Only he couldn’t go to the barracks. Couldn’t be seen like this.
But he would be seen. Because it was already—shit, it was eight thirty; the meeting was at nine.
Ten sharp,Lehrer had said.
Noam touched shaking fingers to the edge of one bruise. It had already started to swell. He should get ice, figure out a way—he couldn’t go to the meeting with these marks on his face. Couldn’t look Dara in the eye when he ... he ...
He grabbed a comb from Lehrer’s drawer and scraped it through his hair, trying to coax it to fall just so over his brow. Useless; his hair wasn’t long enough.
And—god, but now he was remembering the day he met Dara, how Noam had glimpsed a bruise hidden by Dara’s carefully tousled curls. Only then he hadn’t thought, hadn’t evenconsidered, and ... and now ...
“God fuckingdamn it!” Noam slammed the comb down against the counter hard enough Wolf darted off and leaped onto the safety of Lehrer’s bed, curling up to watch Noam with liquid eyes. Noam hadn’t even realized Wolf was there. “Sorry, boy.”
He had to leave soon. But he couldn’t go out looking like—
Noam crossed to Lehrer’s closet, tugging open the doors and flicking through the hangers for some of the spare clothes he kept here. He found them hanging in long plastic bags; Lehrer had them dry-cleaned. Because of course he had.
Noam changed into something fresh, kicking his bloodied uniform into the far corner of the closet and emerging to find Wolf still tracking him with his gaze, head resting on his paws. Noam could almost convince himself Wolf understood what had happened somehow.
And maybe he did. He’d been here with Dara, after all.
Back in the bathroom Noam attacked his hair with the comb a second time, adding a sweep of Lehrer’s wax to coax it into a controlled style. At the very least, he could walk into that meeting with some kind of ...dignity, as Lehrer might’ve said. He could walk past the guards in the atrium, all those government officials, with his face bloodied but held high.
It occurred to him, then, how incredibly fucked up it was that he still cared what Lehrer’s people thought about him.
Before he left, Noam leaned over the bed to press stinging lips to the crown of Wolf’s head. Wolf lapped at the flat of Noam’s wrist, his cold nose damp against Noam’s palm. “Be good,” Noam murmured against his fur.
The walk through the government complex was every bit as bad as Noam imagined. He felt the stares stick to him like molasses, dragging along in his wake. All those whispers behind hands.
What story would Lehrer invent to explain this?
Whatever story it was, Noam was sure it’d be a great one.
“Geer Street,” he told the government car the guards called for him outside. For once in his life he couldn’t muster the courage to take the bus.
But as he stood on the icy sidewalk outside Dara’s building—it was snowing again, the flakes accumulating on his shoulders and cold against his bruises—whatever nerve he still had dwindled.
Maybe he shouldn’t. Maybe he should turn around and go back to the government complex—back to the apartment to wait for Lehrer in the bedroom with the lights down low, and ...
And what, Álvaro?
He tightened his jaw and took a sharp breath. He was already late.
The meeting was well underway as Noam let himself in, Holloway midspeech about the security plans for Independence Day; Ames was drinking a red cocktail, Leo perched atop a nearby table with Claire and Priya at the bar, and Dara ...
Dara caught his gaze the second the door fell shut in Noam’s wake.
He was on his feet in an instant, the chair legs scraping against the floor loudly enough Holloway fell silent. All gazes swung round to look at Noam, Priya’s gaze going wide as Ames muttered, “Shit.”
“Sorry,” Noam said, trying for a self-deprecating look and waving his hand. “Didn’t mean to interrupt. Keep going.”
He knew how he looked. He could still see that reflection in the mirror, how—grotesque, how obviously violent. But he didn’t want to imagine that through any of their eyes. Through Dara’s.
Noam never should have come here.
“What the hell happened?” Claire asked, rising to her feet, too, slower than Dara.
For his part Dara still stared, mouth parted and his eyes gone wide. It was like Dara had been shot but hadn’t realized yet, was bleeding out.
