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The breath bursts out of him like something breaking loose. His fists slam down onto the ground, palms splayed, claws dulling back into fingernails. The blood from his fingers seeps into the dirt. But the storm...The storm is quiet.“Holy shit,” I whisper. Except… I don’t. I think I said it, but the words didn’t come out of my mouth.I feel Saf retreating.A slow easing of pressure behind my eyes, my spine straightening like it’s mine again, breath returning fully to my lungs. The control trickles back into me like light pouring into a room where all the curtains had been drawn tight.My arms are still around Atlas.He’s panting, body shaking beneath me, sweat-soaked and unguarded and too damn human now to pretend he’s anything but undone.“I didn’t mean for her to take over,” I whisper, this time really saying it. “I didn’t know she could.”He leans back just enough to look at me over his shoulder. His eyes, goddess, his eyes. They’re rimmed in shine, like never before. But with no
I slam the door shut behind me before the wind can carry his scent back inside. My hands are trembling. Not with fear, no, fear is clean. This is something messier. Shame. Frustration. Something too close to longing.“I don’t owe him anything,” I mutter again under my breath, standing on the edge of the hallway as I try to shove my foot into my boot. The strap won’t clasp. My fingers keep slipping.“Dammit,” I hiss, yanking it off, but I fight the urge to throw it across the room. I try to calm my breath and steady my fingers, then put it back on my foot.I try again, slower this time.Deep breath in.Buckle. Buckle.Loop.Click.Done.The other boot goes on easier, like it knows I’m one frayed breath away from snapping.I stand, shoulder the door open, and step outside before I can change my mind. The wind catches my hair, tugs at the edge of my shirt, and carries his scent back to me. As a concentration map appears in front of me, I just have to follow it.The world blurs. Wind sc
But I have to think about Atlas.I live in his house. I eat the food he sends. Fresh, warm, always arriving before I realize I’m hungry. Hell, I even wear the clothes he bought. Soft fabrics that fit too well, that feel like they were chosen by someone who knows how to read my body better than I can read my own reflection.I’m surrounded by his smell, his things, his care... and maybe that’s what scares me the most.Because nothing he gives me feels accidental.It all feels intentional. Purposeful. Like every gesture is a quiet question, he’s not quite asking out loud. And the worst part?It doesn’t feel suffocating.It feels safe.And it feels like I'm taking advantage of it even when I dont want to.Goddess, please help me. I dont know in what way, or what to help me with... just help me.I beg as I close the door behind me, kick off the shoes from my feet, and head for the kitchen, where, when I enter, Shaun and Thaila sit in silence. Which is not like them. It hasn't been like th
The question lingers in the air like smoke, curling around my ribs and settling somewhere I didn’t give it permission to touch.“Is it too late?”I wish I could laugh. I wish I could cry. I wish I could scream at him for asking now, only now, when things have already shifted beneath my feet, when Atlas’s touch is still warm on my skin, when my life is already wound tight around choices I made and the ones I'm about to make.But the worst part, the one that makes my stomach twist and my heart stutter, is that I don’t know the answer.Cole stands there, still and quiet and waiting. He’s not asking for permission to rewrite the past. He’s asking if there’s any version of a future where we aren’t strangers.Saf exhales in my head, tired. Almost... sad. “I hate how he does this to you,” she murmurs. “How he still makes you hope and doubt, all for nothing. He is not for us.”The words echo louder than Cole’s question.Saf isn’t cruel. She’s many things, sharp, blunt, insufferably honest, b
"You lied," Saf says. "You said you stopped fantasizing about Cole a long time ago, but you still waited for him to come back." Something she never understood. "You held onto an illusion." "Will you stop?" I ask her as I walk down the hall. The smell of warm bread is already hitting my nose, and I latch onto it like it might anchor me back in the present.She’s quiet for a beat, just long enough for me to hope she’s gone. But Saf never leaves when things get uncomfortable. "I’m not trying to hurt you," she says more gently this time. "But I'm stuck with feeling whatever emotions come through you, and that hope you have about Cole being this realization of love is suffocating."Her words slice through the warm haze of the hallway, sharper than they have any right to be.“I’m stuck with it,” she continues. “With the ache in your chest when you think of him. With the way your pulse shifts when someone just mentions his name. You think you’ve buried it deep enough, but it’s still there.
"And Atlas said yes?" Thalia asks me as I get out of the shower and head for my closet. Her voice floats in from the other side of the room, amused and a little incredulous."What am I thinking?" she adds before I can answer. "Of course, he said yes. It’s you."I smirk, towel wrapped around me as I dig through the hangers, steam still clinging to my skin."Why would he say no? It's not even his decision. This is my quest, not his.""Uh-huh," she says, clearly not buying it. "Because that’s how you two work, just clean, logical boundaries, no feelings, no bond whatsoever. Totally healthy.""We found an understanding," I say as I put a shirt over my head. I step into a pair of black jeans, tug them up, and glance at her over my shoulder. “What do you want me to say?”“Oh, I don’t know,” she says, kicking her legs up on the bed like she’s settling in for a show. "Tell me about Cole. You never mentioned him to me when you came to the city.""There wasn't really much to tell," I say as I p