Rebecca Lim - Fury

I watch the short, curvy female crew member in her smart, dark grey suit, filmy white blouse, bright red shoes and coordinating lipstick, her smooth, brown hair pinned in a low chignon, move around the cabin, plumping pillows and moving floral arrangements and in-flight reading material from one surface to another.

When Ryan finally gets onboard — his daypack slung over one shoulder — I see her eyes light up with interest. When he removes his cap and glasses, shoving them carelessly into a pocket of his leather jacket, then running a hand across the severe buzz cut Tommy gave him, I feel her interest intensify, even from where I’m drifting, weightless, at the back of the plane.

I forget, sometimes, how breathtaking he is with his warm, dark eyes and downy skin, the ready smile that lights up the incredible bones of his face, his tall and rangy athlete’s frame. Gia reacted the same way the first time she saw his face on the screen of her tiny mobile phone. It’s funny how true beauty can be immobilising when you come across it. Luc had been like that for me: he’d pulled my focus immediately in that crowd of beautiful creatures the first time I saw him. And he’d inhabited the absolute centre of my world from then on, until he’d casually torn it apart when he decided he was done with me.

I see the young woman struggle to put words of greeting together, the colour rising in her face as she gazes at Ryan with shining eyes, and feel something ugly move within me. They only talk about inconsequential things, like whether he wants his jacket stored, how the plasma touchscreens operate, how he takes his coffee, but it’s all taking way too long for my liking, and she keeps finding excuses to touch him.

By the time Ryan extricates himself from her and takes a seat at that table for four, halfway down the plane, I’m seething with a possessive emotion that is completely unwarranted but that I can’t help feeling. Love has treacherous faces, too, I’ve learnt. As do I.

And it hits me then, the resemblance. She reminds me of Luc’s Gudrun, with her blood-red lips and nails, her impeccable grooming and curvy, flirtatious ways, her chatty, overly familiar demeanour.

When I slide, still just a heat haze, a faint shimmer in the atmosphere, into the seat opposite Ryan’s, my words emerge from the thin air before his face quickly, acidly. ‘Tell her to keep away from you for the duration of the flight — make up any old excuse. Unless you prefer her company to mine, that is. Then by all means flirt away, buddy. Knock yourself out.’

Ryan gives a startled yelp that brings the stewardess hurrying back down the aisle towards him. She places a hand on his shoulder and I can’t seem to tear my gaze away from her blood-red nails where they curve down across the leather of his jacket.

‘What is it, Ryan?’ she says in her melodious Italian accent, because, of course, Ryan’s insisted she use his first name. ‘Is there anything I can help you with before take-off?’

Just try it , I think nastily, as Ryan shakes his head, staring with wild eyes at the space where he thinks I am.

‘Could you just, um, keep back as much as possible, Rosa? I think I’m coming down with something … uh, something viral and really disgusting.’

He coughs loudly and stagily for emphasis, and I see Rosa step back a little, removing her hand from his shoulder with unflattering speed.

‘I think I’ll just lie down on one of the couches back there and sleep it off,’ he adds. ‘Just get the captain to, um, wake me when we’re about to land. No need to check up on me, I won’t be needing anything during the flight.’

She nods, backing away with a weird mix of relief and disappointment on her pretty face. ‘Wait until after take-off, Ryan, then by all means sleep. I shall not disturb you.’

‘Happy?’ Ryan whispers as the plane begins to taxi towards the runway, Rosa safely buckled up in her crew seat near the cockpit. ‘You just dudded me out of the freshly brewed coffee I was really looking forward to. But if you join me on the couch after take-off, I might let you make it up to me. Maybe.’

I do growl, then. Low and menacing, like a wolf.

Ryan just chuckles, putting his hands behind his head in an attitude of complete relaxation as I flow huffily away from him down the plane.

The group seating for four effectively hides the occupant of the couch behind it from sight if said occupant is lying down.

I hear Ryan stand up, hear him unzip his leather jacket before taking it off and dumping it across the table in front of him. Then he makes his way around to where I’m stretched out. He stands there looking down at me for a moment, and there’s a weird expression on his face again. I know it’s because I’m in the human form I first gave myself at the Duomo, with its black, curly hair, dark green eyes and skin of near perfect, unshiny humanness.

‘We’re not amongst friends now,’ I murmur apologetically, ‘people who understand what I am. This will have to do. In case I’m seen.’

He eases himself down beside me, places his head on the wide armrest beside mine and turns to face me. ‘It still feels like I’m lying next to a stranger,’ he complains quietly.

‘I am a stranger,’ I reply, inexplicably wounded by his words. ‘In some way I’ll always be a stranger because I can’t get close to you. It was written , remember? We’re just finding out about it now, that’s all.’

Ryan’s dark gaze softens and he reaches up and brushes a long, dark curl back from my face before grinning. ‘You could get closer,’ he murmurs, ‘if you’d take off that stupid black puffer jacket you keep insisting on wearing. We might even gain a couple of inches of togetherness …’

He startles a laugh out of me that sounds almost tearful. ‘Better?’ I reply, shifting so quickly and imperceptibly that I’m wearing just the simple black turtleneck and jeans before he’s even registered the jacket is gone.

He wrinkles his nose. ‘What you’ve got on still has to be the opposite of sexy.’

It’s done before I can call it back. In a fit of pique, I shift so that I’m wearing the filmy white blouse and slim-fitting dark grey skirt of Rosa’s uniform. ‘Sexy enough for you?’ I say through gritted teeth.

Ryan recoils, almost falling off the couch in his haste to put some distance between us. His voice is reproachful. ‘Now you’re just being a bitch. We were only talking . You don’t get the right to act like a jealous girlfriend when you won’t even tell me what I mean to you.’

I shift back into my black turtleneck and dark grey jeans, but Ryan doesn’t move any closer, and I say rawly, ‘What else do you expect from a monster? I’m no good at any of it. At being me , at being like this. The Eight should have put me down the way I begged them to. I was born to trouble, to bring trouble upon others. I’m a freak …’ I cover my face with my hands.

‘You begged the Eight to kill you ?’ Ryan says in a hushed voice.

He pulls my hands away from my face fiercely, shaking me, his expression brittle with shock.

‘I woke in that place — that place we’re hurrying so hard to get to — so horribly burnt and wounded it was a wonder I ever woke at all,’ I whisper. ‘ They were all staring down at me, mocking me with Their incredible beauty, Their terrible power. But though I begged to die, They refused. Michael said it was against everything we stood for to end the life of one of our kind — even though I was vain and proud and the personal muse of the greatest force of destruction our universe has ever witnessed. They would not do it, though I threw my unspeakable pain, my deep rage and confusion, in all Their faces. And this is the result of all that care of me, all that love and protection that has never been warranted and can never be repaid. I’m a mess. In. Every. Single. Way.’