I wrap my arms around my knees and look out the window. The neighborhood is quiet, but that’s deceiving. It’s been nothing but awful since the fucking party. “So,” I say, “when are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead he drinks, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and then finally says, “Belle’s locked up Safe Haven. No one gets in or out without a full screening. They’re closing ranks to make sure you won’t know what they’re planning or who has residences on both sides of the fence.”
I suck in a breath. “You think there are people playing both sides until they see who wins? Really?”
He nods sharply. “So I’ve heard. Obviously, I can’t confirm it as thoroughly as I’d like, but it seems true. Your friends may not be your friends, and we can’t trust anyone, all thanks to those petty bitches.”
I bite my lip hard enough to taste blood. “Fuck them all.”
He shrugs, giving me a pointed look. “If they’ll start a revolution and fuck someone else over, they’ll do it to you some day. These people were the ones you and Lily led away from the Cabal Quarter. Not surprising to me that the sheep are following whoever the flock leader gives them what they want now, too.”
Ouch. That’s a body foul, and he knows it.
I press my forehead to my knees, like maybe if I make myself smaller, the world will contract to fit me. “So what do I do? Start over? Where? How?”
He says nothing, and the silence comes back, denser than before. I want to scream, but I know it won’t help. We’re stuck; Sari’s got us pinned like bugs, and there’s no clear next move. At least, not one I can see right now.
My hand trembles again, so I shove it under my thigh. The burnt nerves hum in time with my jumping pulse. “I’m sorry for what we did back then. We really felt like we had to make our own way because of the clone-droid schism,” I say, and it feels like someone else’s voice.
I never thought I’d say that, but now that I understand how it feels, I actually mean it.
Taurus doesn’t look at me, just takes another swig and then sets it on the coffee table with a soft, deliberate thump. “Don’t be,” he says. “Just know that even if you all thought the goddess and her friends were tyrants, they also thought they were doing the best thing for their community. They had no idea how all these people felt, much less that they were the reason for it.”
“I understand,” I reply, but I only sort of do. The Cabal was being oppressive and unfair; I’m simply choosing not to sleep with half the damn community anymore.
The two things aren’t exactly equivalent.
He stands, grabs his duster, and shrugs it back on; the motion so sharp it almost slices the air. “I’m going out.”
I don’t ask where—he would tell me if he wanted me to know. I just watch him go, footsteps fading into the distance, leavingme alone with the slow creeping certainty that we are absolutely, irrevocably fucked.
I usedto think watching Taurus take his clothes off was a privilege. It still is, but tonight, it’s something else entirely.
This is an early warning system.
He comes back inside after God knows what he took off to do, looking like he’s ready to punch a hole through the fucking sun. There’s a wetness to his shirt I don’t want to analyze; it might be rain, might be blood, might be spinal fluid for all I know. The front of it is ragged, shredded down the middle, with his nipples poking through like pink accusations. He doesn’t bother with undoing the buttons, just grabs both halves and yanks. The pop of fabric sounds obscene in the cathedral hush of the house. He strips the shirt, wads it, and whips it toward the trash, leaving a line of buttons ricocheting across the floor.
Taurus never treats his clothes like this.
His eyes catch me, unblinking. He says nothing, just grabs the bottle from earlier to toss a swig back. If I ask what happened, I’m certain he’ll break shit, so I stare at my blackened fingers instead. I’m not afraid of him hurting me, but I am worried about how this day has set him off so thoroughly that we can’t even communicate.
The tension in the house thickens as he wipes his mouth on the back of his wrist and heads for the gym without a word. I hearthe door click shut, and my eyes roll to the ceiling. That means he doesn’t want me to follow, but he’s going to destroy half the equipment in there before he’s done. I want to help, but he’s not ready for that—not even close.
I wait a beat before I move. When I do, I pick up the tatters of his shirt from the floor and pluck the buttons from where they’ve scattered. I should sew them back on, but I dump the lot in the garbage. The duster is still draped on the chair, sullen and defeated. I lift it, feel the weight of all the fights and funerals stitched into the seams. I hang it next to mine in the closet, which smells of his tobacco and spicy cologne.
I have the stupid impulse to follow him to the gym, but I’m not invited. That was clear from the way he didn’t speak and stomped into the gym to lock it tight. He knows I can get in, but he’s expecting me to respect the boundary he set without words. It sucks, but I can’t complain given my recent thunderstorm escapade.
Instead, I wander the house, fingers trailing the cold glass of every window. Outside, the night is dark with the threat of rain. I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the pane—my hair is wild, my cheeks hollowed, and my eyes carrying bags that could last an ocean cruise. I look like the kind of girl who would torch her own house and then crawl into the ashes to sleep.
It’s both sad and a little terrifying at the same time.
When I get downstairs, I note the backyard is a halfhearted mess, sopping wet from the last storm I didn’t mean to start. The furniture is all askew, but one lounge chair by the waterfall is still dry. Heading outside, I curl up in it, knees to chest with my hoodie up, and listen to the world spin out.
The thump of Taurus’s workout migrates to my sensitive ears and up into my bones. I count reps in my head—every clang and grunt is a measure of his misery, every set a mile between us. I hate waiting, but I’m good at it. It’s all I’ve ever done. Wait for a mood to pass, for someone to forgive me, for the next mistake to show up on my doorstep.
I can’t even blame Taurus for ghosting me emotionally; if the roles were reversed, I’d do the same.
I consider lighting up a smoke, but I don’t have a pack. Also, I can’t seem to get the lighter to spark without frying my fingers since the storm. The last time I tried, I left a blackened fingerprint on the metal and burned off half my nail. I stare at my hands, half-waiting for them to heal, half-waiting for them to rot off completely.
