Noam’s legs gave out. Lehrer caught him with a quick arm around the stomach before he could hit the floor, heaving him upright and pressing him there between Lehrer’s ember-hot body and the cracked wall. His breath on Noam’s neck was uneven, Lehrer’s chest heaving against Noam’s back.
Lehrer’s lips were dry as they moved against Noam’s ear, his voice dark like ash.
“I bet your head hurts now, doesn’t it?”
He let go. Noam sagged against the wall, blood dripping off his throbbing face and speckling the hardwood floor. Noam stared at it without really seeing, his hands flat against the plaster and his mind a haze of impenetrable fog.
Lehrer moved away, a shadow on the fringe of Noam’s awareness. But he was back a moment later, the edge of his coat sweeping through Noam’s peripheral vision as Lehrer pulled it on.
“I have an interview off-site,” Lehrer said curtly, as if they were discussing this over breakfast and not here in the hall with Noam blinking back tears and Wolf padding down to nudge a worried nose against Noam’s leg. “Go to the meeting tonight. Nowhere else.”
Noam sniffed. That, too, tasted like blood.
Lehrer’s footsteps retreated down the hall toward the door—but stopped halfway there.
“I will see you back here tonight at ten sharp.” Noam imagined persuasion whipping around Lehrer’s words like gold fire. “I expect you to have your priorities in order by then.”
Even after Lehrer left—after the door had fallen shut in his wake and the wards reconstituted themselves around the apartment—it took a long time for Noam to push himself up off the wall. Wolf’s pink tongue darted out to lap the blood off the floor.
“Good boy,” Noam mumbled. His mouth felt dumb and useless.
Wolf sat on his haunches and let out a soft whine.
Noam dragged a shaky hand through the fur atop Wolf’s skull and started off back down the hall toward the living room.
The whole apartment looked different now: like a reflection of the one he knew, blurry round the edges and surreal. Noam moved as if he’d been programmed to do so, toward the kitchen for ice—only then he diverted course by the door. Didn’t want to drip water on Lehrer’s floor, after all.
But when he got to the bathroom, he had to face himself in the mirror, and that more than anything else brought him careening back to earth.
The bruise on his brow was already purpling—a second mark on Noam’s cheekbone was still red, but it would darken quickly enough. The blood came from a cut on his eyebrow and a split lip, coursing down over the inflamed skin; speckled stains marred his uniform collar.
The other half of his face was pristine and unmarred, all smooth skin and sharp bone.
“Shit,” Noam whispered.
He tipped his head down and turned on the faucet, but the first splash of water on his face stung badly enough he had to grit his teeth against a scream. He thrust Lehrer’s hand towel under the stream instead, dampening it enough to press the cold terry cloth against his injuries.
Even when he lowered the towel, his face didn’t look much better. The bruises seemed angrier somehow, blood and water mixing to a pinkish fluid that dripped off his jaw and into the sink.
Noam didn’t recognize himself like this.
He should have learned healing magic. He should go to the barracks; Bethany knew healing—
Only he couldn’t go to the barracks. Couldn’t be seen like this.
But he would be seen. Because it was already—shit, it was eight thirty; the meeting was at nine.
Ten sharp, Lehrer had said.
Noam touched shaking fingers to the edge of one bruise. It had already started to swell. He should get ice, figure out a way—he couldn’t go to the meeting with these marks on his face. Couldn’t look Dara in the eye when he . . . he . . .
He grabbed a comb from Lehrer’s drawer and scraped it through his hair, trying to coax it to fall just so over his brow. Useless; his hair wasn’t long enough.
And—god, but now he was remembering the day he met Dara, how Noam had glimpsed a bruise hidden by Dara’s carefully tousled curls. Only then he hadn’t thought, hadn’t even considered, and . . . and now . . .
“God fucking damn it!” Noam slammed the comb down against the counter hard enough Wolf darted off and leaped onto the safety of Lehrer’s bed, curling up to watch Noam with liquid eyes. Noam hadn’t even realized Wolf was there. “Sorry, boy.”
He had to leave soon. But he couldn’t go out looking like—
Noam crossed to Lehrer’s closet, tugging open the doors and flicking through the hangers for some of the spare clothes he kept here. He found them hanging in long plastic bags; Lehrer had them dry-cleaned. Because of course he had.
Noam changed into something fresh, kicking his bloodied uniform into the far corner of the closet and emerging to find Wolf still tracking him with his gaze, head resting on his paws. Noam could almost convince himself Wolf understood what had happened somehow.
And maybe he did. He’d been here with Dara, after all.
Back in the bathroom Noam attacked his hair with the comb a second time, adding a sweep of Lehrer’s wax to coax it into a controlled style. At the very least, he could walk into that meeting with some kind of . . . dignity, as Lehrer might’ve said. He could walk past the guards in the atrium, all those government officials, with his face bloodied but held high.
It occurred to him, then, how incredibly fucked up it was that he still cared what Lehrer’s people thought about him.
Before he left, Noam leaned over the bed to press stinging lips to the crown of Wolf’s head. Wolf lapped at the flat of Noam’s wrist, his cold nose damp against Noam’s palm. “Be good,” Noam murmured against his fur.
The walk through the government complex was every bit as bad as Noam imagined. He felt the stares stick to him like molasses, dragging along in his wake. All those whispers behind hands.
What story would Lehrer invent to explain this?
Whatever story it was, Noam was sure it’d be a great one.
“Geer Street,” he told the government car the guards called for him outside. For once in his life he couldn’t muster the courage to take the bus.
But as he stood on the icy sidewalk outside Dara’s building—it was snowing again, the flakes accumulating on his shoulders and cold against his bruises—whatever nerve he still had dwindled.
Maybe he shouldn’t. Maybe he should turn around and go back to the government complex—back to the apartment to wait for Lehrer in the bedroom with the lights down low, and . . .
And what, Álvaro?
He tightened his jaw and took a sharp breath. He was already late.
The meeting was well underway as Noam let himself in, Holloway midspeech about the security plans for Independence Day; Ames was drinking a red cocktail, Leo perched atop a nearby table with Claire and Priya at the bar, and Dara . . .
Dara caught his gaze the second the door fell shut in Noam’s wake.
He was on his feet in an instant, the chair legs scraping against the floor loudly enough Holloway fell silent. All gazes swung round to look at Noam, Priya’s gaze going wide as Ames muttered, “Shit.”
“Sorry,” Noam said, trying for a self-deprecating look and waving his hand. “Didn’t mean to interrupt. Keep going.”
He knew how he looked. He could still see that reflection in the mirror, how—grotesque, how obviously violent. But he didn’t want to imagine that through any of their eyes. Through Dara’s.
Noam never should have come here.
“What the hell happened?” Claire asked, rising to her feet, too, slower than Dara.
For his part Dara still stared, mouth parted and his eyes gone wide. It was like Dara had been shot but hadn’t realized yet, was bleeding out.
“I’m Level IV,” Noam said by way of explanation. “Sometimes training gets rough.”
Ames’s mouth closed so hard her lips had gone white. She wasn’t going to contradict him. But Dara . . .
Dara didn’t look capable of speech.
Noam made himself move closer, pull out a chair at Claire and Priya’s table and sit down. He wasn’t sure he was fooling anyone. Claire and Priya had fallen silent, and from the way Leo was looking at him, Noam knew he was reconstructing the blows in his head the way only a soldier could. Even Holloway had an odd expression on his face, eyes narrow and considering.
It was several seconds after Noam had settled in that Dara slowly, slowly sank back down into his chair. Holloway picked up where he’d left off, shuffling the notes on the table before him and licking his thumb to flip to the next page, lecturing on about camera angles.
Not that any of that mattered when there was a technopath on hand.
Noam let Holloway talk. Now that Noam was here, it was like all that terror from the hallway of Lehrer’s apartment had finally seeped into his bones, a sickness that spread like mildew through his marrow. One hand curled round the seat of his chair, hidden by the table, gripping it so hard a splinter caught under his nail.
He wasn’t any better by the time the meeting was over, and he couldn’t remember a single thing they discussed. Noam’s mind was a jumbled cacophony of meaningless words. His head hurt like a motherfucker. Lehrer was right about that much, he thought and nearly laughed.
Noam tried to leave quickly, but Dara called his name from across the room before he even made it to the door. And then Noam had to turn and look at him.
Dara had one hand braced against the tabletop, his skin gone the sickly color of old photographs.
“Can I talk to you?” Dara said, and Noam had no choice.
He nodded.
Dara led him out into the alley behind the bar—the same alley where Noam lit his cigarette once, Dara’s hair dusted white with snow.
“I have everything under control,” Noam said.
Dara shook his head. The sound he made next was half a laugh and half a hitched breath, pitch falling low. And now that they were out here, it seemed like he couldn’t even look at Noam. His gaze flitted from the ground to the brick wall to Noam’s coat to the end of the alley, anywhere but Noam’s mangled face. When he finally tilted his head toward the sky, the streetlights reflected in his eyes, off unshed tears.
Noam took a tiny half step closer to Dara, expecting Dara to move back to regain distance. He didn’t. That clenching feeling in Noam’s gut twisted tighter.
“I can—we’re so close, Dara,” Noam said, insisted. Already his hands were going numb in the cold; he pressed them into his coat pockets. “It won’t be long now. I’ve been taking pictures of anything I can in the apartment—old letters, journal entries. Hacking video files. And he must keep the vaccine nearby. I know it.”
Dara still wasn’t speaking. A single tear had fallen free of his lashes, slid down his cheek.
“Independence Day is in two weeks,” Noam said.
“You won’t last two weeks.”
Dara lowered his gaze at last, and with the redness in his eyes—the way he fixed them on Noam like he could pin him down with sight alone—made him look as furious as he did heartsick.
“Dara—”
“I keep telling you these things. You keep not listening. Just like last time.”
“I’m—Dara, you know I believe you. It isn’t about that—”
“He won’t stop,” Dara cut in. “He’ll keep hurting you. He’ll do more than that. He’ll—”
Something cold crystallized in Noam’s heart, the certain knowledge of what came next; and he didn’t think he could survive hearing it said on Dara’s lips, after everything.
“Don’t—” he started, but Dara pushed on, a fierceness twisting his features as he said it.
“He’ll rape you.”
A fresh wave of pain crested through the bruises on Noam’s face. He was crying, Noam realized belatedly. The salt from his tears had gotten in the open wounds.
“He won’t,” Noam said, but he barely recognized his own voice.
A terrible sound tore out of Dara’s lips. “You can’t possibly—you can’t believe that, Noam! Do you really think you’re that fucking special? Do you think you’re so very different from me?”
“I . . . no, but—”
“You think I deserved it, then?”
“No—god, Dara—”
“Then what? What, Noam? Do you even hear yourself?”
Noam wet his lips; it just stretched Lehrer’s cut open wider. He grimaced. “That’s . . . here’s the thing, Dara. I consented from the beginning.”
“You’re seventeen, he’s—you can’t, you told me yourself you can’t—when he—”
“You know what I mean,” Noam snapped. It came out angrier than he meant it to, and he flinched, fingers curling up toward his wrists. “Sorry. But . . . I wanted it, Dara. You have no idea. I—”
“So did I,” Dara snarled. “Or he told me I did, anyway, and he never fucking let me forget it either. But when you stop wanting it, you don’t get that option. You won’t. You don’t get to change your mind with him.” Dara was crying freely now, the tears slipping down his cheeks; his eyelashes had already gone to frost. “You told me that the first time it happened, you were drunk—so drunk you don’t even remember it. Don’t you hear yourself, Noam? Don’t you get it? If it were anyone else . . . if it were me, you would be telling me that was rape.”
Every breath Noam took felt labored, like it cost immeasurable effort to keep himself alive.
No. Dara was wrong, it wasn’t—Noam hadn’t—
Calix wouldn’t do something like that.
Noam hated himself the moment he thought it. Because . . . because Lehrer had, to Dara. Only Noam couldn’t help the voice that whispered back: But he’d never do that to you.
He shouldn’t think like that. Dara would kill him if he could overhear it. But . . .
But it was true. There was something special about what Noam and Lehrer had—or used to have, maybe, and yes, Calix—Lehrer—hit him, but did that erase everything else?
“Two weeks,” Noam said again. “I only have to make it a little while longer. And he—that’s all he wants, isn’t it? He’s afraid he’s lost me. So. I’ll just. I’ll prove he hasn’t.”
Dara had been midway through wiping his face; his hand fell away at that, his gaze flicking back to seize on Noam’s. “What the hell are you—what are you saying?”
God. God. Noam wanted to vomit. Didn’t have anything in his stomach to throw up.
“I’m saying I . . . I’ll give him what he wants. I’ll sleep with him.”
In the silence that responded, Noam thought Dara was crying again. His shoulders were shaking, his lips quivering. Noam realized too late that wasn’t grief.
It was rage.
“That’s your solution?” Dara said. “That’s what you’d rather do than stay with me? Even after this—after he hurt you—you’d rather be with him.”
“No. Of course not. But I—”
“Then go.” Dara spat the words out like acid. “Do it. Go back to him, and—and fuck him, and whatever else you want. But if you do that, you don’t come back.”
Those words ricocheted through Noam, leaving electricity in their wake.
He didn’t mean it.
He couldn’t—he wouldn’t mean it, not something like that. Only Dara had his chin tilted high, and although Dara’s eyes shimmered with tears, they were cold in a way that had nothing to do with the ice in his hair.
Noam drew his hands out from his coat pockets and reached for him; Dara took a step back, keeping Noam at a distance. Shook his head.
“Dara. Please. I—you know I don’t want this, but I have to. We don’t have any other—”
“Choice?” Dara’s mouth twisted in a sardonic knot. “But you do have a choice, Álvaro. You’ve always had a choice. And if you walk away from me right now, you’re choosing him.”
He wasn’t.
Noam would never choose him.
But if he stayed here wit
h Dara . . .
They still didn’t know how to defeat Lehrer. The vaccine was probably worthless. And fevermad or not, Lehrer was still strong enough to kill Noam easy.
If Noam stayed here, he might live another few weeks. But then they’d all die, every one of them. Including anyone else Lehrer had infected or killed in the name of the Carolinian cause.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, but Dara wouldn’t look at him now. Wouldn’t say a word.
Dara pushed past Noam and flung open the door to the bar, retreating back into the warmth. The door slammed shut behind him, and it felt like the last cannon fire at the end of a long battle.
Lethal.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
NOAM
Noam barely remembered the trip back.
He knew he took the government car. He knew he must have gotten out of it at the entrance to the government complex, shown his identification to the guards. Must have taken that mirrored elevator up to the fourth floor and walked down the hall and into Lehrer’s study and taken down Lehrer’s wards.
And yet, toeing off his shoes in Lehrer’s hall, he couldn’t remember how he got here.
It was 9:57 p.m. And judging from the fluttering firelight at the end of the hall, Lehrer had already returned.
Noam followed that light into the living room. He didn’t know what he’d expected—more violence, perhaps, or Lehrer with his shirt already half-unbuttoned. But what he found was Lehrer standing by the hearth and gazing down into the flame. He had a drink in hand already, still full.
Or refilled, perhaps.
Lehrer lifted his head and looked at him. Then he sighed, pushed off away from the fireplace, and beckoned Noam closer.
Every step Noam took was another key turned in a lock.
Once Noam was in reach, Lehrer lifted that same hand to skim his touch over Noam’s damaged face.
“I’m sorry about this,” Lehrer said, and he looked sorry—his lips gone thin as his magic flickered to the tips of his fingers, healed Noam’s bruised flesh. “I lost my temper. It was unacceptable. It won’t happen again.”
Noam didn’t know what to say to that. His tongue was heavy in his mouth, wordless.
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