Blaze of Glory Read online

  I wince. I’m not entirely convinced I would call this monstrosity of fish-eye lenses and over-the-top cinematography a ‘trailer’.

  But, I suppose that’s the effect they were going for: a promotional ad for a night you simply can’t afford to miss, a night worth more than money and material possessions. The chance to rub shoulders with the most influential people in the entire country. Sip the same booze, take in the same shows. Laugh at the same racist and homophobic jokes.

  To a great deal of England’s young elites, it’s quite literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The party of the millennium.

  “It’s just shots of bands and models and other famous folk lounging around this big, fancy club, being what I guess the kids these days call ‘edgy’.”

  Penny turns to grin at me. “You’re practically a kid yourself, you know.”

  “Age is a number,” I mutter with cheek I only ever feel one-hundred per cent comfortable showing her, and her alone. “Besides, you’re not exactly a veteran in the numbers department yourself.”

  My captain is staring hard at the screen, and I’m not sure she heard me. “… is that blonde with the big tits the one from Big Brother 29?”

  “You’d have to ask Alfie,” I reply honestly. I’m too busy ogling the redhead from Yvngblood on the indigo chaise behind her, who curiously looks a lot like Alfie now that I think about it.

  “Either way, the venue looks grand,” Penny’s saying. If she’s trying to hide how impressed she is that they’ve built this exclusive, one-night club in less than a fortnight, her efforts are to zero avail. “Even I want to go.”

  “You are going,” I remind her, and I can’t help the lilt of amusement that threads itself through my words. “You’re Alexa Exeter, motherfluffers. The Uncrowned Queen of Pop.”

  Penny snorts, folding her arms, causing her biceps to bulge against her ribs. Just a little. Just enough to remind me how hard she trains to remain in fit, fighting shape.

  Again, sexy.

  “You know, you’re right. I am. I was never invited to be in any brutally excessive promotional ad.”

  “I would count your blessings,” I say, removing my glasses so that I can rub at both of my eye sockets. “Trust me, you don’t want this on your resume.”

  Rhys bustles through the command room again, huffing and puffing due to how much Gav’s impending visit has put him out. Apparently.

  “I really don’t like this friend, you know,” he finally says, whirling to a stop behind us. “I think he’s too much, too extra. I think we should all break up with him. Effective yesterday. Tell him not to ring us, we’ll ring him. But then we won’t ring him. That’s basically how that one works, right?”

  “Rhys.”

  His enormous doe eyes lift to meet Penny’s, as if he sensed some hope in the way she said his name.

  “We trust Gav,” she states firmly, but not without grace. “Gav has been a good and loyal contact of B.L.A.Z.E.’s four years this Christmas. That predates some of our current members, who we also trust—and love—with all our hearts.”

  It’s hard not to smile when Penny talks. She has her moments, and this is one of them. Moments when we all know we were right to ensure she took her rightful place as our captain.

  I don’t think any of us could imagine anyone else doing it. Perhaps one day I’ll be brave enough to say that to her.

  Rhys’ thick, dark eyebrows knit together in what can only be described as a pout. My smile hardens into a grin, and I wrestle with a laugh, not wanting to step on what Penny’s building up to with him.

  And then, the beautiful man huffs out a sigh, shakes his head, and peers back down at our captain.

  “Don’t make a wazzock of yourself, darling,” he says brightly. “I’ll wish you all the luck in the world, but I don’t want to play a part in this particular pantomime.”

  It’s then I realize—and I’m fairly sure Penny does too—what he’s about to do. Or rather, what forces of nature he’s about to willingly invoke.

  They often tell me it’s easy to forget I can turn into a fox. A fox, for crying out loud. Why on earth would I want to spend any lengthy amount of time in such a bestial form?

  We don’t all use our Magicks as often as others. Some are more comfortable that way, some think it’s more fair to those around them. Some just don’t trust themselves with the supernatural yet.

  I don’t know Rhys’ reasoning. But I did overhear him telling Duncan he doesn’t consciously call on it all that often.

  Everything aligns perfectly in his favor.

  Time, space, gravity. Everything.

  He leans in and, without warning, plants a bold kiss right upon Penny’s lips, firmly enough to smear her dark lipstick across his own mouth.

  She swings a punch, he ducks down and to one side.

  The next thing I know, I’m sprawled on my stomach across the control board with the taste of blood running all throughout my nose and mouth like a river of metallic, comic genius.

  “Oliver, oh my—I’M SORRY!”

  And then, the pain hits.

  I’ve only ever been punched in the face twice in my life. Neither time was a particularly pleasant experience. Both times, I cried.

  But this time, as my chair spins out from underneath me and slams against Penny’s, throwing her off-balance at the exact moment she was leveraging her weight to pull me upright, all I can do is laugh. As Penny lands on top of me, driving my face down into a keyboard, all I can do is laugh.

  “It’s not bloody fair!” I choke through the pain, which is only adding to the humor of the situation. I have no idea why. Maybe I’ve finally cracked.

  “Luck Magick is so broken!”

  “What?” splutters Penny, anchoring both boots to the concrete floor of the bunker so she can ease herself up. “You what, mate?”

  “His Magick, it’s so overpowered! It’s ridiculous! What even is that? What even happened just now!?”

  We’re smart enough to presume Rhys has already made his mad chaotic-neutral villain exit, and so we take our time in getting up. My head is ablaze with white noise. It feels like I’m trying to breathe underwater. Penny hands me a clean rag and instructs me to roll my head back against her stomach as she stands behind my chair.

  “Come here,” she murmurs, the soft, gentle side of her voice candy to my ears. It’s my favorite form of ASMR. A rare gift, with how rough and raucus life has been as of late.

  “Bloody hell, Oliver, what have I done to you?” she murmurs, and there’s a crack in her voice that threatens to break me.

  “It wasn’t your fault!” I’m quick to declare, squirming a bit against her as she rolls my head across her stomach. Her blue eyes pierce the dimness of the bunker, and I can smell the scent of her clothes, her skin, as she holds me in place.

  “It was nobody’s fault,” she says gently, frowning as she admires her own handiwork. I feel guilty on her behalf, ashamed she has to feel ashamed because of me. “Unless you want to start blaming Alfie’s Anomaly goddess?”

  “I’m still not sure I believe in any of that,” I grumble.

  Penny reaches behind her for her own water flask, dampening one corner of the cloth. “If something happens to make this prophecy a reality, would that change your mind?”

  I frown, biting my teeth together. It’s hard to think about thinking while at the same time thinking about not yelping like a wuss as she dabs at my rapidly-swelling cheekbone. And also thinking about whether or not it’s weird to think about how Penny’s shirt smells after being worn for three days straight, and thinking it’s not that bad of a smell at all.

  … that was a mouthful. I really hope I don’t have a concussion.

  “What was that?”

  “Did I say something?”

  “Maybe?”

  “I was thinking how I hope I don’t have a concussion,” I say slowly, finding the feel of my mouth again. It’s taking longer than one might expect.

  Penny continues to exa
mine the damage. “I think you’ll be all right. You’re a lot tougher than people give you credit for.”

  The comment stuns me more than the punch. Probably because I don’t remember the last time somebody called me ‘tough’.

  “Really?” I ask breathlessly.

  She laughs awkwardly. “Well, yeah. I mean, come on, Oliver. I would never want to speak ill of the dead, especially those I’ve fought alongside, but…”

  Her voice trails as we both realize she’s been stroking her fingers through my hair.

  She clears her throat and continues.

  “Four of us walked away, Oliver. Four. I would say surviving that which kills everyone around you? There’s certainly a level of toughness involved.”

  I’m peering up at her through the vignette of pain. Strands of wispy hair have escaped the bonds of her braid and are reaching out to me like tiny, blonde rays of sunlight.

  … for a moment, I’m convinced we’re going to have a Spider-Man kiss.

  My life has always resembled more that of Peter Parker, though, than his superhero alter-ego. And true to form, our romantic moment is shattered by the triple beep from my alarm system that heralds the arrival of someone in the tunnel beyond the northern hatch.

  “Special delivery for ye,” Duncan announces after unlocking the hatch from the outside with a code. It looks rugged and haphazard, with cables and ties jutting out of crudely strapped-together components. But it does the job. And that’s all it needs to do, is what I keep telling the perfectionist half of my brain.

  As anticipated, Gav pokes his head in through the hatch.

  “Watcha, gang,” he greets us with a genial smile and a genuine wave of one hand. “I come bearing press passes and a variety of other goodies for Saturday night.” He claps his hands together, obviously feigning his confidence. “Everyone else excited then?”

  “For multiple reasons, yeah,” I say as Penny’s warmth suddenly retracts from me, leaving me alone in front of my monitors. “If we survive our face-to-face encounter with Irene the production team leak, we’ve got total carnage and mayhem to look forward to on the weekend.”

  A beat of uncomfortable silence passes as we all process what I let slip.

  “Um,” I stutter. “I—I mean—”

  “Who’s meeting her?” Gav asks, a worried look all over his face. He walks out of my peripheral to approach Penny, who answers him.

  “Me. Dee.” She sounds reassuring; she’s good at inspiring confidence in others. I should know. “We’re more than capable of taking care of ourselves, Gav. Not that we don’t love feeling loved.”

  “Well, who wouldn’t love you?” I hear Gav say, in a manner that’s an inch too bold and brazen for his character. It sets off an alarm bell at the back of my brain, and I sit bolt upright in my chair, sending my blood rushing.

  Ow. Breathe.

  Gav and Penny have both whipped their heads around to stare at me. I stare back.

  “Bloody hell, OP, what happened to you?”

  “I, um.” I’m too busy trying to remember which bag my paracetamol are in to explain my present status. “Walked into a door?”

  “That’s not funny,” Penny hisses with a smirk on her face. She turns her attention to Gav. “We had an incident, it was mostly my fault. Which is why I’m going to spend the rest of the evening making it up to him,” she adds, and there’s an undertone to it that makes me shiver.

  She can’t mean it like that… can she?

  “All right, I’ll leave you love birds to it,” Gav chuckles awkwardly, shyly, and I wonder if I look that ridiculous at times. I hope not. “I only came by to drop this off. And to let you know I ain’t heard owt about no magic book. Someone mentioned magic CDs, but that was thing whole other… thing.”

  “Thanks anyway, love.” Penny gives him a hug that’s probably manlier than any hug I’ve ever given or received, and sends him on his way. I embrace the few moments of silence before she returns, alone and with one of our first aid kits.

  “Hey, you,” she says softly. “I’ve got the good drugs.”

  “The legal ones or illegal ones?” I groan in response, not wanting to open my eyes yet.

  “Yes. Both. A variety. What d’ya fancy?”

  The question strikes me in a wound I wasn’t aware was currently open. And seeping. I choke on my response for just a second too long.

  “You all right?”

  “Yeah. Sort of? Um. Can I have a word with you, just a quick one?” I find the question falling from my lips before I can find the sense to stop it.

  She pauses rummaging in the first aid kit to glance over at me. “Yeah, of course. Whenever you want me. What’s up?”

  Another unfortunate choice of phrasing. I shift, squirming in my seat. Avoiding her eyes. “Um, nothing. Everything. It’s too—it’s really—would it be too weird to talk about what happened the other day?”

  “The other day?”

  “When I came—” Why do we keep doing this? “When I found you and Alfie on watch. Or when you were supposed to be on watch.”

  “To be fair, he was still on watch,” Penny says openly. “I can personally vouch for his tenacity in that department. There was a theme.”

  “I don’t need to know that!” I snap, perhaps slightly harsher than I meant to. But the mental image of—them—isn’t helping me get this out.

  Penny sighs. “That’s fair.”

  “I’m not jealous,” I hastily add, because it’s important to me that she hear it. “I mean, I get it. I knew what the deal was when this whole thing went down. You were very honest with me. So, no. I am not jealous that you sleep with Alfie, or Duncan.”

  A thought strikes me, and I suddenly look over at her.

  “Are you sleeping with Rhys?” I blurt out.

  She cackles in response. Now that I’ve heard it spoken aloud, I don’t blame her.

  “Right-o,” I say sheepishly. “I deserved that.”

  “I didn’t think you were jealous,” says Penny, going back to the first aid kit.

  “You didn’t?”

  “Not at all.” She sounds convinced. “You’re not the jealous type. Which is why the way you’re behaving is worrying me. So, what is it?”

  “I’m—I’m afraid—”

  I bite my lip. I want her to know—I want to tell her so badly, if only to share my excruciation with another living soul. But once the bottle is uncapped and the secret is out, there’s no going back.

  Once I’ve said it, there’s no denying it.

  And the complications it could bring to everything are almost too much to make it worth the risk.

  “Oliver?” Penny’s voice tip-toes across my enhanced senses, her scent and the sound of her suffocating me as she leans in closer. “Are you afraid because you love me?”

  I shake my head.

  “Are you afraid because I love you?”

  Again, I wordlessly tell her ‘no’.

  “Then what is it, Oliver? Please.”

  I bite my tongue, my lip. But it’s too late. It’s too late.

  “I’m afraid—because—because I’m also in love with someone else.”

  14 Penny's Triangle

  The news both shocks me, and doesn’t.

  Was I expecting those words to come tumbling out of his mouth? No.

  But did the weight they carry surprise me when they did…?

  “Oliver,” I say, slowly and carefully, “that’s all right.”

  “It is?”

  I can’t help but laugh, and thankfully he doesn’t seem to take offense to me finding humor in the situation. “Of course it is. You can love multiple people at once, you know.”

  “I know that,” he retorts, and I worry I’ve hit a nerve. “I’m not worried specifically because I’m in love with another person.”

  My brain finally catches up with him, and my mouth drops open, my hand rushing up to cover it.

  It’s because of who that person is.

  “Oh my god.” My lip
s are muffled against my fingers, blurring the words into one another, but the man’s name is audible nonetheless. “Alfie.”

  I seek out Oliver’s hand with my own, but it writhes out of reach.

  “He can’t know.” Oliver’s voice has taken on a timbre that is more firm, more stern, more threatening than I’ve ever heard it before. He sounds as if he’s on the edge of tears. “Ever.”

  My hands twist together awkwardly in my lap. “Oliver, he’s not that—”

  “EVER.”

  “All right, all right.” As much as it hurts to let it go, even temporarily, I decide to honor his wishes. It’s the least I can do, given how much he just trusted me with. “We aren’t telling him, or anyone else, for now. Not until further notice from you. I promise.”

  “Okay. I trust you.”

  For some reason, that smarts. My heart squeezes as I look over at him, bruised and beautiful in the chair beside my own, aglow with harsh, artificial light.

  “You do? Still?”

  He nods, and something in his lack of hesitation only hugs my heart tighter.

  “You don’t give your trust to someone hoping they won’t break it,” he says quietly. “You give it to them expecting they will. Whether or not you trust someone isn’t based on how likely they are to break it, but whether they’re worth the pain.”

  I stare at him. I can’t help it.

  “That’s insanely deep, Oliver. And you think the idea of you and Alfie being close is such a far-fetched one.”

  “The idea of us having legitimate closeness isn’t what’s in question. The idea of Alfie being gay is.”

  “Why the heck couldn’t Alfie be gay? Or at least bi?”

  I can’t help but wonder whether it’s sick to think he almost looks cute with a black eye. Not that domestic abuse is sexy, but the idea of Oliver getting scrappy certainly is.

  “Do you even hear yourself asking that question?” he chokes out, oblivious to where my mind is venturing. “On what planet or other plane of existence could you ever picture Alfie being sexually intimate with another man?”

  I affix him with my ‘realest’, as Chuck would say, of looks. “Oliver,” I say cooly. “I’ve known Alfie longer than anyone else in this brigade. Hear me when I tell you it’s not the capacity he lacks, but the ability to be comfortable with it.”