I looked at him then. Couldn't help it.
He'd thrown on dark clothes. Jeans. Black shirt that made his eyes look darker, face sharper. Hair plastered to his skull from rain. Beautiful in that way that hurt. Like staring into the sun and knowing you'd go blind but doing it anyway because the alternative was darkness forever.
“You should be in bed,” I said. Voice rough. Foreign.
“So should you.”
“I do not sleep.”
“I know. You prowl the halls like a ghost and pretend it's patrol.” His mouth curved. Sad. Understanding. “I've been watching you, Viktor. You think I haven't noticed?”
Of course he'd noticed. Sebastian noticed everything. Saw through every wall, every lie, every defense I threw up to keep him at a distance that might keep him breathing.
“You should stop watching.” The words tasted like ash. “Nothing good there to see.”
“I'll be the judge of that.”
I looked back at the gardens. At white roses blooming in darkness, petals glowing under moonlight breaking through clouds. My mother had loved white roses. Said they meant remembrance. That the dead preferred them because they caught the light, made themselves visible in the dark when everything else disappeared.
I'd planted white roses on Anya's grave with hands that shook so hard I could barely grip the shovel.
“I thought you were hurt,” Sebastian said quietly. “When I couldn't find you. After everything. I thought—” He cut himself off. Swallowed. “I thought you'd left.”
Something in my chest twisted. Sharp. Vicious.
“Would be easier if I had.”
“Don't.” His voice went hard. “Don't do that. Don't make this into something noble. Don't act like disappearing on me would be some kind of mercy.”
“Is not mercy. Is truth.”
“Your truth. Not mine.”
I turned on him then. Let him see whatever was written on my face. The exhaustion. The fear. The desperate need to protect him from myself. “You want truth, Sebastian? Fine. Here is truth: I am not good man. I have killed without hesitation. Lied without remorse. Betrayed people who trusted me. Done things that would make you sick if you knew the details.”
“I've seen you fight. I know what you're capable of.”
“You have seen surface.” My voice dropped. Went cold in that way it did when I was trying not to feel. “You have not seen what I have done. What I am still capable of doing.”
“Then show me.”
The challenge hung there. Quiet. Devastating.
“You do not want to see.”
“Try me.”
Rain fell harder. Thunder rolled somewhere over the city, low and warning. Storm coming. Always another storm coming to wash away the blood and leave the guilt intact.
“I did everything right tonight,” I heard myself say. Voice raw. Unfamiliar. “Everything. I checked the routes. Cleared the exits. Mapped the sight lines. Did my job exactly as I was trained.”
“You saved us.”
My laugh came out broken. Bitter. “I keep saving people who do not stay saved.”
“That's not?—”
“Fair?” I rounded on him. Everything I'd been holding back for hours, for days, for years suddenly clawed its way up my throat. “You want to talk about fair? Nothing about this is fair. Nothing about watching you throw yourself into danger night after night while I follow behind trying to catch you before you fall. Nothing aboutknowing that caring about you makes me weaker. Makes me hesitate. Makes me?—”
