I say nothing. The silence is heavy, but better than the alternative.
Bastion breaks it this time. “Ranier’s not going to back down.”
“I know.”
“He’s convinced if we freeze her out, the Council will get bored and send her somewhere else.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, but we’re the ones who can’t stop thinking about her. We’re the ones who keep breaking our own rules.”
Bastion shrugs, defensive. “It’s hard not to, okay?”
“I know.”
The room is too still. I want to shake Bastion. To tell him to stop fucking around and admit how he feels, but I know it’s pointless. He’s as locked up as Ranier—just better at hiding it.
Bastion taps his finger on the table, once, twice. “Do you think about her all the time, too?”
“Yeah. It’s like… I can’t turn it off. Even when I want to.”
“She’s like a force of nature.”
“Or a curse,” I counter.
He smiles, thin and sad. “Some curses are worth it.”
We lapse into quiet again. I keep picking at the paint until it flakes off under my nail. Bastion watches, but doesn’t comment. He looks exhausted, not just physically, but at the soul level, like he’s been running from himself for years and just now realized the finish line is a wall.
Finally, he asks, “Do you think she’s going to leave?”
I shake my head. “I think she wants to stay. I think she’s the only one of us brave enough to say it.”
Bastion looks down. “What if we just… let her?”
I look at him, searching for a tell, a joke, something to break the tension. But he’s serious. “Would you?”
He shrugs, but it’s not a real answer. “Better than living in this holding pattern forever.”
I nod. “Yeah.”
Bastion finishes his coffee in a gulp, wincing at the burn. “You ever wonder what Christopher would have done?”
The question hits like a sucker punch. I haven’t thought about my brother in weeks—not since the last time Ranier toldme I was screwing up his legacy, or since the last time my mother called and asked if I was still “seeing that mess of an omega.”
But now, here in the dead of night with Bastion’s eyes boring holes in me, I can’t avoid it. “He would have made a decision. He wouldn’t have let it drag out like this.”
Bastion smiles. “He was better at that than us.”
“Yeah.” I try not to let my voice crack.
“Do you miss him?” Bastion asks.
I nod. “All the time.”
He sets the mug down. “I miss him, too.”
I want to say something—anything—but the words are stuck. Instead I watch the way Bastion refuses to meet my eye. The way his hands never stop moving.
“Do you think he’d be disappointed in us?”
