Mara’s voice comes again, muffled now, like she’s pressed her forehead against the wood. “Vi, I know you’re in there. I can hear you. I’ve been—” Her voice cracks. “I’ve been looking for you for weeks.”
Something inside me snaps.
Not breaks.Snaps.Like a rubber band that’s been stretched too far, too long, and just… lets go.
I move before I actually make the decision to do so. Armen’s fingers graze my arm but don’t close. Either he’s a fraction too slow, or he makes the choice to let me go. I don’t know. I don’t care. I reach the door and shove Sting’s arm aside with both hands. He’s stronger than me by a significant margin but he lets me do it anyway, which is curious but which is something I’ll have to figure out later.
I wrench the door open.
There she is.
Mara.
She’s thinner than I’ve ever seen her. Not diet thin or stress thin but thin that comes from eating whatever you can rummage no matter how unhealthy it is. Her clothes are filthy, layered wrong, mismatched in a way that says she dressed from whatever she found rather than whatever she owned. Her hair is matted against one side of her skull and her lips are cracked deep enough to bleed and her eyes?—
Her eyes are red-rimmed, raw, wrecked.
But they’re also fierce. Even now. Even standing on a strange doorstep in the middle of the night looking like the last few months chewed her up and spit her out, she’s still fierce. Still Mara. My Mara.
She says my name.
Not how she said it through the door. This time it’s different. She can see me now. She can confirm that I’m real, that I’m standing, that I’m alive. And my name crosses her lips like she’s been holding it clenched between her teeth, afraid to let go in case she ended up being wrong.
It’s relief, doubt, sadness, and happiness all rolled into one.
“Vi,” she whispers.
I grab her.
Not gently or politely, not the way you hug someone at an airport or a reunion or a funeral. I grab her the way you grab something that you’re terrified is about to disappear, with both arms, full force, pulling her against me so hard we both stagger. Her body hits mine, and I feel how much of her is gone. I can practically count the ribs through her jacket. Her collarbone presses sharp and painful against my shoulder.
Her arms come up around my back, bony and shaking. Her fists grab my shirt and hold on like I’m the lifeline she’s been looking for and now can’t let go.
We don’t speak.
There’s nothing to say. Nothing that won’t break whatever this is, this ten or twenty seconds, this little pocket of time where the only thing that matters is that we’re both alive and are holding each other with tears in our eyes.
Her heartbeat against mine is fast and hard, slamming through layers of dirty fabric. Can she feel mine?
She makes a sound against my shoulder. Not quite crying. More like the kind sound someone makes just before crying, when your body is getting ready to purge its emotions, preparing for an explosion you can no longer hold in.
I press my face into her hair. It stinks, unwashed and smoky. But underneath that, buried deep, there’s something I recognize. I’m sure it’s just a memory, but it’s of the apartment we briefly shared, like her laundry detergent and the smelly seasonal candles she loved to burn.
I hated those candles and can’t believe we ever argued over pumpkin spice. So long ago. And so fucking stupid.
My eyes sting but I blink back the tears.
Then I sense it. Sting’s gaze. On my back.
Not a touch or a sound. Just the weight of his attention, steady and unblinking. The awareness hits me like cold water, bringing me back to the room and what this girl represents to three men who account for every variable, vulnerability, and new thing that enters their orbit. The three man who look out for me, care about me, and keep me alive.
Mara isn’t a reunion to them. She’s a security breach. A threat. I almost laugh at the absurdity of it, but realize she’s nothing to them, where she’s everything to me. That’s not a good thing.
Actually, she’s less than nothing to them, if that’s possible. A big negative in their carefully structured, guarded existence. Hell, she’s seen the safe house. She’s seen the club. She knows I’m with three men from the Rot. Every piece of that isinformation that didn’t exist outside this room five minutes ago, and now, it’s standing in the doorway with her arms around me, shaking.
I don’t let go of Mara, but I open my eyes. I need to see what comes next.
2
