032— "I HATE YOU."

I woke up and stared at the ceiling and felt fine.

For approximately four seconds.

Then my head split open.

I pressed both hands over my face and lay completely still and waited for the room to stop moving.

Last night. 

What happened last night?

Elena and Niko had gone out. I remembered that. Niko had made his promise and Elena had floated out of the mansion looking like someone who had forgotten she was supposed to be recovering. I'd watched them go and felt something warm and something else I didn't examine.

Then I'd found the bar.

Anton had said something. I remembered his face. Something cautious. I'd waved him off. One drink. Two.

Then nothing.

I pushed for more and got absolutely nothing after the second glass except a vague impression of noise and my own voice and something about Anton that made my stomach drop without context.

The headache hit again.

A knock.

"Come in," I managed.

Clara came in with a tray. Hangover medication, water, toast. She set it down and I grabbed her wrist before she could leave.

She looked at the wall.

Then the ceiling.

Then a point past my left shoulder that had apparently become very interesting.

"Did I," I said carefully, "say or do anything. Last night. Anything at all."

"Everything was perfectly fine Miss Morrison," she said, in the voice of someone for whom nothing was perfectly fine.

She left.

I stared at the door.

I took the medication. Stood in the shower for ten minutes. I stepped out and told myself — whatever happened it was manageable. People had evenings. I was an adult. Everything was—

My own voice hit me like cold water.

‘PUT ME DOWN.’

I grabbed the bathroom counter.

More came.

The drawing room. The maids against the wall. Anton's face doing something I never wanted to see on Anton's face again. A knife. A kitchen knife, I had been holding a kitchen knife, pointed at people. Then Kai walking in and me turning and…

“HERE HE IS.”

I made a sound.

“NOW. ASK HIM. Ask this MONGREL…”

I walked very quickly to the bed and sat down and pressed my face into the pillow and screamed.

The pillow was not sufficient.

I screamed again.

The memories kept arriving whether I wanted them to or not. Kai taking the knife. Me arguing. Him picking me up. Me screaming about kidnapping while he carried me upstairs in front of. There had been someone else. A man. Standing beside Kai. Watching with a face that gave absolutely nothing.

‘ANTON. ARE YOU WRITING THIS DOWN.’

I screamed into the pillow a third time.

Then something caught my eye.

The chair beside the wardrobe.

My skates.

I sat up.

Both of them. Just sitting there like they'd always been in this room. My father's skates. 

I crossed the room and picked them up.

Held them against my chest.

I had been so overwhelmed with everything. Elena, the painting room, the terrace, all of it, that I'd forgotten. Just forgotten. My father's last gift sitting somewhere in this mansion and I hadn't even gone looking.

I stood there holding them.

Then I put them down carefully and breathed and got dressed.

                    …

Standing at the top of the stairs was the hardest thing I'd done since the passage.

I had a serious conversation with myself.

Sloane. You have stood on a platform in front of the entire Silvercrest pack while your life was dismantled. You have been choked on a rink and run from trackers and survived things that should have finished you.

You pointed a kitchen knife at Anton.

That's different.

It is significantly different.

I went downstairs.

He was leaning against the wall beside the front door. Dark jacket. Car keys in one hand. Looking at me with his face doing something it almost never did. Not the almost-smile, not the corner of the mouth. Something that sat in his eyes and made them different and that I was absolutely not going to examine at eight in the morning.

I looked at the floor. "Morning."

"How's your head?"

"Fine."

"Anton asked me to pass on his regards."

I closed my eyes.

"He said, and I'm quoting directly, that his years of service have prepared him for most eventualities."

"I need to leave through a different door."

"The car is outside this one."

"I'll walk. Four miles is nothing."

"Get in the car Sloane."

I got in the car.

                  …

I held my skates on my lap and looked out the window and said nothing and he drove and said nothing.

It was fine. 

Twenty minutes of silence and then ice and I never have to think about knives again.

"For what it's worth," he said, "Anton has seen worse."

I stared out the window.

"Probably," he added.

"I would like to never discuss last night," I said.

"Of course."

"Ever."

"Completely understandable."

"Starting immediately."

"Clara though." A pause. "She asked me to tell you she found it very—"

"Volkov."

"—clarifying," he finished.

I turned to look at him. He was watching the road. His mouth was doing the thing — not quite a smile, something worse than a smile because it reached his eyes and stayed and I had never seen him look like that. Like something had loosened overnight and he hadn't bothered to fix it.

It was more dangerous than the cold. By a significant margin.

"You're enjoying this," I said.

"I'm driving."

"You're enjoying this while driving."

"Those aren't mutually exclusive."

"I hate you," I said.

"You mentioned that last night," he said. "Several times. Between the questions about Anton."

"What questions?"

"Many questions."

"Kai—"

"You wanted a written record," he said, in a very casual tone. "For legal purposes. You specified legal purposes."

I pressed my hand over my face.

He leaned toward me.

Not dramatically. Just — shifted, slightly, and now the car felt smaller and the distance between us felt like a conversation neither of us was having out loud. I became very aware of his hand on the wheel and the ring on his finger and the fact that when I turned my head his face was closer than I'd calculated.

"You also," he said, quieter, "said something I've been thinking about since."

I looked at him. I shouldn't have. His eyes came briefly to mine and had something in them that made the air change and I didn't look away fast enough.

"What did I say?" I asked.

He looked back at the road.

"When you remember," he said, "you tell me."

I stared at him.

He drove.

My heart was doing something I was not going to acknowledge at eight-thirty in the morning in a moving car.

"I hate you," I said.

"I know," he said.

I faced forward and held my skates and told my heart to behave.

Then he said very casually, eyes on the road, like it was nothing—

"You also said my name."

I went very still.

"In the drawing room," he said. "Before everything else. You looked at me and said my name and then asked if it was really a mistake."

I turned to look at him.

He drove.

Didn't look at me.

"Just thought you should know," he said.