TERMS OF THE HEART
I said, though I wasn't sure whether the thing unfurling in my chest was fear of Vaughn, or fear of exactly how much power this man now had over what I felt.
Outside, the city kept moving, indifferent to the folder between us, indifferent to the war that had just quietly begun.
That night, long after Sofia and Griffith had gone, I found Damien still in the study, the same lamp burning that had lit our two a.m. conversation weeks earlier. This time he wasn't working. He was just sitting, staring at nothing, the folder closed in front of him like something he couldn't bring himself to touch again.
"You're allowed to be angry," I said, sitting across from him. "You don't have to perform composu