Noam’s face scrunched up. “Fuck, that’s embarrassing.”
“Are you really under the delusion that it wasn’t obvious to everyone what happened in the barracks that time? Noam. This isn’t news.”
Noam groaned. “Right. Telepathy. I really didn’t need those fears confirmed, thanks.”
“I’d say I’m sorry, but ...” Dara grinned.
“You’re awful, and I hate you.”
It was so close to being like it was before—or how their relationship should have been, if Dara hadn’t spent that year terrified and traumatized and slowly going fevermad. He pushed up far enough to snag the edge of the quilt at the foot of the bed, tugging it up to wrap them beneath the blanket, together. In the warm cocoon built by that blanket, it almost felt like they’d never have to leave. They could wind the hours out longer and longer until time lost all meaning, the rest of the world vanishing into an ever-expanding black hole.
“Don’t leave,” Dara said against the heat of Noam’s skin. He squeezed his eyes shut—the way he used to shut his eyes when he wished on shooting stars, as if not looking could make his dreams come true. “Stay here, with me.”
Noam’s hand drew a slow motion along Dara’s back, up and down.
“I want to,” Noam said. “I wish I could. But ...”
Dara clenched his jaw. And after a moment he pushed back, sitting up and letting the quilt fall around his hips. “But you’re going back to him. Again.”
“I’m—no,” Noam said, and he sat up too. “I’m going to the barracks. There’s basic tomorrow.”
“Fuck basic—Noam. Please. Please don’t go.”
It was pathetic, it was ... begging, and Dara knew that, but he had one hand on Noam’s thigh anyway, grip digging in. Noam’s fingers curled loose around his forearm, but he didn’t push Dara away.
“Dara. I can’t stay here. I—I have to go back.”
“You don’thaveto do anything.”
Noam pressed his lips in a tight line. “Think about it. Think about—you said yourself Lehrer’s smart. Do you really think he doesn’t know where you are? That he hasn’t figured it out?”
No. No. He—
Dara’s blood had gone still and cold in his veins. He couldn’t breathe all the sudden, his lungs laboring to take in air.
“The only reason he hasn’t killed you yet is because I keep going back,” Noam said. “Because I tell him what happens here. If I don’t show up tomorrow, he’ll come. He’ll find us.”
Dara swallowed against the thick bile in his throat. “So we go somewhere else. We—we can stay with someone. Holloway, maybe.”
“Holloway’s a government official; Lehrer will be watching him the same way he’s watchingeveryone. I can’t stay. And it—I’m sorry, Dara, because I know. Iknowit fucking kills you. And I wish ... I wasn’t able to be there for you last year, when Lehrer was—and I wanted to. I want to be there for you, now. But—”
“But you can’t be here for me,” Dara said tightly, “because you’re stillwith him.”
Noam was the one shaking now, a low tremor in his limbs that Dara only noticed because they were touching. “Not for much longer,” he swore. “Not—it’ll be over soon. I promise.”
Dara inhaled through his nose.
He didn’t want to fight.
Not again.
“Fine,” he said. “All right. Go.”
Noam nodded. Then he leaned in and kissed Dara, an unsteady hand on Dara’s neck. Dara stayed in bed as Noam got dressed, pulling on pants and sweater and jacket, covering up all that bruised flesh. And when the door shut behind him, Dara sank low and pulled the covers up over his head, building a fortress around himself in the dark.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE
NOAM
