Chapter 32
thirty-two
ROWAN
I didn't plan on being the last one to arrive.
I've spent my whole life being the first one into a room, the one who clears the air before anyone else has to breathe it, but my feet felt like they were sinking into the asphalt with every step toward his building.
The fog was coiled around the base of the brickwork, thick and still.
I reached the door and didn't knock. I just turned the handle and felt the sharp click of the mechanism, a sound that usually meant sanctuary but tonight felt like a trap springing shut.
The air inside the apartment was thick enough to chew.
It smelled like rain and old paper, but beneath that was Dominic's cologne, faint but everywhere.
I saw Julian first, sitting on the edge of the sofa with his spine so straight he looked like he was made of marble.
Theo was by the window, his camera dangling from his neck, his thumb tracing the lens cap over and over.
Oleander was in the center of it. He looked smaller than the last time I'd seen him, his shoulders hunched.
He didn't look up when I entered. He was staring at the dark corner of the room, near the hallway, where the shadows were moving in a slow, oily undulation that made the hair on my arms stand up.
"Nobody called," I said. "But we're all here."
Julian looked at me. "I couldn't stay in the apartment, Rowan. The piano wasn't mine anymore. I'd rather face whatever this is than be alone with that music."
"I'm tired of being the witness," Theo said, his voice stripped of its usual playful veneer. He moved away from the window. "I want to be the participant."
I couldn't answer. There was a pressure in my chest, that old, familiar violence that told me to strike, to break.
But the darkness in the corner didn't have a throat I could crush.
It was a hole in the world, and it was looking at Oleander with the hunger of a man who had never learned how to let go.
I walked past them all. I didn't stop until I was standing directly between Oleander and that pulsing dark.
I planted my feet and felt the broadness of my own shoulders as a shield.
I was a man who had spent his life being a weapon, and for the first time, I realized a weapon was useless if it didn't have something to defend.
The cold coming off that corner was absolute.
It pressed against my skin, trying to find a crack.
It whispered things I didn't want to hear.
Memories of the man I'd killed. The doubt that had lived in my marrow ever since.
It told me I was a murderer. It told me I was the same kind of monster that lived in the fog.
I felt a hand slide into mine. Julian's, his fingers long and calloused from the keys, his grip firm. He didn't say a word, but the touch pulled me back from the edge of my own head. On my other side, Theo reached out and gripped the sleeve of my coat, his knuckles white.
And then there was Oleander. I could hear his breathing behind me, shallow and jagged. He wasn't running. He wasn't hiding. He was just there, standing in the wreckage of his life, choosing to stay in the line of fire.
"He's not yours," I said, directed at the dark. "And neither are we."
The shadows flared, a silent snarl of movement that made the lamps flicker and die. The room plummeted into grey gloom, the only light coming from the streetlamps outside struggling through the fog. The scent of sandalwood became an assault.
I pressed back against the pressure. I didn't use my fists. I didn't reach for a knife. I just reached for them. Julian's palm flat against my back, his heat soaking through my coat. Theo pressed closer, his shoulder notched into mine.
"I’m the anchor," Oleander whispered from behind me, his voice trembling but clear. "He wants me to feel like I'm the one who did this. He wants the guilt to keep the door open. But I'm not his anymore. I'm not his secret, and I'm not his property."
I felt the darkness shudder. A subtle thing, like a foundation shifting under a house. The cold didn't vanish, but it stopped being an invitation to die. It became just weather. It became something we could survive.
I turned my head just enough to see Oleander. His brown eyes were wide, tracked with exhaustion and terror, but he wasn't looking at the corner. He was looking at me. He was looking at Julian and Theo. He was looking at the life he had accidentally built while he was busy trying to disappear.
"We stay," I said. "All of us. We stay until the sun comes up, and then we stay after that."
There was no vote. The shape of the room had settled into something permanent. Julian moved to the small table and sat down, his hands resting on the wood, his eyes fixed on the hallway. Theo sat on the floor near the window, his camera finally still in his lap.
I didn't move from my spot. I was the lock on the door. I felt the darkness press one last time, a desperate shove against my chest, and I simply didn't move.
Oleander stepped closer, his arm brushing mine. He didn't say thank you. He just stood there, his presence a quiet defiance that made the shadows retreat an inch, then two.
I watched the dark corner until my eyes ached, but the silence that followed wasn't predatory. It was just the quiet of a room full of people waiting for the morning.
The fog outside pressed against the glass, white and blind. But inside, the air began to clear, the cologne fading into the smell of whiskey and the salt of our own sweat. We didn't talk. We didn't need to.
I stood guard while the world stayed broken. It was the only thing I knew how to do, and for once, it was enough. I could still feel where Julian's hand had been in mine and where Theo's shoulder had been against my arm.