"—he is NOT a victim of us—"
"THEN WHAT IS HE?"
Richard is in Atlas's face. Inches apart. Bane has his arm out, trying to create space, and Zero is somewhere behind me, coiled, and I can feel his bond vibrating at a frequency that means someone is about to lose teeth, and I have to stop this. I have to stop this before Zero does something that can't be undone.
I push past Bane's arm. I step around Atlas.
"Stop—Richard, stop. Please. It's not what you think. They didn't—please listen to me, they didn't hurt me, I'm the one who—"
Richard whirls.
His fist is already moving when he turns—the momentum of a man mid-argument whose body is ahead of his brain, who was winding up for Atlas and pivoted into me instead. It's not aimed. It's not calculated. It's a blind, furious swing that meets my face because my face is where Atlas's was a half-second ago.
It catches me square.
Left cheekbone. Full force. Pain flares bright. The impact is—
Everythingstops.
Not slows down. Stops. The sound cuts out. The light goes wrong. My vision fractures into pieces—the foyer ceiling, the chandelier, the brass remains of the lamp on the floor, all of it tilting sideways as my legs disappear and the ground comes up fast.
I hit the hardwood.
The back of my skull bounces once off the floor and the world goes white. Not black—white. A bright, ringing, total white, and inside it there is a sound like a tuning fork being struck inside my head, one continuous note that drowns out everything else.
Stars. Actual stars. The kind you see in cartoons, except they're real and they're everywhere and my left eye isn't working right—swelling already, the socket hot and tight—and I can taste copper flooding my mouth and I can't hear anything except the ringing.
Shapes above me.
Zero. He's there first. On his knees, his hands on my face, his mouth moving. He's saying something—saying my name, maybe—but the sound is gone. Just the ringing. His eyes are wide and wet and terrified and his fingers are shaking against my jaw.
Bane. Behind Zero. His glasses are crooked. His hand on my chest, feeling for—I don't know. Breathing. Heartbeat.Something medical, something Bane would know to check. His mouth is moving too. Words I can't hear.
Atlas. Standing above all of us. Not kneeling. Looking at his father. And whatever is on Atlas's face, whatever his body is doing, I can't see it because the stars are in the way—but I can feel the bond. His bond. And it is no longer volcanic. It is no longer still. It is the thing that comes after the eruption. The ash. The silence. The landscape that will never look the same.
Muffled sounds start bleeding through the ringing. Shouts. Margot's voice—high, shattered, somewhere above me. Richard's voice—lower, broken in a different way. Words I can't make out. The shapes above me shift—Zero is jerked backward. Someone's hand on his shoulder, pulling him off me. Richard's hand. Zero rips free, comes back. Is pulled again. Bane is yanked sideways by—Margot? Someone is pulling the brothers away from me and I'm on the floor with blood in my mouth and stars in my eyes and the ringing is fading just enough that I can hear—
"—off him! Get OFF him! Don't TOUCH him—"
Margot.
She's on the floor beside me. Her knees on the hardwood, her robe pooling around her. Her hands find my face—gentle, so gentle, the opposite of the fist—and she's turning my head, looking at the swelling, looking at the blood, and she's crying so hard she can barely see me but she's here. She's right here.
"Baby. Baby, look at me. Max.Look at me, sweetheart."
I look at her.
The ringing is fading. The stars are thinning. My mother's face is above me and it's wrecked—mascara she didn't wash off before bed streaked down her cheeks, her mouth open, her hands trembling on my jaw—and behind her I can see the foyer ceiling and the chandelier and the overhead light and three men standing against the far wall looking at me on the floor.
Zero. Bane. Atlas. Shoulder to shoulder against the wall. Richard between them and me. Margot between them and me. And me on the hardwood with blood on my teeth and my mother's hands on my face.
The pain is unlike anything I’ve ever felt. My entire head is pounding, my lip on fire, my cheek feels like it’s about to explode.
"Can you sit up?" Margot asks. Her voice is shaking so badly the words barely hold together. "Max. Sweetheart. Can you sit up?"
I sit up. Slowly. The foyer tilts and rights itself. My left eye is almost shut. My cheekbone is pulsing with a heat that's going to be purple by morning.
Richard is staring at his hand.
