Chapter 15 #3
The ringing is fading. The stars are thinning.
My mother's face is above me and it's wrecked—mascara she didn't wash off before bed streaked down her cheeks, her mouth open, her hands trembling on my jaw—and behind her I can see the foyer ceiling and the chandelier and the overhead light and three men standing against the far wall looking at me on the floor.
Zero. Bane. Atlas. Shoulder to shoulder against the wall. Richard between them and me. Margot between them and me. And me on the hardwood with blood on my teeth and my mother's hands on my face.
The pain is unlike anything I’ve ever felt. My entire head is pounding, my lip on fire, my cheek feels like it’s about to explode.
"Can you sit up?" Margot asks. Her voice is shaking so badly the words barely hold together. "Max. Sweetheart. Can you sit up?"
I sit up. Slowly. The foyer tilts and rights itself. My left eye is almost shut. My cheekbone is pulsing with a heat that's going to be purple by morning.
Richard is staring at his hand.
He's staring at his hand the way you stare at a weapon you didn't know was loaded. The color has drained from his face entirely—gray, ash-gray, and I know he didn’t mean to do it. But he can't take it back either. Can't unsee me on the floor.
He hit me.
He wasn't aiming for me. But he hit me.
The foyer is silent. The grandfather clock ticks.
"We're leaving," Margot says. Not loud. Not a scream. The quiet, absolute voice of a woman who has seen enough. "Right now."
"Margot—" Atlas starts.
"Do not speak to me." She doesn't look at him. Doesn't look at any of them. Her eyes are on me. Only me. Her hands are on my face. "Max. We're going. Can you stand?"
I can stand. She helps me up. The foyer tilts. My left eye is almost swollen shut and the ringing is still there, faint now, a high thin note under everything.
"Mom—"
"Don't argue with me. Please." She's crying so hard the words barely hold together. "Please, Max. Please just come with me. Please."
The please gets me.
Not the command. Not the volume. The please. She's not trying to control me. She's trying to save me. The way she's always tried to save me. And right now she’s looking at her husband and her husbands sons like they’ve tried to murder me.
Her back is against the wall and she’s made her choice.
Me.
I go with her.
I don't look at Zero. I can't. If I look at Zero I'll stay and if I stay this gets worse.
Margot is shaking so hard she can barely hold my arm and the blood is running down my chin and my mother is begging me and I can't—I can't fight everyone tonight.
I can't fight Talbot and Zero and Margot and Richard and the truth and the lies and the letters and the gravel all in the same three hours.
I’m out of fight.
She pulls me through the foyer. Past the shattered lamp. Past the console table. Past Richard, who has backed against the wall, who is looking at his hand like it belongs to someone else.
Atlas's voice behind me: "Margot. Margot, wait—"
She doesn't wait.
Zero's voice: "Max—"
I feel his bond flare in my chest—white-hot, desperate, the same frequency as the driveway—and I close my eyes against it.
Bane doesn't say anything. I feel his thread pulse once. Steady. Warm. The hand on my back that isn't there.
Richard follows us, reaching for Margot. She rips out of his grip. “Don’t you DARE fucking touch me!”
We rush out into the darkness and Margot kicks the crumpled letter I wrote to Zero as we get to her car. She guides me in. Gentle, even buckles my seatbelt. Her hands are shaking so badly it takes her three tries.
She walks around to the driver's side. Gets in. Starts the engine.
The headlights sweep across the front of the house.
I see them.
All three of them. Standing on the porch. Atlas in the doorway—shirt, trousers, his face a mask. Bane one step behind him, glasses catching the headlights, his hand on the doorframe. Zero at the edge of the porch, barefoot, bleeding, his fists at his sides and his chest heaving and his face—
I look away.
I can't.
Margot pulls out of the drive. The gravel crunches under the tires. The estate shrinks in the side mirror—the fountain, the hedges, the porch light, three silhouettes getting smaller.
The bond in my chest is pulling so hard it feels like it's going to tear through my sternum. Three threads, three directions, all of them pointing backward, toward the house, toward them.
I press my hand over my heart. The blood from my lip drips onto my jacket.
Margot is white-knuckled on the wheel. She hasn't said a word since the car started. The tears are still running down her face but she's driving—steady, focused, running on something deeper than thought.
"Mom," I say. My voice is wrecked. Small. "Where are we going?"
She doesn't answer.
"Mom."
"I don't know," she says. So quiet I almost miss it. "I don't know, baby. Just—away. Away from them. Away from where you’ll be in danger. As far as we can fucking get from the Graves."
The estate disappears behind the trees.
The bonds pull.
They tear out my heart one mile at a time.