“It’s your fault,” he whispers, speaking in an urgent tone, wearing that smile he has when he knows how much he’s hurting me. “I told you not to leave me again. Did you think I’d always let you get away with no consequences?”
Stefan crosses to the door, pulling it open and immediately pushing a large hand into Caylon’s chest.
His face.
The other men in the room dial down to zero. All I see is Caylon’s beaten face.
It looks like someone ran him over in the road, then backed up to make sure it was done properly. His nose has dried patches of blood underneath the nostrils, there’s a gigantic purple lump swelling out his left cheekbone to three times its size.
It’s hard to imagine he can see out of those puffy eyes, one of them suffused with blood so that there’s no white left. Just crimson and a flash of colour from his iris.
The most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen looks like a puffed wreck. A prize fighter who’s just gone down for the count at the end of his tenth match.
He holds an arm across his waist, elbow pinned to his side. I recognise that gesture. Have used it myself when I misjudged a vault in Intermediate School and sprained my ribs.
I want to hug him but I’m too scared to touch him. Every single cell of him looks like it’s screaming in pain.
Then he’s past Stefan and pulling me into his chest, holding me so tight it must cause him agony, but he does it regardless. My arms link around his back, one hand moving up to cradle the back of his head, feeling the strange lumps under his thick hair.
“My mother’s waiting outside in the car,” he whispers. “The first moment you can, run.”
The words barely register as he kisses me, soft, sweet. The tenderness swims through the fog in my head, turning the world sharp.
“You need to go,” I whisper to him urgently but of course it’s too late. It’s been too late since the moment he talked to me at the pawn shop, asked me out at school, sought me out at the party. Wilbur’s been bearing down on him like they’re set on a collision course.
I haven’t been able to steer him clear before.
I can’t now.
“He did nothing to you,” I yell, spinning on my heel to face Wilbur. “How could you…?” I trail off into a sob, thinking about far more than the pulverised boy standing in front of me. My mind flicks up the image from the bathroom down the hall, then shies away from examining it, tucking it back where it came from.
“I’m okay.” Caylon steadies me with his hand, drawing my attention back to his eyes. The one that isn’t stained crimson twinkles with its usual energy. “I’m always okay as long as I have you.”
Wilbur snarls, grabbing a statue from the nearest plinth, a recreation of David. I grab Caylon’s lapel, twisting him around so I stand between them, imploring Stefan with my eyes to do something. Help somehow.
And, miracle of miracles, he shoves his gigantic hand into the centre of Wilbur’s chest, stopping him cold. “How about we all take a minute?”
“How about you do the job I paid you to do?”
“I have.” Stefan inclines his head towards me. “She’s standing right there.”
Caylon’s face runs the gamut from disbelief through to white-hot anger as he stares at his boss. His hands shake as they link behind my neck.
He rests his forehead against mine, breathing in as I breathe out so we’re sharing the same air, the same oxygen swirling in our lungs. “I thought you’d gone,” he says in a halting voice, and I understand he doesn’t mean missing. He means gone forever.
“I’m right here.”
The smile he gives me in response is beautiful, joyful. “Run,” he whispers, then repeats louder. “Run. It’s time to run.”
Wilbur snatches the back of his shirt, dragging him backwards while his face creases with pain.
I understand Caylon’s command but can’t follow the instruction. Instead, chasing after him until Stefan holds me back, circling his arms around me in a hold so tight they might as well be forged from metal.
“Please don’t hurt him,” I yell but it’s already too late. The heavy marble statue is already trickling blood.
I try to yell again, something persuasive, something brutal enough to shock Wilbur into dropping his vendetta, but all that comes out is a moan. I try to bite Stefan’s arms, but I don’t have the reach. He won’t let me go, not when I’m fighting.
With pure force of will, I stop moving, let myself sag instead of straining against him.
