"What?" His voice is muffled through the door, but grumpy as ever.
I push the door open without waiting for an invitation. Cyrus sits at his desk, surrounded by monitors that cast his face in blue light. His glasses reflect code scrolling faster than I can track like he's absorbed in the fucking Matrix and there's an energy drink graveyard forming beside his keyboard.
"When's the last time you slept?" I ask, leaning against the doorframe.
"Define sleep."
"Closing your eyes for more than thirty seconds."
His eyes flick to the clock on the wall. "Approximately forty-four hours ago."
"Cy—"
"I'm fine." He waves me off with one hand while the other types out commands in a black box on his screen that make the text fly by even faster in a rainbow of neon colors. "What do you want, Jinx?"
"Come check on Ellie with me."
That gets his attention. His fingers pause on the keyboard, and he turns to look at me properly. "Why?"
"Because she just watched Kade blow someone's brains out?" I push off the doorframe, moving into his tech cave. "Maybe she's traumatized? Ring any bells?"
"So you think your dick will fix that?"
My eye twitches. Am I really that fucking predictable?
I wasn't even going to fuck her. Probably. Not unless she does somehow share the same fucked up coping mechanisms as me.
"My dick is magic, FYI." I grin at him, aiming for levity even though worry gnaws at my chest. "But seriously. She's been in her room for hours. No noise, no movement. That's not like her."
Cyrus studies me for a long moment, those green eyes dissecting my motives like he's running diagnostics on my soul. "You're actually worried about her."
"We all should be." I shrug. "She's our responsibility now. Can't break her this early on."
"Kade might disagree."
"Yeah, well, Kade's busy playing mob boss downtown."
"Has it ever occurred to you that some people need to process things in silence?" he asks flatly. "Alone?"
I pretend to consider it for a second before answering, "Nope!" I grab Cyrus's wrist, tugging him toward the door. All I succeed in doing is swiveling his chair in the right direction. "Come on. Worst case scenario, she's fine and we look like idiots. Best case? We prevent acompletemental breakdown."
He finally lets me pull him up, which is progress. Cyrus doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do, so if he's coming with me, some part of him is worried too.
Even if he'd rather eat glass than admit it.
Even if pretending like he hates her is easier for him than admitting he still loves the girl who was our sun once upon a time.
We climb the stairs to the second floor, and I'm acutely aware of how quiet the house is. Tank's still AWOL. Even more than usual. He's as bad as Cyrus, even if his avoidance of Ellie isn't born out of hate. Not at all.
More like obsession.
The big guy is actuallymarginallymore in touch with his emotions than the other two idiots, maybe even me, but that doesn't mean he knows what to do with them.
We all handled Ellie's absence differently. Kade poured himself into the "business," like if he amassed enough of an empire made out of blood money and bone, he could convince our princessshe made the wrong choice. Cyrus convinced himself he never really gave a shit to begin with. That if he turned his heart to stone, it would make the pieces she left behind any less broken.
But Tank retreated into himself even more. I'm pretty sure he blames himself, somehow. And sometimes I don't know if the self-loathing intensified when she left, or if he finally just gave into it because she was the only thing holding it back.
And me…
