lost in that pounding drum, and the soft rays of light that had been cast across the room were receding. Shadows encroached on them until he could just make out Blair’s rapidly fading shape.
“Blair,” he called, but he could hear nothing but that sound, crashing all around him.
His eyes flew open and he jolted forward. Something snatched him back, and the room was definitely not the one he had been in before. The high ceilings, the spiraling staircase, Blair, it was all gone and replaced by a small, dark space. He almost laughed at himself. A dream, of all things. How stupid. He tried to move again, but now that he had his wits about him he realized he was sitting up and his wrists were tied behind him. He curled his fingers and felt his restraints. Zip ties, as far as he could assess. That pounding returned and he grimaced; that part had been real, apparently, but now the sound accompanied a fierce pain in his head. His throat didn’t feel too great either.
Wren flexed his wrist and found a familiar weight there. Good, he hadn’t been searched. That seemed like a careless choice on the part of his captors but he supposed they had written him off as defenseless either way once he was bound up. He was glad he had followed his impulse to collect his knives. Whether those instincts were his own or merely the echo of his father’s paranoia, he couldn’t say. He squinted into the dim room to take stock of his surroundings. The room was unremarkable, almost bare save for a desk with two computer monitors rotating between a handful of grainy images. He must have been in the security room for a larger building. Phantom’s doing, no doubt. He tried to move his feet but they were bound to the chair legs with more zip ties.
The door opened. It took more effort than he expected to raise his head, so for a long moment he was just staring at the leather boots approaching him. Wren managed to drag his gaze upward and saw a familiar, smiling person with violet hair hanging past their shoulders.
The figure came to crouch in front of him. “I’m so glad you’re awake,” they said, clapping their hands and their irrationally long fingernails together. “I’m Jinx. And you, dear Wren, are my honored guest.”
Oh.
Fucking splendid.