Up in his room he took a shower and stretched out on his majestic bed. He knew he should be calling one of the females he used for blood, but he so wasn't interested. Instead of picking up the phone, he closed his eyes and let his arms fall to his sides, his hand landing on the firearms book, the one he'd taught class from tonight. The one with his drawing in it.

His door opened without a knock. Which meant it was Zsadist. With news.

Phury sat up so fast, his brain went fish-tank in his skull, sloshing around, threatening to spill out his ears. He put his hand up to the bandage as pain speared into him. "What happened with Bella?"

Z's eyes were black holes in his scarred face, "What the fuck were you thinking!"

"Excuse me?"

"Getting jumped because-" As Phury winced, Z cut the volume down on his boom-box routine and shut the door. Relative silence didn't improve his mood. In a hushed voice, he bit out, "I can't fucking believe you played Jack the Ripper and got cracked-"

"Please tell me how Bella is."

Z pointed his finger right at Phury's chest. "You need to spend a little less time worrying about my shellan and a little more worrying about your own sorry ass, feel me?"

Swamped by pain, Phury squeezed his good eye shut. The brother was, of course, right on the money.

"Shit," Z spat into the quiet. "Just… shit."

"You're absolutely right." Phury noticed that his hand was clutching the firearms book, and he forced himself to let go of the thing.

As a clicking sound started to go off, Phury glanced up. Z was nicking the top of his RAZR phone over and over again with his thumb. "You could have been killed."

"I wasn't."

"Cold comfort. At least for one of us. What about your eye? V's doc save it?"

"Don't know."

Z walked over to one of the windows. Pushing the heavy velvet drape aside, he stared out across the terrace and the pool. The strain in his ruined face was obvious, his jaw clenched, his brows down low over his eyes. Strange… before it had always been Z who was on the edge of oblivion. Now Phury was standing on that thin, slippery lip, the worrier having become the cause for concern.

"I'll be okay," he lied, leaning to the side for his bag of red smoke and his rolling papers. He spun a thick one up fast, lit it, and the false calm came right away, like his body had been trained well. "Just had an off night."

Z laughed, though it was a curse more than anything jolly. "They were right."

"Who?"

"Payback is a bitch." Zsadist took a deep breath. "You get yourself killed out there and I'm-"

"I won't." He inhaled again, not willing to take the vow any further than that. "Now please tell me about Bella."

"She's going on bed rest."

"Oh, God."

"No, it's good." Z rubbed his skull trim. "I mean, she hasn't lost the young yet, and if she keeps quiet she might not."

"She in your room?"

"Yeah, I'm going to go get her something to eat. She's allowed to be up for an hour a day, but I don't want to give her excuses to be on her feet."

"I'm glad she-"

"Fuck, my brother. Is this what it was like for you?"

Phury frowned and tapped the blunt over his ashtray. "I'm sorry?"

"I'm fucked in the head all the time. It's like whatever I'm doing moment to moment is only half-real because of all the crap I'm worried about."

"Bella's-"

"It's not just about her." Z's eyes, now back in yellow because he wasn't as pissed off, drifted across the room. "It's you."

Phury made elaborate work of bringing the blunt to his mouth and inhaling. As he let the smoke out, he searched his mind for words to comfort his twin.

He didn't come up with much.

"Wrath wants us to meet at nightfall," Z said, looking back out the window, as if he knew damn well there would be no meaningful reassurance. "All of us."

"Okay."

After Z left, Phury opened the firearms book and took out the drawing he'd done of Bella. He ran his thumb back and forth over his depiction of her cheek, staring at her with his one working eye. The quiet pressed in on him, constricting his chest.

All things considered, it was possible he'd already fallen off the ledge, possible that he was already sliding down the mountain of his destruction, bumping against boulders and trees, bouncing and breaking limbs, a mortal blow awaiting him.

He stabbed out the blunt. Falling into ruin was a bit like falling in love: Both descents stripped you bare and left you as you were at your core.

And in his limited experience, both endings were equally painful.

As John stared at the lesser who had appeared out of nowhere, he couldn't move. He'd never been in a car accident before, but he had a feeling that this was what they were like. You were going along and then suddenly everything you were thinking about before the intersection was put on hold, replaced by a collision that became your one and only priority.

Damn, they really did smell like baby powder.

And luckily this one was not pale haired, so he was a new recruit. Which might be the only reason he and his friends got out of this alive.

Qhuinn and Blay got in front of John, blocking the way. But then a second lesser came out of the shadows, a chess piece moved into position by an unseen hand. He was also dark haired.

God, they were big.

The first one looked at John. "Better run along, son. This is no place for you."

Holy shit, they didn't know he was a pretrans. They thought he was just a human.

"Yeah," Qhuinn said, shoving John's shoulder. "You got your dime bag. Now get out of here, punk."

Except he couldn't leave his-

"I said, get the fuck out of here." Qhuinn gave him a hard push, and John stumbled into a stack of tarpaper tolls big as couches.

Shit, if he ran, he was a coward. But if he stayed he was going to be worse than no help. Hating himself, he took off at a dead run, heading straight for ZeroSum. Like an idiot, he'd left his backpack at Blay's, so he couldn't call home. And it wasn't like he could waste time looking for one of the Brothers on the off chance they might be hunting nearby. There was only one person he could think of who would help them.

At the club's entrance he went right up to the bouncer at the head of the wait line.

Xhex. I need to see Xhex. Get me-

"What the hell are you doing, kid?" the bouncer said.

John mouthed the word Xhex over and over again while signing.

"Okay, you are pissing me off." The bouncer loomed over John. "Get the hell out of here or I'm calling your mommy and daddy."

Snickers from the wait line made John more frantic. Please! I need to see Xhex-

John heard a distant sound that was either a car peeling out or a scream, and as he wheeled around toward it, the dull weight of Blay's Glock bumped into his thigh.

No phone to text from. No way to communicate.

But he had a six-pack of lead in his back pocket.

John ran back to the lot, dodging around parallel-parked cars, breathing hard, legs flying as fast as they could. His head was hammering at him, the exertion making the pain so bad he went nauseous. He rounded the corner, skidding on loose gravel.

Fuck! Blay was on the ground with a lesser sitting on his chest, and the two were fighting for control of what looked like a switchblade. Qhuinn was holding his own against the other slayer, but the pair were too evenly matched for John's taste. Sooner or later one of them was-

Qhuinn took a right hook to the face and spun out, his head twirling on his spine like a top, carrying his body into a pirouette.

In that moment something came into John, came in through the back way, entered sure as if a ghost had stepped into his skin. Old knowledge, the kind that came with experience he hadn't yet had enough years to gain, carried his hand deep into his back pocket. He palmed the Glock, popped it free, and double-handed it.