Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
MAX
Atlas’ side of the bed was empty when I awoke.
I sat up with a sharp inhale. It was still dark; just after four in the morning according to my phone.
Dread crept in like ink in water, the hours before flooding back to me. My whole face was puffy from crying, and I felt like I hadn’t slept at all, paranoid he would disappear the second I dozed off.
Scrambling, I felt under the sheets. Still warm, I thought. Maybe he can’t sleep? I quickly threw on a T-shirt and shorts over my stiff and achy body before padding down the hall.
The room was empty.
Jeffrey perched on his windowsill, ears perked like he spied something below. Atlas’ water bottle sat on the counter, and the kitchen was cleaned up from the disarray we’d left it in. Had he gotten up just for that? And where was he, now?
The faint sound of whispering voices drifted in through the balcony door, cracked to let in a lake-cooled breeze. The back porch light flared to life down below, illuminating the lawn.
“What do you mean, it hasn’t worked? The doctor said—”
“Shh! Keep your voice down. You’ll wake him…”
The hushed voices grew too quiet to hear.
Dread thickened in my veins, making my steps heavy as I slowly crept closer to the door and peered down into the yard, only to see…
Gwen.
Wait, what? Why was she here?
She stood with her arms crossed against the pre-dawn chill, leaning forward to speak in hushed tones to someone hovering in the shadow of the balcony. “Then you need to seal the bond,” she said, face grave. “Today. I won’t watch you kill yourself over this any longer.”
What the fuck?
“I’m trying, but I need more suppressants first.”
Icy fingers pricked my skin. I knew that voice. I knew it so intimately, I could single him out blindfolded in a stadium of people.
No. It can’t be. It can’t.
The figure stepped out from the shadow of the deck, revealing…
Atlas. The Masked Man. My Masked Man.
Except he wasn’t masked anymore.
Dressed in only a pair of joggers slung low on his hips, as if he’d rushed out of bed and thrown them on to make it out here before I realized he was gone, he held the snarling skull mask in his clenched fist. His back was to me, displaying the tattoos I’d lovingly traced only hours ago.
I couldn’t see his face, but he had thick, dark hair stuck up at all angles, like he’d just pulled the mask off.
“No,” Gwen said, angry. “I’m not getting you more of that poison. You need to do this without them.”
“It won’t be fair,” the stranger I’d thought I knew growled. “You have access at the clinic. Just enough for a few days, please.”
“And get fired and prosecuted for stealing a highly regulated substance? Yeah, that’d be great for all of us. Not happening.”
“I’m your boss. I won’t allow that to happen.”
“It doesn’t work like that, and you know it.”
“Please, Gwen, I just need—” he began, but he was interrupted.
Not by me, or Gwen, but by the sound of slamming car doors followed by the excited shout of someone much smaller.
“Uncle Atty!”
Enzo, wearing pajamas with tiny, smiling octopuses all over them, came bounding down the path, backlit by the floodlight over the garage of the main house. Mr. Marino jogged behind him like he’d escaped containment.
My world shifted on its axis. What I thought was solid bedrock fell out from beneath my feet like sinking sand.
Atlas turned, eyes wide in shock to see Enzo running toward him. And then he looked up at the house, scanning the shadowed windows, before his eyes landed on me, standing at the open balcony door.
Shock turned to horror and then desperation. “Max.”
I’d dreamed of this moment. Seeing his face for the first time was supposed to be special; something he chose to share with me in private. Something between just us two.
His full, pink lips were familiar, and so were his bright blue eyes and angular nose. The cheekbones were new, along with the way his dark, full eyebrows and prominent brow bone cast his face in harsh shadow. He had a full head of dark, tousled hair pushed away from his face.
Even in the harsh porch light, he was beautiful. Captivating. Arresting.
Just hours before, this man had said he loved me.
And still, before the night was even over, he’d chosen to reject me, only to seek out more suppressants instead of bonding with me after I’d begged him to.
He’d chosen to lie to me. Not just about who he was, but about… about… everything.
Everything. My whole world.
Enzo ran up to him, babbling a hundred miles a minute and hugged his knees.
“Enz,” Atlas said, bending down to return his embrace. “I missed you. What on Earth are you doing here this early, bub?”
“I’m so sorry,” Mr. Marino said, hand gripping his hair in panic. “He woke up itchy, and I realized I left his EpiPen at home. It was faster than the hospital.”
Wait, what the fuck? Weren’t they overseas?
“I don’t itch anymore. Have you come back?” Enzo asked at Atlas. “Please, Daddy. Can he move back in with Max? They can share this time.”
Mr. Marino’s gaze caught on where I stood, sharing a similar look of horror with Gwen, who had also realized I was awake.
Enzo’s question seemed to break the spell, though, because Mr. Marino looked down at his son.
“He’ll stay as long as he can, baby. Now, let’s get you back to the house and call the doctor. ”
Enzo stomped his foot. “I feel fine. I want to stay with Uncle Atty!”
“We’ll talk in the morning, Enz,” the man whom I did not know said.
“Do you promise?” the boy asked. I got the distinct impression he’d said something similar before and hadn’t kept his word.
An enduring character trait, apparently.
“I promise,” the stranger replied before clearing his throat. His gaze kept darting up to me. “Try to get some sleep.”
I stood there, frozen, in the house I felt more and more unwelcome in by the second. It was like I was a prop, or an extra in whatever secret play they’d all performed around me for the last two years.
My friend wasn’t my friend, she was his friend.
My boss wasn’t my boss, he was his brother.
My house wasn’t my house, my job wasn’t my job, my life wasn’t mine.
I thought I’d picked myself up after what happened to me and built something. I thought I’d carved out a future after escaping the hell I was in.
But everyone and everything was a lie.
Grabbing my keys and phone, I was halfway down the stairs when Atlas rounded the house.
“Max!”
I didn’t look back. Striding down the path, I headed for my car.
“Sweetheart, wait,” he said, catching up to me and grabbing my arm. Up ahead, Mr. Marino looked back in apology once before carrying Enzo into the house.
“Let me go,” I snarled, yanking my arm away from him.
“I can explain,” he said, desperate and pleading.
I stopped so quickly he nearly bowled me over. “I gave you a chance to explain. I begged you to tell me the truth, and you didn’t. You never intended to tell me who you are at all, did you?”
“Fuck. Yes, I did. I was going to, I swear. I just—”
“You used me,” I interrupted, a finger poking into his chest. “You fucked me to end a bond you didn’t want, and when it didn’t work, you were going to go back on suppressants and throw me away like trash.”
Gwen came running over. “Max, please. It’s not like that.”
I looked at her. I didn’t recognize the frantic desperation on her face, half in shadow. She was a stranger now, too. “Really?” I said with a cruel laugh. “Why the fuck would I ever believe anything either of you have to say again?”
“I should’ve told you sooner, I know, but—”
“How long have you known him?” I asked, interrupting her. “When you went on and on about trusting my gut with the man who made me feel—” I choked. Safe was so far away, now. How had I been so naive? “How long have you been lying to me?”
They looked at each other. Atlas reached for me. “Max, please—”
I jerked away. “For once in the entire time you’ve known me, could you just answer one fucking question honestly?”
Gwen covered her mouth and turned away.
Atlas’ eyes begged for understanding. “Saint is my brother,” he answered quietly. “And Gwen has been our friend since we were kids.”
Your friend, I mouthed. His friend—not mine.
His friend, who just so happened to work at the clinic he took me to.
His friend, who’d lied to me about what really happened that night.
His friend, who got me this job and my apartment. His friend who broke down my walls and tricked me into believing it was all because she was my friend.
“All of this was a lie from the start,” I whispered, feeling like I saw him, saw them all, in full for the first time. The harsh floodlight was stark and unforgiving. I was just a puppet on strings while they laughed and made me dance.
“No, it wasn’t. I just didn’t know how else to help you, to protect you after what happened,” Atlas said, tears falling.
Betrayal, slimy and thick, clung to me. The stretching silence rang in my ears.
“And the rest?” I asked, barely able to get the words out. “Assigning me a friend? The job? My apartment? Fucking me? When were you going to tell me the truth about that? Have you ever been honest with me about anything?”
Were you honest when you said you loved me?
“Max, you’re every—” his breath hitched, “everything to me. I was going to tell you; I just didn’t know how. With everything that happened, there wasn’t a right time to—”
“There was,” I said, looking back and forth between the two people I’d trusted most in this world.
In very different ways, yes, but both were cornerstones of the life I’d fought tooth and nail for.
“You could’ve been honest with me. You didn’t have to—to—lie to me.
Every fucking day. I thought I got this job because—” I couldn’t finish; my words caught in my throat.
I thought I’d earned it. I thought I’d finally made a life that was for me.
Darkness, the very ilk I’d fought my way out of two years ago, lapped against the edges of my mind, threatening to drown me. I couldn’t look at them anymore and turned away, only for him to step in front of me once more, blocking the path.
“Sweetheart, please—”
“Don’t ever call me that again,” I snarled, pushing past him. “At least Joey had the fucking balls to show who he really was. You couldn’t even do that.”
His expression crumpled. “I never lied to you. Never. I just couldn’t tell you everything. Not yet. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
I let out a hysterical, wet laugh. Didn’t want to hurt me?
His bare face screamed otherwise. It taunted me, poking at every insecure soft spot I had until I lashed out, going for the throat.
“I thought that was true. I thought you’d never hurt me.
But I was wrong, wasn’t I? You’ve spent your life hurting people.
I thought you were different from the monsters you kill, but you’re not.
You’re just like them—just like your father.
And what’s worse is you’re too much of a fucking coward to see it.
I’m only glad I did before it was too late. ”
Too far. I knew it was too far before it came out of my mouth, but I couldn’t stop myself. Even if it wasn’t true, I had to make him hurt the way I did, so he’d know how deep his betrayal cut.
Atlas reeled back. I’d never forget the look on his face for as long as I lived.
Broken. Utterly, and completely broken.
It ripped a hole in my chest. Don’t hurt mate, my omega whined.
Mate hurt us, I snarled back. Mate doesn’t want us.
“You don’t mean that, Max,” Gwen said, tears falling down her face. “I know you’re upset, but—”
“Shut the fuck up,” I interjected, “and save it for the next best friend you can manipulate.”
Her small intake of breath would haunt me, too.
Neither of them stopped me from leaving after that. On autopilot, I was in my car and peeling off into the pre-dawn dark before I could think.
I had nowhere to go. No home, or safe place.
His promises, words of love, and calming pheromones were a lie. They’d always been a lie. I had no safe person.
They were all ripped away from me in the span of a conversation.
It was never real to begin with, a nasty voice in my head whispered. Grasping fingers wrapped tighter and tighter, drowning me in the inky depths of my darkest thoughts.
Tears blurred my vision, and I relented, allowing them to pull me under.