I felt his touch. I registered the warning. And then I didn’t care. I drove my weight forward and slammed my fist into Isaac’s face. The impact cracked through the room, dull and violent. He flew backward, crashing into the counter before hitting the floor. For a split second, I watched him there. I waited for the relief. For the release. It didn’t come. The surge inside me only grew louder, wilder. A storm without direction. My head felt fogged, unreadable, like someone had scrambled every thought at once. I backed away, hands shaking, vision narrowing. I tried to breathe. My lungs came up empty. Panic flared sharp and sudden. I raised my hands to my head as I stumbled backward, the room tilting, the noise closing in around me, my body screaming for air that wouldn’t come. My ears started ringing, a high, distant sound like pressure building underwater. My fingers tingled, then went numb, like they didn’t belong to me anymore. I tried to breathe through it, but every inhale caught halfway down, shallow and useless, like my lungs had forgotten what they were for.
“Isaac,” I heard Levi bark from behind me. “Get the fuck out of my house. Now. Lose my address while you’re at it.”
I barely registered the rest. Levi’s footsteps followed me as I moved through the massive house without direction, the music fading, the noise dulling, until I found a room that felt quieter than the rest. I collapsed onto a leather couch, my body folding in on itself like it had finally given up. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe, and the realization terrified me. It felt like the air was rejecting me, like oxygen couldn’t settle inside mylungs no matter how hard I tried. My chest rattled with every strained inhale, sharp and mechanical, like a dryer tumbling with something broken inside it.
“Austin,” Levi said urgently, dropping beside me. “Hey. Hey, look at me. Are you okay?” I shook my head, panic clawing up my throat. “Okay, okay,” he said quickly, his voice steady even as his eyes searched my face. “Put your head between your legs. Do it. Just breathe.”
I did what he said, folding forward until my head hung low. I wasn’t scared of Isaac. I wasn’t even angry. I was scared of my own body and of how fast it had turned on me. Slowly, agonizingly, my lungs found air again. Not much. But enough. I stayed there until the world stopped tilting, until the pressure eased by the smallest degree.
“What the hell was that?” Levi asked quietly.
“She’s too close to all of this,” I said, the words tearing out of me before I could stop them. It felt like admitting it out loud shattered something I’d been holding together by force. Levi exhaled slowly. He already knew. “She’s too fucking close,” I went on, lifting my head just enough to look at him. “She’ll know eventually. She will. But no one can ever know. Especially not her.”
“Then leave her alone,” Levi said. The words hit harder than the punch I’d thrown earlier.
“I don’t want to,” I shot back. “I don’t want to, man. I feel like she’s meant for me. I feel like she’s… fate.”
Levi studied me, his jaw tight, the weight of it settling into his expression. “Maybe she won’t find out,” he said after a moment. “I mean—you stopped, right? You’re not dealing anymore. Since you’ve been with her, you haven’t touched it. It’s in the past.”
“I haven’t dealt,” I said. That much, at least, was true.
“You could tell her,” Levi said quietly. The words we’d both been circling finally landed.
“She’d never forgive me,” I whispered. “Yellow wouldn’t look the other way. Not with Holden. Not with any of it.” I swallowed. “But maybe… maybe it’s the only chance we’ve got.”
Levi nodded slowly, thinking. Silent for a long moment. “Does Holden know you?” he asked finally. “Did you ever sell to him?”
“Not directly,” I said immediately, shaking my head. That was the one line I knew I hadn’t crossed. If I had, I never would’ve gone near Blair. “But he knows me. I’m sure of it.”
“Does he know?” Levi pressed, urgency sharpening his tone. “About the kid. About that night.”
I finally met his eyes. “I don’t know.”
My house was stale when I walked into it, like it always was. There were no lights on. No faint voices bleeding in from a forgotten television. No lingering smells from the kitchen. No footsteps overhead. Nothing lived here in the way houses were supposed to be lived in. And yet, I heard her voice the second I shut the door behind me.
“You look like shit,” she muttered. Her words slid into the room as smoothly as vodka into soda. She was always using that damn key. I’d given it to her years ago, back when sleep didn’t come easily for either of us and showing up mattered more than asking.
I let out a quiet sigh as I flicked on the lights, turning toward the sound. Seren was sprawled on my couch, her hair twisted into a messy knot at the top of her head, faint purple shadows bruisingthe skin beneath her eyes. She looked exhausted. Worn thin in a way makeup never quite hid.
“You do too,” I said gently. My mouth pulled into a tight line as my eyes stayed on her. A small smile crept onto her lips. Not a happy one. Not relief. Just recognition. That was always the thing about us. She liked that I could see her ugliness. She trusted me with it.
“Yeah,” she mumbled, lifting one shoulder in a half shrug.
She didn’t bother looking back at me as she turned and collapsed further into the couch, stretching out like she owned the place. She didn’t need to. She already knew I’d follow. I paused for a moment, reading the energy rolling off her. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t catastrophic either. It wasn’t like before. Before him. The thought hit my stomach harder than I expected. It wasn’t just anger anymore, the way it had been when I’d first found out what he’d done to her. It was more complicated than that now. Panic tangled with relief. Fear sat beside anger instead of replacing it. I forced my focus back to her as I crossed the room and sat beside her.
“Did Zane do something?” I asked, watching her face closely. “You know I like the kid, but I won’t hesitate to smack him if he deserves it.”
A different smile touched her mouth this time. Softer. Warmer. “I’d like to see you try.” I let out a low chuckle as I leaned back against the couch. I didn’t press. I didn’t rush her. I just waited. “No,” she said eventually, shaking her head. “It’s not Zane.” She exhaled slowly, like she’d already had this conversation in her head a dozen times. “It’s never Zane, is it?”
“Well, if it’s not Zane,” I said, nudging her shoulder lightly, “then what is it? Something’s got you parked in my house at one in the morning.”
She took a deep breath. Though Seren was infinitely more open than she used to be, habits like that didn’t disappear overnight. Even when she told me everything, it was like she had to check in with herself first, like honesty still required permission.
“Well,” she said finally, after what felt like minutes, “maybe that’s the thing. It’s nothing, but it’s also something. This whole being happy thing… It's hard work.”
“Maybe for people like us,” I nodded. “It’s hard. It’s not hard for most people, Seren.” The words left my mouth easily, and one person flashed through my mind as they did.
“Those people must be crazy,” she murmured. Her eyes weren’t on me anymore. They were fixed on the soft gray wall across the room. “I try so hard to be happy, but sometimes I just can’t be.”
