Joseph Patterson didn't like being kept waiting.

He leaned against the rusted warehouse's outer wall, arms crossed, breath fogging in the cold. The night pressed in around them, thick with exhaust fumes and the low hum of the city. His crew lingered nearby, shifting their weight in quiet impatience. A streetlight flickered overhead, casting them in a sickly orange glow.

Someone walked towards them down the street. Adder stared the silhouette down, the others turning behind him, stood in a line. The figure faltered, then turned, seeming to decide on another side street instead.

Adder's eyes swept the empty industrial lot, unmoved. "Where are they?" he asked, voice smooth, almost bored. It carried that faint upper-class tilt that never quite fit with the company he kept. "They said nine. It's ten past."

One of the lads, Kenny, opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again. The others avoided Adder's stare. Only Marcus met his eyes, flicking ash from his cigarette.

"They'll be here," Marcus said. His tone was casual, but the way his jaw twitched told Adder otherwise.

Adder pushed off the wall. "Mm." He adjusted his leather jacket, the stitched snake on the sleeve catching the light. "Let's not stand around like we've got nothing better to do. Inside."

They followed him toward the warehouse door. The place was supposedly neutral ground; a derelict shell the rival crew used for meetings. Adder didn't trust it. He didn't trust anything tonight. Not the silence, not Marcus's too-easy posture, not the chemical smell drifting from inside. But he'd had multiple people scope it out, and the Lewisham Boys had been threatened enough to hopefully know that any funny business and they'd be gutted.

The warehouse stretched out in shadowy rows of barrels, crates, and broken shelving. The air had a sharp tang to it. Spirits, maybe. Petrol. Hard to tell.

Adder paused. He didn't turn, didn't react outwardly at all, but something cold settled low in his stomach.

"Spread out," he ordered.

His men moved to positions like a well-practised sequence. Two were near the entrance, two covering the far corners. Marcus wandered deeper in, scouting.

Adder walked the centre aisle, his boots crunching on broken glass. His breath stayed steady. Nothing in him panicked. He had long ago trained fear out of himself. All he felt was annoyance.

They wanted a sit-down. Wanted to "talk terms." Wanted the East-End Adders to stop pushing into their turf.

He'd agreed, but not because he needed a deal. He wanted to see who thought they could threaten him.

A faint metallic clink echoed from somewhere near the rafters.

Adder stopped.

There was another noise.

His eyes narrowed. "Marcus," he called. "Front and centre."

No answer.

He turned, intending to order the lads out, but he only got half a syllable.

The world blew apart.

An explosion tore through the left side of the warehouse with no warning, no build-up, just an explosion that tossed him sideways. The shockwave punched the breath out of him. He hit the floor hard, his skull cracking against concrete, stars blurring his vision.

Heat slammed into him next.

He rolled instinctively, coughing, ears ringing. Flames licked across the floor, crawling under the metal drums and racing up the wooden supports. Someone screamed, a thin, high sound swallowed instantly by the heavy roar of fire.

"Fuck!" Kenny stumbled past him, his jacket already burning. He slammed against a pallet, slapping at the flames, but they clung to him like hungry animals.

Adder started toward him, but a beam crashed down between them, scattering embers.

The warehouse was going up fast. Flames leapt up the walls in unnatural sheets, as though they'd been waiting for this exact moment.

Adder forced himself upright, blinking through the smoke. "Everyone out!" he barked, voice cracked but commanding. "Move!"

Two of his men scrambled toward the entrance—only to find the door jammed, welded shut by heat or design. One of them hurled himself at it, shoulder-first. The metal didn't budge.

Another explosion detonated overhead. Burning debris rained down.

Adder spotted the other two of his men pinned under a fallen beam near the middle of the warehouse. They weren't screaming. Ethan wasn't moving. Omar panted fast and shallow, eyes wild with terror.

Adder swore under his breath.

He dodged falling debris and sprinted toward them, heat biting at his arms, smoke clawing into his lungs. Every breath tasted metallic, thick, like breathing liquid fire.

He reached the beam and shoved. It didn't budge.

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He planted his feet, gritting his teeth. "Move," he snarled at the wood, as if it were a living thing refusing him out of spite.

The beam groaned. Shifted half an inch.

Omar whimpered, his leg twisted at an impossible angle. Adder had seen him shiv someone, seen him lead a deal against a gang with twice their numbers. He'd never seen him cry.

He crouched, slipping his hands under the charred wood. His palms seared instantly. Skin stuck to the beam. He ignored it. "You're not dying here."

He heaved.

Muscle tore. Flesh blistered. The beam lifted just enough.

Omar scrambled out, dragging his injured leg. Ethan didn't move.

Adder grabbed Ethan by the collar, yanking him free before the beam crashed back down.

The crash sent a wave of sparks into his face. He hissed, clenching his eyes shut.

He staggered, boy in his arms, but the flames caught his jacket, eating through the leather like acid. He shook it off, dropping the jacket and hauling both the others toward the way he'd come.

Kenny and one of the others must have finally got it open. He looked over his shoulder, unable to see the door Marcus had gone through. There was no way he could get back there. He continued forward.

Halfway there, the floor buckled. A burning support snapped overhead, cutting off the route.

Omar stared at the wall of fire, coughing over and over from the smoke. "We—we can't—"

Adder shoved him toward the one narrow gap still visible. The tickling in his throat burned with each cough. "You can. Go."

The heat surged, bright and violent, and Adder lost his patience. He grabbed Omar by the collar, pushed him hard toward the exit. "Get. Out."

Omar stumbled forward and disappeared into smoke.

Adder turned back to the unconscious boy. The world was a blur now—orange, red, black, sliding over each other as the flames circled him.

His skin felt wet. Melting.

He tried to lift Ethan again, but his fingers wouldn't close properly. The muscles spasmed, too cooked to cooperate.

He looked down at his hands. Pink skin split open in jagged lines, weeping. His fingertips bubbled.

A strange calm washed over him. So this is it.

Another explosion knocked him to his knees. The boy slid from his grasp. Adder reached for him, but his body refused to move.

Smoke thickened around him, turning the world heavy, syrup-slow.

His breath came harsh and fast, glowing embers flickering on each exhale.

He dragged the boy up, hoisting him over his shoulder. His own skin cracked, sloughing away in patches, revealing raw, shiny flesh beneath.

Then he saw an opening in the door.

He ran through fire. Through collapsing beams. Through the roar of death.

Each step felt like stepping through molten syrup, but the flames parted around him, reacting to him—following him.

By the time he reached the doorway, the entire roof groaned with impending collapse.

His foot crossed the threshold.

The warehouse behind him caved in a burst of blazing timber.

He did not look back.

Outside, the cold night air hit him like a slap. Steam erupted from his skin as the temperature drop shocked his body. He stumbled, dropping to one knee, boy still over his shoulder.

Kenny groaned in pain, pacing up and down from the burns his coat had given him.

Jamie stood frozen on the asphalt, eyes wide. His face drained of colour as he stared at Adder's burned, glowing form.

"What the fuck—what—" Jamie whispered, running his hands through his hair. Marcus ran around the side of the building, seeming unharmed. He must have left through a back door. That was all of them accounted for, two dead, two alive.

Adder dropped the boy gently on the pavement as paramedics arrived, shouting. Their voices muffled, distant.

Ethan didn't make it. Adder knew from the faces of the paramedics as they checked his heartbeat. Jamie screamed profanities by the boy's body, blaming himself, blaming the rival crew, blaming the world.

He shrugged off the paramedics attempts to check on him and pull him over to their too-bright vehicles.

Adder grabbed him by the shirt, yanking him upright. "Shut the fuck up."

He pulled him away from the flashing red and blue lights, the medical equipment, and their dead and injured brothers.

"Do you know why I'm not angry?" Adder said to him, ignoring the clenching grief in his stomach.

Jamie spat at him. "No, I fucking don't. Why the fuck don't—"

"QUIET!" Adder bellowed.

Jamie was shocked into a pause.

Adder's hands tightened on his forearms. "Jamie. East End Adders don't cry and stare at the sky, asking why this happened to us? We get fucking even."

Jamie's mouth opened and closed.

"You have my word. We are going to find out who did this and burn them to the fucking ground."

• • • • • • • • •

Tanya dragged in a breath she didn't remember taking.

The machine was still buzzing in her hand—steady, controlled, clinical—and that felt wrong now, wrong against the echo of what she'd just seen. The memory clung to her like smoke, hot in the throat, impossible to blink away. She'd tattooed through pain before, through Ishita having lost her hand, Fahad disappearing into nothingness, and Ian watching his dream falling apart, but nothing had ever felt like that.

Like having someone else's grief poured directly into her skull.

Adder sat exactly where he'd been when it started, arm braced on the chair, jaw set in that particular almost-smile of his. Composed like he hadn't just shown her something that scraped raw against the inside of her ribs.

She swallowed. "That—" Her voice cracked. "Christ, Adder."

He didn't answer. His eyes were lowered, following the needle's path along his skin as if it were the only thing happening in the room.

Tanya forced herself to keep working. The lines needed to stay smooth. But her hands weren't as steady as they usually were, and she hated that he'd probably notice.

"That was your… friend?" she asked quietly.

"Brother," Adder said. "In every way that mattered."

There was no tremor in his voice. That made it worse.

She didn't ask how old they were. Didn't ask what started it. Didn't ask why the rival gang went after them. The memory had been enough—shouted names, burning rubber, sound like wet gravel when bones broke. She caught only flashes before she'd yanked her mind back, sick to her stomach. Enough to know what happened next wasn't justice. It was the kind of thing you never crawled out of.

He promised to a man with red eyes, voice shredded from crying and hot smoke, that it would all be okay because they'd kill them.

Tanya tightened her jaw, pressing the needle in a fraction deeper. She didn't judge him—not exactly. Grief made monsters of people, she knew that well enough. But the certainty in his voice, the absolute devotion to vengeance? That chilled her more than the screams in the memory.

And still, she felt for him. She hated that she felt for him.

"Adder…" she said, softer now. "Wasn't there another way? I—fuck. Sorry, forget I said anything."

He looked up at her then. Really looked. For a moment, she thought he'd snap back, or sneer, or armour himself in wit.

He didn't.

"No. There wasn't," he said.

The last line curled into place as he said it.

Heat flared.

Tanya jerked her head up as flame spiralled off his shoulder, gathering itself like a breath turning into a roar. Fire rolled out across the shop floor, curling up the walls, dancing around her ankles. She panicked, feeling the horror from the memory she'd watched come alive. But then she realised nothing was burning. She could feel the heat from it, but it didn't grow or spread, and the flames licking her exposed skin didn't hurt.

A phoenix unfolded behind him, wings stretching wide enough to brush the ceiling. For a moment, she forgot how to breathe.

Then she saw them.

Its wings had healed wrong, like they'd once been badly injured, and the fire simply learned to grow around the break.

Just like the scars running down Adder's arms.

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