“What the…” Nathan muttered. Fury leaned forward, hand on the dash.
Ahead of them was a massive, smoldering, fuming blaze stretching toward the sky. Smoke swirled in the inky night, drawing it closer and blotting out the few visible stars. At first, Nathan couldn’t even tell what was on fire, only that the blaze was hungry and eating everything its tendrils could lick. Another
boom
made him jump, and he watched the shell of a car lift and fall, the frame glowing. It rolled into the patchy grass along the edge of the warehouse’s lot. Nathan could only stare.
Fury, however, chose that moment to get out of the car. Nathan got his seat belt undone with numb fingers, and he climbed out too. The heat coming off the fire smacked Nathan in the face, leaving his back cold and front too hot.
“What are you doing?” Nathan said, or he meant to anyway. He thought it, at least, but Fury didn’t seem to hear him. Nathan trotted after Fury, heard something that sounded like firecrackers and BBs hitting metal, and Nathan was on his belly on the ground before he registered he was moving.
“Gun?” Nathan asked the gravel against his lips. “No, couldn’t be. Not a gun, not… No…” Out of the clear blue, Nathan remembered his father telling him once upon a younger time…
“Son, if you hear the gunfire, that’s good. Means you weren’t hit. It’s when you feel the numbness and the burn and didn’t hear a thing… That’s when you’re fucked.”
Nathan heard it again—
RAT…RATTATATTAT
—and he covered his head with his hands. His bowels went loose, and so did his bladder, and the sensations startled him so much that his confusion kept bodily function in check. Yelling, screaming, cursing… And one of the voices was female.
“Izzy!” Fury bellowed, coughing, and Nathan had to look up. He had to see where Fury was, and when he saw Fury lumbering toward the warehouse, he had to get up and go after Fury. There were no decisions; there was no sense. Fuck logic, safety, or reason. A calm voice in Nathan’s mind said he might get shot and killed, and he told it that he didn’t care. Fury was worth a bullet and worth dying for.
The smoke and ash crowded Nathan, and he tugged his shirt up over his nose. There were at least two cars on fire, and Nathan spotted a lump that he was fairly certain used to be a man. The black stuff was what was left of a suit. That shiny pool there was blood. And Nathan hadn’t known blood could burn, but evidently, it could. He tried to get closer, to see if he could help, even though that was fucking stupid. The man wasn’t moving, and anyone with their hand on fire like that should definitely be moving. Nathan smelled barbecue. Cooked pork. Burning fat and…
Nathan retched. It was almost polite, the urge to vomit. No nausea, no dizziness, just the bile in his stomach knocking at the trap door with a
pardon me, we’re going to clean this out now
. Nathan stayed on his knees when he was done, jerking side to side, trying to see anything that didn’t make him feel crazy. The lot wasn’t that big, and he’d seen it twice before, but he might as well have been in the middle of the damned desert. He had no idea how long he’d been lost in the haze or separated from Fury. It had to be only seconds, but it felt like years.
Disorientated but determined, Nathan began to crawl, and he was looking left when his right hand struck something that gave. Nathan registered T-shirt, jacket, scruff, scrawny body, and one half of Duke’s cock-eyed grin. The other half was gone, and so was the side of Duke’s head. That gray shit was…and that white was…and there was enough blood to fill a fucking oil rig. Nathan was screaming and screaming and crab-crawling away from what was left of the man who used to sell him weed and offer up a cock to suck when Nathan was desperate and high enough to take it.
“Nate!”
Nathan rammed backward into Fury’s shins, head knocking against Fury’s thigh. Fury had taken his shirt completely off and wrapped it around his head, leaving him bare-chested in the frost-fiery night. Nathan blinked up at him, thinking Fury looked like a demon bandit with the flames in his eyes. Fury got Nathan by the underarms, hauled Nathan upright, and they went maybe six or seven paces. The smoke miraculously cleared—the air current whipping it away. Nathan thought he might be crying, because his eyes were watering so badly, he almost didn’t recognize Hellabeth or Dennis.
Hellabeth rested against the side of a Dumpster in nothing but a black bra and torn pants. Fury’s jacket was over her bare shoulders. Her shirt was wrapped around her right shoulder and strapped to her body with a belt. It was shiny with wet, but then again, so was the rest of her. Hellabeth’s right arm hung uselessly, and her left hand was pressed to Dennis’s abdomen. Dennis lay sprawled and unconscious, bleeding from multiple sites and covered in muck, soot, scrapes, and bruises.
When Hellabeth saw Fury and Nathan, she made a noise that Nathan would swear was a primal scream of rage.
“What the fuck are you still doing here?” Hellabeth roared.
Fury didn’t answer. He fell down beside Dennis and slapped his hand over Hellabeth’s. She shoulder-checked him with her good side, and she had enough strength left to knock Fury on his ass.
“Get out of here,” Hellabeth ordered.
“No.” Fury reclaimed his right to balance, and he mashed hands into Dennis again.
“Hale, goddamn it!”
“You’re hurt!” Fury yelled, face masked by the T-shirt, but his eyes weren’t.
“The cops will be here any second, and you can’t be here!” Hellabeth screamed.
“Like hell!”
Nathan sat next to Dennis. He couldn’t quite bring himself to plunge his hands down on the mass of wound and gore. Human bodies should not wear their insides on their outsides. It was wrong in ways that made Nathan want to claw his eyes out so he’d never risk seeing it again.
“I’m not leaving you,” Fury called, and he was bending over Dennis’s face, speaking softly when another boom sounded from the burning warehouse.
“What the hell was that?” Nathan called.
“Bomb,” Hellabeth replied.
“A what?” Nathan didn’t think that explosion had been loud enough to be a bomb. Weren’t bombs louder? Deafening? Then again, his ears were ringing and buzzing like a nest of shrill bees had taken up residence in his brain. The image made him giggle, and he gagged. Again.
“Not that,” Hellabeth said impatiently. “I don’t know what the fuck that was. What came before, what started this… It was a bomb. A few of them, I think. I was outside. Dennis was…” She stared at the seeping river of red spilling from Dennis. “He wasn’t with me.”
“I heard gunfire?” Nathan didn’t mean to make it a question, but it was, and he didn’t mean to start spinning around checking for armed men, but he did.
“That was Tray,” Hellabeth said. “Cleaning up what the bombs didn’t take out.”
“I’ll fucking kill him,” Fury said.
“No, you won’t.” Hellabeth yanked her hand out from under Fury’s, and she grabbed him by the ear. “You will get the fuck out of here,” she said, shockingly calm and sure. “I will stay with Dennis. I will finish telling the cops what I know. They will find Tray. They will deal with him.”
“What if they don’t?” Fury asked.
“They will.” Hellabeth’s face contorted into an evil rendition of a smile. “He’s gut-shot too. He won’t get far.”
“How—”
“You know how.”
“You shot him?” Nathan gaped at Hellabeth, and he had to fight the urge to run away. He wanted to find a dark hole, hide in it, and stay there until further notice. The desire made him hate himself so much for being a coward that he wrenched his hands off the pavement and helped Fury hold in Dennis’s guts. They squished. Nathan wanted to puke. He didn’t.
“If they find you here, you’ll still be involved,” Hellabeth said. “You can’t be involved in this shit, Hale. It’s my shit, not yours.”
“We’re in this together, Beth, I—”
“No, we’re not. The fucking family won’t care about one shithole in the South. They won’t care if Tray dies or who killed him or why. They’ll send some new asshole to run the joint.” Hellabeth’s voice turned pleading. “Please? Go. Just go. Take Nathan, and let me handle this one.”
“But—”
“You did the last two, Hale,” Hellabeth said, and she shook Fury by the shoulder and ear. It had to hurt, but Fury didn’t make a sound. “Dad and the store. All for my ass.”
“It wasn’t all for you,” Fury snapped, but his argument was losing momentum.
“I know,” Hellabeth said. “But it’s my turn, damn it. Let me get this shit right.”
“What if I never see you again?” Fury asked like a little, lost boy. A spasm of sympathy shuddered through Nathan. He hated being right about how much Fury could lose.
“You ain’t never getting rid of me, Hale Collett Fury.” This time Hellabeth’s grin was as reassuring as it was terrifying. “Have to make sure you and your boyfriend grow old together.” Everyone jerked their chins in the direction of the approaching sirens, suddenly loud and piercing.
“Fucking go.” Hellabeth shoved Fury, and she used her head to knock Nathan aside. She threw herself back onto Dennis, and the bubbling, weak groan he gave was actually comforting.
“I’ll stay and make sure he doesn’t burn, Hale,” Hellabeth yelled. “Now go!”
Fury slowly began to back away. Nathan climbed to his feet, and he latched on to Fury’s wrist. The contact seemed to wake Fury up out of his daze. Resolve set, Fury bolted for the car, dragging Nathan along with him. Nathan kept up, and he didn’t argue when Fury went for the driver’s side. Nathan shimmied into the passenger seat, got the door closed, and Fury hit the gas. Nathan grabbed for handholds. He twisted in the seat, staring at the approaching whirling lights, but he and Fury were gone before any rescue vehicles arrived on scene.
Nathan tried to breathe, and he planted a hand on the duffel bag that had slid forward to rest on the center console. “Shit!” he cried, snatching his hand away. “Shit…shit!”
“Shut up!” Fury ordered, and Nathan flung himself against the side of the car. Fury unwrapped the shirt from around his head and scowled at Nathan, but he jammed his finger onto the automatic locks. They clicked, Fury drove, and Nathan held on to the dashboard.
Fury drove methodically. He didn’t speed, and he didn’t take risks. Lights changed, signs flashed by them, and when they merged onto the interstate, Fury glanced Nathan’s way. “Get your belt on,” he grumbled.
“Okay.” Nathan somehow sat, buckled, and the next few minutes were lost to fighting the urge to throw up. He was covered in drying blood. Under his nails, in the crevices of his knuckles, the lines of his hands… It was everywhere. It looked like he’d been stabbed, and for a horrible second, he couldn’t remember if he had been or not.
“Sit back,” Fury said, gentler, now, though still rough. “Close your eyes. Breathe.”
“Okay.” Nathan did as instructed, though he slapped a hand on the edge of the window and the cushion when the slightest weave of the road made him ill.
“You okay?” Fury asked after an eternity of turns.
“No,” Nathan replied.
“You hurt?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
“Nathan.”
“Cuts… Scrapes…” Nathan had to work to get the words out of his mouth. “Nothing lethal, just… Feel like I’m going to barf again, okay?”
Fury didn’t say anything after that, but the door opened, closed, and then air filled the space to Nathan’s right, whereas a second ago, there’d been metal and plastic and insulation from the world.
“Get out,” Fury directed, but it wasn’t mean, merely tired. “C’mon, Nate. We’re here.”
“Where?” Nathan opened his eyes. He blinked up at a steeple backlit by a full moon and wandering clouds. “We’re at church?”
“Yeah.” Fury reached across Nathan and undid the seat belt. He grabbed Dennis’s bag and Nathan’s hand. “C’mon.”
“Why are we here?” Nathan asked, but he let Fury help him out and hold him up as they made their way to the back door of the main building.
“’Cause it’s on a hill.” Fury dug out keys from one sticky pocket.
“Huh?” Nathan’s eyelids were heavy. Man, he wanted a nap.
“Nobody can see us up here. Nobody’s here. And they don’t got cameras.”
“Oh.” That was ridiculously good forethought, and if Fury could put all that together, then Nathan could at least get one foot in front of the other without leaning so much on the other man.
“There you go,” Fury encouraged. He locked the door behind them, picked up the bag where he’d dropped it so he could manage the door and Nathan at the same time, and they walked down a silent hallway papered in kids’ drawings claiming that Jesus loved them.
“Wait,” Nathan said, brain emerging from its terrified goo state. “Why here? Why not the apartment?”
“You live on the ground floor, and there’re safety lights,” Fury explained. He took a sharp right and an immediate left into a men’s room. It had angel-printed wallpaper. “Don’t want people seein’ us like this and askin’ questions, and…”
Fury trailed off, flicking on the overhead fluorescents. Nathan winced at the glare and rested against the bathroom counter. He resolutely did not look into the mirrors. “And what?” Nathan asked.
“I gotta do something with this,” Fury said, gesturing to the bag.
Nathan didn’t get the connection to the bag and the church, but he understood coming here instead of going home. He spied the sink’s faucet, and he cranked it on, scrubbing his hands and arms with handfuls of lilac soap and cold water. The basin ran red, then pink, then clear, and Nathan snatched paper towels out of the dispenser.
Fury, meanwhile, studied the duffel. He found the zippers with the luggage locks, and he toyed with them as though thinking. Nathan didn’t ask, choosing to wash and watch instead, but he flinched when Fury yanked and pulled on the zippers until the thin metal gave and broke. He tossed the locks aside and opened the duffel.
“Well?” Nathan asked.
Fury stared for a second and then tipped the bag toward Nathan. It was full of cash. Some of the bills were crisp and neatly stacked, some were older and faded, and some needed the ironing portion of the money-laundering process. Nathan repressed a giggle. “Fuck.”