Royce stepped forward, pinning Cosmo between the counter and the table of bagels. No one was in the back part of the gallery right now. Cosmo hadn’t passed anyone in the halls. They were all too busy sipping their champagne and pocketing Micah’s business cards.
Deep furrows cut into Royce’s brow. “Then you blocked me from your Flashbulb. I made a new profile, and I sent messages to your DMs with pictures of my gift, but instead of replying you deleted your account. That was hurtful and unnecessary. You sex yourself up and pout into the camera in your tiny shorts that showcase every curve of your package, all for the attention of random strangers. But when someone who’s been your friend for years wants to give you the love you deserve, you push him away? Why are you a slut for everyone but me?”
Realization crashed through Cosmo. It was Royce. The whole time, it had been Royce calling him a slut. He’d made an account with Zedd as his profile pic so it looked like the harassment was coming from him. Royce in his DMs, sending him pictures of… what exactly? Cosmo didn’t want to know.
He balled his fists, nostrils flared. It was easy to feel like the one to blame, the one to lead Royce on, but it wasn’t true. This wasn’t his fault. He’d trusted Royce, and the director had kept going even after Cosmo told him to stop. “I know how beautiful I am. But I dress the way I do formyself. My clothes aren’t an invitation for you to put your hands on me.”
“And you dislike the attention so much that you reply to every comment with kisses and hearts? You can pretend to be demure for your new boyfriend, but you and I both know who you really are.”
He always thought Royce had chased Zedd away because he cared about Cosmo, not because he wanted Cosmo all for himself. And Cosmo had never seen Zedd threatening any of his past loves firsthand. He hadn’t been sure how Zedd even knew about Marla or anyone else. But Royce had known. Probably half of the harassment attributed to Zedd had been Royce making it up.
He loomed over Cosmo, his gaze icy. “I’m still going to give you my present, but I don’t think it’s any good now. He’s been in my trunk for four days.”
Cosmo screamed. Royce slapped a hand over his mouth and yanked him toward the door. Cosmo sank his teeth into Royce’s finger and twisted in his grip, jabbing elbows and kicking feet. Something jammed into his side; electricity popped and agony raced through Cosmo’s body. His fingers spasmed, muscles full of fire ants. Something hard looped around his wrists; he yanked away and tried to free his hands, but couldn’t pull them apart.
He staggered forward, unsure which bleary hallway was the right one. Everything was a fuzz of white and harsh fluorescents. Cool air buffeted his face as he shouldered through a door. Wrong way.
Royce grabbed a fistful of Cosmo’s hair and shoved him outside. He hissed, “Scream and I’ll stun you again. You’ll go right into the trunk with Zedd.”
Cosmo sobbed. Zedd’s black eye and broken fingers, his note swearing he’d leave Cosmo alone. It had been Royce’s doing. Royce skulking around his apartment with a flashlight and testing the doorknob.
Asphalt scraped under his shoes, his uncoordinated legs useless and weak. Royce’s pine aftershave filled Cosmo’s nose. Snot and tears ran down his face, his restrained arms full of itchy adrenaline he couldn’t use. The lights of the gallery receded, and Royce’s car loomed ahead. No. No, no, no. Cosmo wasnotgetting stuffed in the trunk with his ex-boyfriend’s rotting corpse.
He twisted hard and broke free of Royce’s grasp, then slammed his head into the director’s nose. Royce gasped and put a hand to his face.
Cosmo ran.
“Help!” He stumbled, his ankle caving, and he shouldn’t have worn these shoes.
Royce yanked him backward, a hand over his mouth, and dragged him to the car. Blood ran in a river from the director’s nose. He pulled a gag around Cosmo’s mouth, then popped open the trunk. A vaguely body-shaped object wrapped in a tarp took up much of the space. Cosmo’s scream was muffled by his gag. He shook his head furiously.
“My gift to you,” Royce snarled. “The bane of your existence, strangled and snuffed out, just like you asked of me. Enjoy.” He hauled Cosmo inside and slammed the lid. Darkness swallowed him. The sickly sweet smell of decay filled the trunk. Cosmo gagged and concentrated on not vomiting. The engine rumbled, and the car pulled forward.
He slid as far to the edge of the trunk as he could and groped for an emergency handle, but it was too hard to feel for anything, especially in the dark. The rough carpet liner scratched at his cheek, and he was grateful that for a moment the sharp scent of motor oil overpowered the stench of rot. The zip tie around his wrists caught on something pointy. He worked against the metal, trying to saw the plastic apart.
A dusty memory surfaced of being at a birthday party as a kid. There’d been a pinata, all the kids taking turns whacking the poor paper mâché donkey with a baseball bat. Candy rained from a split in the donkey’s belly. Cosmo wanted all of it. He dove into the grass beneath the swinging bat, snatching up bubblegum, taffy, and even those gross little chocolate balls with the candy shells that came in a clear wrapper. Someone yelled at him to get out of the way, to wait until the pinata broke open, but if he did that, the other kids would take it all.
On his second dive for candy, the bat slammed into his forehead. He ran up to Mom, bawling. She scooped ice out of a cooler, wrapped it in a napkin, and pressed it to his growing goose egg.Was that a good idea?she’d asked. He’d sobbed and shaken his head.Are you going to do it again?No, he was not.
Some people were sensible. They listened to logic and to the good advice from their friends. Then there was Cosmo, who had to learn everything the hard way. If he’d listened to Déjà, if he’d advocated for himself more, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. He could have quit Identical Dog at the first hint of Royce holding him back. He could have told Royce to get bent when he’d demanded Cosmo cut his date short to help set up for the charity. He could have had enough self-love to admit that he did deserve Micah. They would never have broken up, and Cosmo wouldn’t have been walking up to a taco truck hollow and miserable.
None of that insight did him any good now, because he was going to die a horrible, painful death, and that wasn’t pessimism. It was presque vu. And now he knew why he wasn’t in Micah’s future. Why Everett needed to hide Micah’s razor and order him takeout with a criminal amount of cheese.
No Cosmo in any universe was going to get a happy ending, because he was going to be stabbed to death in the decrepit church that hosted his funeral party. He’d probably end up in the same grave as Zedd.
There’s room for two in your grave.
And after he died, he was going to haunt Déjà, and he was going to haunt Micah. Not to torment them, but to tell them how very sorry he was.
Micah – Pulling the Thread
Cosmo is gone.
The thought assaulted Micah as he arranged his pencils on the easel and nodded politely to something he didn’t hear from one of the onlookers.
Cosmo is gone. It cramped his stomach and sent a tingly panic shooting through his fingers. The worst part was he didn’t know why he’d had the thought or what it meant.
The only place Cosmo had gone was to fetch seltzer, but theywereabout to start, and he wasn’t out here yet.
