Chapter 10
JAGGER
THE BOY BENEATH THE WRAITH
It’s Friday. I should be thinking about Johnny.
The cage. The crowd.
The way his face will look when he realizes there are some things even he can’t smile his way out of. I should be wrapping my hands, stretching my shoulders, eating something I won’t throw up later, pretending this is just another fight with a better reason behind it.
Instead, I’m standing outside Alice’s apartment again, because apparently I’ve lost my fucking mind.
I tell myself I’m only here to check on her.
That’s it. See her face. Hear her voice.
Make sure the lock still turns right. Make sure the hallway is empty, the stairs aren’t carrying footsteps that shouldn’t be there, and my brother isn’t tucked into some shadow near her door with that sick fucking smile on his face.
Totally normal.
Completely healthy.
Not insane at all.
Fuck.
My hand lifts before I can talk myself out of it, and I knock. Not hard this time, which should probably make me feel better. Progress, or whatever bullshit people call it when they stop acting completely unhinged for five seconds.
It doesn’t.
For a while, nothing happens.
No footsteps. No movement behind the door. Not a single sign that she’s home and ignoring me on purpose, which I would respect if it didn’t make every muscle in my body pull tight enough to snap.
“Come on,” I mutter under my breath. “Just fucking answer.”
I knock again, lower this time, trying not to sound as fucked up as I feel.
“Alice.”
The lock turns, the door opens a few inches. and every single thing I planned to say fucking dies in my throat.
She looks wrong.
Not hurt in any way I can use.
No obvious mark I can turn into a reason and carry with me into the cage. She’s wearing an oversized black sweater that swallows her hands, her hair is a mess, her eyeliner smudged like she slept in it and woke up somewhere worse.
But it’s her eyes that gut me.
They're too quiet.
Alice is never quiet like that. Even scared, she has teeth. Even pissed off, she watches like she’s already halfway to cutting you open with whatever she noticed first.
This isn’t that.
This is hollow.
My stomach drops so hard it feels physical.
“What happened?”
Her fingers tighten around the edge of the door, and for one second, I think she won’t answer.
Then she says, “Nothing you can fix by hitting someone.”
Every violent thing in me goes silent at once.
Johnny.
It’s not a question.
Doesn’t need to be. He’s all over her without being in sight. In the way she keeps herself behind the door but doesn’t use it like armor. In the way she looks exhausted past anger. In the way her hand disappears into her sleeve instead of gripping the frame like she’s ready to shove me out.
He did something.
Something bad enough to make her look at me like I’m another problem she doesn’t have the energy to survive.
My voice comes out rough. “What did he do?”
“No.”
“Alice.”
“No, Jagger.” Her eyes lift to mine, flat and tired and still somehow sharp enough to hurt. “Do not do that.”
“Do what?”
“Stand there with murder all over your face and ask me for details.”
My hand curls at my side. “I need to fucking know.”
“No, you want to know.” Her mouth tightens. “There’s a difference.”
I stare at her, and the hallway feels too small. Too fucking narrow. Like if I breathe wrong, the whole building might crack open around us.
“If he hurt you—”
“He did.” Her voice breaks on the second word, just barely, but I hear it.
My chest goes cold.
She sees it happen. Sees the shift in my face. The thing in me waking up and reaching for blood.
“And this is why I didn’t want to tell you,” she says, quieter now. “Because you don’t hear hurt when it comes from me. You hear permission.”
“That’s not fucking fair and you know it.”
“No?” She laughs once, but there’s nothing in it. “Look at you.”
I can’t.
I can’t fucking stand here and look at her looking like that and do nothing.
“What did he do, Alice?”
Her eyes shine, but she doesn’t let anything fall. Somehow, that’s worse.
“He ruined something,” she says. “Something of mine. Something small and stupid and mine, and he did it because he knew it would get a reaction.”
My jaw locks so hard pain shoots into my temple.
“What?”
She shakes her head. “You don’t get the details.”
“I’m going to kill him.”
“I know.” Her voice turns colder. “That’s the problem.”
“Move.”
The word comes out before I can stop it.
Her face changes.
I force my hand open. “Alice—”
“No.” She steps back, but only enough to put more door between us. “You came here to check on me, right? Checked. I’m alive. Congratulations.”
“You don’t look alive.”
Her mouth trembles once, then hardens. “Fuck you.”
I deserve that, but I still don’t move.
The thought of leaving her here makes my skin crawl. The thought of Johnny breathing somewhere after doing this to her makes everything in me go black around the edges.
“Just fucking let me in,” I say.
Alice’s hand tightens on the door. “No.”
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I know.” Her voice is flat, tired, and somehow worse than if she screamed. “That’s not the problem.”
My jaw locks.
Fuck.
“Alice—”
“No.” Her eyes lift to mine. Hollow. Red around the edges. Done in a way that makes something ugly twist under my ribs. “I’m done letting Cutters into my space.”
That lands harder than it should.
Because she means him.
And me.
I force my hands open at my sides even though every instinct I have is screaming to push. To ask. To look past her. To find out what Johnny touched, what he broke, what the fuck he did to make her sound like this.
But she’s standing in front of me looking barely held together, and I’m starting to understand that wanting to protect someone doesn’t mean shit if I keep making myself another thing she has to survive.
So I step back.
“Fine,” I say.
She blinks, like she expected me to fight her on it.
I want to.
Fuck, I want to.
Instead, I drag a breath through my nose and make my voice work. “Then come with me.”
Her brows pull together. “What?”
“Somewhere else.”
“No.”
“For fuck sakes, stop being so goddamn difficult.”
“No, Jagger. I’m not getting dragged into another Cutter brother field trip.”
“I’m not dragging you anywhere.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
I look at her, at the oversized sweater swallowing her hands, at the dead look in her eyes, at the apartment behind her that feels wrong even from the hallway.
“Trust me.”
She laughs once, sharp and empty. “That is a hilarious thing to say to me right now.”
“I know.”
“Do you really?”
“Yeah.” My throat tightens. “I do.”
She goes quiet, but her eyes never leave mine.
I step back another inch, giving her the door, the hall, the choice. All of it. “You know I wouldn’t hurt you.”
Her mouth trembles before she catches it.
“Not like him,” I add, rougher.
Her eyes flash, and even I know I deserve that too.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” I say. “I’m not going to ask you to tell me what happened. I’m asking you to trust me once. Just once. Let me help.”
For a long second, she doesn’t move.
Then she looks back into her apartment, and whatever she sees there makes her face fold for half a second before she forces it flat again.
“Where?”
“The pool.”
Her eyes cut back to mine. “The pool?”
“It’s quiet.”
“That’s your pitch?”
“It’s all I’ve got.” I drag a hand over the back of my neck, hating how stupid it sounds before I even say it. “Water makes sense to me. It doesn’t ask questions. Doesn’t care what kind of mood I’m in. I get in, go under, and for a while, all the noise shuts the fuck up.”
Alice stares at me.
I shrug, jaw tight. “Cancer shit, I guess.”
Her mouth twitches, barely. “You’re blaming your zodiac sign right now?”
“I’m blaming everything I can.”
She looks tired enough to argue and too tired to bother.
I soften my voice. “It helps. That’s all I’m saying. When everything feels too loud, I go there.”
She stares at me like she’s trying to decide whether I’m lying, whether she’s stupid for even considering it, whether there’s any version of tonight where this doesn’t make everything worse.
Then she exhales, tired and shaky, and reaches behind the door.
Keys jingle in her hand.
“Fine,” she says. “But if this turns into some macho murder-speech bullshit, I’m leaving.”
I nod. “Fine.”
She steps into the hall and pulls the door shut behind her.
The lock clicks into place, and she turns to face me, but I don’t touch her.
I just wait while she pockets the keys, wraps her arms around herself, and starts down the stairs ahead of me.
This time, I follow.
****
The university pool is dark when we get there.
The building feels abandoned after hours, all cold tile, buzzing lights, and the sharp bite of chlorine sitting heavy in the air.
Emergency signs glow red at the end of the hall, throwing dull color across the floor as Alice follows me inside with her arms wrapped around herself, close enough that I know she doesn’t want to be alone, far enough that I know she still doesn’t fully trust me.
I don’t blame her.
The side door sticks the way it always does. I lift the handle before I pull, and it gives with a low metal groan.
Behind me, Alice watches. “Should I ask?”
“No.”
“Comforting.”
I hold the door open for her, and for a second, she looks at me like she might turn around and leave me standing here with my stupid fucking idea and all the things I don’t know how to say. Then she steps inside.
The pool room opens around us, wide and blue and still.
The water throws light across the ceiling in soft, moving strips, and the bleachers sit empty in the shadows.
The lane ropes are dragged off to one side.
Everything echoes too much in here: our footsteps, the door clicking shut behind us, the sound of Alice breathing as she takes it all in.
“This is your big secret hideout?” she asks.
“Something like that.”
“Very subtle. Nothing says emotionally well-adjusted like breaking into a university pool at night.”
“I didn’t break in.”
“You jimmied the fucking door.”
“No.” His mouth curves. “I knew how to open it.”