Rebecca Lim - Fury

Ryan raises me to my feet, and, without thinking, I pull him to me, needing his warmth, his strength, just to stay upright. I take in my surroundings shakily and see with shock that it’s as if we came up out of the ground not in Paris, but back in Milan. All around us is a scene of utter devastation. We’re standing on the only section of the street that hasn’t collapsed into the earth, taking with it cars, bicycles, trees, street furniture, road signs, the awnings and porticos of buildings. It’s not a Rue now, but a deep trench.

‘My God,’ Ryan breathes as he slowly processes the desolation around us. ‘What the hell happened up here?’

‘ We happened,’ I say quietly.

He turns and stares at me, horrified.

The last of the day’s light has leached out of the navy blue sky. My internal clock tells me that it’s after four in the afternoon; that we’ve been gone for hours. There are no faces at the windows of the damaged buildings looming over us, but plenty of emergency personnel on the ground, and a large crowd being kept back at some far remove. I hear someone shout out as they catch sight of us standing in the middle of the road like sightseers. Except that Ryan’s covered, head to foot, in white dust, just like those kids were. We might as well have a flashing neon sign over our heads that says we’ve been down in the catacombs while the world caved in above us.

‘ Arrêtez-vous! ’ a man roars in the distance.

I don’t give him time to point a weapon at us or get any closer; I just grasp Ryan under the arms and leap into the sheltering sky, with Ryan bellowing out his fear.

I take us so high, so fast, that we are soon lost in the underbelly of black cloud that is advancing towards us. Soon, we are specks too small for the human eye to detect. They will have no explanation for us in whatever reports they file of this day.

The direction of the gusting wind is against us. Ryan’s stopped yelling, but his eyes are screwed shut and there’s a sick look on his face as if this is some crazy carnival ride he can’t get off. Once my trajectory starts to even out, he wriggles in my grasp, actually struggling to reach around and get the backpack, half out of his mind with fear.

‘We could just c-call Henri,’ he stammers through chattering teeth. ‘Catch a lift with him.’

It’s arctic up here and I hug him closer to me. ‘Henri’s officially off-duty,’ I reply gently. ‘And do you really think he’ll want to pick up after he sees what’s happened to the fourteenth arrondissement? If you can bear it, look down.’

Ryan shakes his head, terrified.

‘Street after street, Ryan, collapsed into the earth. If I were Henri, I wouldn’t touch us, and I don’t blame him. He won’t pick up. Please, don’t struggle any more. Remember what you told me? You’re not going to fall . I’ve got you, I’ve got you.’

Ryan’s breathing erratically and his eyes are still closed, so he doesn’t see us leave the chaos around the Île de la Cité and Île St Louis in our wake, doesn’t see that we’ve already left northern Paris far behind us.

To spare him a little, I’m holding back on how fast I can actually go. I feel no fear now as I stretch into the buffeting wind, into the smell of advancing rain. When Ryan is with me, it truly is as if I cannot fall.

The lights are so extraordinarily beautiful, like a net of jewels flung across the darkened land. I feel a surge of inexplicable joy, though I don’t think we’ve ever been so exposed, just two tiny creatures battling a vast and threatening sky.

‘I wish you’d look!’ I tell him.

He rests his cold cheek against mine, his eyes still closed. ‘Just tell me when it’s over,’ he says, teeth chattering, his whole body one long tremor.

Ten minutes later, no more than that, it is.

‘We’re here,’ I tell him, landing so silently, so lightly, that it takes him a moment to comprehend that solid ground is again beneath our feet. He staggers a little where he stands, opening his eyes with difficulty before raising his head. I see the look of shock on his face as he focuses on the signage on the hangar wall beside us: StA Global Logistics . Fear had blocked out the sound of aircraft taxiing down the runway beneath us, blocked out the odour of burning aviation fuel and wet tarmac.

‘You’re going to walk in the front entrance of that hangar,’ I tell him in a low voice, ‘and introduce yourself to the ground staff on duty and tell them you need the jet fuelled and ready for take-off as fast as humanly possible, faster . We’re calling in that favour — get Bianca on the line if you have to, or those mystery telephone wizards. Throw everything you’ve got at them.’

‘But I look like a terrorist ,’ Ryan says, appalled, running a grazed and trembling hand through his dusty buzz cut. ‘Those police on the ground — that’s what they thought we were. And where am I to say we’re going in such a hurry?’

‘Tokyo,’ I reply. ‘By way of the Izu Islands. Specifically, the jet has to make one pass over the uninhabited crag known as Lot’s Wife — the SMfu-iwa.’

Ryan mouths the unfamiliar words, imprinting them on his memory.

‘I’ll explain more when we get on board,’ I add. ‘Minimum crew, you know the drill.’

My outline is already beginning to shred at the edges as Ryan squares his shoulders and stumbles around the front of the building.

When the plane reaches cruising altitude — after passing through a belt of heavy rain that gave us a rocky time — Ryan unbuckles his seatbelt and heads for the couch at the back of the plane. ‘Scooch over,’ he mock-complains when he finds me already there, with a couple of fat pillows under my head and two more set out for him beside me.

There’s a pretty, softly spoken crew member at the front of the plane near the cockpit, her hands clenched unhappily in her lap. Apart from welcoming Ryan on board, she’s tried to avoid him at all costs. I can feel her towering tension from where I am, and it’s rising in me, too. I’ve had time to think, which is always a dangerous thing.

Ryan’s clearly made the most of the passenger lounge inside the hangar during the fifty-seven minutes it took to scramble together a crew and a flight out of Le Bourget: somehow he’s managed to shower and get the worst of the dust off his tee-shirt. He smells like soap and the supermarket-brand deodorant Tommy put inside our backpack. He eases himself down beside me, his mobile phone in his hand, and his eyes seem very tired.

‘What’s at SMfu-iwa?’ he yawns, angling in to face me.

I reach up to trace his freshly shaven jaw, the bruised-looking skin beneath his eyes. He closes them briefly, before placing his hand on mine and pulling our entwined fingers down to rest between us on the couch.

‘More like who ,’ I whisper. ‘The Eight were supposed to regroup there after Milan. It could be some of Them, or no one. I just need to tell them Jegudiel and Selaphiel are alive; and then maybe that’s my cue to stop messing you around and get the hell out of your life. For good.’

Ryan draws breath sharply. ‘You’re joking, right?’

‘I’ve been thinking,’ I say, frowning at the broad wall of his chest, unable to meet his eyes, astonished at my cowardice. ‘Every moment I’m here is another chance for Luc to get to me and trigger the kind of “end time” he’s been craving since he fell. They all knew me, Ryan, those demons that I … killed. We had … history. We used to be on the same side. Only at the time I hadn’t realised sides were forming.’ I raise my eyes to his face. ‘They all knew my name. They would have used it, too.’

‘So what?’ he says sharply. ‘So what if they knew your name?’