Something in me breaks.
My teardrops beat away at me like water at a dam until all my will, convictions, and promises to myself are gone. And once that dam breaks, the water has nowhere to go but out.
I sob, and my entire body rattles from the force of it. It's uncontrollable, something that only worsens as I try to control myself and realize that I can't. Like so many others in this room, I can't get enough oxygen into my aching lungs. My breaths are anything but even, gulps of air down my throat and heavings out of my chest, inhales and exhales through the hem of my dress that I've brought to my nose and mouth.
But regardless of how many times I try, I can never put the fabric over my eyes, where salt and water make a mess of mascara that isn't proof of it.
I can't willingly bring myself to return to that darkness again, when the gunshots went off and the people began screaming. When I felt irrevocably suffocated and alone and powerless and afraid. Manhattan gleams hazily through my watery eyes. The details might blur, but the lights remain, keeping me from the dark. I focus on that.
Maven's shoulder presses up against mine, and his finger's twitch, wanting to reach out but not knowing how. Somewhere in the midst of shaking, I kicked off my heels and tucked my legs into the skirts of my dress. I'm leaning over myself into a hem that I clutch too desperately, throwing my posture to hell. But when all I hear and see are replicas of myself, my hysterical sobbing and half-fetal position aren't much to be ashamed of.
My partner won't touch me. Not after I flinched under his cool touch to my shoulder and stupidly told him don't. I can't handle it, can't handle him or the idea that he or I deserve it. So instead, he sits next to me without a word, still gazing towards Midtown through the glass as he silently begs me to let him in. But we did this together. We both knew about it, both let it happen. Maven helped it happen. That day in Central Park, he gave Farley blueprints, offered her up all sorts of information about his father's building.
I have to remind myself that he didn't know any better than me.
"Hey."
Cal's voice, quiet at his brother's side, drifts through the air.
The moment that he threw Farley to the ground flashes through my mind a dozen times.
The moment his eyes broke at his mother's name flashes two dozen.
"Hey," Maven returns to his brother. His voice is hoarse.
At Maven's side, Cal takes a seat on the leather arm of the couch. Along with his tux jacket, his bowtie is gone, and the top two buttons of his white dress shirt are undone. He's rolled up his sleeves to his elbows, and his hair, once combed and gelled, looks as though he's run his hands through it a few too many times. After a moment, a glance that reveals what the girl that he waltzed with has become, Cal angles his broad shoulders away, towards the plain wall at our left. The back of his shirt is damp with sweat.
That small motion, the privacy he's offering me by turning away, is awful in its own way.
"Are you okay?" Cal asks Maven.
"I was in one of the elevators," Maven replies. Both of them are quiet, as though I won't hear them if they whisper. I pretend not to. "I didn't see any of it."
He heard it, though. He saw the destruction too. The shattered glass, the people trembling upon the floor. Cal might've ordered Maven away before he could take in much of it, but in the moments before I became a crying, spasming mess, I filled him in. Vividly.
He hadn't heard the gunshots through the elevator, nor had he seen the blood in his brief survey of the ballroom. But Maven didn't seem surprised when I told him about the man on one of the balconies below with blood streaming out of him or Ptolemus, blood down his shoulder as he chased that server with the rosé who gave me the strange look. I told him about the red-haired boy and how Lucas killed him. I told him about the felled security guards and the grenade explosion that sent dozens to the ground and one man off a bridge. I told him about what Farley did and then what Cal did in return.
"That's not what I asked," Cal says.
Maven huffs out an insincere laugh. "I'm better off than most people in this room, then."
It's still not quite an answer, but for once, Cal relents. His body moves with steady breaths, and I watch as his shoulders almost imperceptibly move up and down. I try to match his rhythm and fail miserably.
The brothers share a moment of silence, probably going through all of the questions that they have for one another. When I imagine that Cal's been all over the place in the last hour, he probably has a decent number of answers. If I had the air in my lungs for it, I might ask him what happened to the terrorist he tackled to the ground or the green-eyed boy who Ptolemus took down. I might ask how many are dead, what's happening downstairs, or how many major news networks are already here.
Or perhaps, I'd simply ask when I can leave, when I might truly feel safe again.
Though I say nothing, Cal answers one of my silent questions.
"We caught two," he says, still gazing at the wall while Maven and I look ahead to the skyline. He doesn't have to say which two they are. "Another died. When they attacked, there might've been a dozen, but nobody's really sure. We think that most of them went down the stairwell, got into the parking ramp and ran from there. But some could be hiding somewhere in the building. Nobody's really sure."
Nobody's really sure of how the Scarlet Street Fighters did any of it. How they wreaked havoc on the power supply, how they shattered bridges, how they managed to smuggle a grenade into the building.
"How many died," Maven says. His voice stays one pitch, and it doesn't sound like a question.
More than likely because of me, Cal doesn't say anything at first. The rest of the room continues to sob, shudder with the side effects of fear. I join them.
"Eight," Cal says after a beat. The shoulders that I watch clench under invisible weight. "Ellyn Macanthos, Reynald Iral, and Belicos Lerolan. You know, Nanabel's—"
"Brother," Maven finishes.
Nana. Anabel. Nanabel.
Her brother.
I press my dress hem closer against my face, tears and mascara saturating the garment. It makes breathing more difficult than it needs to be, but I can't bring myself to pull away.
"Ptolemus was one of the targets, but the bullet only grazed his shoulder, and he'll be fine. But four security guards got hit, too. One of the guests fell from a bridge. A lot more are injured."
"How many are injured?" Maven presses on.
Cal shrugs, his shoulders rising and slumping. "A couple dozen, I think."
"And what's happening with the two that you caught?" My partner asks all of the questions I wish I could.
My heart thuds dully, awaiting Cal's answer.
I've tried not to ponder it, but at the same time, I have to know. If the police can identify Kilorn, they'll find the address linked to his name. Next, Cal will realize that server with the rosé who gave me the strange look is in fact my ex-neighbor, and the strange look will begin to make sense. Then I'll be questioned, and for that reason, I have to come up with an explanation as to why—
"It's like they don't exist. The police have already run their faces, taken their fingerprints. Their databases aren't coming up with anything."
A particularly loud sob leaves my throat, and though he wants to take a look at me, Cal remains dutifully positioned away from us.
"They haven't moved them yet. They're worried that's something's going to happen, that they have some sort of escape plan in place. The two of them are just downstairs, locked up by their hands and feet and surrounded by the police and the FBI. The lady won't shut up," he continues. "She knows all kinds of things about our family that she shouldn't. And when Davidson tries to ask her actual questions, she just laughs in his face. The boy won't say anything, though. He looks scared."
I remember what Will Whistle told me about the NYPD commissioner, how Dane Davidson and Tiberias Calore have some kind of deal caught on camera and typed up. It turns my stomach that Farley and Kilorn are still somewhere inside of this building, being interrogated by that man. That awful, corrupt cop. For all his talk, my mind has no trouble imagining Kilorn looking scared. He just tried to kill a man.
My best friend just tried to kill somebody.
"Hey, hey, hey," Maven's suddenly saying, turning away from his brother.
I realize that I'm shaking like I've never been before.
His hands, gentle and yet pleading, go to my wrists. I'm too weak to fight him as he forces my arms down, fingers interlacing with mine. "Look at me, Mare."
Rebelliously, my eyes stay trained on the narrow strip of leather couch between my legs and his.
Cal allows me to descend into my breakdown in peace. He goes quiet, looking to the wall again.
"Look at me."
I don't. I can't. Neither of us deserves it.
"Fine."
The pad of Maven's thumb runs roughly along my cheek, along my trails of mascara.
"If Giselle's crying, then Albrecht will just have to cry too."
My throat's closed up, but seeing what he's going to do, my hand strays to his, inches from his own cheek. He's about to streak mascara over his own face and embarrass himself just to spite me, just to convince me to look him in the eye . But he knows I won't let him do it. I pull his fingers back down, Maven letting my trembling hand push his back into his lap. My stupid partner knows me too well.
I force my bloodshot, tearstained, disgusting eyes to look at his, blue and crystalline and gleaming with the beginnings of his own saltwater.
"Remember the girl who auditioned for my family in front of eight-hundred people with no music and barely an hour to prepare, and still managed to get a standing ovation?"
I close my eyes and see a different scene. The stage, the spotlights, the dark of the theatre. It's a much addicting sort of darkness.
"You remember her? Think about her, Mare."
I pinch my wine-colored lips shut but open my eyes. Maven holds both of my hands firmly, his skin a tether and a reminder all at once.
Before I can nod, before I might shake my head and further curl in on myself, Maven pulls me close. His arms go tight around my back, and I end up twisting around my body so that I can do the same. My chin goes to his shoulder, resting on it. His tux is cool against me, and I think that if he wasn't here at all, I'd be falling.
I don't deserve him. He doesn't deserve me.
Though I'm sure he has more to say, Cal raises himself off the lip of the couch, gives Maven a little pat on his other shoulder, and makes to leave. He never looks at me, even as I watch him cross the boardroom with a bowed head, as though keeping it down will cause most to ignore him. But like me, the room watches silently after Tiberias Calore's son, full of questions but empty of words.
"Take this," Maven says, pressing a soft piece of silk against my collarbone.
Without questioning where it came from, I take the creamy handkerchief and press it against my eyes.
I still shake, and tears still fall, just as violent and just as fast.
But instead of the darkness, I try to imagine the stage again.
Every lady who attended the gala is allotted one makeup wipe.
Around ten-to-one, the chauffeurs were allowed down into the parking ramp to gather the guests' bags, and enough women had makeup wipes to warrant one per lady guest.
Inside of a fancy bathroom—it's decked out with granite countertops and bronze hanging lamps—I use my single wipe sparingly, rubbing away black streaks that have worked halfway down my neck, nearly mixing with my diamonds. The lines are like cracks in a beautiful mask.
Considering what happened tonight, I suppose that's entirely fitting.
I don't bother with the rest of my face, content to still wear some semblance of my makeup, though my eyes are red and puffy and my mouth's bent into a semi-permanent frown. Already in my jeans and long-sleeve tee, I move my hands to my neck to fiddle with the clasp of my necklace until the diamonds come apart. Slowly and cautiously, I place the piece back into its black box. In the warm light of the bathroom, the chain of jewels still shimmers, a light in its own right.
But before I might stare at it too long, I close the box lid and tuck it under the folded dress at the bottom of my bag.
I know better than to ask Maven how much his father spent on it. Maybe I'll get it appraised tomorrow before tucking it away in my closet forever. Or maybe I'll sell it.
There's this bone-deep exhaustion in me as I bend down for my charcoal-colored coat, slip on my socks and boots. In spite of that and in spite of my hour's worth of crying, my mind is still achingly awake. It's buzzing and pounding, dying, as I wonder the answers to a thousand questions.
As I blame myself for what the Scarlet Street Fighters did.
Making my way to the door, I offer up a couple of excuse mes to the other women that I pass. The dozen or so crammed inside of the bathroom are still in various states of disarray, from the lady who's hugging her knees under the sink to a woman who's applying a fresh coat of mascara in the mirror. It's past one in the morning, but if that's her thing, I can hardly judge. At least she isn't crying.
I slip through the door and emerge into a windowless hall, decadent and ridiculously sickening at this point. More people than ever crowd it, some in their dresses and tuxes and others in ordinary streetwear. After extensive security checks, they've begun allowing friends and family up in limited numbers.
The police watch them wearily, as though any one of them at any moment could do something bad. I don't blame them.
It shouldn't be long before they begin letting people leave, allowing them to wake up from this nightmare that they're trapped in. That I'm trapped in.
Maven already declared that he'd take me wherever I wanted. To the Academy, to Shade's apartment, to East Harlem, to his penthouse.
I said yes to East Harlem.
"Mare."
That voice both dashes away my thoughts of the place where I grew up and reminds me of it at once.
I turn around myself, to the source of my name, standing at the wall next to the bathroom door.
"Shade."
My own voice is a quiver. He wears his khakis and a pea coat, and though they're not as bad as that golf shirt he had on at the Loeb Boathouse, my brother still looks silly in his preppy clothes.
His honey eyes bore into mine, darkening as he takes in my face, suddenly breaking again. I spent an hour sobbing and crying and shaking in Maven's arms, thinking that I'd never emerge from the maelstrom of guilt and anger and fear that I had created for myself. In the end, it was only exhaustion that allowed my body to stop convulsing, and I settled into a strange, numb state of calm.
But seeing Shade threatens to send me spiraling all over again.
"Mare," he says my name again, his voice a careful lullaby.
"Shade."
He's here. My youngest brother is here, with me inside of this God-awful building, surrounded by too many crying faces and suspicious police. However tired Shade Barrow looks, with his disheveled hair and exhausted eyes, he wasn't part of the attack. Couldn't have been, if he's here, wearing khakis and a pea coat and trying his damndest to give me a smile.
I don't have it in me to wonder if he's in this building for me or for a purpose entirely separate from me. I know that he cares, that he never wants to see me like this, but . . .
I can't wonder. Not now.
Realizing that I ran out of energy and motivation a long, long time ago, Shade starts forward.
He doesn't gush out apologies or ask questions the way that I hear so many others do. He simply approaches me, lets his arms go around my back. Shade isn't so tall like Bree and Tramy, and our hug is an easy, simple thing that doesn't involve me standing on my tip-toes or Shade bending down.
"Shade," I say his name a third time.
It's the only thing I recognize anymore.
As soon as the police begin clearing people to leave, Shade and I snag one of the first elevators down. Thankfully, we're alone.
"You're sleeping at my apartment," Shade states matter-of-factly, my hand in his.
"Okay," I say too quickly, blinking hard.
"Tired?"
I nod, not sure if I mean it, even as my blinks turn heavy and my head rests against his shoulder.
"Hungry? You haven't eaten since this afternoon."
I'm starving. But I don't know if I can keep anything down.
"I'll make my special grilled cheese," Shade tells me as the elevator begins its descent.
I swallow so that my ears can keep up with the rest of me.
We might be in an elevator by ourselves, but it's not like I can ask him anything. And we don't talk about what happened, either. Shade doesn't have to ask, because he knows exactly what went on tonight, knew it long before it happened. He knew what I would see, what I would be exposed to, and inside of this golden elevator, I see the guilt of that knowledge written all over the creases of his face.
But I wasn't where I was supposed to be. I was supposed to be far, far away from the stairs, and I wasn't. That's on me. Not my brother. I'm hardly about to convince him of that, though.
Maven and I parted ways after Shade announced that he was leaving with me, and I gave my partner another hug before saying goodbye. He gave me another look, the thousandth of the night.
The last time I gazed into his eyes, he told me it was okay. That deep-down, this was for the best. That tonight meant something, though I have yet to find out what.
Enough people murmured about the two Scarlet Street Fighters on the way to the elevators that I have no doubt Shade heard. Though he must've known long before he came here.
It might be why he came here.
"Come on, Mare." He bumps his shoulder against mine. "I'll put like, five different kinds of cheese on it and slather a disgusting amount of butter on the bread. I'll even make you two if you want."
An elevator chime saves me from more of Shade's brotherly pestering.
On the other side of the elevator's threshold, stands Cal.
He blinks at the two of us, eyes not quite registering who's in the elevator before going a little wide. He's undone another button of his shirt to expose the beginnings of his chest, and his hair's only gotten more unkempt. Like everybody else, he looks tired.
"I can just take the next—" he starts.
"It's fine, Cal," I say, surprising myself with my ability to speak.
He saw me cry, weep onto his brother's clothes as I broke. I don't have it in me to care right now.
"Cal?" Shade repeats, though he has to know full-well what Tiberias Calore's son looks like. My brother gives Cal a long look. "Now you have to get into the elevator. I'm Mare's brother. Shade."
Despite the events of tonight, a glimmer of intrigue shines in Cal's eyes, and one edge of his mouth turns the slightest bit upward. He steps into the elevator just before it closes and taps the button to the ninth floor of Calore Industries.
I wonder where he's been and what he's been doing, where he's going now.
Shade pulls away from me so that he can shake Cal's hand, and from what I see, the two men exchange firm grips while assessing one another. Shade's a couple of inches shorter than Cal, but he doesn't act like it as he surveys my contemporary teacher, nodding to himself.
The elevator starts down again, and the mischievous grin that I hate so much works its way onto Shade's face.
Before my brother even opens his mouth, I already have some idea of what he's about to say.
He knows that even now, provoking me is the best way to get me back to my usual self.
"I know that it's bad timing, but . . ." Shade glances to me, offering me the chance to stop this. Yet I just stare ahead to the mirrored wall and cross my feet at the sand-colored tiles, lean into Shade and the wall at my back.
Cal stands on the opposite side of the elevator, hands tucked behind him, waiting for Shade to continue. A soft smile contrasts his drawn face, weary but genuine. It's unlike his usual crooked grin, but I have a feeling that he senses something amusing is about to occur as well.
The elevator's like a medium between two parts of reality, and all of us find a peculiar enjoyment to it. This place is quiet and contains no hints of the horrors that went on tonight.
"Because she's too prideful, too stubborn, too annoying, too difficult, and too much of too many other things, I thank you on behalf of my sister because I know that she'll never say it herself. So thanks, Cal. Thank you."
He's not talking about our lessons.
Shade's talking about everything.
I pinch my lips together but force my eyes to stay up.
"She told me the whole story last Saturday." Shade's eyes stay trained on Cal, but I stare at my brother through the mirror at Cal's back. He wants me to snap at him before he might say something that I don't want Cal to hear. "The part with the botched pickpocketing attempt was my favorite." Shade's practically beaming now. "You should know that Mare's still pretty salty about that one."
That one . . . is the little secret I hate that I share with Cal. Shade's quite literally the only other person who knows how Cal and I really met.
Cal's only containing himself for my sake. His lips are pinched together too, but while I do it to avoid punching my brother in the face, he's doing it to avoid breaking out into a full-blown grin.
Or as a big of a smile that one can have tonight.
Shade's tone turns serious. "Thanks for walking her home."
That one hurts.
"Yeah. Of course," Cal replies, reigning in his smile. "I had a great conversation with her anyway."
All of our talks since then have involved a lot more eye-rolling and a lot more satire.
I don't make a habit of walking places alone in the dark, but that night was a special occasion. Both of them know that. Gee had just messed up her wrist, I hadn't stolen nearly enough cash for Farley—Cal doesn't know about that part—and I was in a rough place that night. A rough, idiotic place.
And then I spilled out my soul to Cal, never thinking that I'd see him again.
"Do you think I can get her to like me?" Cal asks out of the blue, his eyes straying to me. I don't give anything away.
The elevator drops further.
Shade has the gall to chuckle. "Mare Barrow doesn't like most people in the first place. Throw in catching her in the midst of stealing from you, lying about your identity, manipulating her into auditioning for a world-class ballet company after . . . well, you know," he continues, and I visibly cringe, "and your love of the genre of dance that she hates most, and you have a challenge on your hands, Cal. But I wish you the best of luck."
Cal stares at me, silently standing to argue that he didn't lie about who he was when I met him and also telling me that I'm glad that he manipulated me into auditioning. I'm too stubborn to care.
"And of course, don't forget about the real, actual reason that she can't stand you."
Cal turns on Shade, eyes alive with curiosity.
I'm beginning to think that I went into more detail than I needed to with Shade on Saturday.
My brother glances at me again. "Not going to defend yourself, Mare Bear?"
I bristle at the age-old nickname that Shade just resurrected. This is rapid-fire embarrassment at it's finest, and Shade's doing a hell of a job of making me forget about everything right now.
He doesn't wait a second longer. "She—"
"I'm sure that Cal can guess why I can't stand him," I mutter with none of my usual snark. I sound subdued and weak, and I don't care. "And let's do two grilled cheeses."
Though Cal missed the part about the grilled cheese, he goes with it, crossing his arms and tilting his head back against the mirrors. His throat bobs as he swallows. "I can," he says. It isn't with his typical confidence that he agrees with me, and there's no challenge in his voice. Unlike Shade, he's afraid to push me right now. "But I'd love to hear you say it out loud."
Sometimes I feel like Cal can read me like a children's book for no reason at all.
He knows exactly why I can't stand him.
Before I might say anything else, the elevator dings again at the ninth story.
Shade smiles triumphantly between the two of us, and though there's a shadow to his grin, it isn't fake. The elevator opens, and Cal gives Shade a nod. "Nice to meet you, Shade."
He angles his head to me and gives me a soft smile and nothing more.
On the ninth floor, FBI agents in blue and yellow jackets run around, congregated in the circular chamber outside of the elevator. It stands taller than one story, contains no windows, and branches out into a dozen different hallways. Unsurprisingly, it's grand and beautiful, even in the midst of two-hundred, perhaps three-hundred people. Police go back and forth in their heavy gear, and detectives wearing suits and badges shout and point their gloved fingers. The scene is loud, chaotic, and half of the people in it look like they're about to pass out upon the floor.
I see the familiar bald head of Lucas Samos in the crowd. Blood still on his arm, Ptolemus Samos stands by a gathering of detectives. TV screens anchored to walls between the hallways play a dozen different news channels on mute. Flashing lights, police, and aerial footage of downtown Manhattan blink across screens, and the headlines are too far away to read. I don't miss the police that stand by our elevator, eying us. As soon as they note Cal, they turn away.
I notice Cal's father in the midst of it all, a legion of security guards not far from him. He looks very, very angry.
A tall, grey-haired man with sandy skin stands next to him, wearing a police cap and black trenchcoat over a suit. Despite everything, his expression is passive and his eyes are calm.
Dane Davidson, NYPD commissioner and all-around corrupt cop, notices Cal, who hasn't moved his feet. People part for the man as he makes his way towards the eldest Calore.
He gets within speaking distance of us. I don't allow myself to look to the ground as I want to.
"What happened, Dane?" Cal asks.
Something's wrong.
Davidson's eyes stay unreadable as he stops before us.
"They're gone."