CASSIAN

I reached out and grabbed Julian’s arm. My fingers closed around his bicep, holding him tight. I didn’t use enough force to bruise, but I made sure he couldn’t move.

"We’re leaving," I said. My voice was low. I didn’t want the others in the back room to hear us.

Julian pulled against my grip. He was unsteady. His feet didn’t seem to know where the floor was. "I’m fine, Cassian. Let go."

"Look at you," I snapped. I felt the heat rising in my chest. "You’re barely conscious. You are on the floor, Julian."

"I am not on the floor," he muttered. He tried to straighten his back, but he just swayed.

"You are going to be if I let go of this arm." I didn’t release him. If anything, I held on tighter. "We’re going. Now."

He pulled harder this time. His face was flushed, and his eyes were glassy, seeing things that weren’t there. "Stop treating me like I need to be managed. I’m not one of your father’s employees."

"Then stop needing to be managed," I shot back.

The words landed like a physical blow. The room went silent. The music from the front of the club was just a dull thud through the walls.

Julian froze. The stubbornness in his eyes flickered and died, replaced by something cold and distant.

I knew I had gone too far. I knew I had stepped over a line I couldn’t see, but I was too angry to stop. Anger is like a fire; once it starts, it doesn’t care what it burns.

"You think this is freedom?" I asked. I kept my voice quiet, but it was vicious. I wanted it to hurt.

"Is this what you left the estate for? To sit in a back room with people who don’t know your name, snorting poison off a dirty table?"

Julian didn’t answer. He just stared at me.

"You couldn’t handle being a servant," I said, leaning in close. "You couldn’t handle the rules or the pay. But you can handle this? Look at this room, Julian. Look at these people. At least back there, you had something worth stealing. Here, you’re just.."

I stopped. I saw the look on his face and the words died in my throat. But I wasn’t fast enough. The damage was already done.

Julian was very still now. The swaying had stopped. "Say it," he whispered.

"Julian..."

"No. Say the rest of it. Tell me what I am now."

"Fine! You want me to say it? Then I’ll say it! You’re a being a nuisance.."

The punch came out of nowhere. Julian’s fist collided with my jaw. It wasn’t a clean hit, but it was heavy. The sound of it, the dull thud of bone on skin, seemed to echo in the small room.

I stumbled back a step. My head rang. I caught myself against the doorframe and looked at him.

Julian’s hand was still clenched in a fist. He was breathing hard. His face held a look I had never seen before.

He looked like he wanted to scream, and he looked like he wanted to cry, and he looked like he regretted hitting me all at once.

I touched my jaw. My fingers came away clean, but the skin was already beginning to throb. I looked at Julian one last time. I didn’t say a word. I turned around and walked out of the club.

The apartment was cold when I got back. It was the specific kind of cold that a room gets when it is empty but still holds the ghost of another person.

Every surface reminded me of him. The dent in the sofa where he sat. The book he had left face down on the table. The smell of his jacket hanging by the door.

I didn’t turn on the lights. I sat at the small kitchen table and waited. I wasn’t waiting because I wanted to talk.

I was waiting because I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. My jaw ached. The dull throb had turned into a steady pulse of pain.

My anger was cooling down now, and what was left behind was worse. It was a heavy, suffocating weight.

It was the feeling of knowing you have fought with the only person in the world who matters. It was like arguing with your own heart.

You can win the argument, but you’re still the one who has to live in the body when the heart stops beating.

Hours passed. The sky outside the window turned a deep, bruised purple.

I heard the door before I saw him. The lock turned slowly. The door opened and hit the wall with a soft click. Julian stumbled in.

He wasn’t walking well. Whatever he had taken at the club was still working its way through his system. He looked like he was moving through water.

I didn’t say anything. I stood up and went to him.

I was still angry. My jaw still hurt. But I reached out and put my arm around his waist anyway. There was no version of tonight where I let him fall on the floor and stay there.

He was dead weight. I half-carried, half-dragged him toward the bed. Julian was barely conscious.

His head hung low, his chin resting on his chest. He didn’t fight me this time. His body had decided the conversation was over.

I set him down on the edge of the bed. I knelt on the floor and pulled off his heavy boots. I unbuttoned his jacket and tossed it onto the chair. Then I lifted his legs onto the mattress and pulled the blanket over him.

I didn’t leave. I sat on the edge of the bed for a long time, looking at the ceiling. The silence in the room was thick.

I felt a sense of suffocation. I had run away from a life of rules to be with him. I had built a new world out of nothing just to stay by his side. And now, the walls were closing in again. But this time, I had built the walls myself.