“You could turn down the weapons engineering position.”
“It doesn’t work that way, dude. You know that. We’re Level IV—we do what they tell us to do.”
They ran the next five miles in silence. On mile eight, Taye knocked Noam’s shoulder with the heel of one hand, and they both stopped, Taye hunching forward to grasp both knees as he struggled to suck in a proper breath.
“Think we’ve gone far enough?” Taye asked, after Noam had dropped down onto a nearby bench and scrubbed the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. “Like ... Jesus, there’s only so far a human being was built torun.”
“I think I might keep going a little farther,” Noam said, once he was confident he could say that much without gagging on his own arrhythmic inhales. “Gonna try to get to thirteen.”
“You,” Taye said, “are an absolute madlad.”
Taye always did love his vintage slang. But that didn’t make him wrong, Noam thought a half hour later, after Taye had jogged back in the direction of the government complex and Noam was dry heaving with his head thrust into the bowels of a public trash can. Maybe he’d been pushing himself too far, too fast. But at least when he was running, there was no thinking about Lehrer, or Dara, or anything else. Just the cold and the pain.
More pain today than usual, though. Noam finally managed to gulp down his nausea and carefully draw his head back out of the opening on the side of the covered trash can, even if he couldn’t quite make himself straighten up again. Instead he draped himself over the lid and tried not to think about the pain in his chest or the way his limbs felt like they were about to give out. He was still two miles from the government complex—that was another two miles at least that he’d have to run to get home.
But when he tried to stand, his balance wobbled, and he ended up clutching the trash can for dear life as successive waves of dizziness swam through his head.Shit.He’d never reacted like this before, never feltthisexhausted after a run. Maybe it was too much, trying to go for distance after the shitshow that had been sparring with Lehrer the other day.
Noam had almost asked Bethany to heal him after that, but he’d been afraid Lehrer would notice—and Lehrer would take that as insubordination, Noam’s refusal to obey his order.Act and consequence.Lehrer and his perfect syllogisms, spelling out the logic behind his casual cruelty.
Noam lifted a hand and touched hesitant fingertips to the spot on his ribs that still hurt, his abdominal muscles clenching up on reflex like his whole body wanted to flinch away. When he closed his eyes, he could still see the way Dara had looked at him when he’d seen the bruises. That memory, more than anything else, sent another ripple of sickness through him.
Goddamn it. No way was Noam going to make it back in this condition. He could barely keep himself awake, never mind force his body to run again.
Lehrer would be informed, of course, that Noam ordered the car. But at this point, Noam didn’t care. He pulled out his phone and called the government complex valet and had them send a sedan to pick him up. Noam collapsed in the back seat and drifted there, halfway between consciousness and unconsciousness, the rest of the way home.
Noam had come to expect it now: the ten p.m. text, the moment after one of their private lessons when Lehrer would trail his fingertips along Noam’s cheek and say,Come over tonight.
It felt like so long ago that Noam had responded to such invitations with a low thrum of heat in his belly, drunk off a lethal mix of the sexual and illicit. And Lehrer had been ...
Not kind. But something close to it.
Fond, perhaps.
And Noam had eaten it up. All those late nights, both of them staying awake even though Lehrer had meetings in the morning—Lehrer reading terrible poetry out loud and Noam laughing so hard his stomach hurt. Lehrer catching his wrists with one hand and pinning him down, Noam intoxicated by the thrill of losing control.
God. Noam had been such an idiot.
Tonight was no different than all the rest. Only this time Noam felt like he didn’t belong here, in Lehrer’s apartment, surrounded by all the accoutrements of a long life lived—Lehrer’s antique carpets and cozy sofas, the smell of the old book in Noam’s hand, the taste of expensive whisky on his tongue. Now Noam was an actor on an unfamiliar set, fumbling to remember his lines.
He would rather be in Dara’s tiny broken-down apartment than among all this antique finery.
Being here was like being close to Dara in a different, darker way. He could imagine Dara sitting in that chair or gazing out that window. Could see him curled up on the rug by the fireplace withAdain hand.
Lehrer had been in the kitchen cleaning up dinner—boeuf bourguignon and glasses of dry red wine—but he came back into the living room now. Noam heard his footfalls on the carpet as much as he sensed his magic like a controlled firestorm to Noam’s back.
Noam didn’t dare look. He kept his gaze fixed on the page, although he was no longer processing the words written there. Lehrer drew closer, closer—until he was standing just behind the sofa, near enough Noam smelled his black vanilla aftershave. Suddenly it took all Noam’s concentration to keep his breath coming slow and even, to turn the page on cue.
Don’t be paranoid,he ordered himself—but all he could think as Lehrer slid his fingers against the nape of Noam’s neck was whether Lehrer was about to tighten that grip, to snap bone.
Could Lehrer tell? Could he see Dara’s touch written on Noam’s body, the way Dara had seen Lehrer’s?
“You seem tense,” Lehrer murmured. And then he did press in, but it was just to massage the place where Noam’s neck met his shoulder. “Perhaps I should have gone easier on you the other day.”
Noam let the book fall shut in his lap.
Lehrer’s fingers kept working that muscle, his other hand rising up to grasp Noam’s other shoulder. This time he dug into the aging bruise; Noam hissed between his teeth, and Lehrer’s touch dropped.
Noam shouldn’t start a fight. He should play easy and innocent, put Lehrer at ease.
