Dagan apparently decided I wasn’t worth talking to anymore, and he charged—or maybe scrambled is the better word—over to Bram, panic and fury stretching his features thin. “I need the portal ripper.”
“How unfortunate for you,” countered Bram.
“Listen to me, you fuck,” started Dagan. He was trying to sound authoritative, but his voice was trembling, breaking like he’d been roundhouse kicked in the dick. He swallowed hard enough to rattle his whole body.
“I’m sorry, are you addressing me?” Bram glared at him.
“Yes, I am, now give me the goddamn portal ripper!”
Bram laughed. “Absolutely not.”
Dagan was already a staggeringly pale person, so when all the blood drained out of his face, he looked like some dead thing you’d pull out of a reservoir.
“Darion is already gone. Ergo, my investment in your problem is null and void,” Bram continued.
“Darion will be back; you know he’ll be back.” Dagan sounded close to something deeper and louder than tears. Like he was straining to hold back a scream, like his skin was too tight.
“He has already won, Dagan—he’s humiliated you and taken back his lady love. There is nothing more for him to do here.”
“Then why say, ‘be seeing you?’” asked Christina as she shook her head and crossed her arms against her chest, glaring at Bram.
“Because the game isn’t over yet,” Dagan responded, spearing Bram with a determined expression.
“Isn’t it?” Bram shook his head. “It seems quite over to me. I suspect the final image of Darion spiriting away your girlfriend will linger for many years to come,” added Bram with complete disinterest.
“You don’t understand,” Dagan protested, desperation pouring out of him in a thick black cloud. “Nothing has happened yet!”
“I would not characterize what we just witnessed as nothing,” Bram argued.
Dagan shook his head emphatically. “Darion’s barely done anything, compared to the things he inflicted on us in Dromir. Leaving with Osenna won’t satisfy his vendetta against me. There will be something more, something bigger.”
“Did he not make you squirm to your satisfaction?” Bram loomed over Dagan like an obelisk, casting a long shadow over him. “Did you find the experience lacking in some way? Because I, for one, did not!” His eyes narrowed, and anger took hold of his features. “Your incompetence invited a being of supreme power and instability into our world and our city, and put all of us in mortal danger. Forgive me if your desire for a more dramatic conclusion does not inspire me to endanger us further.”
“Bram,” Christina started softly, eyeing Dagan as though she believed what he was saying.
“I don’t want Darion coming back! That’s why you have to give me the portal ripper so I can go after him!” Dagan made a grab for Bram’s pants pocket.
Bram sidestepped him easily. Dagan was flailing, totally graceless. He almost looked drunk.
“I cannot help but disagree.”
“Bram, for fuck’s sake,” I grumbled. “Can you be a human fucking being for literally two seconds?”
He crossed his arms, glaring at me. “No, actually. I am physically incapable of being human.”
“Oh, fuck off, you know what I meant.”
“No, I do not.”
I glared at him. “You’ve really got no fucking empathy in you, do you?”
“I absolutely have empathy.”
I shook my head. “The only person you care about is yourself.”
“What gave him away?” Knight muttered, and honestly, I was angry enough to agree with him.
“I have little patience,” explained Bram, “for incompetence. And I no longer have any real reason to care what happens to Dagan or Osenna. Darion is no longer my concern.”
“And I have zero patience for selfish fucks like you.” I spat in his face, not on purpose—but I was completely livid. Here I was, trying my damnedest to feel literally anything besides skin-tearing rage, and Bram decides that caring is too much work? That he doesn’t need to give a shit anymore because Darion isn’t trying to kill him, specifically?
“Selfish?” he repeated, as if the word were unfamiliar to him.
“The world has already gone to hell, everything we’ve ever known has been fucked sideways!” I yelled at him, feeling my heart rate escalating. “So, can you stop pretending like any of your fucking business prospects even matter anymore? Because they don’t!” I continued, hating him with every fiber of my being. “Meg almost ended the world! We’ve all been to hell and back! And yet you can’t be bothered to send Dagan after the one person he might love? Do you have priorities at all? Or is your life really so sad and pointless that your goddamn night club or whatever the fuck keeps you busy is literally the most important thing to you?”
Bram blinked at me, totally uncomprehending. The vague dying light of the setting sun on the other side of the fluttering blackout curtains flickered across his face, making him look pensive. He took a step back so as not to be within the sun’s direct path, dying though it was.
“I no longer own the nightclub,” he replied staunchly.
“Really? After everything I just said, that’s what stood out to you?” I shook my head and felt like slapping him. “Aside from your business transactions, what do you really have? What gives you a reason to wake up every goddamn morning? Is there anything you even still care about, anymore?” I heard myself say. I was rolling downhill in a barrel—there was no stopping me now.
The world tipped over and I slipped sideways onto Christina. She caught me, and between her and Quill, they got me standing again.
“Do you need to lie down?” Quill asked, concern in his tone. “Remember what Sam said—you can’t get too worked up, Dulce.”
“I’m fine.”
“You need to go lie down,” advised Christina.
“No, I’m fine.” I shook them off and took a deep breath while I waited for the gray to phase out of my vision. “Get off me, I’m fine.”
“I do,” said Bram.
I squinted at him. “Do what?”
“I do still care about something.”
“Money!” I yelled at him.
“No,” he started, and shook his head as he handed the portal ripper to me.
TWENTY-FIVE
Dulcie
I narrowed my eyes at Bram. “Dagan’s got something to live for,” I pointed out. “And she just got yoinked into a whole other dimension. And she’s probably getting her ass handed to her right now.”
Behind me, Dagan made a whimpering puppy noise.
Bram and Knight were both staring at me blankly. So were Quill and Christina.
“You know what? Fine. Dagan and I will go alone.” Tossing the portal ripper to Dagan, I looked around at the group. “You guys are more than welcome to tag along, but if you’ve got better things to do, that’s fine, I guess.”
Knight nodded. “I’m not letting you go there alone.”
“Letting me?” I fumed, crossing my arms. “What does that mean? That I’m incapable of handling shit myself?”
“Dammit, Dulcie, you know that’s not what I meant.”
“It looks like I’m the only one who’s handled a fucking thing here!” I railed, anger overcoming me again.
“Calm down, Dulce,” Quill warned and even though he was annoying, he was also right. I needed to get control of myself.
“Can you stop being difficult for ten fucking seconds so I can help you?” Knight asked. I turned to face him and watched hurt and confusion fall over his face like the shadows of a sunset.
“Being difficult?” I repeated. “Really?” I stepped closer to him. It had been a while since I’d been less than ten feet away from him, and I’d forgotten how tall he was.
Whatever. I could still kick his ass.
“Look, I don’t care if you hate me,” explained Knight, “but I’m sick of you treating me like I’ve got the fucking plague.”
He tried to
grab my hands and I pulled them away.
“Dulcie, I’m sorry,” he continued.
“No,” I said and shook my head. “We aren’t doing this right now.”
“Yes, we are,” he insisted. “This is something you need to hear.”
“No, it isn’t.”
He took a step closer. “I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry I didn’t stop myself when Meg glamoured me, I’m sorry I was an ass when you went undercover with Melchior to save my life, and I’m more sorry than anything for assaulting you after I arrested you.”
I took a deep breath and felt everyone’s eyes on me. “I don’t want to do this right now,” I said to Knight.
But he was wearing his stubborn expression which meant he wasn’t going to listen to me. “I’m so sorry I didn’t just shut my damn mouth and listen.”
He closed his eyes. Just for a second, clearly gathering himself.
“But I can fix it,” he added. “I can find a way to make this right, I know I can.” He took me by the shoulders, gently, and the feel of his hands on my body made some forgotten part of me crumble like a sandcastle.
“You can’t fix it,” I whispered but I didn’t pull away from him.
“Maybe not but I want to try,” he said.
I swallowed hard. “There’s nothing left to fix.”
“I love you, Dulcie,” he said and the words caused me to catch my breath. I closed my eyes, willing the tears back. The last thing I wanted to do was cry right here, with everyone watching us.
“Please stop,” I said.
But he wouldn’t stop. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone or anything. And I’m the first to admit that I’ve fucked up. But, dammit, I’m in love with you and I’m not just gonna let that disappear.”
Rage swelled up inside me, right behind the invading sense of sorrow, sucking everything down like a whirlpool. I pushed his hands away, way harder than I intended to. “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe this isn’t something you can just say you’re sorry for?”
“Dulcie—”
I let out a long, deeply unpleasant laugh. “If everybody can just stop apologizing to me for ten seconds, that would be fucking stellar.”
“Why are you so angry?” Knight demanded, glaring at me like he was pissed his confession had just fallen on deaf ears.
“Angry?” I repeated.
“Is this about Bram telling Christina what happened between us?” Knight asked.
“Knight, for shit’s sake, I don’t care,” I screamed at him, shaking my head. “I don’t fucking care! I don’t care that Bram told Christina, I don’t care that you fucked Meg, I don’t care that you raped me, I don’t care that we never fucking talked about it! What I do care about is that you didn’t trust me!”
Silence. I was tangentially aware of everybody else in the room going stiff and looking away, but I forced myself to ignore them.
I don’t care, I thought. I’m done caring. About Knight. About everyone and everything.
“What do you mean, I didn’t trust you?” Knight asked, in a small voice.
“You just immediately assumed that I was working with Melchior and that I was fucking happy about it,” I said. “It never occurred to you that I was part of the reason the deal at the docks fell apart, or that something had gone horribly wrong and I was being held against my will, or that you’d been lied to by whoever first told you I was up to something. You heard I’d gone bad and you bought it hook, line and sinker. And all the while, I was dragging my conscience through the mud to save your life.” I took a breath. “And don’t you dare say I should have told you the truth, because we both know that—”
“That I would have done something stupid and heroic and gotten us both killed, I know,” Knight finished. I was surprised by the admission.
“Right,” I said.
“I know,” he continued. “But you should have told me the truth anyway, and you shouldn’t have fucking broken up with me.”
“Are you serious?”
“Breaking up with me didn’t exactly make you look innocent.”
I frowned at him. “What, you thought because I dumped you, I had to be guilty?”
“I think breaking up with me made it easier for you to lie to me.”
I felt like I’d been sucker-punched by a lightning bolt. I shrugged away from his hold and pushed him, hard. “Fuck you!”
“I didn’t understand why you did it!” His voice was almost a yell. “I still don’t understand.”
I glared at him. “You know why I broke up with you back then? Because I couldn’t look you in the eye and do what I had to do! I did it because I wanted to keep you safe!”
Fuck. I was crying now, big, ugly, gasping tears.
“You should have been honest with me,” Knight insisted.
When I pushed him again, he stumbled back against the wall. “You’re an idiot if you think breaking up with you made any of this easier.”
“Maybe you’re both idiots.”
We turned and gaped at Dagan. He was standing with a sad, disappointed expression, one hand covering the eye that was still bleeding whole rivers down his face.
“Fuck off, Dagan,” spat Knight.
“I was trying to save your fucking life,” I repeated, still facing Knight.
“You talk about me not trusting you,” Knight said, shaking his head. “But you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth. You thought I couldn’t handle it or that I’d do something stupid.”
My heart, honest to Hades, felt like it was going to explode. And not in a good way. “Yeah,” I admitted.
“I would have listened to you,” Knight continued.
“Would you? Would you really have listened?” Dagan asked, clearly butting in but somehow I didn’t care. “You don’t seem the listening sort.”
“Mind your own fucking business,” Knight growled at him.
“Unfortunately, you have made this little shit show all of our business,” Dagan responded with a shrug.
Silence.
“What the hell was I supposed to do?” I demanded.
“You should have trusted each other,” Dagan retorted. “You should have told him you were being blackmailed, and you, Vander, should have listened to her when she tried to explain herself.” He fixed each of us with an annoyed scowl. “It’s really quite obvious.”
Knight looked at me. I looked at Knight. The air between us went stone-cold.
I loved him. I did, I loved him more than anything, but there was this awful distance there, too, underlying everything. Like the quiet rumbling of an engine in a factory. You always know it’s there, but you stop noticing after a while. It just becomes part of the atmosphere.
But that couldn’t be right; Dagan being right felt wrong. Dagan being right felt like I’d clipped through the map into some alternate dimension.
“This, coming from the guy that runs Pain,” said Knight, but I could hear it in his voice. He felt it, too. The weirdness, the discomfort. The vacuum sucking all the air out of the room. Dagan was right and we both knew it.
Dagan glared needles into both of us. “Do you know how I run my establishment? Why people come to me to do terrible things to one another, instead of doing those terrible things at home?”
I paused. I… actually hadn’t ever thought about it before.
“Because Pain is safe,” he explained. “Pain is a place of sanctuary for people who are learning to trust one another in new and dangerous ways. Even if only for the night. The rules are strict and firm in the rendering of that trust, that vulnerability.”
“What the fuck is he talking about?” Knight growled.
I held up my hand and interrupted him. “Just listen. He’s got a point.”
Dagan continued. “Osenna trusts me to stop when she wants me to, and I trust her to tell me if something is too much. Everything is an agreement, a contract. A promise to trust, and to be trusted.”
Knight scoffed.
“This isn�
��t a game of chess; you aren’t at war with one another,” Dagan continued. “Currently, you are searching through the rubble for reasons to be right, and that,” he went on, looking at me, “is not the point.
I wanted to look at Knight. I wanted to throw myself into his arms and sob until I couldn’t breathe. I wanted him to hold me until the sun came up and went back down again.
But I also wanted to hit him. I wanted to scream in his face and make him understand how much he’d hurt me. I wanted him to feel the ache in my heart the way I felt it, the way I’d been feeling it.
Knight reached for my hand, and I flinched away.
“And so, I have said my piece.” Dagan sighed in my direction. “Let him come with us. I wish to recover my lady love, and the truth is that we need as much help as we can get.”
I swallowed and didn’t say anything. My eyes weren’t sitting right in my skull. I couldn’t figure out where to look.
Bram cleared his throat, reminding me that he was still there. “One can never have too much in the way of cannon fodder.”
The sound of his voice was off—it was icy to the point of emotionless. And the expression on his face matched. Obviously he’d just witnessed everything that had passed between Knight and me and Bram didn’t like it. But I didn’t care anymore, I was well past that point.
“Fine,” I said. I felt cold inside. “Let’s go.”
Dagan opened the portal. The vague, mostly invisible shape hung in the air like a mirror. Knight passed through first, then Bram.
“We don’t have to do this,” Quill reminded Christina in a soft voice.
But she shook her head. “Yes, we do.”
He nodded and followed her through the portal. I watched them go.
“Dagan?” I said before he could step through. He paused and turned around to face me.
“Yes?”
“Stupid question, but how do you… fix something like this?” It felt weird asking a demon for advice, especially this demon—but the weirdness came mainly from the fact that I was, for this one second, totally comfortable asking him.
“How does one cultivate trust in barren soil?”
I shrugged. “I guess.”
I couldn’t read the look he gave me. Something amused, admonishing, a little sad. It was the kind of look my mom gave me when I was a kid and she got called up to school because I’d done something I shouldn’t have.
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