Chapter 13
ROGUE
The Rot goes quiet around ten.
Not silent, it's never silent, the generators see to that.
The building itself always has plenty of moans and groans, partly because it's being used as opposed to maintained like it would be if it were still an actual shopping mall.
But it's quiet in the human sense. The hub workers finish their shifts, the corridors empty out, and the low buzz of people existing in close proximity fades. What's left is, well, hard to describe.
It's just the Rot. I'm not sure there is anything else quite like it.
And to be honest, I hope there isn't. Don't get me wrong. I'm happy to have a roof over my head in a man-made community with a semblance of self-government. But would I rather Rothwell not have fallen?
Hell yeah.
And so I'm in the Skylight Room when Vi arrives.
Armen is already there, sitting at the edge of the low platform we converted into seating, forearms on his knees, watching the glass panels in the ceiling where the dark sky stares back.
Sting is in the chair by the wall, jacket off, the most relaxed I've seen him in days.
I'm on the floor with my back against the wall and my legs stretched out, because the floor suits me. It always has.
Vi stops in the doorway.
She's changed her shirt, the one with the coffee stain replaced, and she's got her hair down now. She looks at the three of us, and her face relaxes like she knows she's safe with us. Which she is.
Armen looks up but doesn't say anything, just scoots over, making room.
She snags her spot, and her shoulders drop as soon as they touch his. I think about Fischer's slipup, her father's notes, and the fact that she spent the whole day working and still ended up here, with us.
She chose this. She chose us. She could have stayed in her room. She didn't.
"Tomorrow," Sting says. "Tomorrow, we head out."
"Tomorrow," Armen confirms.
Vi looks at her hands for a moment. "I've been outside before," she says. "I know what to expect."
Of course she’d want to join us.
"This is different," Armen says. "You've recently been to the club and back with us. That's not the same."
"I know." She looks up. "But I'm not scared."
"Nobody said you were," I say from the floor.
She cuts me a look. "You were thinking it."
"I was thinking you look better without the coffee stain."
Sting makes a sound that isn't quite a laugh, and Vi stares at me for a second, trying not to smile. She doesn't succeed.
Armen reaches over and takes her hand. No ceremony, no announcement, just his hand covering hers where it sits in her lap. Vi looks down at it and doesn't look away.
I get up off the floor.
We've been doing this long enough that we don't need to talk about it.
Our little group has its own language and we've been speaking it long enough now to be fluent.
Sting stands and Armen pulls Vi to her feet.
She comes without hesitation. Actually, she always comes without hesitation, which is so fucking hot, it almost makes it hard to breathe.
I get her from behind, hands on her waist, mouth at the side of her neck, and she tips her head back against my shoulder.
"Still not scared?" I say against her skin.
"Of this?" she laughs. "Are you kidding?"
Ballbuster.
Armen steps in front of her, his hands framing her face. Sting moves to her side and she makes another sound, this one lower, her body already responding to us like she got a head start.
Armen kisses her first.
That's how it often starts, Armen setting the tone, deliberately, completely, with zero ambiguity about what's happening and where it's going. Vi's hands find his chest, and I feel her exhale against my palms where I'm holding her waist, her body releasing the day's tension all at once.
Sting gets her shirt off while Armen's busy with her mouth. His hands move over her, and she breaks the kiss long enough to make a sound that does nothing to help me remain under control.
I turn her toward me and take my turn with her mouth while Armen's hands work the rest of her clothes off.
She kisses me with her full attention while her fingers find my hair.
I let her play for about thirty seconds and then I walk her backward to the platform.
Sting catches her from the other side and Armen positions himself behind her.
Fucking beautiful.
She reaches for me and I give her my hand, which she grips hard when Armen drives deep inside her, fucking her from behind, her head dropping back against his shoulder, mouth open.
"Good?" Armen groans against her ear.
"God. Yes."
He starts to move and she grabs my wrist tighter for balance, her knuckles turning white.
I lean in and take her mouth because I want it and because I can.
Vi kissing me while Armen fucks her is something I'll never get enough of.
Sting's hands work her clit, and she pulls from my mouth to gasp, then comes back for more.
She comes the first time with her nails in my arm, then Armen steps back. My turn.
I pull her down onto the platform and she straddles me, still catching her breath, eyes dark, hair everywhere. She looks up at me with that Vi expression that's going to be the end of me someday, then sinks onto my cock in one slow movement that makes us both go quiet for a second.
She starts to ride me slow, a small smile on her face, thrilled as she is to finally be in control.
If she only knew. She's never in control around us.
I get my hands on her hips and change the pace. Her smile disappears and her head drops back. I drive up into her hard, and she digs her nails into my chest and comes again, clenching around me, loud enough that it bounces off the Skylight Room's glass panels and carries halfway across the Rot.
I don't care.
Then it's Sting’s turn. He lays her down and gets his mouth between her thighs first because that's Sting, always methodical and thorough. By the time he enters her, she’s desperate for it, hands fisted in his hair, hips rolling up to meet him, saying his name in a register none of us have heard before tonight.
His control holds right up until she wraps her legs around him and rolls her hips. He swears into her throat and drives harder, and Vi makes a sound of pure satisfaction because she got just what she was going for.
I come back to her after Sting because I'm not done and she's not either.
She ends up between Armen and me, Sting's mouth at her breast, and we both fuck her at once, her back arched, her thighs shaking, all of us tangled up in the same breath.
The last time she comes, it's loud enough that she buries her face in my chest.
She should be loud. She's earned it.
She falls asleep between Armen and Sting sometime before dawn, one hand curled under her cheek, the day's weight finally off her face. I stay up.
Old habit.
I sit against the wall in the dark and look at the three of them and think about tomorrow, Fischer's people, my father's shop, the man who met with Dad, and whether any of the shit I've been carrying around all this time is finally about to mean something.
I think about Vi's shoulder under my palm this morning and the way she went still.
I think about the fact that I'm going to keep her safe out there if it's the last thing I do, which is not a feeling I've had about anyone in a long time and that I certainly didn't expect to find here.