Blaze of Chaos

by C. J. Strange

  “I’m… actually a pretty big fan of the whole you thing…”

  Before she can react, and before I can chicken out, I’ve closed off the inches of air left between us.

  And my lips are against hers. Shaky, soft, and scared out of my wits.

  But more sure than I’ve ever been.

  12 Penny’s Soothing Side

  Oliver is kissing me.

  This is the only piece of information my brain is capable of retaining.

  No, my apologies. There’s a second something coming through: Oliver is kissing me, and I like it.

  I can’t lie, I’m shocked at first. Shocked, and a little afraid. In that single, jet-propelled second where his lips first brush against mine, I see a year-and-a-half of cherished friendship with someone I consider closer than any boyfriend threatened. A pillar that has always been so stable and so solid in my life is suddenly in grave jeopardy.

  It only lingers for a second, though.

  Then comes the rush of exuberance, of exhilaration. It’s curious because, if asked before this evening, I wouldn’t have expected this reaction should Oliver Porter, of all people, decide to snog me. He and I are emotionally entwined on a level that’s just different to myself and Duncan, or even myself and Alfie. Not better, not worse—just different, and in a way that I wouldn’t have expected to translate well in a romantic or sexual fashion.

  And yet, here we are. My exhilaration riots stronger as he seems to find his confidence, pressing his lips more firmly to mine and parting them a little. He’s not a virgin, I know that much. But there’s a sweet naivety in his actions which reminds me that, no matter what we’ve endured, we’re still so young.

  I don’t know how long we kiss for. Time both rushes and stands still for the entire duration our mouths are locked, so it could be seconds, but it could also be minutes. I note the parting of his lips against my own as an invitation and swipe my tongue between them. The noise he makes is one I never imagined I’d hear out of him… and never imagined I’d enjoy if I did.

  Oh my god. When did Oliver become sexy?

  After what seems like an eternity, our mouths pop apart, but our bodies remain stuck together. Somehow, he’s wormed his way underneath me, or perhaps I’ve squirmed on top of him. Our breaths rush into one another’s. A shiver passes through my body, and I’m annoyingly helpless to the way it makes me jolt in his arms.

  “Well, fuck me.”

  He bursts into awkward laughter at my equally-as-awkward exclamation. But the pleasant tension hangs in the air, like an aura of warmth binding us into one.

  “I'm sorry,” he mumbles dangerously close to my lips. “I didn’t want to—I know I didn’t ask—”

  I snog him again, quickly. It’s the easiest way to shut him up without having to verbalize any of this. He moans into my mouth and, a few moments later, I draw back.

  “I liked it,” I confess without much reluctance, and I plant a gentle kiss on his barely-stubbled jaw. “In fact, I would be entirely all right if it happened again sometime in the future.”

  While the romantic in me is begging for a bit of amazement on his part, my often over-emotive friend over-delivers like a champ. His eyes swell up wide and he stares at me in shock before finally uttering, “Are… are you sure?”

  The resulting bubble of both amusement and adoration forces a bright laugh up from my lungs.

  “Yes, Oliver. Yes. I’m pretty bloody sure.” I slide my fingers around his neck and up into his hair again, scraping my short nails against his scalp. “You’re fit as anything. I just don’t know if I let myself see it before.”

  There’s nothing untrue in what I tell him. There’s both an internal and external beauty to my friend that I never allowed myself to notice, or at least, to process in full. With the giant shit-storm of crazy that's been raging for the past twenty-four hours, is another tiny cloud of lunacy with a big, bright silver lining really going to make all that much of a difference?

  If there’s one thing I’ve retained from Alfie’s constant philosophical raves about Nova, it’s Her belief that change is not only necessary, but illuminative. As two people who are both physically very uncomfortable with change, Oliver and I could probably learn a lot from that perspective on life.

  Remind me to hook up with some Nova-loving hippies next time we’re down in Brighton.

  “Hey,” I say softly, my voice hovering somewhere above a whisper. “Speaking of embracing change…”

  “We were speaking of embracing change?” he asks, bewildered, and I realize that I must still be reeling from the kiss.

  “No—sorry, I'm just going mental.” I dare to cozy back up against him, though in all fairness he doesn’t make it difficult. One arm encircles me, his hand finding the dip of my waist and settling in like two pieces of the same puzzle slotting perfectly together.

  “I wanted to propose something, going back to sleeping arrangements. Nothing risque or perverted, and nothing implied whatsoever,” I add swiftly, and I notice I’m talking fast to get it all out of my mouth before he can judge me on part of my suggestion. Which is ridiculous, because if there’s one thing Oliver constantly wants me to know, it’s that he doesn’t judge me for anything. “But sometimes just the presence of another person can help you feel less exposed to those flashbacks. If you wanted to share a bed at night, any time…”

  My voice trails out into silence. I don’t see his facial reaction because I’m curled up against his chest, but it takes him several seconds to respond. “You know what, I think—I think I would appreciate that, actually. I think having someone there I can talk to might help.”

  “And you can wake me up whenever,” I insist, firmly as I can without coming off as aggressive. “Any time of the night, mate, seriously. If you need me, I’m there for you. Any time.”

  The gift of his genuine smile is one I always appreciate. “Any time.”

  “Good. Now maybe we should absorb this artistic travesty and see if sleep feels like coming to say hi.”

  “Penny.”

  “Yeah, mate?”

  “I think the tea’s probably cold.”

  “Ugh.” I roll my eyes, but I’m grinning broadly against him. “The tea always goes cold, because something always comes up. I’ve just learned to bloody well get used to it at this point. You want another?”

  “Not unless you’re gagging for one. I kind of like you where you are.”

  I can’t help the way the curve of my lips deepens when I direct it back toward my friend. For a self-proclaimed and brigade-witnessed ‘disaster with the ladies’, Oliver’s definitely taken to finding his smooth groove this evening.

  And I can’t say I dislike it one bit.

  13 Penny’s Law

  It’s another hour and a half before the lads get in. I’m less than impressed. While I wish I could be sitting in a chair with my arms crossed, asking them what the bloody hell time they called this, I’m still tangled in all of Oliver’s limbs on the sofa when they stumble in through the van door. Judging from the way they're laughing jovially in each other’s presence, I’m going to assume either I’ve just slipped into the Twilight Zone, or they’re both completely rat-arsed.

  Joy of joys.

  I hiss them silent, motioning angrily to our unconscious fourth team member. Duncan comprehends first and elbows the much shorter redhead in the ribs, causing Alfie to flail against the back of the driver’s seat.

  “Oi!” he yells, and Duncan cuffs him again on the shoulder and jerks him around to show him the bundle of sleeping geek I’m doing my best to unravel myself from. I usher them both back outside, easing the door shut behind me with a ludicrous amount of care.

  After how much time was spent soothing Oliver off to sleep, I’ll gut the twat who wakes him up.

  “Take it you lads had a belter?” I ask, finally turning to regard the two of them. Wow, talk about looking at what the cat dragged in. Duncan’s cheeks and nose are bright scarlet, the color of pure inebriation, and if Al
fie were to say to me he has no idea who or where he is, I would totally believe him. “Though if it’s gotten you both to the point where you’re done wanting to throttle each other, I’d say I’m not entirely against it.”

  “PEN’!” Alfie doesn't even register that I’ve spoken. Instead, his good arm is around my shoulders and his legs have decided to allow mine to take most of his body’s weight. “Okay, so, we found this pub, right—?”

  “You were down at the pub? No! Really?”

  “Oh, shh,” he slurs, pissed out of his mind, my sarcasm swooping right by him. “No, no, but, seriously, Pen’—seriously, now.”

  “Seriously now?”

  Duncan snickers, and he’s loud. I am so grateful we aren’t doing this inside.

  “Yeah! Yeah, so shh!” Alfie's hand presses against my lips. “Shh, listen. This pub—”

  “It’s got a name, eejit.”

  “Yeah, it does, actually. A right blinding one, too!” Alfie lets me go to stuff a hand into his jeans pocket, rooting through them all one-by-one. “Anyway, girl behind the bar? Anomaly.”

  My brows arc in surprise. “Really?”

  “We cannae be sure—” Duncan is quick to chime in gruffly, to which Alfie responds by taking his turn to interrupt the Scotsman.

  “But! All the fucking signs were there, Pen’. And there was a group of blokes, what, came in around dinnertime? Definitely Anomalies, all of them.”

  Alfie has officially traveled beyond the city limits of Enthusiasm to a nearby realm that borders on mania. My hand snakes its way over his bicep, not hindering his actions at all but certainly encouraging him to calm them a fraction.

  “Well—okay, so that’s fantastic news, we have a little local we can visit where at least we should be welcome even if those around us discover what we are,” I say as evenly as possible, maintaining eye contact with my frenzying lunatic the entire time. “That being said, keeping our identities quiet should still be our number-one priority.”

  “Agreed, lassie.”

  “Yeah, you would ‘agreed, lassie’!” Alfie scowls, rolling his eyes. He’s digging through his hoodie pockets, now. His bare skin is scorching hot against mine, a constant reminder of the pyre that burns beneath the surface of B.L.A.Z.E.’s resident human volcano.

  “Why don’t you tell the lieutenant here how you paid our slate when she called time?”

  Only one of my eyebrows quirks this time around, and it’s at a far more dangerous angle. When I speak, it’s directed at the man beside me, not the one who grassed him up. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Er—well, that was all part of the plan, see?” Alfie babbles in that way he does when he’s in the middle of devising something that's going to prove either incredibly ridiculous, or ridiculously incredible. “At that point, I was already convinced she was wise to our cause. So I just, like, threw her a little bone, that’s all.”

  I can’t believe my ears. Or perhaps I just don’t want to believe them. “Alfie,” I say, and I do it in my slowest, most serious voice, hoping to pierce at least part-way through the veil of booze. “Coin is very much not legal tender in Britain these days. Trading physical money for goods and services is an imprisonable offense.”

  “Pfft, yeah, I know that. Who doesn’t? The tourists?” Alfie bursts into uncontrollable fits of laughter, probably at the mental image of people actually coming to Britain on vacation these days. As if that would be allowed.

  “The only people who have any reason to use Coin, who create any value in it, are those without a valid BitID. Namely, those who live life outside the law. Typically, Anomalies and renegades. It’s the currency of terrorists.” I give his uninjured shoulder a shake to help it sink in deeper. “You savvy?”

  Alfie’s just staring at me with the biggest, most eager shit-eating grin, as if we’re currently sharing some sort of bombastic evil scheme. “Exactly!” he exclaims, jabbing a finger in my face. “So! When she said she’d take it, I knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  “She’s an Anomaly. Or, like, a good guy. Good girl.” Alfie caps his magnificent deduction off with a burp. “Mate, I well, couldn’t stop staring at her chest, it was so cool.”

  My eyes dart across to Duncan for some sort of explanation, bemused. “Her chest was ‘cool’?”

  “Tattoo.” Duncan drunkenly draws a swirling shape across the right breast of his jacket with his finger, tracing it up and across his shoulder. “Tidy.”

  Good grief.

  “Anyway.” Alfie finally finds what he's been searching for all this time and yanks out a crumpled flyer, unfolding it for me with limited access to his own motor skills. “They’re doing this thing next Saturday night. Knockout darts competition, killer pool, DJ, the lot. Reckon we should get our arses down there and make ourselves known to the locals, get me?”

  I pluck the flyer from his hands and give it a brief once-over. The name of the pub makes me smirk a little, but other than that, it seems commonplace enough.

  “Why not,” I agree. “It’ll do us good to get out and have a laugh for a night. Providing the rest of the week goes smoothly—we don’t even know if we’ll still be here by the weekend, in all honesty.”

  With a heavy sigh, I refocus my attention on the lout still putting most of his weight on me. “You need to go to bed, hotshot. You’re plastered.”

  “What?” Alfie is indignant. “Do I look plastered?”

  “Your hoodie’s on inside-out, mate.”

  “Aw, fuck, bollocks. Really?”

  “Come on, bed. And I won’t make you sleep in the drop-down with Duncan.”

  It takes at least fifteen minutes to get him stripped to his shorts and in amongst the blankets. He’s drunk, which means he’s touchy-feely, and I wind up getting him to settle down in a very similar way to which I did Oliver.

  I am officially the Duchess of Head Rubs, peasants, and shall not answer to any title other than this.

  “He’s out cold,” I whisper to Duncan as I emerge once more from the van. I opted for the first night watch, so that the lads could at least spend the first day getting acclimatized to their new surroundings and sleep it off afterwards. I’m a heck of a lieutenant, I really am.

  “Was he really all that bad tonight, Dee? Is this something I have to be concerned about?”

  Our eldest surviving member, whose massive frame is comically slumped in a tiny camping chair, relieves the tautness in my shoulders and neck with a simple shake of his head.

  “Nae, lassie. He were just being his usual self, I was actually impressed with how discreet he was other than a couple typical eejit moves.”

  “Anything I should know about other than the Coin thing?”

  Duncan’s chest lets out a low, groaning noise. “He didn't bring it up at the pub, mind. But on the walk back, he told me he wants to talk to Kendra, the bar lass, about doing some sort of recruitment drive. To rebuild B.L.A.Z.E.”

  I blink neutrally back at him. I don’t really know what to say to that.

  “Okay,” I start gingerly, secure enough in Duncan’s presence to talk at the same speed I think, “on the one hand, if the establishment is friendly, that's a jolly good idea. But…”

  My voice peters out weakly, like an ebbing tide.

  “We’ve not even been here a day. I’m sure Branch 9 are out there hunting for survivors to pick off, to make sure we don't do exactly that—rebuild.” My lips form a thin, strained line. “As dull and anti-cinematographic as it is, I think our best bet here is to err on the side of caution.”

  “Aye.” Duncan nods, his eyes already closed. “No rush.”

  “I’ll have a word with him tomorrow about it,” I say, running a hand through my hair. It’s standing up on one side from all of that cuddling with Oliver both before and after he fell unconscious.

  And speaking of losing consciousness…

  “If you fall asleep out here, Dee-Dog, I’ll leave you in that chair,” I warn him, a devilish smile he can’t see warming my li
ps. “I’ve got important watch duty things to be doing. I ain’t hauling your wookie-sized arse back into the van, and you don’t want to be out here all night.”

  The adorable rumble of a snore is the only answer I’m granted, proving that actually, no, he actually couldn't give a single flying fuck if he’s out here all night. Not a single one.

  14 Alfie’s Myopia

  The Globe has officially become my new home away from home in the past half a week.

  It’s cozy. It’s cordial. It’s that place where everybody knows your name, and all that. A handful of the locals and I meet up for pints at lunchtime, and then I’m usually back in after dinner until last orders. Last night, a group of us did tequila shots to celebrate Pompey’s unexpected two-nil win over Manchester City. I haven’t had this much fun at a local boozer since I was growing up in Portsmouth, and Penny and I knew which pubs we could sneak into at fifteen.

  A damn lot has changed since then, I’ll tell you that much.

  “So, Diesel, you ever going to tell me the full story behind that?”

  It’s a quiet afternoon in the Faux Globe, which is why I’m zoned out staring at the telly. Some spanner in a suit’s trying to sell me insurance I probably don’t fucking need. My head snaps around and I stare blankly at Kendra, who's leaning on the bar and regarding me with a smirk.

  She nods her head at my arm, at my sling.

  “Ah, the ol’ ball and chain,” I reply with a laugh, lifting my arm up on top of the dented and scratched old wooden bar. “It’s kind of a long one.”

  “You’re here a lot.” Kendra shrugs. “And it’s not like you’re a fan of shutting your trap.”

  “He’s here a lot too,” I shoot back defensively, thumbing at the creep in the corner with that weird, wafting hair who’s always doing a crossword and staring into a mug of something hot and caffeinated that doesn’t belong in a pub. “He’s in here so much I’ll be surprised if you ain’t given him his own parking space.”