Chapter 35
The Bird Storms In and The Cat Is Patient
DELILAH
Ihear the boots first, echoing off the hardwood like the house is hollow-boned.
Taurus always walks as if the universe has offended him and he’d like to stomp it out.
I’m lying on the long couch in the bedroom, the one with a gouge along the leg from when Taurus threw me into it when we were feral and hungry one time.
Our family history is written in bruises, scars, and pain—though the shared part isn’t the bad kind. Mostly.
He hits the foyer like a bomb, slams the door with a level of force calculated to shake the picture frames.
For a split second he just stands there breathing heavily, his silhouette a slab of black against the etched glass.
I sit up slowly, like maybe I can figure out how to calm him before he explodes.
No such luck.
My husband comes into the room, and the weight of his fury makes the air tight.
The duster goes first, ripped off and winged across the arm of the nearest chair, where it lands in a heap like a dead animal.
It’s got bloodstains on the lining. There’s a bullet hole above the left breast pocket, stitched with dental floss from a recent mission.
His lack of fussiness about his favorite item should have clued me in that he’s struggling as much as I am.
I watch him out of the corner of my eye, fingers tracing the blackened tips of my fingers that just won’t heal.
The smell of burning and storms still clings to me almost a week after my blowout.
I can’t seem to get it to go away, no matter how much I shower.
Taurus glances at my hands, but doesn’t comment.
His feelings on my fresh scars have been made clear many times.
“You’re home early,” I say, but it’s more of a defensive maneuver than a greeting.
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he yanks off his boots and throws them at the wall. One ricochets, scuffing the paint, and the other lands with a thud next to the Aradia’s bowl.
She surely did nothing wrong, and I’ll kick his ass if he upsets her after the blanket fiasco.
The silence is crawling over my skin. I want to tear it open just to see what spills out, but I’m too damaged to seek more pain. Taurus sits across from me, legs spread wide, elbows on his knees, and his head bowed like he’s auditioning for a crucifixion.
“Did something happen?” I ask. Someone has to speak, and it’s obviously not going to be him.
My mate lifts his head, and his eyes catch mine, lit with the golden hue of his demon. “You could say that.”
That’s it—no elaboration, no warmth, and no softness.
I clench my fingers, feeling the stutter in my nerves from all the anxiety and pressure I’m under.
My hands haven’t stopped shaking since the thunderstorm.
I’m not supposed to use my powers, not until I get my synapses back in line, but nobody can enforce that decree.
I’ll do what I need to if it helps me get by.
He scrubs his hands over his face and leans back, staring at the ceiling as his jaw works like he’s chewing rocks.
My husband is so gorgeous that it hurts to look at him sometimes, but more so when he’s angry and I can’t help.
It’s like all the sculpted perfection of his face turns to a mask of fury that the Greeks could have created as a warning from the gods.
I can’t take it anymore. “Are we going to talk about what made you pissy, or are you just gonna sit there radiating contempt?”
He grins, slow and sharky. “Maybe I enjoy radiating contempt. It’s soothing.”
“Yeah, well, you’re making me want to stab myself in the eye, so that’s not gonna work for me.”
He snorts. “You’ve been feeling that way for two weeks. No change detected, wife.”
A sad laugh escapes me, involuntary and raw. “Touche.”
He looks at my hands again, his eyes roaming over the places where the skin is charred. “You gonna heal that ever?”
I flex. “Maybe. Otherwise, I’ll just become a cautionary tale for why you don’t let unstable girls play with lightning.”
His face twitches as if he wants to scold me, but he doesn’t. Instead, he glances toward the bay window, noting the dreary atmosphere outside. He sighs. “Have you eaten today?”
I shake my head. “Not hungry.”
“You never are lately.” He stands and paces to the bar. I hear the clink of a glass, and when he comes back, he’s drinking out of one. No glass, just full-on tossing back his expensive scotch like a dive bar regular.
I wrap my arms around my knees and look out the window. The neighborhood is quiet, but that’s deceiving. It’s been nothing but awful since the fucking party. “So,” I say, “when are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead he drinks, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and then finally says, “Belle’s locked up Safe Haven.
No one gets in or out without a full screening.
They’re closing ranks to make sure you won’t know what they’re planning or who has residences on both sides of the fence. ”
I suck in a breath. “You think there are people playing both sides until they see who wins? Really?”
He nods sharply. “So I’ve heard. Obviously, I can’t confirm it as thoroughly as I’d like, but it seems true. Your friends may not be your friends, and we can’t trust anyone, all thanks to those petty bitches.”
I bite my lip hard enough to taste blood. “Fuck them all.”
He shrugs, giving me a pointed look. “If they’ll start a revolution and fuck someone else over, they’ll do it to you some day.
These people were the ones you and Lily led away from the Cabal Quarter.
Not surprising to me that the sheep are following whoever the flock leader gives them what they want now, too. ”
Ouch. That’s a body foul, and he knows it.
I press my forehead to my knees, like maybe if I make myself smaller, the world will contract to fit me. “So what do I do? Start over? Where? How?”
He says nothing, and the silence comes back, denser than before. I want to scream, but I know it won’t help. We’re stuck; Sari’s got us pinned like bugs, and there’s no clear next move. At least, not one I can see right now.
My hand trembles again, so I shove it under my thigh. The burnt nerves hum in time with my jumping pulse. “I’m sorry for what we did back then. We really felt like we had to make our own way because of the clone-droid schism,” I say, and it feels like someone else’s voice.
I never thought I’d say that, but now that I understand how it feels, I actually mean it.
Taurus doesn’t look at me, just takes another swig and then sets it on the coffee table with a soft, deliberate thump.
“Don’t be,” he says. “Just know that even if you all thought the goddess and her friends were tyrants, they also thought they were doing the best thing for their community. They had no idea how all these people felt, much less that they were the reason for it.”
“I understand,” I reply, but I only sort of do. The Cabal was being oppressive and unfair; I’m simply choosing not to sleep with half the damn community anymore.
The two things aren’t exactly equivalent.
He stands, grabs his duster, and shrugs it back on; the motion so sharp it almost slices the air. “I’m going out.”
I don’t ask where—he would tell me if he wanted me to know. I just watch him go, footsteps fading into the distance, leaving me alone with the slow creeping certainty that we are absolutely, irrevocably fucked.
I used to think watching Taurus take his clothes off was a privilege. It still is, but tonight, it’s something else entirely.
This is an early warning system.
He comes back inside after God knows what he took off to do, looking like he’s ready to punch a hole through the fucking sun.
There’s a wetness to his shirt I don’t want to analyze; it might be rain, might be blood, might be spinal fluid for all I know.
The front of it is ragged, shredded down the middle, with his nipples poking through like pink accusations.
He doesn’t bother with undoing the buttons, just grabs both halves and yanks.
The pop of fabric sounds obscene in the cathedral hush of the house.
He strips the shirt, wads it, and whips it toward the trash, leaving a line of buttons ricocheting across the floor.
Taurus never treats his clothes like this.
His eyes catch me, unblinking. He says nothing, just grabs the bottle from earlier to toss a swig back.
If I ask what happened, I’m certain he’ll break shit, so I stare at my blackened fingers instead.
I’m not afraid of him hurting me, but I am worried about how this day has set him off so thoroughly that we can’t even communicate.
The tension in the house thickens as he wipes his mouth on the back of his wrist and heads for the gym without a word.
I hear the door click shut, and my eyes roll to the ceiling.
That means he doesn’t want me to follow, but he’s going to destroy half the equipment in there before he’s done.
I want to help, but he’s not ready for that—not even close.
I wait a beat before I move. When I do, I pick up the tatters of his shirt from the floor and pluck the buttons from where they’ve scattered.
I should sew them back on, but I dump the lot in the garbage.
The duster is still draped on the chair, sullen and defeated.
I lift it, feel the weight of all the fights and funerals stitched into the seams. I hang it next to mine in the closet, which smells of his tobacco and spicy cologne.
I have the stupid impulse to follow him to the gym, but I’m not invited.
That was clear from the way he didn’t speak and stomped into the gym to lock it tight.
He knows I can get in, but he’s expecting me to respect the boundary he set without words.
It sucks, but I can’t complain given my recent thunderstorm escapade.
Instead, I wander the house, fingers trailing the cold glass of every window.
Outside, the night is dark with the threat of rain.
I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the pane—my hair is wild, my cheeks hollowed, and my eyes carrying bags that could last an ocean cruise.
I look like the kind of girl who would torch her own house and then crawl into the ashes to sleep.
It’s both sad and a little terrifying at the same time.
When I get downstairs, I note the backyard is a halfhearted mess, sopping wet from the last storm I didn’t mean to start.
The furniture is all askew, but one lounge chair by the waterfall is still dry.
Heading outside, I curl up in it, knees to chest with my hoodie up, and listen to the world spin out.
The thump of Taurus’s workout migrates to my sensitive ears and up into my bones.
I count reps in my head—every clang and grunt is a measure of his misery, every set a mile between us.
I hate waiting, but I’m good at it. It’s all I’ve ever done.
Wait for a mood to pass, for someone to forgive me, for the next mistake to show up on my doorstep.
I can’t even blame Taurus for ghosting me emotionally; if the roles were reversed, I’d do the same.
I consider lighting up a smoke, but I don’t have a pack.
Also, I can’t seem to get the lighter to spark without frying my fingers since the storm.
The last time I tried, I left a blackened fingerprint on the metal and burned off half my nail.
I stare at my hands, half-waiting for them to heal, half-waiting for them to rot off completely.
I’d be lying if I said I cared right now, which is dangerous.
In the dark, I stare at the sky and frown. Maybe he’s thinking about the people we’ve lost, or the people we still owe. Maybe he’s counting down the minutes until he can leave this house and everyone in it behind. Or maybe he’s just trying to outlast the urge to punch holes in the drywall.
The back door rattles. I freeze, all nerves and static. But it’s not Taurus; it’s Talia, slipping outside like a shadow. She’s got a hoodie over her pajamas and bare feet. She looks at me, eyes huge in the porch light.
“He’s not mad at you,” she says. “He’s just—” She shrugs, like that sums up the world’s entire supply of fucked up.
“I know,” I say.
She sits next to me on the lounge chair, close but not touching. “I could make tea.”
“Sure,” I say. “Maybe later.”
She nods, tucks her knees under her chin. “I heard about the lockdown.”
“They’re all assholes,” I say. “It’s not like I abandoned anyone. I just found people I want to love in a family just for me. Is that too much to ask?”
“But you abandoned them in their eyes,” she says, and it’s not judgmental, just true. “Even if we know that’s not true.”
I snort. “Yeah, well. Maybe they did that to themselves with all this bullshit. I was wrecked after the winter. What did they expect?”
Talia smiles, and the edges of the night soften a little. “You can’t fix people who stayed broken. Sari revels in her damage and she made you pay for setting those boundaries, even if her actions caused them.”
“I didn’t plan to find you guys and cut people off. It just happened.”
“Neither did we.”
We sit quietly after that, listening to the distant clang from below together.
After a while, Talia stands, stretches, and says, “He’ll come around.” She pads inside, leaving the door ajar.
I stay put, letting the cold chew through me while I try to convince myself that waiting counts as survival.
For someone who always demanded I confess my every wound, Taurus is a master at hiding his own.
Maybe that’s all family is, in the end—a bunch of people too stubborn to abandon each other, no matter how high the voltage.
Eventually, the sounds from the gym stop.
I don’t go inside to check on it. I don’t need to see the aftermath tonight.
Curling up in the lounge chair, I hug my knees to my chest and close my eyes. It’s a long time before I sleep.
Perhaps I need space right now as much as he does.