Chapter 22 #2
"I've spent my whole life hiding." It comes out rough.
Halting. "What I–I am. What's happening to me.
I've never had to—" I gesture vaguely with the pen, like I can pull the right words out of thin air.
"Explain myself. To anyone. Margot knows, but she's always known, and we just—we don't talk about it.
We pretend it's handled. Under control."
I click the pen again. The sound is too loud in the quiet room.
"And now suddenly everyone knows, or—or suspects, or something, and I don't—" I shake my head. Set the pen down with a clatter. "I don't know what I'm supposed to say. I don't know where to start."
"Start with what you need." Atlas's voice is calm. Steady. An anchor in the chaos. "What do you need from us, Max?"
"I need to understand what's happening." The words come out in a rush. "Between all of us. Because right now it feels like I'm standing in the middle of a war I didn't start and I don't know the rules and everyone keeps making decisions about me without asking what I want."
"What decisions?" Bane asks.
"All of them." I turn to face him. "You decided I was a threat before you even knew me. You decided I didn't belong here, that I was just Margot's charity case taking up space. You made me feel like an intruder in my own home."
Bane's jaw tightens. He doesn't deny it.
I turn to Atlas. "And you—you lied to your father's face for me.
Which means you know something. Maybe everything.
" I swallow hard. "I heard you through the door last last night.
You and Zero. Talking about me like I was a problem to solve.
Deciding what I needed, what I could handle, whether Zero asked me—" My voice cracks.
"You never once thought to include me in that conversation.
To ask me what happened. What I wanted."
Atlas's expression doesn't change, but something in his eyes shifts. A flicker of recognition. Of guilt.
I turn to Zero.
My throat closes up.
He's staring at me with those ice-blue eyes. Flat. Waiting. And suddenly all the words I had—all the accusations, all the hurt—they're gone. Lodged somewhere in my chest where I can't reach them.
I look away. Can't hold his gaze. My hand goes to my neck without thinking, rubbing at the spot where his teeth grazed skin. I can feel the heat creeping up my face. The shame.
"And you—" My voice comes out barely a whisper. I clear my throat. Try again. "You—"
Nothing. I've got nothing.
The silence stretches. I can feel Atlas and Bane watching. Waiting for me to say what Zero did. To name it. But naming it means thinking about it, and thinking about it means remembering the weight of him, the heat of him, the way my body—
I flinch. Actually flinch. My shoulders curling inward, making myself smaller.
"What?" Zero's voice is hard. Challenging. "Say it. Whatever you're thinking, just say it."
I shake my head. Stare at the floor. My hand is still on my neck.
"You can't even look at me." Something shifts in Zero's tone. Bitter. Raw. "That's how much I fucked you up, huh? Can't even be in the same room without—"
"Zero." Atlas's voice is sharp. A warning.
"No, let's do this." Zero pushes off the window. I hear his footsteps on the hardwood, getting closer, and I shrink back in the chair. Can't help it. "He wanted a conversation. He wanted to clear the air. So let's clear it."
He stops a few feet from me. I can smell him now—gunpowder and winter and something darker underneath. My stomach clenches.
"You want to know why I did what I did?" His voice is rising. Getting louder. "You want me to apologize for losing my mind when you showed up at the basement smelling like—like that? Like everything I've ever wanted? Do you have any idea what your scent does to me?"
I press myself deeper into the chair. Make myself smaller.
"It's in my head all the time." Zero's practically snarling now. "Every minute of every day. I can't think. Can't sleep. Can't focus on anything without your fucking scent crawling under my skin and making me—"
"That's enough." Bane's voice cuts through. Hard.
"Is it? Because he wanted honesty. Here's honesty." Zero gestures at me—at my hunched shoulders, my averted eyes, my hand still pressed against my throat. "Look at him. Look at what I did. You think I don't know? You think I don't see it every time he flinches when I walk into a room?"
"Then maybe stop making it worse," Atlas says coldly.
"How am I making it worse? By telling the truth? By admitting that his scent makes me fucking feral?" Zero laughs. The sound is ugly. Broken. "You want to blame someone, blame biology. Blame whatever sick joke of nature made him smell like that and made me—"
"Made you what?" Atlas stands. His voice has dropped into something dangerous. "Made you corner him? Made you take what you wanted without asking? Biology didn't do that, Zero. You did."
"You think I don't know that?" Zero's voice cracks. "You think I haven't been living with it every second since—"
He stops. Looks at me.
I'm curled into the chair, face half-hidden, trembling. I must look terrified. Traumatized.
The truth is more complicated. But I can't say that. Can't admit that under the fear, under the shame, there's something else. Something that responds to Zero's intensity even now. Something that remembers the way it felt to be wanted that badly.
So I stay silent. Let them see what they expect to see.
Zero's jaw tightens. The rage doesn't drain—it sharpens. Focuses.
"Are you serious right now?" His voice is low. Dangerous. "You drag us all in here at two in the morning to 'talk' and now you don’t even fucking say anything?"
I flinch. Say nothing.
"No." Zero closes the distance between us. "You don't get to do that. You don't get to sit there and play the victim and make me the bad guy without even—"
"Zero—" Atlas starts.
Zero ignores him. He's in front of me now, looming, and then his hand is on my arm—grip tight, hauling me up out of the chair.
"Look at me." His face is inches from mine. I can see the bloodshot in his eyes, the tension in his jaw, the vein pulsing at his temple. "You wanted to clear the air? Then clear it. Say what you came here to say."
I'm frozen. Heart hammering. His scent flooding my senses—want, so much want it makes my head spin.
"Say it!" He shakes me. Just once. Hard enough that my teeth click together.
Then Bane is there.
He moves fast—faster than I would have expected—and his hand closes around Zero's wrist like a vice. "Let him go."
"Stay out of this."
"I said let him go." Bane's voice has dropped into something I've never heard from him. Cold. Absolute. "Now."
For a moment, nobody moves. Zero's grip on my arm is bruising. Bane's grip on Zero's wrist is just as tight. The two of them locked in a silent standoff while I dangle between them like a ragdoll.
Then Atlas is there too, his hand on Zero's shoulder, his voice low and lethal: "Release him. I won't ask again."
Zero's eyes don't leave mine. I see the fury there—the frustration, the desperation, the something underneath that he'll never name. He wants me to fight back. Wants me to scream at him, hit him, give him something he can push against.
I give him nothing.
His lip curls. "Pathetic."
He lets go.
I stumble back, catch myself on the arm of the chair. My arm throbs where his fingers dug in. There'll be bruises tomorrow.
Bane positions himself between me and Zero. A wall. A warning.
"Get out," Atlas says to Zero. His voice is ice.
"Gladly." Zero's already moving toward the door.
"This whole thing is bullshit anyway. He doesn't want to talk.
He wants us to grovel. To feel bad for wanting something we can't control.
" He stops at the door. Looks back at me one more time.
"I'm not going to apologize for what I am.
And I'm sure as hell not going to apologize for wanting you. "
The door slams behind him.
The silence that follows is deafening.
My arm throbs. My legs are shaking. I sink back into the chair because I don't trust myself to stand.
"Max—" Atlas starts.
"Don't." I hold up a hand. It's trembling. "Just—give me a second."
He does. They both do. Atlas standing by the desk, Bane still positioned between me and the door like he's expecting Zero to come back. The quiet settles over us, thick and uncomfortable.
When I finally speak, my voice is steadier than I feel. "Is that what you think too? That I'm just here to make you feel bad?"
"No." Atlas's response is immediate. Firm. "That's not what I think."
"What about you?" I look at Bane.
He shakes his head slowly. "Zero's... Zero. He lashes out when he's cornered. It doesn't mean he's right."
"Then what would help?" I turn on Atlas. "Tell me. You're the one who's been managing this family from day one. So manage it. Fix it. Tell me how to make this better."
"I can't fix this." Atlas runs a hand through his hair — the first uncontrolled gesture I've seen from him. "Not tonight. Not with Zero storming off and everyone running on no sleep. This isn't a problem I can solve in one conversation, Max."
"Then can we at least—" I stop. Start again. My hands are shaking so I press them flat against my thighs. "Can we just be honest? About whatever this is?"
I'm not looking at either of them. Can't. My eyes fix on a scratch in the hardwood floor.
"Because there's this—this thing. And everyone keeps pretending it's not there.
Zero's the only one who's been direct with me, even if—" I wave my hand vaguely.
Can't finish that thought. "But I don't understand what's happening.
I don't understand why Atlas keeps showing up when I'm—why you cares. We're strangers. We've barely spoken."
My throat tightens. I swallow past it.
"And I don't—Bane, I can't figure out if you hate me or—" I shake my head. Rub my palms against my jeans. "One day you're telling me to stay out of your way and the next you're looking at me like—"