Margot's eyes move from Max to me. To my bare chest. To the letter crushed in the gravel where I dropped it. To the blood on the porch. Back to Max. Back to my hand on his hip.
"What is going on?" she whispers.
Max opens his mouth.
"RICHARD!"
The name shatters the night. Margot's voice—not small anymore, not a whisper. A scream. The full-throated, terrified scream of a mother who has just seen something she can't unsee and needs someone,anyone, to come stand beside her while the world ends.
"RICHARD! Come down here! NOW!"
A light goes on upstairs. Second floor. The master bedroom.
Max's hand drops from my neck.
My heart drops out of my chest.
I think about what I said three days ago in Atlas's office—Margot finds out about us and Max, it's over. She'll burn this place to the ground. I said it. I fucking predicted it. I knew exactly how this story ended, and I kissed him on the front porchanyway, because I have never in my life been able to stop myself from doing the thing that destroys me.
Footsteps on the stairs.
Richard is coming.
Margot is in the doorway with her hand over her mouth and her eyes full of something I can't fix and Max is standing beside me, not touching me anymore, and the space where his hand was on my neck is the coldest place on my body.
"Zero," Max says. Barely audible. "Zero, it's—"
I know what it is.
It's exactly what I said it would be.
It's over.
Chapter 15
Margot's scream is still ringing off the stone when Richard appears at the top of the stairs.
I can see him through the open front door—the foyer light catching his silhouette, robe untied, hair flat on one side from the pillow. He looks confused. A confused man pulled from sleep by his wife's voice at a volume he's never heard before.
"Margot? What's—"
"Get down here."
Her hand is over her mouth. She hasn't moved from the doorway. She's standing there in her robe with her bare feet on the threshold and her eyes locked on Zero and me like if she looks away we'll disappear and she can pretend this is a dream.
Zero hasn't moved either. He's beside me on the porch—shirtless, barefoot. As if clothes and shoes could hide what is obvious between us. I can feel his bond in my chest, blazing and sick, like at any moment either of us might double over and vomit right here on the front porch.
Heat creeps up the back of my neck and my stomach lurches with every footstep of Richard’s down the stairs.
He reaches the foyer. Sees Margot in the doorway. Sees the angle of her body, the way she's braced against the frame.Comes up behind her and looks past her shoulder into the dark. “Honey, what’s going on?”
Then he sees us.
Zero. Shirtless. Standing too close to me—not touching anymore, but the distance between us is the distance of lovers, not brothers. Two feet. Maybe less. We could have moved away from each other but what would that solve at this point?
Me. Jacket. Shoes. Tear-streaked face at three in the morning. Standing beside his middle son on the front porch like I was ready to flee.
Richard's face doesn't do what Margot's did. He doesn't go through stages. He goes straight to the end.
