"If we're going to talk about this, we all need to be in the room." His voice is careful. Measured. "Whatever you have to say, he needs to hear it too."
I want to argue. Want to say that I'm not ready to face Zero, not ready to be in the same room with him and try to put words to what he did to me. But Atlas is right. I know he's right. Avoiding Zero is what got us here in the first place.
"Fine," I say. "Okay."
Atlas nods and crosses the small sitting area to Zero's door—just a few feet away. His knock is firm. Three sharp raps. Then his voice, low and commanding: "Zero. Wake up. We need to talk."
I watch from the armchair, internally cringing that this is about to happen. Bane leans against his doorframe, arms crossed, watching too.
A muffled response from behind Zero's door. Something that sounds like "fuck off."
Atlas knocks again. Harder. "Now, Zero."
A long pause. Then footsteps. Then the door swings open.
Zero appears pulling a black t-shirt over his head. His hair is a mess. His eyes are bloodshot. He looks like he hasn't slept any better than I have.
He sees me and stops. Something crosses his face—surprise, guilt, anger, I can't tell—before it shutters into blankness.
"What's this about?" His voice is flat. Guarded.
"Max wants to talk," Atlas says. "All of us. My office."
Zero's jaw tightens. For a moment, I think he's going to refuse. Going to turn around and go back to his room and slam the door.
Instead, he just says: "Fine."
Atlas's office still smells like bourbon and blood.
Someone cleaned up the worst of it—the glass swept away, the books restacked, the desk wiped down—but the echoes remain. Gouges in the wood where fingers dug in. A faint stain on the rug that might be alcohol or might be something else. The ghost of violence hanging in the air like smoke.
Atlas takes his seat behind the desk. Zero leans against the window, arms crossed, as far from the rest of us as he can get without leaving the room. Bane drops onto the leather couch, sprawling with a casualness that doesn't match the tension in his shoulders.
I stand in the center of the room. Exposed. Surrounded.
No one speaks.
The silence stretches. Thickens. Becomes its own kind of pressure.
"So," Bane says finally. "You wanted to talk. Talk."
I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again.
Where do I even start?
I sink into one of the leather chairs across from Atlas's desk. My legs feel unsteady. My hands need something to do, so I pick up a pen from the desk—heavy, expensive, probably worth more than my laptop—and turn it over in my fingers. Click the end. Unclick it. Click it again.
"I don't—" I stop. Stare at the pen. Try again. "I wanted to—"
No. That's not right either.
I set the pen down. Pick it up again. The silence is suffocating.
"Take your time," Atlas says quietly.
But that's the problem. I don't have words for this. I've never had to find words for this. My whole life has been aboutnottalking about it,notexplaining,notletting anyone close enough to need an explanation.
"I've spent my whole life hiding." It comes out rough. Halting. "What I–I am. What's happening to me. I've never had to—" I gesture vaguely with the pen, like I can pull the right words out of thin air. "Explain myself. To anyone. Margot knows, but she's always known, and we just—we don't talk about it. We pretend it's handled. Under control."
