13. Chapter 10 | Dom #2
Oretha's mouth opened. Closed. A new stillness settled in her gaze — the shock giving way, slowly, to the kind Dom recognized from a hundred CORE meetings, the one that meant her mind had stopped reeling and started working.
"Wait." She pressed her lips together, looked at the floor, then up. "Don't you see what this could mean? A star, blacklisted for telling the truth, and here she is — alive, fighting for us. We could use that story. God, we could use it."
"No," Dom said, before Oretha could get any further.
"Dom, think about this—"
"I said no."
"This isn't your decision to make."
"Yes, it is." Dom met her gaze, steady despite the pain radiating up her side.
"You want to make it up to me — for the cell, for choosing the movement over family?
Then keep Elle out of it. This is the same thing you did to me, Oretha, just with better intentions.
You're looking at someone you love and thinking how do I use this for the cause. "
Oretha's jaw set. "That's not fair."
"It's exactly fair. You're doing it right now, standing in front of me." Dom leaned forward, every inch of the movement costing her something. "If you love us — if you actually want to be better than you were five years ago — you keep her safe. You keep her invisible."
Neither of them moved.
Then Oretha's face crumpled. A look worse than shame — the look of someone catching their own hand reaching for a drink they'd sworn off years ago.
"I'm doing it again," she said, quiet.
"Yeah." Dom didn't soften it. "You are."
"The movement doesn't need another martyr," Elle said, finding her voice.
"It needs people showing up every day. CJ making posters.
Dom hosting meetings. Papa Louie keeping the lights on.
" She looked at Oretha. "I can help from here, as Elle Brown.
I will not be Thelma Blake again. I won't be your symbol or your resurrected celebrity.
" She stood, steadier now. "If that's what this becomes, I'm gone tonight, and you'll never find me.
I tried being someone's symbol once. It nearly destroyed me. "
On the television, Nightshade fought someone in purple sequins while tears ran down Elle's face in the room below her own image.
"You're asking me to lie," Oretha said. "To everyone."
"I'm asking you to keep a secret. To protect someone." Elle's voice was steady. "The way you should have protected Dom."
Oretha flinched.
"Okay," she said finally. "I won't tell anyone. Your secret's safe."
"Why should I believe you? You already broke one promise to Dom."
"Because I'm trying not to be that person anymore." Oretha's voice was quiet, sincere. "And because Dom's right — I can't keep choosing the movement over the people I love. That's not what we're fighting for."
She moved toward the door, stopped, looked back. "I don't like it. I think you could help us in ways you can't even imagine." A pause. "But that's not my choice. It's hers."
She left. Footsteps faded down the stairs.
Elle reached over and turned off the TV. The room went quiet.
Dom watched her shoulders shake. Elle wrapped her arms around herself, as if trying to hold something in.
"How many people know now?" Elle's voice was tight, strangled. "Dom. CJ. Oretha. Papa Louie. That's too many. Four, then it's eight, then it's everyone, then it's reporters and lawsuits and—"
Her breathing sped up again, the same shallow panic as before. "It feels like standing on that edge again. Like the ground's already gone and I just haven't started falling yet."
Dom shifted on the couch, ignoring her ribs, and took Elle's hand again. "Look at me."
Elle shook her head, staring at something else, somewhere else.
"Elle. Look at me."
Her gaze found Dom's, distant, haunted.
"I can still smell it sometimes," Elle whispered. "The gasoline. It gets in my nose and I'm back there and I can't—" She swallowed hard.
Dom waited. Didn't push. Just held on.
"I have nightmares about that day. Standing on the cliff.
" Her voice had gone flat, hollow, like she was reading from a script.
"I doused the car, pushed it toward the edge, lit the match, watched it burn and go over.
I stood there a long time after, smelling gasoline on my own clothes, feeling the heat on my face, and I thought about how easy it would be to just follow it. "
Dom stiffened. Elle had never said this part out loud before.
"Long enough that the trucks came. Long enough that people gathered down below. Long enough that I could have—" Her voice cracked. "Sometimes I wake up and I'm still standing there, wondering if I made the wrong choice."
"Stop." Dom's voice cut through it like a blade.
Elle's gaze was unfocused, lost.
Dom pushed herself up, pain tearing through her ribs badly enough to blur her vision, and didn't care.
She wasn't afraid of the pain. She was afraid of the look on Elle's face — afraid of losing her to that cliff even now, even here, a thousand miles away from it.
Three steps and she had Elle's shoulders in both hands.
"Look at me. Right now."
Elle's gaze focused, found her.
"You know me. You know I don't say shit I don't mean." Dom's grip tightened. "Oretha won't tell. I know my cousin. She meant it."
"What if it's not enough? What if someone else figures it out and it's everywhere and I can't do that again, Dom, I can't—"
"Then we deal with it. Together." Steel in her voice. "But you don't go back to that cliff. Not even in your head."
Elle was crying now, silent.
"You chose to stay alive," Dom said. "You chose to be here — with me, with CJ, with Papa Louie. I need you to keep choosing it. Every day. No matter what."
"I chose wrong—"
Dom kissed her. Hard, protective, fierce, her ribs screaming and her not caring one bit. Elle needed to know she was wanted — needed to know Dom was choosing her right back, just as hard.
It was desperate and grounding at once, Dom's hands steady on her face while Elle's fingers clutched at her shirt like the world might swallow them both whole.
When they broke apart, both breathing hard, every rib in Dom's body screamed at her to sit down.
She'd spent her whole life being good at exactly one thing — taking a hit and staying on her feet anyway.
Turned out she was good at this too.