“I heard that Julian went out last night to a Christmas party.”
I freeze, the hair on the back of my neck standing on edge at his observation. I feel as if I’ve been caught red-handed; I’m just not sure what my crime is.
Jealousy? Lust? Envy? They are all sins, and I’m guilty of every one.
“So?” I finally force out.
“I knew it.” He sighs again. I feel like vomiting. “Atlas, don’t let it get you down. One day you’ll be cured, and you can make friends too.”
Oh. Atticus is under the impression that I’m enviousofJulian and not Julian’s friends. Or more specifically,Cassie. Well, that’s better than the alternative.
“Okay. Thank you,” I reply, happy to take this out he’s given me.
Atticus rests a palm over my shoulder, and I hiss loudly, stepping away from him. A very unpleasant feeling courses through my veins, a reaction I can’t control, and it makes me nauseous.
“Shit, I’m sorry. I forgot,” Atticus rushes out.
I know he means it—he never curses.
“It’s alright.” I try to smile.
But it’s really not alright, and I know he can see that. I’m burning up from the inside out. As if all the blood in my body is begging to be let free lest it incinerate me completely.
Atticus looks back out over the Pacific, his gaze sad and reflective. I believe that in this moment,heis now waiting for that prolific cure.
We stand just like this for a long while—me, drowning beneath a fire so hot it consumes me from the inside out, and him, suffocating under the weight of his brothers’ suffering.
A suffering he has made his own.
Julian
10
I BELIEVE ATLAS WASwaiting for me last night. When I arrived home, I was drunk—which potentially makes my perception unreliable—but Iswearhe looked relieved when our eyes connected.
Even weirder still is how hefelt. Just as it always does when he arrives, the air around us was moist and hot, and his skin was flushed so sweetly. Yet, it felt as if there was somethingtherewith us. Like something was clinging to his back and following his every move.
It very well could have been my guilty conscience waiting for Atticus to show up and shout at me, but when his fingers touched my skin and ithurt, I had the innate feeling that it wasn’t that simple.
Something is wrong with Atlas; he called it a curse. Is it possible to be cursed outside of a fairytale? And if it is, does it have something to do with that weird presence I felt?
If I wasn’t so drunk that I imagined it, then there must be a reason I’ve only ever felt that invasion of privacy in the dark.
And now it is nightfall again, and as I lie underneath my duvet, I peer around the darkness of my room. I feel nothing. No watchful eyes, no creepy presence.
So, there is every possibility that I made it up.
Being drunk and spouting words I shouldn’t, getting so embarrassed that I pretend I don’t remember doing it the next day, is so unlike me. Something about Atlas mixes me up, makes me hot and desperate. It scares me.
Hekind of scares me. Because last night, underneath that soft, delicate exterior, I felt something sinister.
Is this why Oscar told me to avoid the west tower at night? Does he… change? Is that even possible?
The emergency bell that is connected to Atticus’s room goes off loudly, scaring me senseless for a few brief moments. Confused, I just stare at it.
That is, until I remember that Atticus and Abigail switched rooms, though I was never informed as to why. And now I’m slipping on my house shoes and running from Hall E2 to Hall W4 as if my ass is on fire.
I burst into her bedroom without knocking. This is only the second time she’s rung her bell in the three months I’ve worked here, and I’m panicked.
