"Are you insane?"The words tear out of me, too loud in the quiet cemetery."You just agreed to marry me—actually marry me—under yourlegalname?"
"There wasn't another option."
I take a step toward him, close enough now to see the tension carved into every line of his face."Do you have any idea what you just did?"
"It's just a piece of paper, Adena."His voice is raw.He runs a hand over his face."We'll get it annulled after?—"
"Annulled?"I stare at him like he's lost his mind.Maybe he has."You think that's how this works?You think God looks at a marriage certificate and says, 'Oh well, they didn't really mean it'?"
"God?"he says."This isn't about God.This is about staying alive."
"Everything is about God!"My voice breaks."Marriage is sacred.It's a covenant, not a prop you use!"
"I didn't have a choice?—"
"You did have a choice!"
I’m shaking now.I can’t stop.Fury and fear are tangled tight inside me, twisted up with something that feels like grief until I can’t tell them apart.It crowds my chest, raw and suffocating, like I’m already losing something while I’m still standing right here watching it happen.
“You could have said no.You could have bought time.You could have?—"
"We're out of time!"The words explode out of him."I'm barely holding on as it is!"
I step back, stunned into silence.Stunned that he finally said it out loud.
He drags both hands over his face, curses—sharp and vicious.His hands are shaking when he drops them."Forget it.I'm fine.It'll be fine.I'll find a way out of this.I always do."
But his voice cracks on the last word, a thin, pathetic sound that makes my chest ache.He’s spiraling, and I’m watching the descent in high definition.
The way he says it—I always do—is a prayer, not a fact.It’s the hollow chant of a man trying to convince himself he can still swim while the millstone is already around his neck.
And if he can’t find the surface, we’re both going to sink.
Jagger
We drive back through the Quarter in silence.Rain slicks the streets, turning the lights into streaks of gold and red that bleed and shimmer across the windshield like watercolor bleeding into water.
My hands grip the wheel tighter than necessary because if I loosen my hold I'm afraid of what else might slip.
Adena’s staring out the window, quiet, her profile softened by the glow of passing streetlights.I don't know what she's thinking.Don't know if she's replaying the cemetery—my confession that I'm coming apart—or the club, where I just agreed to marry her in front of a room full of killers.
Maybe both.
By the time we reach my apartment, she's yawning, ready for sleep that won’t come for me.
Inside, she doesn't speak other than to tell me she’s taking a shower, just sets down her bag with careful precision, slips off her heels—one, then the other—and disappears into the bathroom.
The lock doesn’t click this time.Any other time, any other woman, I’d take that as an invitation.
Tonight, I drop onto the couch and stare at the floor until the world narrows to the sound of water and the dull ache behind my ribs.The adrenaline's gone.What's left is shame, thick in my throat, that I confessed something I don't want to face down right now.
I'm losing pieces of myself.
Losing the part of me that used to know where the line was, the part that knew the difference between right and wrong, could walk away from violence and still sleep at night.
I've walked too close to the fire too many times, and now I'm starting to like the feel of the heat.
The chaos.The way my pulse spikes when things go sideways.The rush.
