By the timeI get back to my dorm, Marco's sprawled across the bed, my bed, laptop glowing on his lap, and Milo is leaning half-asleep against the wall with a book that’s definitely not for class.
“Thought you ghosted us,” Marco says without looking up.
“Didn’t think you’d survive ten minutes without trying to kill something,” Milo yawns.
I toss myself into the chair and stretch my legs, boots hitting the black coffee table I have on one side of the room.
“Are you still brooding over the Irish girl?” Marco finally looks at me, and the stare is serious, he’s not joking around now.
“Is that going to be your only topic for the rest of the semester?” I ask.
“Until you fuck her or bury her,” he says.
I roll my eyes.
“That’s grim,” Milo says, flipping a page. “But accurate.”
I lean my head back against the leather and close my eyes. “She showed up again.”
Silence.
“On the rooftop?” Milo asks in shock. He knows the rooftop I go to. “Did you talk?”
I exhale. “Didn’t need to.”
“Jesus,” Marco mutters. “It’s always the silent ones.”
“She didn’t even yell?” Milo asks.
Why would she yell? She kissed me back.
“No. She didn’t move. We sat. That’s it.”
But that wasn’t it; I felt it again. That pull. That war.
Her silence is worse than her screams.
I turn to them both staring at me and then see the case on the bed. “What’s that?”
“Father sent a few different masks for us to pick from.” I get up and walk over to the bed and open the case. “There are a lot in there.” Milo sits up and pulls out a few. “We haven’t picked ours yet.”
All styles. All shapes. All sins.
My eyes stop on one. I reach out, fingers ghosting over a sharp onyx mask carved with scaled leather. It looks like dragon wings, curling over the eyes. Horns rise from the sides, sleek and proud.
It’s not a mask. It’s a threat.
I pick it up, and it feels like me.
Power. Rage. Fire. Desire. Control.
“I’ve found my mask.” Let them guess what monster I am.
Let her guess.
But it makes me wonder what kind of mask she’ll wear.
I wonder what version of Aoife O’Brien she’ll let the world see that night. The one the family is locking away, or the one who is itching to come out and play.
