“Don’t ever change my Dark Prince.” She patted my cheek. “You’re perfect as you are Sin.”
“You’re the only friend I’ve ever had,” I said. The words came out too raw. Too real.
Thalia’s throat bobbed. “And you are the best friend I ever had.”
We stood in that strange, aching quiet. The kind that blooms when two people know they’ll never be the same after that moment. That even if they survive the fire, they’ll never come out clean.
Theo’s voice faded into applause behind us. But we didn’t clap. We were too busy guiding people to their assigned seats for the night.
The locker roomwas blessedly empty—the eye of the storm—humming with the flickering overhead light and lingering notes of distant music. I was changing into my second uniform of the night after someone spilled red wine all over my shirt. They’d looked down their nose at me like I owed them an apology for simply existing.
I didn’t hear the door open. But I heard itclickclosed. When I glanced over my shoulder, Theo stood in front of it, immaculate in his tux, red-rimmed eyes bloodshot but burning with something close to fury.
He kept his gaze locked on me and turned the lock behind him. The sound of the barrel engaging echoed, sucking the air out of the room.
“Sinclair.”
My breath caught. His voice hit me like a match to gasoline, and it took everything in me to keep an impassive look on my face. My skin buzzed, coated in electricity from his proximity.
I turned slowly, shirt unbuttoned, hair a mess, skin slick with sweat. “What?”
Theo looked… wrecked. Under the perfect tux, under the mask he wore so well, his eyes gave him away.
“I need to talk to you,” he pleaded.
I stepped back, bumping into the lockers behind me. “There’s nothing left to say.”
“Please—”
I shoved him, just once, away from me. “You don’t get to beg me anymore, Theo. You don’t get to want me. You can’t keep doing this to me,” I ground out, distraught.
His hands came up. “Idon’t?—”
“Save it.” My chest was heaving. “You made your choice. Remember?!”
His eyes searched mine, something wild and desperate living there. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
I laughed bitterly. “You didn’t want to get caught.”
Theo stepped toward me like a man possessed, his eyes glassy with regret and something more dangerous—need.
“I know you won’t believe a damn thing I say,” he whispered, his voice cracking like dry earth before a storm. His hands trembled as he reached for me, then curled into fists at his sides like he was holding himself back by sheer force of will. “But maybe...”
My breath caught. The world slowed, collapsed into a singular, breathless moment where nothing else existed but him and me and the ache wedged between us.
“Maybe my actions can speak for me,” he said, looking up at me with devastation in his eyes. “Maybe they’ll be enough.”
My chest tightened, a painful squeeze around something I’d tried too long to silence. I didn’t reach for him. But I didn’t stop him either.
Something snapped in both of us.
His mouth crashed into mine, all teeth and tongue and ruin, pulling me down with him like gravity had finally won. The world narrowed to a pinprick of light, and we were the only two that existed.
We didn’t speak again. Not with words. Only with desperation. With bruises. With the frantic drag of fingers down skin.
We tore at each other against the lockers like we were starving—like the only way to breathe was through the other’s mouth. I let him touch me. I let myself need him. Because I told myself it was goodbye. Because I had to believe this was the last time.
It was messy. Breathless. Clothes shoved aside with no care. My hands fisted in his hair, dragging him closer. His mouth found my neck, my jaw, my ribs—branding me in silence.
