Page 37 of Fuse

The answer is an instant, unstoppable swell from the center of my being. It crashes me into a glass window of a destiny I do not fucking want—but now, in a moment in which all the chaos around us seems to stop, I can’t ignore.

I slide my hands up, bracing them on either side of Kane’s neck. My fingers are wet and wobbly. My friend’s proud features are blurry.

I inhale hard, steeling myself. Psyching myself.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“So am I,” Kane rasps back.

“You?” Scowling puzzlement. “Why?”

With my padlock of a hold on him, his head shake is implied more than implemented. “Doesn’t m-m-matter anymore. I’m done taking her orders. Th-thank fuck. It’s…done. All…done…”

He drifts his eyes closed.

“Now, Bolt Man. Send me back to him now.”

And then he smiles.

And I pray.

For his soul and for mine.

Chapter Three

Emma

Trixie, Chase, and I watch the LAPD helicopter carrying Reece approach the wide field behind the ridge.

The rotor wash slaps the wild grasses against our shins and knees, whipping the air into chaos that matches my mind. We lift our elbows to shield our faces from the swirling dust and pebbles, ideal stand-ins for the thousand-plus questions comprising a lot of that turmoil.

Funny how those questions build up when a girl has a few hours to do nothing but wait after her fiancé has survived a trip to a burning war zone and a confrontation with the soldier responsible for all of it.

Soldier. I still can’t believe I’m aligning the word with Kane Alighieri. Though I first met him under violent circumstances—the night so many months ago when he helped Reece save me from the trap Faline had set with ’Dia and me as bait—I’ve since discovered the real person: the nerd who spent hours at the public library, knew every line of Cats, and deliberately held back when working out at Muscle Beach so he wouldn’t make the other guys feel bad. But that was the guy I knew. As soon as Mitch took that fall and left this realm behind, part of Kane departed with him.

Clearly, a more significant part than any of us understood.

More than I could force my mind to admit to itself—even when I kissed Reece goodbye and sent him off to battle the man.

Not when I knew—I knew—there could be only one explanation for Kane, or whatever the hell he’s become, to be preening like a talk show queen just minutes after destroying the city like an avenging king. Only one way he could have gone from being Team Bolt’s Gentle Ben to LA’s vengeful dragon.

Sawyer and Angie provided some theories of explanation as soon as they arrived back at the ridge three hours ago, having borrowed a truck from the city’s Parks and Rec department. Wade, Alex, and Fershan confirmed Sawyer’s original postulate could be possible. Kane’s actions likely had been joysticked by higher forces inside the Consortium. But Angelique stood firm in her stance that Kane had been infected or bitten by something, noting his near-zombie glare and oblivion to all the chaos he’d caused.

The explanations were better than anything I’d come up with but were still far from the answers I needed. The only comparison I had to what the guy did to downtown was the state in which we’d found the Brocade’s Presidential Suite after a speed metal band’s Grammy celebration party. But like then, shuffling through the aftermath only means a lot of theories and not a lot of answers—with which Sawyer and Angie haven’t exactly been helpful, aside from their insights, since returning without Reece.

Damn it, both of them stood and watched as I begged him not to leave me behind again. Both of them already know how agonizing it is for me to be waiting like a damn prairie wife on the homestead, watching the horizon for the light of her man. And God, how that last part is true. Reece Andrew Richards is my light—which makes it doubly unfair that I can’t share that horizon with him. That I can’t do anything but play the watching-and-waiting game…

Until I finally get to have moments like this.

Knowing he’s near again.

Knowing he’s alive.

However strangely that definition may play itself out.

However far I need to stretch the word strangely.

As the pilot sets the chopper down, Reece shoves open the door and jumps out. He trudges a few steps but stops, seeming to wonder where he is and what he’s doing. His hands are ridged claws. His stance is braced as if his battle has only begun. His forehead, nearly the only part of his face I can fully see, is a topographical map of anguish.