Cyrus
Chapter twenty-three
Iwalk until my jaw unlocks and the frost burns off the fight in me.
By the time I hit the main drag, I can see my own breath.
The street lamps are dying one by one, and the sidewalk’s a patchwork of yellow and black.
I move through the black parts, hands in pockets, hood up. Keeps the night from getting ideas.
Gabriel’s words are still stuck to the roof of my mouth.
She’s just the reject. The sound of it keeps looping, her face when he said it—blank, then the tiniest tremor, then nothing except that inward flinch like she’d been hit in a place that sticks.
I watched it happen. Saw her shrink so hard she almost disappeared. And I let it happen.
I almost faced off. Would’ve, if I wasn’t sure Gabriel would’ve knocked me flat.
He’s a bastard when he’s cornered, but I’ve known him long enough to know when he regrets something.
It was running through the bond, tight and twisted.
I know why he did it. Fear, but not of her.
Fear of what’s coming for her, and for us.
He couldn’t tell Miles he was terrified of losing Lily.
So he said something that would make Miles feel safe instead.
Nobody threatens Miles. Not in this city, not with the Santos pack at his back.
But Lily’s a target. Brennan is the type to make her disappear, and Gabriel’s the type to break himself keeping his pack safe.
But he can’t say that with Miles in the room.
Couldn’t risk Miles hearing how important she really is to him.
To us. So Gabriel said the thing that would shut it down fastest, not the truth.
Doesn’t change that he said it.
I run the whole thing again, fingers opening and closing, then I duck into the only bar in town that’s still half empty at this hour because that’s the way I like it.
The bartender clocks me and pours a whiskey without saying a word.
He’s not the chatty kind. That’s another reason why I like this place.
It’s not a scene. It’s a place to disappear.
I sit in the second-to-last stool at the end, the one that’s got a view of the door and enough shadow that you can watch everyone without being watched.
There are two other bodies at the bar, both regulars.
Nobody looks up. I sip the whiskey. It’s cheap and burns like bleach, which is exactly what I’m after.
I’m about to finish it when my phone goes off. Text. Garrett: Where the hell are you?
I stare at it, thumb hovering. I type: Out. All he replies is: Don’t move.
I sigh. Finish the glass in one swoop, motion for another. When it comes I nod to the bartender, who knows better than to start a conversation.
I don’t want to talk. I like people more when they don’t fill the air with noise.
Words are useful, but not honest. Scent, the flick of a hand, where people look when they’re lying—those are the only tells that matter.
That’s why I picked this spot. I can watch the bartender, the regulars, the mirror behind the bottles. They can’t watch me back.
I don’t have to wait long. The bell over the door goes, and a cold wind rolls through the place with Garrett right behind it. He shakes off his coat, runs a hand through his hair, and takes the stool to my left. He’s tense, but trying not to be.
He orders a gin. Doesn’t look at me while he does it. When it comes, he looks at the condensation building on the glass and says, “That was so fucking fucked, Cy. The look on that girl’s face.”
I grunt.
Garrett’s tone lowers. “For a second I wanted to kill him. I mean it.” Then, quickly, softer: “Not really. But almost.”
I shake my head. “I know he didn’t mean it. But that doesn’t change that he said it.”
We drink. There’s a clatter from the far side of the bar, a regular knocking over his empty. Nobody bothers to clean it up. Nobody bothers anyone, really.
“After you left,” Garrett says, “she didn’t come out again.
Not even to eat. I checked, and the lights were off in her room.
Miles hasn’t come out either. He’s in his own room for once.
” He laughs, but it’s not funny. “Gabriel just sat on the couch, holding his own face like he was keeping it from falling apart.”
I feel it, even here, a shiver in the bond. Regret, a little anguish. From Gabriel.
Garrett runs a thumb along the bar top. “How do we fix this?”
I shrug. “Can’t. Not really. Not unless someone can go back and unsay it.”
Garrett lets out a long breath. “The worst part is she believed him. She thinks she really is a reject.”
“She’s not,” I say, and Garrett almost smiles.
“Yeah. She’s the kind of omega you build a life around. And I’ve already built one.”
“Don’t let Miles hear you say that.”
Garrett shrugs. “Doesn’t mean I love him less. Doesn’t mean I’d trade. It’s just—I see her, Cy. I really see her. I could love her. Not the same way as Miles, but… real. I could love both of them if the world wasn’t so fucking small.”
I stare into my glass. I want to tell him I could, too. That some alphas keep one thing and others want more, and I’m starting to think I’m the second kind. But sometimes you end up with something wild and something soft in the same room, and all you can do is keep them from killing each other.
I don’t say it. I just nod.
Garrett drinks his gin and looks at me sideways. “What did Gabriel see last night?”
“What do you mean?”
“He went straight to Lily’s room when he came home. Came back five minutes later looking like he’d walked through a blizzard. Wouldn’t talk to anyone. Just said ‘sleep,’ and got into the bed like if he stayed there long enough, nothing would have happened.”
I think about it. “Probably saw her with Miles. In the same bed.”
Garrett turns fully now. “Do you think they…”
“Not what you’re thinking. But I think something changed. Miles doesn’t let anyone touch him when he’s breaking. She held him. He let her.”
Garrett shakes his head. “So what? They’re going to fall in love and sing Kumbaya together?”
I laugh. “Not a chance. But maybe he won’t try to murder her. That’ll have to be enough.”
Garrett groans. “Don’t rain on my parade, Cy.”
I finish my whiskey. Don’t answer.
He signals for another round. It comes fast. The bartender is efficient, never interrupts. My kind of guy.
Garrett sips the new drink. “So what do we do?”
I look at the mirror behind the bar, at the reflection of two alphas trying to pretend they aren’t scared of the future. “Find her a home. Fast. We’re breaking her, and it’s not the withdrawals anymore.”
Garrett nods, then covers his face with his hands. “I don’t want to give her to another pack.”
“Can’t keep her if you want to keep Miles.”
He drops his hands. “It’s not fair.”
“It never is.”
We sit for a while in silence. There’s an ache building in my chest and I don’t know what to do with it. I watch Garrett nurse his drink. The bartender wipes down the counter. The regulars move through their last rounds.
Eventually, Garrett looks at me and says, “You coming back?”
I nod.
Garrett pays for both of us. We finish our drinks and head out into the cold.
The walk back is ugly. The air’s turned mean, biting through the seams of my jacket.
By the time we hit the driveway, Garrett’s nose is red and his hands are stuffed so deep in his pockets you’d need pliers to get them out.
There are no lights on in the windows, just the reflection of the two of us in the glass, fogged out and ghosty.
Inside, the house is heavy. Every closed door down the hall is a warning sign. Even the creak of the floorboards feels like something’s watching, waiting for us to say the wrong thing and crack it all open again.
Garrett heads for the kitchen. I go the other way, to the bedrooms, past the little constellation of doors.
Gabriel’s room: dead dark, silent. Miles: low music playing, but nothing else.
The light under Lily’s door is gone, but the scent leaking out isn’t.
It’s briny with old tears, that note omegas get when they’ve been hurt so deep it rewrites them.
It reminds me of how Miles smelled when he first came home.
I shouldn’t. But I do. I turn the knob and slide inside, careful not to make a sound.
She’s in the middle of the bed, fetal, sheets pulled over her head. There’s so little of her, it’s like she’s trying to be negative space. The only thing alive is her breathing… just barely holding steady.
I almost go to her. But I don’t trust myself to be able to let her go after. It gets harder every time I touch her.
Every alpha molecule in me wants to pull her up and purr it away, but I’m not the one who gets to fix this.
I never was. I let the need burn out in my chest and watch.
Her hands are balled in the fabric. Her knees are drawn up so tight I worry she might snap her own ribs.
She’s asleep, or close to it. I let her be.
But before I leave, something catches my eye.
The trash can by the desk is full. I look in.
All of her new art supplies, mostly ruined.
Some ripped in two. Every tube of paint twisted or crushed.
The little easel broken. A handful of brushes splintered.
And the painting—the city skyline she probably spent all day working on—is jammed on top, torn, the colors smeared.
I look at her, then at the mess, then back. There’s a kind of violence to it. Not the rage of someone who wants to break the world. More like the despair of someone who knows the world will break her first. This was her way of fighting back. Her only way.
I take the trash can. I don’t know why, I only know that it feels wrong to leave her like this, with the evidence of her loss staring her down when she wakes.
I get out without disturbing her, close the door so slow the latch never even clicks.
In my room, I dump the can on the floor and start sorting.
Most of it’s done for. But I work through it piece by piece, finding the ones that aren’t dead yet.
A few brushes with the bristles still whole.
A little bit of paint that survived. I wipe some of the paint off the materials and pull out the skyline.
The worst rip goes through the middle, splitting the tallest building in two.
The paint is warped, the surface puckered and scabbed over with finger dents and smears.
I lay it on my desk and start taping the pieces together from behind. It’s shit work, ugly and obvious, but when I turn it over, the image is there. It isn’t the same, but it’s still alive. A survivor, held together by ugly seams.
I prop it on my shelf and stare at it. My fingers are stained blue and red.
Soon, I’ll buy her new supplies. I’ll find a way. Maybe she’ll throw those out too, but maybe not. Either way, I want to see what she builds next, even if it breaks my heart all over again.
I turn the light off, let the ruined city glow in the dark, and listen to the house breathe.