Talon blinks. “You for real?”
“Yeah. Come sit down on the floor with me,” I repeat, already dropping down. The tile is freezing and hard, but I remember these exercises from the early days at school, where you were supposed to name the thing out loud before it ate you from the inside. They called it the Truth Stack, or something. I don’t knowwho invented it, probably some sadist with a clipboard, but it worked.
Talon blows out a breath like he wants to argue, then drops down anyway, back against the sofa, legs stretched out, hands clasped so tight his knuckles go pale.
“Look at me,” he mutters. “Taking orders and everything.” His eyes cut to the tile. “So what’s this for?”
“We’re gonna play this truth game,” I say.
It’s the first time he laughs. It’s kind of a mean laugh, but it’s a laugh, so I’ll take it.
“A truth game?”
“You heard me.” I nod. “Just a little game I played at school.”
“Alright, Miss Teacher.” He snorts. “What’re the rules?”
“Rule one: we don’t share to fix anything. We just tell the truth.”
“Okay.” He nods.
“Rule two: two minutes per stack. You talk, I shut up. Then I mirror what I heard. Then we switch. You can be ugly. You can’t be vague, though.”
He stares. “What do you mean, ‘can’t be vague’?”
“It means you don’t get to say ‘I’m fine’ or ‘it’s complicated’ and think you did something. You’re supposed to get to the root of it.”
Talon lets out a humorless huff. His mouth twists. “Sounds like some rich-people therapy shit.” He tilts his head. “They really teach stuff like that in those uppity schools?”
I have to stop myself from smiling. He can see the answer written all over my face anyway.
“Damn.” He shifts on the tile. “Guess I didn’t miss anything worth having. Except…” His jaw works. “Safety and stability. And health insurance.”
“Oh, stop it.”
Talon’s laugh dies in his throat.
“Alright,” he says, exhaling. “Truth game. Let’s do it.”
I stare at his hands first. At the tendons standing out. At the way his fingers keep flexing like he’s trying to crush something in them.
He swallows. “Who’s first?” he asks.
“Who do you think?”
He rolls his eyes and groans, but then he gets serious.
When he starts speaking, I’m surprised by how open he gets, and how quickly.
“There are some things I actually wanted to tell you. Um… where do I start?” he begins. “I hate that Rhea hurt you, and I hate that she can… do that. Just tug your lungs like you’re a puppet. Also, I hate”—his jaw tightens—“that I froze when she walked in. Like some idiot statue.”
My chest pinches.
“Another thing I hate is that I can’t fix it. Because I can’t fight Death. Can’t stab a god in the throat. I can’t put Mark in the dirt. I can’t even drop Rhea without you paying for it with your body. And I don’t even know if I want to, because—“
His eyes flick to my throat, like he remembers the sound I made when she tightened that invisible leash.
“Shit,” he says. “I keep thinking that if I had done things differently back then maybe she wouldn’t be like this. Maybe she wouldn’t be here. And she wouldn’t suffer like those girls did, you know?”
