I do. I turn on my heel and run and run and I don’t stop until the stitch in my side makes it physically impossible to keep going. I’m halfway down the block, panting, my head spinning, the stench of blood in my nostrils, when Ares comes to find me.
His pale skin is flecked with red, the color as vivid as new paint. A few loose strands of hair, come undone during the fight, tumble over his eyes. He looks ready to tear down the building back there with his bare hands. Ready, and capable of it.
I’m struck by a sudden sense of déjà vu so intense it almost knocks the breath out of me. I’ve witnessed this before—this very moment, the alley I’m standing in, the way he’s walking toward me.The vision.Between the news about my parents and Long Ge, I’d forgotten about it.
But before I can flee from the scene, Ares corners me.
“What were you doing in there?” he demands, his eyes pitch-black, blazing with some emotion I can’t parse. Something darker and more complicated than anger. “Did you follow me?”
This seems like a better, easier explanation than revealing what I’ve found out about Long Ge, so I nod. “I’m sorry, I was just curious—”
“What were you thinking? Do you know how dangerous that was? Do you know what would’ve happened if I hadn’tcome in time, if they had—” He cuts himself off, breathing fast. “This isn’t a fucking game, Chanel. These men won’t hesitate to run a knife through a living person; it doesn’t matter how rich or famous or well-connected you are. Your name won’t protect you in a place like this. If anything, it only makes you more vulnerable. Honestly, it’s a miracle you’re not dead.”
“But I’m fine,” I say, dazed, almost dizzy. “I’m not hurt or anything.”
“You’re not hurt,” he repeats. Without another word, he moves so fast that I gasp, reaching for my arm. But despite the rage simmering through his frame, the knife’s edge of his words, his grip is surprisingly gentle as he lifts my arm up, turning it over. “If you’re not hurt, then what the fuck isthis?”
It’s only then that I notice the purplish marks around my wrist, stark as ink. They must be from when the man grabbed me earlier.
“Not badly hurt,” I amend weakly, pulling my arm away from him. The new bruises have already started to throb, but I barely even register the pain. It feels like the sky and ground have been reversed, like everything’s upside down. In the vision, I would have sworn that Areswas the one who’d hurt me. But then, the vision had never shown him attacking me, only the bruises on my wrist, the anger on his face. So has the vision changed, because I’ve managed to actually change Ares’s feelings toward me? Or had I simply interpreted the vision wrong in the first place? “Really.”
He stares at me, long and hard. A drop of blood tricklesdown his neck, staining his shirt collar, but he doesn’t seem to notice it, or maybe he doesn’t care.
“You should be more worried about yourself,” I tell him.
“Who said I was worried about you?” he says flatly.
I’m almost tempted to roll my eyes. “Okay then, you shouldonlybe worried about yourself. Let’s go get you cleaned up. Where’s your house?”
“I don’t need you to—”
“I’m actually not offering, I’m asking. I’ll call the car now,” I say, holding out my phone for him to enter his address, which he does, albeit reluctantly, jaw clenched. “Oh, and... Ares?”
“What?”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
His face softens, and even with all that blood on his cheeks, the immediate change it makes is stunning. Like watching ice thaw in a sudden blaze of heat.
I flick the light switch on inside Ares’s apartment, illuminating an almost empty living room. There are only the bare necessities: a muted gray couch, a single dining table with two side chairs. No houseplants or decorations or pictures in frames. I’ve been inside hotel rooms that felt homier than this.
After I help Ares down onto the couch, I head over to the kitchen, find a towel hanging over the dishwasher, and wet it under the tap. Then I pass it wordlessly to him.
“Do I look too scary like this?” he asks, his mouth curving with grim amusement.
“You don’t scare me,” I lie, unable to stop myself from staringas he runs the towel over his cheeks, his collarbones, the hard line of his jaw, wiping off the dried blood splatters. The white fabric comes away a dark, dirty red.
Then he lifts his shirt up over his head.
“Oh my god,” I whisper, horror lurching to my throat so fast I think I might be sick. “Oh my god.”
“Thanks. That’s how most girls react when I take off my shirt,” he says dryly.
I’m too stunned to even respond to that. I’d seen the fresh bruises on his knuckles, the flashes of split skin. But it’s so much worse than I thought. Half his side is mottled deep purple and yellow, new wounds acquired faster than old wounds could heal. Long gashes snake down his torso, and even the spaces beneath his collarbones are marked by angry red crescents that look awfully like human nails. There seems to be no inch of muscle that’s been left unscathed. I can’t imagine how it feels. Can’t imagine how he’s managed to get up in the morning and go to school every day like everything’s normal when it must hurt to even breathe. It hurts just to look at him.
The back of my nose prickles, a sharp, sore pressure that builds up to my eyes. “Oh my god, Ares,” I say again, my voice breaking.
Ares stares at me, more confused than I’ve ever seen him. “What are you doing?”
