Chapter 22
Wyatt
The kitchen looks like it’s been raided when I walk in at three in the morning.
Someone else is up early ... or was up late.
Someone left the overheads on low, just enough to highlight the crime scene: a rainbow streak of paint on the fridge, three mugs in the sink (none of them rinsed), and a half-eaten sleeve of cookies on the counter.
I dump my phone on the table and collapse into a chair.
It’s too cold for the t-shirt I’m wearing, but I’m running hot tonight, sweat prickling in my armpits and nowhere else.
I’m supposed to be asleep. I’m supposed to be dreaming of old friends or dead brothers or maybe nothing at all.
But my head’s a TV tuned to static, and every time I close my eyes, all I see is Emery’s face.
Emery’s hands. Emery’s mouth, which has said more true things to me in a few weeks than my family did in a lifetime.
I lean back and try to focus on the sound of the tick of the wall clock.
There’s a thud in the hallway. I tense, but it’s just Bastion, limping into the kitchen like a ghost that forgot it’s dead.
He’s in sweatpants and a hoodie, his hair an unrepentant disaster.
He doesn’t see me at first—his eyes are fixed on the counter and the cookies.
Bastion pours himself a cup of coffee. Doesn’t ask if I want any. Just slides into the chair opposite me, sets the mug between us, and stares at it like he’s hoping the black liquid will show him his future.
We sit like that for a full minute, not talking.
I break first. “You guys went at it pretty loud last night.” He and Emery had taken it to the guest suite instead of her nest for some reason, but the move did nothing to mask their actions.
Bastion snorts. “Could’ve joined in, if you wanted.”
I shoot him a look, but there’s no bite behind it. “Ranier would have a stroke.”
“Ranier already has a stroke every time he thinks about her,” Bastion says. “It’s half the reason he’s such a dick.”
I nod. “Yeah. The other half is genetics.”
Bastion’s jaw works, tight. He picks up the coffee and takes a careful sip. “You ever feel like this is all a bad prank? Like maybe we’re the joke, not her?”
“Only every day.”
Bastion glances up. “You still think the plan’s going to work?”
I look down at the grain of the table. There’s a spot of Emery’s blue paint that didn’t come off from the last clean. I dig my nail into it, scraping. “I don’t think the plan was ever going to work.”
Bastion slowly lets out a breath. “I’m not sure I want it to.”
I say nothing. The silence is heavy, but better than the alternative.
Bastion breaks it this time. “Ranier’s not going to back down.”
“I know.”
“He’s convinced if we freeze her out, the Council will get bored and send her somewhere else.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, but we’re the ones who can’t stop thinking about her. We’re the ones who keep breaking our own rules.”
Bastion shrugs, defensive. “It’s hard not to, okay?”
“I know.”
The room is too still. I want to shake Bastion. To tell him to stop fucking around and admit how he feels, but I know it’s pointless. He’s as locked up as Ranier—just better at hiding it.
Bastion taps his finger on the table, once, twice. “Do you think about her all the time, too?”
“Yeah. It’s like… I can’t turn it off. Even when I want to.”
“She’s like a force of nature.”
“Or a curse,” I counter.
He smiles, thin and sad. “Some curses are worth it.”
We lapse into quiet again. I keep picking at the paint until it flakes off under my nail. Bastion watches, but doesn’t comment. He looks exhausted, not just physically, but at the soul level, like he’s been running from himself for years and just now realized the finish line is a wall.
Finally, he asks, “Do you think she’s going to leave?”
I shake my head. “I think she wants to stay. I think she’s the only one of us brave enough to say it.”
Bastion looks down. “What if we just… let her?”
I look at him, searching for a tell, a joke, something to break the tension. But he’s serious. “Would you?”
He shrugs, but it’s not a real answer. “Better than living in this holding pattern forever.”
I nod. “Yeah.”
Bastion finishes his coffee in a gulp, wincing at the burn. “You ever wonder what Christopher would have done?”
The question hits like a sucker punch. I haven’t thought about my brother in weeks—not since the last time Ranier told me I was screwing up his legacy, or since the last time my mother called and asked if I was still “seeing that mess of an omega.”
But now, here in the dead of night with Bastion’s eyes boring holes in me, I can’t avoid it. “He would have made a decision. He wouldn’t have let it drag out like this.”
Bastion smiles. “He was better at that than us.”
“Yeah.” I try not to let my voice crack.
“Do you miss him?” Bastion asks.
I nod. “All the time.”
He sets the mug down. “I miss him, too.”
I want to say something—anything—but the words are stuck. Instead I watch the way Bastion refuses to meet my eye. The way his hands never stop moving.
“Do you think he’d be disappointed in us?”
Bastion laughs, short and sharp. “He’d be disappointed in Ranier. And he’d be pissed at me for letting you get dragged into this.”
I almost smile. “He’d probably tell you to fix it.”
“Yeah, maybe I should.” Bastion stands and stretches. The movement looks painful, like every joint is full of sand. I watch him gather himself and head for the door.
“Bastion.”
He stops, half-turned. “Yeah?”
“If you see Ranier, don’t let him make the call alone.”
He grins, the old Bastion back for a split second. “Not planning on it.”
He disappears down the hall, footsteps fading fast.
I sit alone, staring at the empty mug and the spot of paint. The sun’s coming up, barely a glimmer at the edge of the windows.
I wonder what the world will look like in an hour, or a day, or a year. I wonder if we’ll all still be here, pretending not to care while we orbit the same impossible omega, or if someone will finally pull the trigger and make the choice none of us are brave enough to make.