Blaze of Chaos

by C. J. Strange

  I only have one option, I realize, as Michael Kay begins to address his audience and prepare them for a moment that could forever change our fight for freedom.

  And I don’t know why I’ve been trying so hard to resist it, because there’s only been one option all along.

  “—coming to you live from the perilous Southern Fringe territory, where this secret Anomaly haven lays in ruins after what they would consider a ‘civilized’ interpersonal dispute.”

  Alfie is snarling. Behind us, Atlas slumps over, having passed out from his exertions. But it’s me to whom Kay finally looks, microphone in hand, brow furrowed in a frown of empathy so fake it makes me sick to my stomach.

  He doesn’t get another chance to speak. I refuse to allow it.

  “He’s right,” I aver loudly, firmly, and with no sense of regret. “And wrong. This isn’t an Anomaly haven, but yeah, we had a bit of a dispute.”

  I step forward. I’m shaking as I do, but I’ve never been so sure. In the doorway, I see Duncan zip to a stop, his eyes widening when he sees what’s happening. I raise a hand, not breaking eye contact with Kay, a clear sign to Duncan to hold his position.

  “Dispute was over whether or not we should come clean,” I continue. I take a single step toward him, but he doesn’t retreat. The sick bastard’s already signed his own death warrant, and he’s ready to become the martyr he believes his country needs. “But I think we’ve all made our decision. Right, lads?”

  I may be addressing comrades plural, but my attention is solely on Alfie. He stares back at me, unsure and bewildered for a moment, before his expression solidifies into a hard grin.

  He knows what I’m about to do, and he couldn’t be happier about it. And while I’ll joke with him later, about how it’s my way of apologizing for ditching him, I’m now as resolute in this decision as he has been all along.

  “So you can tell whoever’s back in the studio at KING,” I go on, “and you can tell Wankworth, and you can tell his goons, and you can tell every single soul who’s ever going to see this footage…”

  I look over my shoulder at the boys again, then at Duncan, then down at the furball at my feet. My mind is set. We are who are are, and no amount of heartbreak is ever going to change that.

  “You can tell them all that B.L.A.Z.E.? We’re still very, very much aflame. And as long as my brigade is still standing, as long as we are willing to fight together for our freedom? This war will never, ever be over. We’re going nowhere, and you’ll see us real soon—that’s a bloody promise.”

  And if Rhys is as lucky as he brags he is, the live feed will have already cut at the perfect time: after my speech, but before the orange-and-white bundle at my feet twitches, squeaks, and shifts back into our brigade’s youngest member, the little poof of fur leaving him stark bloody naked in the middle of the floor.

  30 Penny’s Renewed Promise

  “I can’t believe you were legit starkers on national telly, muppet!”

  Oliver scowls as Alfie passes us by, avoiding the burn of the redhead’s stare. “I wasn’t starkers on national telly,” he mumbles, either to me or Alfie, or maybe just to himself. “The feed cut before I shifted back, and besides, I don’t think it counts as proper naked if I’ve got my fur on.”

  “Honestly, I don’t know how any of this works,” I admit, my smile sheepish but somewhat emboldening, I hope. I reach across the picnic table and past both mugs of tea to clasp his hand in my own.

  “But you heard what Alfie said last night. There are Novanite groups all over Britain who can help you learn about this new Magick you have, and we’ll seek them out for you. I promise.” I give his fingers another gentle squeeze, revelling in the way his eyes light up as I do so.

  “Innit,” Alfie agrees, heading back to the van with another flat of water Kendra at the Globe was kind enough to send us off with. Duncan’s been running back and forth to load offered supplies and equipment all morning, a sincere apology for last night’s events which I told the steward she was under absolutely no onus to provide.

  “At least all those headaches of yours make sense now, though, eh? If you were developing something new?” says Alfie, leaving us staring at each other and wondering why the bloody hell we never noticed that coincidence. He disappears into the van to stack the water in the unused shower, which serves as a pantry now we actually have enough supplies to stock one.

  “Huh,” I comment, with an idle sip of my tea. “Not such an eejit after all.”

  The promise of the open road once again looms on my horizon, for the first time since I settled with B.L.A.Z.E. in Manchester. I can’t deny the spark of excitement that’s been lit somewhere deep within me.

  My thirst for adventure is afire once again.

  “Captain?”

  My chin snaps up. I can feel the total confusion my face is now twisted in. “... Oliver, did you just call me Captain?”

  My friend’s face reddens considerably, and he suddenly begins to fiercely back-pedal. “N-no, I mean! I did, but I didn’t mean—it wasn't something—”

  I laugh. It feels good to laugh. “Chill, Winston.” I quote an old movie, one of his favorite things. “It’s all grand. I’m not offended, it just caught me off-guard.”

  “I don’t think anything could ever catch you off-guard,” he says with an honesty so sweet it melts my heart. My smile deepens.

  “Do you really think of me as your Captain?”

  “Well,” he says, in that way he does when he’s about to explain something convoluted and scientific I don’t have a hope in hell of understanding. “You’re our leader. You make the decisions, you kept us alive last night. At the end of the day, the buck stops with you—I think that means you deserve the title, at least, but that’s only my opinion.”

  He sips his tea, comically punctuating his statement, and another bubble of genuine laughter rises up from my chest. I find myself staring. Just watching him complete that commonplace action, the first sip of a fresh cuppa, has become almost hypnotic. The early morning sun warms his flawless porcelain skin, lifting a thousand shades of gold and red from the within the layers of his mousey-brown hair. I swallow thickly.

  “Thank you, for stepping up last night.”

  “Huh?”

  “I mean it.” My gaze is unyielding. “You took on an active role in the mission. You stuck to your guns even through one of the most painful and terrifying moments of your Magickal existence. You outdid yourself, in almost every way a person can. And because of it, I’m still standing here today. We all are.”

  A flush of heat floods my cheeks, and I find myself unable to meet his eyes.

  “You ran headfirst into danger to save me, Oliver. That’s not the sort of act a person forgets. Ever.”

  “I don’t really know if there’s a societally appropriate way to answer that,” he says awkwardly.

  “Fuck societal appropriateness,” is my swift response. “Just be you, always. There’s honestly no greater gift you can give to this world than yourself.”

  I hope the truth behind my words bolsters them with enough confidence to see him through the patches where he lacks it. He smiles at me again, bashfully, and clears his throat.

  “Well,” he announces, “I should probably help the guys tear down so we can get on the road.”

  “Our new recruit has a couple things he needs to pick up from whatever strange hovel he’s been living in nearby,” I advise Oliver as he heads for the van. “It’s only about a ten minute walk off-site. Alfie’s running over there with him, maybe you should go and keep them both in check.”

  Oliver groans.

  “Go on,” I chuckle, rising to my feet. “You know what Alfie’s like about Novanism, and Shields seems pretty knowledgeable about Magick himself. It’ll be a good opportunity for you to figure out what you’re going to do about a training schedule for these new abilities of yours.”

  “Ah, Magick training,” he mutters. “The bane of every Anomaly.”

  “It
’s important to make sure you don’t accidentally do something stupid when we least need you to,” is my unyielding answer. Alfie emerges from the door with Rhys at his back, and I smirk. “Besides, it’s not the bane of every Anomaly.”

  “What isn’t?” noses Alfie.

  “Magick training,” I say, and his entire face lights up.

  “Oh, fuck yeah!” he exclaims, immediately whirling on Oliver and seizing the poor guy by the collar of his knit jumper. “All right, muppet, you’re coming with us! We’re going to figure this shit out for you! You’ll be the hardest fox this side of the Lylat System! Or at least Mobius.” He shrugs off the video game references, and turns to Rhys. “Fit then, nobby?”

  “Before you go.” I beckon to my longest-serving friend of the three. “A word?”

  Alfie nods to Rhys and Oliver, who continue down the tiny path that leads off our pitch. I watch them leave, my stomach lacking the sense of concern I thought it may feel. If I trust this Rhys Shields character not only enough to take two of my brigade members off alone, but to spend the night with us in my camper van, and to leave with us on this brand new chapter in our lives, then the reason why I trust him so indefinitely is going to need to be deduced. And quickly.

  “Watcha,” greets Alfie, one brow quirked worriedly. “Everything pukka?”

  “There’s a serious lack of respect between the two of us, Savage,” I tell him bluntly, not beating about the bush in any way. “And I think we’re close enough that we can address it like adults.”

  The accusatory, defensive snarl his face twists into is immediate. “Oh sure, right, because you fucking off on your own wasn’t a huge slap in the—”

  “I’m not just talking about you, Alfie,” I interrupt. “I’m talking about me, too. What I did to you last night was bang out of order.”

  While he chews that over, I reach down and begin to work the KING fm sticker off of the bumper of my van. I made her a promise last week, and I’m going to keep it. My poor baby girl has suffered enough embarrassment. I imagine it’s like having an awful haircut.

  By the time I straighten up again, crumpling the vinyl in my hand, Alfie’s face has softened into that of the sweetheart I know exists deep within his hard outer shell.

  “It was your dad, Pen’,” he says softly, simply. “Fucking… Uncle Steve. I probably would’ve done the same thing. Besides, it’s not like I don’t get what that empty feeling is like.”

  I mirror his look of sympathy with one just as loving, and my fingers find the hand of his that isn’t freshly bandaged in heat-resistant gauze.

  “We’ve all lost family, hotshot,” I say. “That’s why we have to make our own.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And.” I squeeze his hand. “Why we need to respect each other. We may have our own agendas, but we’re still a brigade. We both have to remember that.”

  Alfie’s lips curl in a sneer. “We’re a badass, super-famous brigade now,” he gushes, “thanks to their pathetic little propaganda stunt blowing up in their faces.”

  A tiny broken meow pipes up to chip in its two cents. At the door to the van, Tesla the maine coon, who I suppose would count as our sixth brigade member, is staring at Alfie with those enormous blue-green eyes. Alfie groans.

  “Bugger off, you bloody puff-thing!” he yells at her, not that she seems to care. She chirps back affectionately. She’s been following him around for most of the morning, and insisted on sleeping on his shoulder-blades all night. Given how toasty warm they are, I don’t really blame her.

  I leave him to bicker with his new friend, stepping over her tiny mass in the doorway to enter the camper van, and leaving the door open so she can come and go as she pleases. Duncan is in the passenger’s seat, reorganizing everything for the long drive out to… well, wherever we end up heading.

  “Oliver called me ‘Captain’.”

  I’m not sure why I say that. Perhaps it’s the foremost thing on my mind at this time, and Duncan just happens to be the person I feel comfortable voicing it to. He raises his head, his dark brown eyes locking with mine and studying me for a few short moments.

  “Honestly, Starling? I think after last night, you’ve fully earned the rank.”

  “You do?” I press. “Honestly?”

  “Aye, I do.” Duncan finishes folding the paper map in his hands and tucks it behind the gearstick, turning to fully face me. “Why, still feeling like ye cannae lead us like one?”

  My heart flutters with confidence. I can’t tell if it was there before, or if it just sprung up upon seeing true belief in the eyes of one of the people whose opinion actually matters to me.

  “No,” I answer, and when I do, I can’t help but smile. “I actually really feel like I can.”

  I glance down, then back up again. The afterthought has to be said; I owe it to him. This time, not as his commanding officer, but as his friend.

  “With you lads behind me,” I add, “I honestly feel like I can do anything.”

  “I heard the wee’yin thinks we’re all going to be heroes,” Duncan chuckles as he rises from his seat, and I crane my neck to follow his handsome face the entire way up.

  “Well, I’m not sure about a hero,” I laugh, shaking my head and stepping my body forward into his. Standing flush against him, I can feel the familiar bulge at my stomach, and if I weren't in that sort of a mood before, the feeling of my strong, silent enforcer’s body up against my own will always drive me to that point.

  “How long will they be out?” Apparently, Duncan’s caught in the same thought process as me. Another body in the van means one more person to avoid if we want to continue enjoying each other’s company as we’ve grown accustomed to. Any time we can find for ourselves, no matter how inconvenient, may be our new way of life.

  “Long enough.”

  “Good.” Duncan grins a grin I recognize only too well. “‘Cause ye may be the Captain in the field, lassie… but in the bedroom, I’m in charge.”

  A surge of heat explodes in my gut as he yanks me against his chest. It shouldn’t be so hot, to hear him talking to me like that, but it is. His mouth finds mine, his kiss rough, his teeth scraping over my lower lip. I struggle in his grip, wanting him to have to fight me for control, wanting him to have to work for it. I know the harder I push him, the harder he’s going to push back.

  “Aye right, so that’s how it is then,” he murmurs, a distinct look in his eyes. A gasp tears out of me when he shoves me none-too-gently into the wall of the van, trapping me between his huge body and the panelling. Yes, is all I can think. He lets go of my legs and I squirm, letting them fall down between us. He captures one of my knees at his hip, and tugs it around his waist, my other foot hanging down, socked toes barely grazing the floor.

  I’ve needed this for so long, needed this violent release, and now that I have it—

  My burly Scotsman mouths at the side of my neck, tugging at my shirt. I cry out in surprise as he literally rips it off me, the cloth fluttering to the ground behind his shoulders.

  “You’re lucky that ain’t one of my favorite shirts,” I gripe, unable to keep from being cheeky.

  “Oh, am I?” His eyes glitter as he takes in my bare skin, and he lets out a soft, barely-audible growl. “I’d love to see what you’d do about it if it was…”

  I smirk up at him, despite the fact he’s holding me off the ground and my hips are grinding in slow, desperate circles against his belly. He wants me more than I want him, I lie to myself. He wants this more.

  “I’d punish you,” I say, as coolly as I’m able to given the constant tremble in my voice. “Not for being a dick, for wasting supplies. I don’t have many shirts left.”

  “Aye, so don't wear one, lass. You won’t hear any complaints out of me.”

  His eyes darken, pupils flaring, and my breath catches in the back of my mouth. Without any warning, he presses his face into my chest, tongue hot over my skin, his fingers tight and gripping hard under the curve of my arse. It feels
so good, the flickers of warmth stoking brighter inside of me as he gets the cup of my bra down, his lips finding the peak of my breast until I’m moaning aloud.

  “That's right, lassie, I know you like that,” he says with a flick of his tongue over my nipple before leaving it be. My bra has slipped down my arms, the band of it pushed down to my stomach almost, and I can feel Duncan's raw, untamed strength as he balances me on one arm, and manages to get my jeans undone at the same time.

  I kick my legs in protest and he smirks.

  “A little late now to be pretending you don’t like it,” he teases me as I groan. His hand shoves in between the tight denim and my skin, stroking me through my underwear right where I need it.

  “Don’t be a wanker, I need it.” I’m not above begging, and his smirk becomes almost unbearable. One thick, calloused finger slips over my entrance, threatening me, torturing me.

  “Aye, and you’ll have it,” he promises darkly, letting my leg go. It slips down his body and I have to hold myself up as he drags me across the small space. We tumble down onto the couch, and he rolls me underneath him. His hands scrape over my hips as he shoves my jeans down over them. I fight out of my shoes, and he pauses, tugging his own shirt off. My fingers scrabble across his broad, muscular chest, digging my nails in.

  He lets out a hiss, then grabs my wrists in one hand.

  “There will be absolutely none of that shite now, lassie,” he says, each word dropping like a stone into water. I swallow hard, knowing the promise is real. I struggle and squirm impatiently and he chuckles, getting himself out of his jeans without a second thought, still managing to hold my writhing body still at the same time. The power radiating off of him has me fighting, until he settles over me with his broad bulk and there is no room for me to fight anymore.

  He kisses me, pinning my wrists against the wall above my head in one hand, the couch solid under my back as I feel his cock rubbing up against me through my underwear. I’m soaked from just a few touches, and he’s so big, I’m half-dreading what it’ll be like if he doesn't get me more ready than I already am. But as twisted as it sounds, that’s part of the thrill of it, too. Especially with him.