“I know it’s not enough—”
“No,” Dara interjected firmly. “It’s fine. It’s a start.” He held Noam’s gaze long enough to see Noam’s expression soften. Dara shrugged one shoulder. “For a long time, that was the most I could do, as well. I felt so ... inefficacious. But it was better than nothing.”
Noam gave him a small, tense smile. He rested his hand on the bed between them, and Dara knew what he was asking, knew ... knew he should probably make Noam leave. A few PDFs leaked online wasn’t enough to justify Noam staying in place. Even the vaccine wasn’t worth Noam risking his life.
Dara couldn’t imagine a world that didn’t have Noam in it. He didn’t want to think about living the rest of his life if Noam wasn’t out there somewhere talking some poor idiot’s ear off about computers and communism. Dara let his hand drift to the side, curling his fingers around Noam’s palm. He heard the audible sharp intake of Noam’s breath a beat before Noam tightened his grip around Dara’s hand in turn.
“Can I visit you tomorrow?” Noam asked.
Dara wanted to say no ... but after a moment he nodded. Noam’s thumb swept a path along the back of Dara’s hand. Dara wished that simple contact didn’t still send shivers down his spine.
“I’ll bring you some things,” Noam said. “Food, tea, cigarettes—books, if you want. Is there anything you need?”
“Lehrer’s head on a spike.”
Noam laughed. “Yeah, well. I’m working on that.”
To his surprise, Dara smiled—and although he turned his face away quickly, it was too late; Noam had already seen. Dara felt Noam press a soft kiss to the top of his shoulder—and then Noam drew back, releasing Dara’s hand as he rose to his feet.
“Are you okay if I ... can I put up that ward?”
Dara braced both hands against the edge of the bed. “Fine.”
Noam grinned at him, looking far more pleased with himself than Dara thought warranted. He turned his gaze toward the ceiling, performing the necessary magic—not that Dara could sense it.
It didn’t take long. “Getting faster,” Noam declared smugly when he was finished. “Just a matter of practice ... listen, I’ll show Claire and Priya how to bypass the ward. It’s literally a big magic technological lock screen, so all they need is the right code to get in. Easy enough.”
“For you.”
“Exactly. For me. And not for Lehrer.” Noam arched a brow. “You’ve seen his apartment. He probably doesn’t even know what a computer looks like.”
Dara had more things to say to that, snappish and cruel remarks that could wipe that smile off Noam’s face—but he was tired of it. He was exhausted, and he’d literallyjustapologized.
He didn’t want to fight anymore.
“Okay,” he said. “Well, then. I’m going to sleep. It’s not like I have anything better to do in here.”
“I’ll bring you books,” Noam said again, painfully sincere, and Dara just waved a hand.
“Sure. Tomorrow, then.”
Noam took the cue this time.
The room felt smaller with him gone, the bland white walls drawing in suffocatingly close. Dara lay down on his bed, face turned toward the ceiling, and clenched his eyes shut against the traitorous heat prickling there.
He hadn’t felt so trapped since ...
... his old bedroom, a line dripping suppressant into his veins, the soft chill of Lehrer’s voice: “You know you only have yourself to blame.”
Dara’s next breath crystallized like ice in his lungs.
He opened his eyes, just to prove to himself he wasn’t there—that the ceiling was the cracked ceiling of this shitty apartment, not the ceiling of his old bedroom with the sticky glue leftover from the glow-in-the-dark stars he’d pasted there as a child—the stars he’d torn down and thrown away after that first time he’d stared up at them while—while—
Dara lurched out of bed and paced over to the window instead, pressing his brow against the cold glass and staring down at the sidewalk below.
Noam was long gone. Dara couldn’t even tell which footprints in the snow were his.
He’d never wanted a drink more in his life.
