Chapter 35 Iris
IRIS
Dr. Liam Hunt’s clinic upstate is exactly how I remember it.
The hallways are wide and sunlit, carrying a crisp, botanical scent.
The waiting area looks more like a private lounge than a vet clinic, with the low leather chairs, a long ceramic bowl of filtered water placed carefully at floor level, and a shelf of toys that look chosen, not bulk-ordered.
A Sphynx cat lounges on a cushion, wrapped in a cashmere throw. A Saint Bernard rests in a custom sling, its eyes tracking every movement with calm interest. And someone’s Border Collie wears a recovery cone hand-painted with tiny flowers.
I’m the only one without a pet.
The consultation room door opens, and Liam steps out with a man cradling a ferret in his arms.
“So,” the man says anxiously, “you’re absolutely sure he’s not depressed because I went away for the weekend?”
Liam smiles like he’s had this conversation before. “I’m sure,” he says. “He’s not depressed. He’s dramatic.”
The ferret chooses that moment to yawn enormously.
“See? Perfectly healthy.” Liam scratches under its chin. “He’s just offended you left him with a sitter who didn’t understand his emotional complexity.”
The owner chuckles and thanks him profusely. He then heads out, crooning as he praises the ferret for being a good boy.
With an easy smile, Liam turns back toward the waiting area. His attention goes straight to the Saint Bernard, the same one I noticed earlier. He’s just about to call them in when he sees me.
“Iris?”
“Dr. Hunt,” I say.
He blinks, clearly thrown by my presence and perhaps the formality. The last time I was here, we’d been joking about how Blanket had leaned into every vet tech like he was conducting a survey on who loved him most. I’m fairly certain I’d called him Liam then.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Is it Blanket?”
“No. No, he’s fine,” I say quickly. “Dr. Hunt—”
He lifts a hand gently. “Please. Liam.”
“Liam,” I say. “Can I talk to you? It won’t take a minute.”
He glances at the Saint Bernard, then crouches. A biscuit appears from his pocket and the dog accepts it with a soft chomp, his oversized jowls wobbling.
“For being an excellent patient,” he says, then looks up at the owner. “Give me two minutes, Mrs. Yale.”
She smiles. “Take your time.”
Liam straightens and looks back at me. “Come on in,” he says.
And just like that, he makes room.
“Please tell me where Marcus is,” I say, no preamble.
Liam dips his head, then looks up again. “I’m sorry, Iris. I don’t know. I truly don’t.”
“You’re his friend.”
“Yes,” he says. “But he’s gone off the radar. More than usual.”
“I just want to apologize,” I say. “I said something that hurt him.”
He studies me for a moment. “If I knew where he was, I’d take you there myself,” he says. “He won’t ask for what he needs. But it doesn’t mean he doesn’t need it.”
My throat tightens. “If—if you talk to him,” I say. It sounds awkward, even to me. Of course they talk. Still. “Please tell him?”
“I will,” Liam says without hesitation.
I nod, mindful of his time, and turn toward the door. I take two steps, then stop. I turn and face him again. “Liam. One more question.”
“Sure.”
“Please tell me honestly. Did Marcus ever approach Jonas Keller or Evan Yani to… smooth things over for me?”
He doesn’t answer right away. Then he shakes his head. “No, Iris. I know that for certain. Because I asked.”
I hold my breath.
“He’s generous to a fault,” Liam continues. “You have no idea how much of himself he put into you. It did cross my mind that he might’ve done something like that for you. But he didn’t.”
Relief hits first.
The rest follows a heartbeat later. The regret, the disbelief at myself. He didn’t interfere. He understood what my work meant to me, where my line was. And he left it intact.
That was what he gave me.
That was how much of himself he put into me.
“Thank you,” I say, holding myself together just long enough to say it.
As I step into the hallway, Liam calls the Saint Bernard. The dog rises at once and ambles over, trusting, as if nothing unpleasant has ever happened in a room like this.
“Still the best patient in the building,” Liam says, ushering him and his owner inside.
I pause by the front desk. A poster catches my eye. The Skyward Sanctuary, a nonprofit in Ulster County dedicated to rehabilitating New York’s wild birds for release.
Birds. Somehow, I hadn’t thought much of them. And I suspect most people don’t.
I scan the QR code, already knowing I’ll donate. It lifts something briefly. But the problem doesn’t change. I understand Marcus better now, yet I still don’t know where he is.
I wake up on my futon to a knock at the door. I swing my legs down and immediately step on something sharp.
“Argh!” I hiss at the dried brush handle, hopping on one foot before dragging the door open.
“Hey!” Reggie beams at me, a plastic bag dangling from his hand. I don’t even have to look inside to know it’s takeout.
“Reg?” I blink at him. “What are you doing here?”
He squints at me. “Wow. Your face was a sad pancake when you opened the door. And now you’re questioning my presence?”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I say quickly, then step forward and hug him. The relief hits harder than I expected. “I’m really glad you’re here.”
“I know,” he says, patting my back. “Now move. I brought food and opinions.”
I let him in.
He takes one look at my studio and lifts a brow. “Do we have a surface that isn’t emotionally compromised?”
“Give me two seconds.” I clear off a workbench, shoving aside sketches and jars, and he immediately spreads out the containers.
Fried rice, glossy and fragrant, studded with everything good. Stir-fried greens that are still steaming. A bag of prawn crackers that’s already threatening to disappear. And two tall cups of the place’s special jasmine tea.
“You remembered,” I say.
“Obviously. You spiral better when properly fed.”
I kiss his cheek. “Thank you.”
We eat straight from the containers. I barely slow down, and Reggie watches me with open amusement.
“Okay,” he says. “Either you skipped dinner, or you’re eating your feelings.”
“Both,” I mumble around a mouthful of rice.
“Bold choice,” he says. “Ten out of ten commitment.”
By the time I reach for a third cracker, he stops me. “Come on.” He gestures. “Couch.”
He leads me away from the mess, tea in hand, and sits with me.
“We need to talk,” Reggie says, all business.
“What do you mean? We had coffee yesterday.”
He gives me a look. “Coffee is not a conversation. You talked at me. Like a possessed podcast.”
I frown. “That’s rude.”
“You were fully Pontianak,” he says.
I blink. “A what?”
“A Pontianak,” he repeats patiently. “Vampiric female ghost, Southeast Asia version. And before you ask—no. Not a Katherine Pierce situation. Less smirk, more floating around wailing about unresolved issues.”
I stare at him for a second, then laugh, loud and helpless.
“There,” he says, pointing at me. “That. That’s the Iris I’ve been missing.”
I shake my head, still smiling. “You’re impossible.”
“Mm. And you’re not yourself,” he says, gentler now. “I know it’s not about the success. I know you. You’re not someone who gets weird over fame and money. But you’ve changed. And not in a good way.”
“I know,” I say. “I’ve been…stuck in something heavy.”
He nods. “I get that. You need space for your work. That’s part of the deal. But you also need fun. With me or without me.”
I glance at him.
“I gave you grief about the game,” he continues, “but you were happy then. You were laughing. Where did that go? Are you even playing anymore?” He pauses, then adds, almost sheepishly, “Also, I miss dressing you up. I feel like that’s relevant.”
I huff a laugh. “Of course you do.”
“Obviously,” he says. “I’m an artist too. Just with better shoes.”
“Reg,” I say. “I’ve been keeping something from you. And it’s…bad.”
He doesn’t joke this time. “Okay, tell me.”
I draw a breath and say it. “Wolf is Marcus.”
He stares at me.
I set my drink on the floor, as if that might help. “Marcus is Wolf.”
“Lockwood?”
“Yes.”
Reggie sets his own cup down. Then he just sits there. One minute. Then another. Then another.
“Well?” I drawl. “Say something.”
He exhales. “I’m trying, Eye.”
We sit in it again.
“The last game,” I say finally. “Something went wrong.”
His head snaps up. “Iris? What went wrong?”
“I’m fine,” I say quickly, already choosing not to explain how wrong it went. I’m still alive, and I’m not spending the night walking Reggie through every detail. We need the night to talk about Marcus.
“I wasn’t hurt. Just—” I stop, then force myself to keep going. “Someone outside the rules took it too far. He trapped me in one of the setups. A tank. Marcus got me out. And I saw him. No mask.”
Reggie’s hand tightens on my arm. “Is that someone still on the loose?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“So he might still be after you?”
“No,” I reply. It’s mostly true. “Not that I know of. And he never saw my face.”
“If that changes,” he says, “you tell me. I don’t care if you think it’s nothing. I don’t care if you think you can handle it. You tell me.”
“I don’t feel threatened,” I say.
He holds my gaze. “Good. But if that stops being true, I’m in it. No debate.”
I nod.
He says, “So, what are you going to do now?”
My throat tightens. “I said awful things to Marcus. Because I was in love with Wolf.”
He takes his time, pondering. Then he says, “You didn’t feel the same about the personas even though they were the same man. That meant something, Eye. What was it? You didn’t trust Marcus the way you did Wolf?”
“It wasn’t distrust,” I reply. “He was a good man. I just—” My voice breaks. “I turned him into something he wasn’t. A villain. In my head.”
“Oh, Eye.” He pulls me into him.
My tears come fast and clumsily. I don’t fight them.
“He was kind to me,” I say. “And he wasn’t over the top about it. Just…decent. He helped with Blanket.”
Reggie nods. “I remember that part.”
“And once,” I add, “he got me out of a traffic mess, and I wouldn’t let him take the credit.”
He notices I’ve never mentioned it before. But he lets it go.
“We argued after the last game,” I continue. “He wanted us to start over. I said no. For reasons that are…petty.”
Reggie listens without interrupting.
I carry on. “He helped with my parents’ place’s renovation. Sneakily. And I accused him of interfering in my career when he never did.”
“Eye,” he says after a few moments, “this feels catastrophic because you care. But it’s not unfixable. The real question is, who is Marcus Lockwood to you? There’s no right or wrong answer. Only your answer.”
I shake my head. “He should’ve been the hero. But I turned away because he was real. Like that was a fault.”
My voice breaks completely. I have to stop and drag in air through a sob. “I got so caught up in this idea that he’d want to change me. That I’d become a trophy, stuck in some kind of gilded cage.”
Reggie wraps an arm around me, rubbing slow circles along my sleeve.
“You’ve always been scared of cages,” he says. “Even the pretty ones.”
I let out a broken laugh. “I know.”
“You’ve spent your whole life making sure no one else got to decide what’s best for you,” he goes on, stating it like a fact we’ve always known.
I wipe my face, breathing through the ache in my chest. “But it turns out the best thing for me wasn’t what I thought it was.”
“Wanting freedom doesn’t make you selfish,” Reggie adds. “It just means you didn’t know yet what it might look like to choose someone without losing yourself.”
I sniff, managing a weak smile. “Freedom looks great on paper. But I think I finally get it now, Reg.” I stare at the floor. “Freedom that can’t be shared isn’t freedom at all.”
“You’re allowed to learn it the hard way.”
I lean in and kiss his forehead, grateful for the space he’s giving me.
“It still doesn’t excuse what I did.” I scrub at my face. “I should’ve had more empathy and less faith in my own bullshit. I acted like an asshole every time I was with him.”
I swallow. “He asked me to dinner. At my first exhibition. I told him he wasn’t what I was interested in. In front of Keller. In front of everyone.”
Reggie winces. “Okay, I won’t sugarcoat this. That was rough. Didn’t I tell you to be nice? That his father had just died?”
The words hit like a dropped plate.
“Oh my God.” I drag my hands over my face. “I didn’t even think of that.”
Reggie holds me while I sit there with it.
There was nothing fake about Marcus Lockwood.
He didn’t try to be compelling, and he didn’t smooth himself into something easier to read.
And idiotic as it sounds, the fact that he didn’t obsess over symmetry should’ve told me he was different.
Still, I bought into the stereotype. I decided he had to be all facade, all control and dominance.
Reggie keeps me in his arms, just as a good bestie could.
With no sound to break it, the thought digs in. The last thing Marcus said to me was that what I had was fear. That I chased the thrill, only to abandon it the moment it asked something real of me.
If I’m being honest, it wasn’t just fear.
It was cowardice.
I scoff, remembering the night I called him a coward back at the manor, when he vanished into its maze of rooms and left me chasing him. Back then, it was just an innocent provocation.
Now the joke’s on me. A cruel one.
The truth stares me in the face.
I’m the coward who ruined a chance. Who hurt a man who wanted to love me.