Beyond Paradise

He had forgotten how fucking uncomfortable the couch was to sleep on. Stirring from the deep, dreamless sleep just enough to be aware of the numbness in his hip, he tried to shift his body to relieve the pressure, and found himself falling, tumbling onto a cold, hard surface that felt nothing at all like his living room carpet. The momentary surprise flared into full-fledged panic as caught the acrid smell of smoke--there must be a fire! His muddled thoughts immediately raced to Adie and the boys, who would be sleeping upstairs, and he was scrambling to his feet before his eyes were even fully open.

Suddenly he stopped, frozen in mid-step, and stared around him in utter confusion. To his left, a cluster of young men who reminded him of the Lost Boys stood gathered around a battered metal barrel, warming their hands over a roaring fire. High above his head, exposed iron beams spanned a huge, metal-walled building with grimy, sea-green windows. Mountains of crates and boxes loomed over one whole end of the structure like a wooden tsunami.

Oh, bloody hell. He was still here.

Jabril looked up, noticing he was awake. "Sleep okay?" he asked, still rubbing his hands together. The chill in the air was enough to raise goosebumps on Billie's arms, and he joined the boys standing at the fire, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, it was fine," he said, beginning to feel the pall of dread settling over him again as he abandoned last night's hope that he'd wake up in his home and this would all be over.

"Good," Jabril answered, and reached behind him for a foil-wrapped bundle. "We saved you some sausages and toast," he said, laying the shiny packet on the grill over the top of the barrel to warm.

Billie cast a wary glance around at the other faces. "Thanks," he said, and wrapped his arms around his body to keep from shivering.

"Billie, this is Aden," he said, indicating a boy with flaming red hair, and a pair of black stripes painted across each cheek. The boy raised a hand and nodded. "And that's Tabib," pointing to a tall, serene-faced boy whose dark hair fell in a shock over one eye. "Sabeil," and he nodded at the young man next to him, blond and massive-shouldered, with intense golden eyes. "And that's Fowler," to the boy beside Billie, long-legged and lean, with hair cut shorter than the other boys.

"Pleased to meet you all," Billie said, less comfortable with them than he had been with Jabril. They all looked to be less than eighteen, but they had a hardened toughness about them that suggested they had seen more in those years than many men twice their ages. There was an air of duty about them, a cohesiveness that bonded them together as a single unit, and he began to understand Jabril's military-sounding terminology.

The question was, what war was there to fight?

Fowler handed him a steaming tin cup of black coffee. He sipped it gratefully, savoring the warmth that spread through his veins. There were so many questions buzzing in his mind, questions that might have no answers, but he bit them back, unsure of the company he was in.

Jabril seemed to sense his unease. "You're among friends, you know," he said, not looking up from the fire. It gave Billie goosebumps, how easily he had read his thoughts "These guys are the ones you want with you when the shit gets deep. They'll have your back, guaranteed."

Billie caught the implication. "You think it's not deep enough already?"

An awkward chuckle circled the group, as they cast knowing glances at each other. "True enough," Jabril nodded. "But you can never be too careful where Stroud's concerned."

Billie winced at the mention of the name.

"Yes, we know him. Quite well, in fact," Jabril said. "You might say he's the reason we're here."

"But who is he? What is it that he wants?" He was desperate to know, to understand the reason for the torment he was going through.

Jabril sighed deeply, and finished the last of his coffee. He set the cup down on the floor beside him carefully, his movements fluid and deliberate. "Everyone has a gift," he began. "Some of us just know what it is, right from the start. It's what we do better than anything else, sometimes better than anyone else. Others have to search for it, and when they find it, everything else in their lives, everything they've ever wanted or dreamed of, begins to make sense. But the thing you have to remember is that it's just that—a gift. Everything else we are, our character, our personality, our likes and dislikes, fears and hopes, is a part of us, there from the beginning. But that talent, that spark that becomes your reason for being, that's given, and if it's taken for granted, it can be taken away."

"And that's what he means to do to me."

The boy nodded.

"So why bring me here? Why not just leave me twisting in the wind, trying like fuck to write music and coming up empty-handed? That seems like it would be the sickest thing of all, and the son of a bitch sure enjoys the sick stuff." Anger was creeping into his voice. More than anything, Billie Joe hated being fucked with, people jerking him around. And this was intolerable, the helplessness he felt in this place.

"I don't know the answer to that," Jabril shrugged, hands lifting and dropping. "Only you do. And my guess is that's what you're going to have to figure out if you ever want to go home."

It flared from him without warning, a supernova of frustration, fury, and fear pressed down, concentrated and shaken into a deadly cocktail His foot cocked back, and exploded forward, knocking the barrel and its flaming contents across the room. Embers and bits of still burning wood scattered across the concrete floor, and the barrel clanged and rolled until it hit the wall on the other side. "FUCK THAT!" he bellowed as the boys leaped out of the way, their faces shocked and alarmed. "I won't be some kind of goddamned guinea pig for him! Now for the last time, I want to know how to get out of this place, and I want to know NOW!"

From the corner of his eye, he saw the one named Sabeil take a step forward, and in that instant, the boy seemed to change, his features becoming catlike, ferocious. A gutteral growl so low Billie could feel it in his belly erupted from his throat, and his tawny eyes flashed dangerously. Even his body seemed to shift under his clothes, the muscles in his back and shoulders bunching impossibly.

Jabril's body was between them instantly, the ethereal calm that always seemed to surround him unshaken. Sabeil turned away, shaking his shaggy head, and then looked back again at Billie, his skin smooth and hairless now, his face unreadable. He cleared his throat, looking up guiltily at Jabril, and his head dropped.

"I—I'm sorry," he muttered. "You just startled me, that's all."

No shit, Billie thought. The feeling's mutual.