034— "NOW."

                 ~SLOANE~

"Get your hands off her."

Kai's voice filled the corridor like a drop in temperature. Never loud. Just — certain.

Luka didn't move immediately.

He looked away from me and toward Kai and held that for a moment, like he was finishing a thought before he responded to an interruption.

Kai raised an eyebrow.

"Now," he said.

Luka released my wrist.

Kai crossed the corridor in four steps and his hand came to my wrist before I'd processed that he'd moved — turning it over, looking at the red marks Luka's grip had left, and something happened in his jaw that I felt more than I saw.

"Kai—" Luka started.

"Get out," Kai snapped.

"I was asking her—"

"Luka." He didn't look up from my wrist. His thumb moved — barely, just once, just across the red mark — and I felt it everywhere. 

Everywhere.

"Get out. Now."

Luka looked at me.

The look said this conversation wasn't finished. That he had more questions and would find other corridors.

Then he walked away.

His footsteps faded.

Kai was still looking at my wrist.

"I'll take you to get this checked—"

I pulled my hand back.

He looked up.

"I never knew," I said, "that I was under surveillance by your friends now too."

"That wasn't—"

"Don't." I stepped back. "Don't explain it."

He reached for my arm. Just slightly. A hand coming up.

"Do not touch me," I said.

He stopped and I walked to the exit.

                    …

The car ride was silent.

Not the charged kind from this morning. Not the kind with things sitting in it waiting to be said. 

Just empty. 

Twenty minutes of road and the city going past and me looking out the window with my wrist still faintly throbbing and my jaw tight and my chest doing something I was filing under anger.

The audacity of Luka Markov.

Asking me what I carried. Holding my wrist until it hurt because I tried to walk away from a question he had no right to ask.

I'll kill them, I thought. First Crew. Then everyone who thought they had any claim to my body.

I'll kill them all.

“He crossed a line. It won't happen again.” Kai said. 

“I didn’t ask.” I snapped.

I could feel his gaze on me and I hated that I noticed myself wanting to look at him.

I didn't.

“We need to get your wrist checked.” He said.

I scoffed loudly.

“So this is what you do? Choke me on the rink… then check on my wrist like it matters? Interesting.”

“That wasn’t choking you.”

“I remember exactly what it was.”

I looked out the window like it mattered more than anything that had just happened.

     

“We’ll still get your wrist checked,” he said quietly.   

I didn't say anything.          

                    …

We got back to the mansion and I got out before the car fully stopped and pushed through the front door and—

Elena.

She was in the entryway with Anton, who was holding a tray with untouched food on it and an expression of quiet concern. 

Elena looked up when I came in and her face did something immediately — crumpling at the edges, her eyes going red, and she crossed to me in a few steps.

"Hey—" I started. "What happened? What's wrong."

She didn't answer. She took my hand and pulled me toward the stairs and I followed because she was crying and Elena crying made everything else temporarily irrelevant.

She shut my bedroom door behind us.

"Elena. Talk to me. What—"

She turned me around.

Her hands went to my left shoulder. To the collar of my shirt. She pulled it aside before I could stop her and looked at the mark and her breath went in sharp and she stepped back.

"Elena—"

She was looking at the veining. The black branching across my shoulder blade that had spread further than the last time I'd checked and that I had been not-checking deliberately for weeks.

"It's fine," I said. "It's not—"

"It's not… fine." Her voice broke on the last word. "Sloane. It's not fine. Look at it."

"I know what it looks like—"

"Then why aren't you—" She stopped. Her hands came up to her face. And then she started sobbing. Not quietly. Not the held-back kind. This came from somewhere below the ribs, that shook her whole body, that sounded like something tearing.

I crossed to her immediately.

"Hey." I pulled her in. "Hey. Stop. Don't do that."

"You can't leave me," she said into my shoulder. "You can't. They're already gone. Mum and Dad and Elijah and Uncle Aldric and Aunty and everyone and you can't—" She was shaking. "You can't leave me too. Please. Please Sloane."

I held her tighter.

"I'm not going anywhere," I said.

"You don't know that—"

"I'll find a way. I promise you I'll find a way."

"You keep saying that—"

"Because it's true." I pulled back and held her face in both hands and looked at her. Her red eyes. Her wet cheeks. 

"I am not leaving you. Do you hear me?"

She nodded. Barely.

"Good," I said. "Now breathe."

She breathed.

I held her.

We stayed like that — her crying going from violent to quiet to the slow even breathing. I knew she had run out of tears. 

At some point her weight got heavier against me and I looked down and her eyes were closed.

I laid her down on my bed.

Pulled the blanket over her.

Pushed the hair from her face and stood up.

               …

The mirror was across the room.

I walked to it and stood in front of it and looked at myself. The tears came without announcement — not sobs, just tears, rolling down quietly while I looked at my own face and thought about Elena's voice 

“You can't leave me too. Please.”

I pulled my collar aside and looked at the mark.

The veining had reached my collarbone now. Black and branching and spreading so much like it had decided it was winning.

I stared at it for a long time.

Then I pulled my collar back up.

I thought about Daria's burned number. 

I thought about waiting.

About being rational. About planning carefully and moving strategically and trusting processes and timelines and other people's agendas.

I thought about Elena asleep on my bed with tear tracks on her face.

My fist closed at my side.

I was done waiting to be okay.

I would get rid of Crew first.

Everything else could come after.