“Of course you did,” Bash mutters.

  “It was just to get through.”

  “It isn’t my business who you fuck, Xenesis.”

  “Stop calling me that,” I say as I hold his eyes. “No one mentioned fucking until you did.”

  His satisfaction falters as he purses his lips once more, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

  “Finish your story,” he says.

  I lift my shoulder in a shrug. “Not much left to tell. The boyfriend looked me up afterward, realized the ID was fake, and called it in. By the time I figured out he had reported me, I had to run, and I barely made it out before backup arrived. Your… friends found me, and here we are.”

  “What did you expect?” Bash asks. “You came looking for me after breaking my heart. What did you think was going to happen?”

  “I thought…” My voice weakens, and I swallow past my nerves. “I thought you might hear the story and want to continue your research. It’s what you spent all those years studying in theory, but now it’s real. It’s tangible, and we could figure it out… you could figure it out, and I thought…”

  “Thought what?” he presses.

  I stare unseeing at the tray as I shake my head. “That you might be willing to hear my side.”

  “Your side?” he asks, his voice climbing.

  My gaze moves up to his, hating the fury I find there.

  “Gods you are just so fucking arrogant, aren’t you?!” Bash shouts as he loses control of his temper, and his face flushes dark. “There are no sides, Xeni. There were never any sides. There was you and me, and that was it. That was my side. That was my forever, and I thought it was yours, too.”

  “I was… I am…”

  “You left me!”

  Shame and mourning close my throat, and I shake my head, desperate for him to see my truth. “I understand you’re angry—” I say, and it comes out pleading. His eyes bore into mine, and I know it was the wrong thing to say.

  “Angry? You think I’m fucking angry?”

  “Aren’t you?” I counter.

  “I’m not angry, I’m hurt!” The raw fracture in his tone slices through me, and my first tear slips free, tracing a path down my cheek.

  “I am devastated,” he continues, the confession torn from him, “and I have never been the same since that morning. I am done, Xeni!”

  He charges forward, fisting my shirt and bunching the fabric until it strains. For the first time since I met him, I believe he might abandon logic for fists. That his fury might unleash in blows instead of words.

  I wish he would.

  The thought rises unbidden… that I deserve whatever comes next.

  That I want it.

  I’ve earned every ounce of pain he needs to inflict to balance the scales. Let him strike me, throw me to the ground, take from my flesh what I stole from his heart.

  Anything to ease the grief that’s changed him in ways time alone never could.

  “I can take it,” I whisper in a pitiful, fragile offering. “Whatever you need to do to me. Do it. Please.”

  His eyes are wild with hurt and fury and something older. Grief that never healed, and has only grown in the years of silence.

  For a long, suspended heartbeat he just stares, chest heaving in ragged pulls. His fingers stay twisted in my shirt like he’s clinging to the last thread of us, afraid to let go even as he wants to tear it apart.

  Then, slowly, agonizingly, his hands unclench.

  He doesn’t step back right away. He stays close enough that I feel the heat radiating from him, the faint tremor in his frame, and catch the ghost of his familiar scent beneath the city dust and sweat.

  His throat works in a hard swallow, the muscle jumping as he fights for control, and when he finally speaks, his voice is scraped raw.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he says, and it sounds like the confession costs him. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

  The words land heavier than any blow could have.

  “We’ll take the information to Gideon,” he continues, voice steadying into something cold and final, “then get you out of the city. Where you go after that doesn’t matter.”

  “Bash, no,” I beg, clutching his arm with desperate fingers, and for a fleeting moment he lets me hold on, his muscles rigid beneath my grip. “Please, just listen.”

  “Don’t look at me like I’m the villain,” he says, voice cold. “You did this. I would’ve died for us, but you threw me away.”

  “Please,” I whisper.

  He shoves me back and storms out of the room, leaving Cato to glare at me again before he follows Bash out. The lock clicks behind them like a final heartbeat.

  My chest has never felt quite so hollow.

  I try to shout, to scream my frustrations to anyone who’s willing to listen, but it comes out as a wail. I stumble my way into the bathroom, groping in the dark to find the only thing that gives me any relief.

  Pain breaks through my madness in a cruel mercy, and as the razor falls to the ground with a clatter, all I can do is sob.

  Bash

  “You’re sure this is the place?” I ask Cato as I glance around the street, taking in the cracked pavement and faded storefronts.

  “Positive,” he answers. “I’ve met Gideon here once before.”

  “When’s the last time you saw your brother?”

  Ego cuts in from behind us before he can answer. “It’s been close to a year since the two of them saw each other face to face,” she says casually, “though they pass letters every so often.”

  Cato’s mouth drops open in surprise, and I bite back a grin as his head whips over his shoulder to stare at her.

  She flashes him a sweet smile and says, “I’d recommend working on your code names, because it was so obvious who you were talking about. But you’re right—Vanesse is hot, and yes, she wears those tight pants because she wants to fuck you.”

  “How do you know any of that?” Cato demands.

  Ego only shrugs and pops her gum with a satisfied smirk. “Well, most of it because I read your letters. The rest? Everyone wants to fuck you, man. Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

  “He spends too much time looking in mirrors,” I mutter, and Cato shoots me a glare.

  Ego chuckles as she reaches up to pat Cato’s shoulder, but he speeds up to avoid her, which only makes her laugh harder.

  “You know I keep my eyes on everything happening back home,” she says. “If it means sneaking a glance at the incoming messages, so be it.”

  “That was a message I sent,” Cato protests with another glare, “not the other way around.”

  “Whoops.” She flashes an unapologetic grin.

  Cato’s eyes suddenly go round. “Does that mean you read about the…”

  “Oh yeah,” she replies with a leering wink. “Those were some interesting mental images. You’re a kinky son of a bitch, Cato, you know that?”

  “Leave him alone before he blushes himself to death,” I say, trying to hide my smile.

  Cato’s face has turned nearly as red as his hair, the flush spreading across his cheeks and overtaking the prominent freckles scattered over his skin.

  The teasing is welcome after the heaviness of the past few days. It's a taste of normalcy that I didn’t realize I needed so badly.

  “So,” I continue, steering us back on track, “do we just go in and ask for Leif? Is there a codeword?”

  Cato huffs a laugh and drags a hand through his hair, clearly grateful for the change of subject. “That imagination of yours is running wild again, Dom.” His eyes meet mine, lips pulling into a familiar smirk. “Or should we call you Bash? How have we been friends this long and I had no idea that was your real name? Honestly, I’m kind of offended.”

  Ego turns her troublemaker grin on me. “Of course it’s his name. Sebastian Garfield Hale—”

  “You did not just out me like that,” I say with a glare.

  Cato bursts out laughing, and I swing my eyes to him. “Oh, you wanna poke fun?” I taunt. “We can discuss those letters in more detail if you prefer.”

  “Damn,” he mutters, dropping his gaze back to the ground.

  We turn the corner onto a quieter street, and a weathered wooden sign sways above the door to our destination. Inside is dim, and patrons mill around the bar or at tables, nursing drinks and chatting in low conversations.

  The barkeep glances up, meets my eyes for a moment, then shifts his attention to Cato. Without a word, he grunts and nods toward the back room, dusting his hands on his apron before disappearing through the door.

  “Friendly fellow,” I mutter with a questioning glance at Cato, but he grins as he leads the way through the doorway.

  “Haven’t seen you around in a while,” Leif says in a gruff voice as the three of us crowd into the storage room with him. The tight quarters carry a potent mix of stale beer and lemon cleaner, and shelves filled with kegs, thick glass mugs, and dried food items line the walls on either side.

  “Been busy,” Cato replies easily.

  Leif nods, his sharp gaze darting between me and Ego.

  “Oh, right. This is Ego,” Cato says, gesturing toward her. Leif’s eyes linger on her shockingly blue hair, but she offers an unbothered flutter of her fingers in greeting.

  “And this is Dom.” Cato finishes.

  Leif studies me more closely, narrowing his eyes as he takes me in. He notes my hair and piercings before planting his hands on his hips with a quiet hum.

  “You wouldn’t go by the name Bash, would ye?”

  I bite my lip for a second before nodding. “Used to.”

  He grunts in response and glances up at the ceiling. “There was someone here looking for you. He was willing to do just about anything to get to you, but he disappeared. I suspect he’s been caught or killed by now. It’s a shame. He was a nice lad. Polite.”

  “Nice,” Cato snorts, the smugness in his tone more grating than I care to admit. “Oh, he was caught alright. We’ve got him locked up back at home.”

  “Locked up?” A spark of interest flashes across Leif’s face as he looks to me for confirmation, but I only glance away.

  “We have the schedules he was carrying,” Cato continues, pulling the rolled papers from his back pocket. “Figured you’d want them after the trouble he caused to get them.”

  Leif’s tone hardens as he takes the papers. “Trouble? What kind of trouble?”

  “Not the kind that’ll come knocking on your door,” Cato promises. “They realized he had a fake ID, but as far as we can tell, there was no suspicion around this place or the shipment.”

  Relief relaxes Leif’s features, though he pulls his lips into a pensive line as he fiddles with the papers.

  “Let’s go upstairs,” Leif says, waving for us to follow as he turns towards the door. “Anything he left behind is still up there, and I don’t need it sitting in an empty room if that trouble turns more serious than you suspect.”

  A few curious pairs of eyes track us as Leif leads us through the pub and up a creaky set of wooden stairs. We climb until we reach the fourth floor, and he unlocks a door and ushers us inside before closing it behind him.

  “There’s more privacy up here,” he says. “These schedules will do us a lot of good, but it’s not a normal shipment we’re looking for.”

  “What is it, then?” I ask.

  He taps the rolled papers against his palm, weighing how much to share. “We caught wind of a big meeting taking place in the city. Rumor has it they’re pulling in a group of the top leadership after some secret base got blown up.”

  Ego and I exchange a quick glance, and Leif raises an eyebrow.

  “I’m assuming you know something about that?”

  “We can confirm a base was destroyed,” I reply carefully, “but we don’t know anything about a meeting. That’s what you think you’ll find in those?”

  Leif nods and unrolls the papers, scanning them quickly. “We’ve been tracking shipment routes for years. Everything follows a pattern. Food comes twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Things like weapons or equipment are less frequent, and almost always on Sunday nights when the markets are closed and the streets are quiet. And it’s always a single convoy.”

  He flips through a few pages before jabbing at one line item. “Three lanes shut down on a Wednesday with this level of protection? In all my years, I’ve never seen anything like it. Has to be the High Commanders.”

  “What are you planning?” I ask, my mind already going into worst-case scenario mode and picturing riots in the streets.

  “Right now, we’re gathering intel,” Leif says, glancing at Cato. “Gideon wanted to go in guns blazing, but the security around these people will be insane. We’ve got a few insiders collecting what they can before we decide the next move.”

  “What are you after?” I press.

  He flashes a righteous grin. “Whatever we can get. Future plans, military targets, weak spots… you name it, we want it. And if we’re able to take out a few of them in the process? The more of those bastards we kill, the better.”

  “Sounds risky,” I counter.

  He shrugs. “Sometimes risk is worth the reward. If we hit them hard enough to send them scrambling, it might open a real chance to dismantle some of their control.”

  “Okay, I'll give you that,” I concede, “but what’s the end goal?”

  Leif levels me with a steady gaze. “Taking back our power. Overthrowing their rule and building a society worth a damn again.”

  “I’m not convinced society was ever worth a damn,” Ego mutters.

  Leif grunts in agreement. “Maybe not, but it sure as shit was better than this.”

  We all nod, understanding without the need for more words, and Leif eventually sighs. “I won’t drag you in deeper than you want to be, but be prepared in case everything goes south. I’ll tell your brother you stopped by. He knows how to reach you?”

  “He does,” Cato confirms, shooting a brief glare at Ego’s smirk.

  Leif waves his mitt of a hand around the room. “Clean the place out and take what you want. Anything left when you leave will get burned.”

  “Understood,” I reply as he gives us a final nod and heads out the door.

  I wait until his footsteps fade down the stairs before scrubbing my hands over my face with a heavy sigh. “We might need to lie low for the next few days. I don’t want to get caught in whatever trouble they’re about to kick up.”

  “Aw, but trouble is so much fun!” Ego chirps, her grin wide and unrepentant before she glances around. “Do you want any of his shit, boss?”

  I let my hands fall and take in the space. A haphazardly folded change of clothes sits on the small table beside a half-empty glass of water. A stack of papers rests on the edge of the bed, and a leather backpack lies tossed in the corner.

  I can almost see him here, alone and searching for me, and the imagined sorrow in his posture lands like a quiet blade.

  “Can I have a few minutes to look through the room?” I ask quietly.

  Cato and Ego exchange a glance before Cato nods and claps a gentle hand on my shoulder.

  “Yeah, of course,” he says. “We’ll be in the hallway.”

  “Thanks,” I mutter as they step out and pull the door closed behind them.

  As soon as I’m alone, I sink onto the foot of the bed with a shaky exhale.

  “Fuck, Xen,” I whisper to the empty room.

  Hating how weak it makes me feel, I twist and grab the pillow, pressing it to my face and chasing the faint traces of his scent that linger.

  For just a moment, I let myself open that locked place deep inside where my love for him has lived untouched all these years. I breathe him in, remembering when it felt like we could conquer the world as long as we were together.

  I force myself out of my head and toss the pillow aside, then spot a folded piece of paper peeking out from under the bed.

  It’s a map of the city that’s covered in Xeni’s slanted handwriting. There are notes on places he’d checked, people he’d spoken to, and leads that were bringing him closer to me. He’d even talked to a barista at my favorite coffee shop just days ago.

  I stare for a long moment, tracing the penciled lines with my fingertip, and imagine what would’ve happened if I’d run into him out in the market. It would have been like seeing a ghost created by my mind as a means to cope with the never-ending way I miss him, and probably would’ve hurt even more than having him dragged in by Cato.

  He would have found me eventually. A reluctant smile tugs at my lips despite the ache.

  Stubborn.

  I fold the map carefully and set it aside, then grab the leather satchel from the corner and dump its contents onto the bed. Socks, a wrinkled t-shirt, and a few pairs of satin, lacy underwear. Bottled water, dried food rations, a small notebook filled with his familiar scrawl, and a rough map of the wastelands. Coins scatter across the sheets from a side pocket, bronze and nickel glinting in the dim light.

  A band of polished silver stands out among them.

  My breath hitches as I pinch the ring between my thumb and forefinger. Light catches on the hammered edges. They’re imperfect, handmade from scrap metal I melted down in secret, and sized perfectly for his finger.

  Memories flood back so vividly I have to sit, the room tilting around me.

  Five Years Prior

  Sweat glistens on Xeni’s cheeks and forehead, his eyes heavy-lidded and sated as he snuggles into my chest. “Your heart’s pounding,” he murmurs, pressing the softest kiss to my skin.

  My arm tightens around him and I bury my nose in his hair, overwhelmed by my love for him. It fills every part of me until I’m convinced I might burst.

  “Bash?” He pulls back just enough to search my face, concern softening his features.

  I try to smile, but it wavers.

  Xeni props himself on his side, bringing us face to face as he twines a section of my hair around his finger. “What is it, darling?”

  “I love you,” I whisper. “So much.”

  His worry eases into a gentle smile as he leans in, dragging his nose against mine and peppering kisses across my face until I can’t help my grin.