This is different. This is the part that comes after surviving.
This might be living.
I glance at the front door. Darius is still out there somewhere, missing all of it. And I know—with absolute certainty—that when he finally comes back and sees what he missed, it’s goingto be the thing that either breaks him open or breaks him for good.
I hope it’s the first one.
For his sake. And for hers.
27
Mo
The front door opens.
Darius stands in the doorway, shoulders squared, jaw tight. His eyes find me immediately. Then they move to the others, to the cards spread across the coffee table, to the easy way we’re all sitting together.
Something crosses his face. I can’t read it. He’s hard to read on the best of days, and tonight his expression is locked down tight.
“Blue.” His voice comes out harder than I think he means it to. “I need to speak with you. Alone.”
The others exchange looks, and one by one, they stand. Silas gives me a long look before he goes, something questioning in his dark eyes. I give him a small nod.
I’m okay.
Archer is last. He pauses by the door. “Don’t kill each other,” he says, and then he’s gone.
Just Darius and me.
I stay on the couch. I don’t stand, don’t square up, don’t brace for a fight the way I would have a few weeks ago. I just sit there and wait for him to say whatever he came to say.
He stands in the middle of the room. His hands are at his sides, fingers flexing, and he won’t look directly at me. Whatever this is, it’s costing him.
Finally, he speaks. “I wish to formally apologize for my previous actions. The manner in which you were restrained was… inappropriate.”
The words come out stiff. Rehearsed. Like he practiced them in front of a mirror, and they sounded better in his head.
“Inappropriate?” I say. “That’s what you’re going with?”
His jaw tightens.
“How about cruel?” I sit up. “How about inhumane? How about the fact that you chained up an omega who’d been kept in a cell and sold like property, and you didn’t think twice about it?”
He opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. “I was ensuring your safety.”
I let out a breath that’s half laugh, half disbelief. “My safety. Right. Chain the omega to the wall for her own good. Very progressive.”
“I’m trying to apologize,” he says, and there’s a crack in the formality now.
“Are you? Because it sounds like you’re reading from a script. A bad one.” I tilt my head. “Beep boop. Formal apology activated. Beep.”
His hands clench into fists at his sides. I can see the effort it takes him not to snap. The muscle in his jaw is jumping. Good. Let him feel uncomfortable. Let him stand there and squirm the way I squirmed on the end of that chain.
“I’m not the monster you think I am,” he says.
I stand up and close the distance between us. He’s so much bigger than me. I have to tilt my head back to look him in the eye.
“No?” My voice drops. “You want to know what I remember, Darius? I remember you standing over me, telling me I belonged to you. I remember you saying you couldn’t wait to fill my mouth. I remember being chained to a wall in a room I couldn’t leave, listening to you decide what I could and couldn’t do with my own body.”