Darien was looking up at her, the door behind him wide open to the cold night. His boots were caked with mud, his gray, fitted hoodie and jeans streaked with dirt.
“Can we talk?” he asked her. She couldn’t make sense of the expression she could feel on her face. He didn’t bother to kick off his boots or close the door as he made his way up the stairs.
When he reached where she stood on the second-floor landing, something inside her snapped. “I can’tbelieveyou.”
He froze, confusion plastering his face.
He took one tentative step forward. “Loren—”
“Don’t,” she snapped, stumbling back into the wall. She was breathing heavily, her head spinning on her shoulders. “You’re an asshole! You’resuchan asshole, Darien.” She tore off the stupid bracelet she was still wearing and threw it at his face.
He barely held up a hand in time to block it. Several of the charms came free of the metal chain and clattered like marbles against the walls.
In Darien’s shadow, Bandit whined. “I don’t understand,” Darien said. He looked like he was going to drop dead from exhaustion. “Can you please tell me what’s going on?”
She knew he heard it then: the tapping of Tanner’s fingers on his keyboard in the library downstairs; the voices that were nothing but a hum to Loren’s mortal ears from this distance.
Understanding washed across his face, and his jaw fell slack.
She didn’t give him a chance to speak. “I suppose that what you said to Randal was true, too: that you were keeping me safe because you want to find the Well for yourself. You sure are aplayer, Darien. In every possible way!” Angry tears sprang to her eyes.
“Loren.” He spoke softly, for he could clearly see how out of control she was. She could feel it, too. She was going to break again. “I know this seems bad. But will you let me explain?” He stepped toward her.
She reached out and shoved him, but he didn’t even budge. “I can’tbelieveyou,” she sobbed. “I can’t believeanyof you! You’reallawful—” She broke off into incomprehensible sobbing, and when he reached for her again, his gaze beseeching, she slapped his hand away.
Downstairs, the tapping of Tanner’s keys fell silent. The voices stopped drifting through the speakers, and a moment later Tanner was jogging up the stairs, a look of concern on his face. Darien was trying to talk to her, to console her, but she heard nothing of what he said. And she could hardly make sense of what was coming out of her own mouth as she barked insults at him through her tears, her rage a living thing coiled to spring inside her.
And then Tanner was there. “Loren,” he began gently. “Can I explain, please?” She swung her head around to look at him, strands of hair sticking to her damp cheeks.
Darien sank to his knees on the floor across from her, where she was now sitting, though she couldn’t remember having lowered herself down. Perhaps she’d fallen.
Tanner spoke softly and slowly. “Darien recorded himself when the same messenger that hired him to find you reappeared the other night outside of the Pit. I’ve been running the clip through my voice recognition software because we want to find out who she works for. As soon as she talks on her cellphone, the software will recognize her voice and we should be able to trace the call and get some answers about her boss.”
When Loren looked at Darien, she could barely see his face through all the tears in her eyes. “You were pretending?” Her throat hurt like she’d swallowed a blade.
He nodded, and she blinked enough tears from her eyes that she was able to see the hurt etched into his face.
And suddenly, her heart was breaking again. Because she was a goddamn idiot—and she’d hurt him by making assumptions, by not being able to see clearly through the fog of her grief.
Shewas the monster.
“I’m sorry,” she stammered, first to Darien and then again to Tanner.
Tanner said, “It’s okay. I just thought I should get up here before you clawed Darien’s face off.” He dusted his hands on his jeans absentmindedly. It was to Darien that he said, “I’ll leave you to it,” before disappearing back down the stairs.
Loren’s face was hot with embarrassment as she sat on the floor with her scraped knees tucked up to her chin, unable to meet Darien’s gaze. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again. She ran a shaking hand through her unbrushed hair and finally looked at him.
Concern was written on his face, but he made no move to touch her as he sat slumped against the railing, an elbow on a propped-up knee. His clothes were as dusty as her own.
“I’m broken, Darien.” Loren buried her face against her sunburned knees. “I can’t take this anymore.”
“I can’t take it either,” he sighed. “I can’t handle seeing you like this, Loren. It’spainsme to see you like this. Which is why—” He drew in a ragged breath. “I’m not sure how you’re going to react, but I did something tonight. Something I thought might help you.”
Loren lifted her head.
Darien was staring at her with an unfathomable expression on his face, as though he was pained. As though he was…as though he was scared. Ofher.
“Darien.” His name was a broken whisper on her lips. “What are you talking about?”
