Chapter 22
I stay on the dock until my fingers go numb.
The cold helps. Clears my head. Gives me something to focus on besides the chaos spinning through my thoughts. The lake is black glass beneath me, the moon a broken reflection on its surface, and I breathe in the salt-pine air until my lungs ache.
I have to face them. I have to face my stepbrothers.
Tonight. Right now. Before this spirals more out of control. But I'm still sitting here, frozen in more ways than one.
Eventually, the cold wins. I push myself up from the dock—carefully, always carefully now—and make my way back up the path to the house.
The sliding glass door is still unlocked.
The kitchen is dark and quiet. I slip through like a ghost, avoiding the spots where the floor creaks, and head for the stairs.
The second floor is silent. The brothers' wing stretches out before me—Atlas's suite at the far end, Zero's door on the left, Bane's on the right. Three closed doors. Three alphas behind them.
I know what I need to do.
I just don't know how to start.
Do I knock on Atlas's door? He's the reasonable one. But he's also the one who lied to Richard's face downstairs. Smoothly. Effortlessly. Protecting a secret that isn't his to keep.
Which means he knows.
The thought makes my stomach clench. He knows what I am. He has to. You don't lie to your father like that—don't take the blame for a fight that bloody—unless you're protecting something big. Something worth the risk.
How much does he know? Everything? Just pieces? Did Bane tell him what he smelled in the library? Did Zero confess what happened in the basement?
The not-knowing is almost worse than the knowing. At least if I understood what they understood, I could prepare. Could figure out what to say. Instead I'm standing here in the dark, trying to guess how much of my secret is already out.
Do I knock on Zero’s door? The thought makes my stomach clench. I'm not ready to face him alone. Not after the basement. Not after what he did and didn't say.
Bane? He's barely spoken to me. Almost every interaction has been cold, dismissive, like I'm beneath his notice. Why would tonight be any different?
I stand in the hallway, paralyzed by indecision.
My body aches. That uncomfortable heat is back—the low sizzle in my veins that I can never quite shake anymore, making my skin feel too tight and my thoughts swim.
I'm exhausted—bone-deep, soul-deep exhausted—and the idea of having this conversation right now feels impossible.
But if I go back to my room, I'll lose my nerve. I know I will. I'll convince myself to wait until morning, and then morning will become afternoon, and afternoon will become another day of hiding, and nothing will ever change.
There's a small sitting area between the brothers' doors. A loveseat, two armchairs, a side table with a lamp that casts warm amber light. It's meant to be a gathering space, I think. Somewhere they can talk without retreating to their separate rooms.
I sink into one of the armchairs. Just for a minute. Just to gather my thoughts. To figure out what I'm going to say.
I need to understand what's happening.
I need you to see me as a person.
I need—
My eyes are so heavy.
The chair is soft. The lamp is warm. My body is screaming for rest, for sleep, for just a few minutes of peace.
I'll close my eyes. Just for a second. Just to—
∞∞∞
Something soft settles over me.
I surface slowly, dragging myself up through layers of fog. My thoughts are syrup-thick, sluggish. There's warmth around my shoulders that wasn't there before. A weight. A blanket?
I blink. Once. Twice. The world comes into focus in fragments—amber light, dark walls, the texture of fabric under my fingers.
A figure crouched in front of me.
Gray eyes. Dark hair with silver at the temples. A face carved from concern.
Atlas.
"Hey." His voice is low. Gentle. "You fell asleep out here."
I stare at him. My brain is still catching up, still trying to piece together where I am and how I got here. The sitting area. The brothers' wing. I was going to talk to them. I was going to—
"What time is it?" My voice comes out hoarse. Cracked.
"Almost two in the morning." Atlas's brow furrows. He reaches out, and for a moment I think he's going to touch my face. Instead, his hand hovers an inch from my forehead, close enough that I can feel the heat of his palm. "You're burning up."
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You're burning up and you fell asleep in a chair instead of your bed." He pulls his hand back. "How long have you been out here?"
I try to remember. The dock. The cold. Coming inside. Sitting down. "I don't know. An hour? Maybe more?"
"Why didn't you go to your room?"
Because I was trying to work up the courage to knock on your door. Because I promised myself I'd face you and I couldn't figure out how. Because I'm a coward who fell asleep in a chair instead of doing the thing I said I'd do.
"I was—" I start.
A door opens.
Bane steps out of his room, shirtless, sweatpants slung low on his hips. He stops short when he sees us—Atlas crouched in front of me, the blanket around my shoulders, the whole strange tableau.
"What's going on?" His voice is rough with sleep. Or maybe just rough. It's hard to tell with Bane.
"Max fell asleep out here," Atlas says without looking away from me. "He's burning up."
"I'm fine," I repeat. It's becoming a refrain. A lie I keep telling because it's easier than the truth.
Bane's eyes narrow. He leans against his doorframe, arms crossed over his bare chest. "You fell asleep in a chair in our hallway because you're fine?"
"I was waiting." The words come out before I can stop them. "I wanted to—I needed to talk to you."
Atlas and Bane exchange a look. Something passes between them—a silent conversation I'm not privy to.
"About what?" Bane asks.
"About everything." I push the blanket off my shoulders and sit up straighter. My body protests—joints aching, head pounding, skin too hot and too tight—but I ignore it. "About what's happening. What happened. What we're supposed to do now."
Another exchanged look.
"Okay," Atlas says slowly. He stands, unfolding to his full height.
He's not in his usual armor—no suit, no crisp button-down.
Just gray sweatpants and a white t-shirt that stretches across his shoulders, feet bare against the hardwood.
It's the most undone I've ever seen him.
Human. Approachable. It makes something in my chest twist. "Let me get Zero. "
"Does he have to be there?"
The question comes out sharper than I intended. Atlas's expression flickers—something like pain, quickly smoothed.
"If we're going to talk about this, we all need to be in the room." His voice is careful. Measured. "Whatever you have to say, he needs to hear it too."
I want to argue. Want to say that I'm not ready to face Zero, not ready to be in the same room with him and try to put words to what he did to me. But Atlas is right. I know he's right. Avoiding Zero is what got us here in the first place.
"Fine," I say. "Okay."
Atlas nods and crosses the small sitting area to Zero's door—just a few feet away. His knock is firm. Three sharp raps. Then his voice, low and commanding: "Zero. Wake up. We need to talk."
I watch from the armchair, internally cringing that this is about to happen. Bane leans against his doorframe, arms crossed, watching too.
A muffled response from behind Zero's door. Something that sounds like "fuck off."
Atlas knocks again. Harder. "Now, Zero."
A long pause. Then footsteps. Then the door swings open.
Zero appears pulling a black t-shirt over his head. His hair is a mess. His eyes are bloodshot. He looks like he hasn't slept any better than I have.
He sees me and stops. Something crosses his face—surprise, guilt, anger, I can't tell—before it shutters into blankness.
"What's this about?" His voice is flat. Guarded.
"Max wants to talk," Atlas says. "All of us. My office."
Zero's jaw tightens. For a moment, I think he's going to refuse. Going to turn around and go back to his room and slam the door.
Instead, he just says: "Fine."
Atlas's office still smells like bourbon and blood.
Someone cleaned up the worst of it—the glass swept away, the books restacked, the desk wiped down—but the echoes remain. Gouges in the wood where fingers dug in. A faint stain on the rug that might be alcohol or might be something else. The ghost of violence hanging in the air like smoke.
Atlas takes his seat behind the desk. Zero leans against the window, arms crossed, as far from the rest of us as he can get without leaving the room. Bane drops onto the leather couch, sprawling with a casualness that doesn't match the tension in his shoulders.
I stand in the center of the room. Exposed. Surrounded.
No one speaks.
The silence stretches. Thickens. Becomes its own kind of pressure.
"So," Bane says finally. "You wanted to talk. Talk."
I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again.
Where do I even start?
I sink into one of the leather chairs across from Atlas's desk. My legs feel unsteady. My hands need something to do, so I pick up a pen from the desk—heavy, expensive, probably worth more than my laptop—and turn it over in my fingers. Click the end. Unclick it. Click it again.
"I don't—" I stop. Stare at the pen. Try again. "I wanted to—"
No. That's not right either.
I set the pen down. Pick it up again. The silence is suffocating.
"Take your time," Atlas says quietly.
But that's the problem. I don't have words for this. I've never had to find words for this. My whole life has been about not talking about it, not explaining, not letting anyone close enough to need an explanation.