"Hold this."
I hold it. The cold stings and then numbs and then stings again.
Atlas sits beside me. Not touching—just there. Present. His elbows on his knees, his hands laced together. He hasn't said much since the fountain. He doesn't need to. The bond between us is doing the talking—steady, open, the quietest it's been in weeks.
We wait for Zero.
He takes thirty-two minutes. I count because counting is the only thing keeping me from truly falling apart from all the emotions, and I need to wait until he's here to do that. I need all three of them in the room. I need the bonds to be close, not pulling, not stretching across distance.
Close. Here.
The door opens.
Zero comes in carrying two duffel bags, my notebook under his arm, and a grocery bag that clanks when he sets it down.
"Grabbed some things from the kitchen," he says. "And some of Bane's coffee because the stuff here is shit."
"Did you see—" Atlas starts.
"Richard was in his office. Door closed. Didn't come out." Zero drops the bags by the couch. Sets my notebook on the coffee table. Looks at me. "Margot's car is still gone."
I nod. I knew it would be. She’s probably worried sick about me.
Zero sits on the floor in front of the couch. His back against my shins, his head tipped back against my knees. He's wearing a shirt—one of mine, I realize. Too small on him. He must have grabbed it from my room and put it on without thinking.
He's wearing my shirt.
The thing inside me that I've been holding—the wall, the dam, the whatever-it-is that has kept me upright since this morning, since the foyer, since everything—cracks.
I break.
Not gracefully. Not quietly. The sob comes up from somewhere underneath my lungs and it tears through me on the way out and then there's another one behind it and another and I'm crying the way I haven't cried since the facility. The full-bodykind. The kind that uses everything—chest, throat, stomach, every muscle in my face. It hurts to cry this hard and I don't care.
Zero turns around. Gets up on his knees, facing me. His hands on my thighs.
Bane pulls me in from the side. His chest against my shoulder, his arm around me, his mouth in my hair.
Atlas moves closer. His hand on the back of my neck. Thumb at my pulse point. Steady. Anchoring.
"I was so scared," I manage. Between sobs. Between breaths that won't come right. "I was so scared the whole time. At the station—I sat in that chair and I told them everything and the whole time I kept thinking… what if I never see them again. What if Margot takes me to Wisconsin and I never—what if Richard—what if you—"
"We're here," Bane says. "We're right here."
"I know. I know you're here. I can feel you." I press my hand against my sternum. The bonds—all three of them—humming so loud I can feel it in my teeth. "I can always feel you. Even at the station. Even when I couldn't hear anything through the ringing. You were right here the whole time."
I look at Zero. His face is close. His eyes are wet again.
"I love you," I tell him. "I love you so much it makes me stupid. You make me stupid, Zero. You and your big dumb hands and your forty-five-minute negotiations and the way you carried me to the pond. Even when you hurt me, I love you."
He doesn't say anything. He drops his forehead against my knee and holds on.
I look at Bane. His glasses are fogged from being pressed against my hair.
"I love you. I think I loved you from the moment you walked into the facility to be with me. I’ve never felt more seen by anyone before, Bane. I'm never running again."
Bane's hand tightens in my hair. He nods. Once. Can't speak.
I look at Atlas. He's watching me with the wet eyes and the broken mask and his hand still on my neck.
