"You stripped my agency," she whispered, staring at the wall.
"I removed a vulnerability."
"It's the same thing to me."
"It’s not," I said. "Agency is useless if you’re being leveraged. We took away the leverage. Now you can fight."
She let out a choked sound that was half-laugh, half-sob.
I reached out. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. She was stiff, resistant, buzzing with tension. I didn't pull away. I pulled her in.
Heavy pressure. It was the only language her nervous system understood right now.
I hauled her against my chest. She fought for a second, her hands pushing against my ribs, but it was token resistance. Then, the string cut.
She collapsed against me. She buried her face in my shoulder, her hands fisting in my shirt, and she shook.
"I'm so angry," she mumbled into the fabric.
"Be angry," I said, resting my chin on her head. "Be incandescent. Just don't be alone."
The door opened again.
Stephen walked in. He didn't speak. He took off his glasses, set them on the nightstand, and sat on the other side of Rowan.
He reached out and took her hand. He interlaced their fingers. He began to rub circles into the back of her hand with his thumb. A logical, rhythmic motion.
"The legal transfer of the deed is complete," Stephen said softly. "Vance can't touch the house. It's in a blind trust now."
Rowan made a noise in her throat. Acknowledgment.
Then Juno.
He hovered in the doorway, a shadow with a secret. He looked exhausted.
Rowan lifted her head from my shoulder. She looked at him.
"You smell like chemicals," she said, her voice rough.
"Better than burning," Juno murmured.
He walked to the foot of the bed. He crawled up. He didn't sit; he lay down, curling around Rowan’s legs, resting his head on her thigh.
It broke the geometry of the room. It turned us from a meeting into a pile.
Rowan stiffened for a second, then her hand moved. She dropped her fingers into Juno’s hair, scratching lightly at the scalp.
Juno let out a long, shuddering breath.
We stayed like that. Four bodies on a bed, in a city that wanted to eat us alive.
I held her. Stephen anchored her hand. Juno grounded her body.
It wasn't sexual. It was structural. We were building a wall around her with our own mass.
Slowly, the shaking stopped. Rowan’s breathing leveled out, matching the rhythm of my chest.
"I still haven't forgiven you," she whispered into the dark.
