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Her rage still thundered through her veins. Sweat slicked her palms. Behind her, Victoria was still arguing her case.

Her gaze snagged on the figure in the doorway.

Ali.

The sight of those wide brown eyes hit Charlotte like a physical blow to the stomach, knocking the remaining air from her lungs. A sudden, sickly heat crawled up the back of Charlotte’s neck, pricking under her skin—the kind that made her fingers itch to pluck at the dark hairs lining her brow.

Ali’s fingers tapped against her locket, fast and rhythmic, like they always did when her world went unsteady.

Her chest didn’t just twist, it caved in… The adrenaline that had fueled her confrontation with Victoria curdled in an instant, transforming into something acidic and heavy in her gut. Of course Ali would look shaken. Anyone would. Charlotte’s mind, traitorous and cruel, assumed the worst.

She hadn’t just thrown a grenade into the wedding; she’d let the ugliness inside her spill out and blacken everything.

Gods, she never wanted to be the one to put that look on Ali’s face. She only ever wanted to be the place Ali felt safest, but as she stood there, she felt oversized and jagged. Her pulse thundered in her ears, a rhythmic reminder of her own heartbeat that she currently loathed. Ali was so, so good… she was sunlight… and Charlotte was just the shadow that ruined it.

Fuck. I am the bomb, she thought, the realization settling in her marrow like frost. And I just went off.

Charlotte looked away, fingers twitching toward her eyebrow before she stopped herself. She didn’t need smeared makeup on top of everything else.

Ali took a step toward her, but Charlotte felt a frantic, vibrating need to disappear, to shrink until she was nothing but an inconspicuous speck. Charlotte walked right past Ali, her spine rigid, shoulders rolled back on instinct like she was something unbreakable.

Ali called her name in a fragile voice. It was a sound so delicate it made Charlotte’s skin crawl with self-disgust. She’d done that… turned that sunlight into something trembling.

Charlotte didn’t stop. She couldn’t. With every step, she felt the phantom weight of everyone’s eyes on her back, peeling her open. She wasn’t safe for anyone like this… this riot wrapped in skin.

For hours, Charlotte sat alone on the balcony. The world was dark, still, and silent, save for the gentle breeze rolling in off the valley. She wished she could say the same for her mind, where a raging sea churned without mercy. Without the moon, everything would be cast in pitch, impenetrable as her heart now felt.

At long last, the door slid open.

Ali stepped out onto the balcony and stopped, hovering near the threshold like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to exist in the same space. She stood silent and fidgeting, studying Charlotte where she sat like stone, unmoving except for loose strands escaping the messy bun the wind kept worrying free.

The longer the silence stretched, the more Charlotte knew the beginning of the end had finally come.

Still, Charlotte remained frozen, unable to prevent the love of her life from seeing just how wretched she could be. Her fingers clenched around a crystal tumbler full of whiskey and waited.

“Hi,” Ali murmured, voice rough with exhaustion.

Charlotte hated the uncertainty threading that single syllable… It was a low, wary sound that made Charlotte’s skin feel much too snug. She never wanted to be the reason Ali slipped toward the dark room. Judging by the way her fingers toyed with her locket, she’d pushed her toward it.

“Hey,” Charlotte replied after a beat. Her voice felt like it was being dragged over gravel, rough and crisp as the night air around them. Inside she was loud and humming, like a high-voltage wire with nowhere to ground itself. She was vibrating with it, frustrated that she couldn’t just flip a switch and be normal.

“I… um,” Ali swallowed, her gaze flickering to Charlotte’s hands before darting back up to her face. “I just left Lilah. Natasha took her to her suite. She’s okay, just feeling a little down.”

A jagged shard of relief pierced through Charlotte’s chest, followed immediately by a fresh wave of shame. She had been so busy drowning in her own anger she forgot to check the wreckage.

“Lizzie and Sasha had a tiny fight,” Ali said, holding up her hand, thumb and forefinger a hair’s breadth apart, “but they made up really fast. They’re still getting married. And I convinced Imani to not find Victoria and give her a beat down.” She shook her head, a ghost of a weary smile touching her lips. “Not that you need to know that. I’m sorry, I don’t… this is a lot.”

Charlotte’s fingers tightened around her glass again, the frantic buzzing in her limbs dulling… Ali had taken care of the people she loved most when she was too much of a mess to do so herself. Charlotte had been a whirlwind and Ali had been an anchor. She walked in the wake of her storm, picking up the pieces, soothing and easing the chaos that remained.

Ali wrung her fingers, dragging in a deep breath. “Are you okay?”

The question felt like a hand reaching into the dark. And for the first time in her life she felt a terrifying, unfamiliar urge to stop holding her own weight… and lean. But her jaw was still locked so tight her teeth ached.

Ali huffed, a shaky exhale. “Of course you aren’t. Who would be? I don’t think anyone could have predicted this.”

I should have. The voice in her head returned, vicious and familiar.

She knew Victoria. She knew each and every version of her. The charming intellectual, the sensitive dreamer, the ambitious entrepreneur, and yes, the manipulative, soul-sucking, succubus of a woman who wore Charlotte down, leaving nothing but a drained-out husk who pretended it hadn’t hurt.