Duality

[Jay Carpenter]

Natalie in a towel. Just a towel. Nothing else. Her hair tied up. Tendrils stuck to her damp shoulders. Her eyes struck icicles. Breathe, man. Her gaze trickled aside, and reluctantly, Jay’s followed. Then he saw it. A gun and alongside a terrifying sight.

Yep. Brandon’s pin. The one the Ascendancy only made himself before settling it on Jay’s chest with a promise of future heroics. He snatched it to his palm, laid its weight on the skin. The edges prickled daggers such that if he closed his palms dozens of bloody pin-pricks would remain.  He didn’t. Instead, his wrist fell limp to his lap and the ornament slipped away.

But he didn’t discard it far.

He pushed to his feet, not even a little bit mindful of Natalie’s precarious situation. “If that’s the only towel, we’re in trouble,” half a grin lingered on the air as he took up residence in the bathroom.

The shower washed away grime, but it wasn’t the red and black swirls chasing down the drain that turned his stomach. It was the reflection in the mirror.

Streaks coursed black bolts across his chest. The densest focused epicenters where Placaso’s pincers bit deep. Fingers traced one jagged line, puckered and rubbery. Pits dug holes in his stomach. Dozens. What flesh might have remained before Jensen’s healing knitted him back together? His shirt covered most of the worst, but it was in the bottom of a trash can. He’d rather walk the streets naked than put on clothes streaked with his sister’s blood. Until the new order was delivered, towel was going to have to work.Which meant the scars were on display. He sighed, weight heavy on the sink, head pulled low. 

His fists gripped the edge as his eyes squeezed shut. Concentrating. A barrier remained fenced around his mind, blocking the power away, thin and fragile. If that doctor wasn’t lying, maybe another day before its restoration. Meantime, regular old wallet tv was going to have to occupy their time.

Unless something else came up.

[Natalie Grey]

Natalie stretched out on the bed, feet crossed at the ankle, back propped with pillows. She raked fingers through her damp hair, glad to finally be rid of the stench of smoke. The light purpling of an emerging bruise was forming on one shin, but otherwise she was remarkably unscathed on the surface. Music hummed softly from her wallet, reigning her thoughts from dwelling too far inward. The past would exist whatever she willed, but it touched her less if she only looked back on her own terms. Light knows that’s easier said than done. For the rest, the power lured her concentration, her soiled clothes fanned out on her lap. Strands of light ribboned experimentally through the fabric.

While she worked she thought of the Jasiri girls weaving baskets and tending vegetables in defiance of tragedy. Peace was not a reward patiently received for good behaviour; it must be fought for tooth and nail, claimed even when ill deserved. Perhaps especially then. She’d learned that lesson time and again, but it didn’t always stick; not when drowning in the sorrows of a bottle always saw faster results, if more ephemeral. Only, relinquishing control now was no longer likely to see her fall alone. Doubt might still plague the words I can’t do this without you, tainted by the memory of her father’s involvement, but she valued what Jay had said anyway.

“If I can figure out the puzzle of this, I can at least go out and get us breakfast,” she said when the door opened. She did not look up immediately. Vengeance pumped Jay’s blood hot when he’d pulled her from the tunnels, and she hadn’t really understood the reaction at the time. It was infinitely more knowable now, in every clear price claimed from his flesh -- more, for those rent less obvious in his soul. Her jaw flexed, and for a moment perhaps the ice drew a little colder in her gaze, but she did not look away either. He wasn’t hers, and the grim consistency of his jokes suggested a line drawn between them. She wasn’t sure it was wise to cross. Knew it wasn’t actually. Maybe it was only the power making her more aware of each breath sinking deep in her lungs, but then it wasn’t the horror she lingered on once the first shock of his injuries passed. Did he have to tie the towel so low? 

A devilish smirk finally fluttered when she realised the simple threads of her weave had unravelled, glad he couldn’t see the lapse in her concentration. “I guess we’re not in trouble, then.” A joke bedded in dry irony, realised the moment the words left her lips. She hated to think of the ghosts tumbling about in his skull, but she was never likely to tiptoe around them, for either of their sakes. The best she could do was protect the quiet for a time, a respite in the storm, for as long as she could anyway. She wanted more answers before they crossed the border into Mexico.

[Jay Carpenter]

Mindless cartoons that once occupied a child's utmost deadpan concentration again numbed Jay's consciousness. A couple episodes of ridiculous violence between two animated, eternal enemies, scrubbed away at least 45 minutes of time. Until a knock at the door jolted him awake. The song-song catchyness of the show's theme blared unacknowledged while Jay sprang from bed, towel billowing with melodramatic motion. In seconds his back was pressed to the wall, carefully listening for indicators of attack. When none came, he realized his wallet had spewed an alert.
Package delivered, it read.

A glance through the peephole confirmed it. The drone was almost out of sight by the time he opened the door, discovering a box on their doorstep.

His heart rate returned to normal a few minutes later as he ripped apart the box, upending its contents on the bed. A spare change of clothes, generic and without even so much as a brand label on the tag. A grey v-neck shirt was slipped on. It didn't fit the best, particularly around the shoulders, but it obscured the veiny remnants of Placaso's devices (and Jay's failure to resist them).

His previously worn jeans and boots completed the basics. Despite the aesthetic, the most important was a soft-shell all terrain jacket, the kind not out of place among hikers or ranchers. It certainly wouldn't stand out where they were going. The muted green was a loose-fit and had a variety of pocket options. Most importantly, it would obscure the sidearm and blades he intended to carry like a straight up ninja.

Something about being dressed, clean, and armed was re-invigorating. He was working at the mini-table in the corner of the hotel room, tapping commands into the wallet, by the time Natalie returned. His glance hovered as though he was about to say something, but whatever was on the tip of his mind was banished from immediate thought.

He was blunt with his plans: "I'm going to chat with every single scumbag between here and the end of the continent until one of them gives up Amengual. I have no real plan. No powers. We're essentially cut off from both our empires, and my main source of information is dead." A flicker touched his eyes as he mentioned Axel, "So the odds are definitely in our favor." He grinned thoughtfully, "What do you want to do first?" he asked Natalie.

[Natalie Grey]

“At the shelter chores were supposed to build character.” A grimace pulled her lips, but her attention did not lift from the coils of light. She did not elaborate on the declaration, nor the quiet stir of memories. The power flowed more easily than she remembered, shifting into an intricate web of pale threads. Stubbornness fueled her now as much as curiosity towards the unknown. She needed to harness this; it was one of the few advantages they had remaining. One of the few ways she could still mask a sense of control.

It took time, but she was content to devote it. When the clothes were clean she changed in the bathroom, pulling her hair into a loose knot at the back of her head and avoiding the ghost of her reflection. She couldn’t idle. At least not while sober. 

She returned with the promised breakfast, still warm in a polystyrene carton and presently perched on the desk alongside a coffee and a bottle of water. She’d eaten her own in the diner while she attempted to mentally sort through their remaining options and resources. The pancakes were good. Their options were not.

She leaned against the wall beside the offering, arms folded. The quiet severity of her expression may as well have been carved from marble as he painted in broad strokes the bleakness of their situation. Her disregard of Brandon’s promise, and the ramifications she tried hard not to dwell on. She barely blinked at the sacrifice of her following Jay here, or the oaths he bent by not returning to the Custody with due haste. Natalie made tough choices, but she did not do so in vain. It wasn’t a soft heart leading her into the shadowed paths he left in his wake.

“We’ve had worse odds, Jay,” she said. And lost. She didn’t flinch from it. The light alone knew she’d had plenty of time to think this all through. Yet she was still here. Her gaze pierced, but for now she ignored the question. “And afterwards?”

She couldn’t stop him shovelling a grave in pursuit of retribution; she understood the need. And she would help, despite the flames licking their heels, and despite the beckoning arms of damnation for such sins. Her shoulders were wide enough for the burden, whatever its cost. But she would not help him bury himself.

[Jay Carpenter]

Chores built character. They used to call air jumps into eight-foot ocean waves and a mile swim back to shore building character. While carrying 80lbs of body armor. In the dark. No. Wait. They didn’t call it building character. They called it hell. Damn, he missed that. Scrubbing floors. Cleaning shoes. Scrubbing walls with toothbrushes. It was all the same kind of mindlessness that built character. Or it built tolerance. Both words fit. Jay hated it. And he missed it.

He scrubbed a hand through his still-damp hair as his gaze slid from Natalie’s gut-wrenching eyes toward some point behind her. Toward some snow-covered field. The darkest of skies loomed overhead, littered with billions of sparkling questions looking back at him. The shoulders of a friend pressed up against his something familiar and safe. The space was vacant now, and the words stuck in his chest.

“I only lie to myself,” he said quietly like a mantra forgotten. Then, more to himself than answering her question, “I don’t know what I’m doing tomorrow, Natalie.”

He snatched the breakfast, devouring the pancakes in about three bites. The bottle of water was also welcome, but he may have preferred vodka instead.

There were options. He didn’t want to think about them. A weak grin was a poor attempt to disarm their mood, “Who are we kidding? My future is bright as they come. I’m very popular: Ascendancy, Jacques, Alistair, Amengual. Even that sonofabitch Placaso couldn’t keep his hands off me.” The haunt of a dark joke shredded his voice as bad as Placaso shredded—well, him. She’d not know the name. He barely heard it himself.

Heat rimmed his tired eyes as they peeled off Natalie’s porcelain silhouette. There were flowers on the wallpaper behind her. Pink and blue things with pointy petals and yellow centers. He just stared at them until his eyes burned. They were painted on in a grid along the whole wall. Some kind of attempt at cheerfulness, he guessed. Twenty-eight down and thirty-six across. His expression softened a little as the mind stirred up old arithmetic.

He spoke before he even realized his lips were moving. “One thousand and eight flowers. Nine petals each. You know there’s more than 9,000 petals on the wall behind you. Nine thousand and seventy-two, actually.”

The faintest of creases lined his brow.

“That’s a lot of flower petals.”

Then he looked back to her after this small marvel of hotel decorating.

[Natalie Grey]

“And it’s a good job too, because you happen to be a shit liar.”

Jay’s moods struck like summer lightning, hitting the earth just a little differently each time. A tomorrow, no matter how formless, was better than the alternative. For now it was enough.

Placaso. The new name seared, tightening the edges of her expression as she tucked the knowledge away. Meanwhile, her heart beat hard in her chest; powerless. Emotion swelled and crashed without finding an outlet as Jay’s gaze pulled away and beyond her. The pierce of her own did not move, charting the hairline cracks like the new scars across his skin, but she did not interrupt the stretch of silence. She watched him break; felt the anchor of her soul fall alongside as he blinked burning eyes and drifted far away. Until he spoke.

Natalie did not turn to survey the wallpaper in question. The obsessive counting did not feel odd. In fact it felt disconcerting familiar.

“There have been times in my life when I would’ve given anything for someone to hold out a hand and offer an escape.” If she was honest, she almost always had one eye on the horizon, like the knot of dissatisfaction could never truly be smoothed from her soul. She had no real love for the Custody, despite the riches of her name. Probably her family would do better without the black sheep in their midst -- framed that way it’d almost be a damn favour to relieve them of the burden.

It was the closest she’d come to making it clear she would not haul him back to Moscow, despite the official duties binding her to the journey in the first place. Jay’s life was his own whatever he thought. Even so, she did not think he would accept the offer -- which was perhaps why she did not make it explicit. Maybe he would be scandalised she even suggested it, given how he felt about Brandon. It didn’t stop her, though. And she meant it, even knowing that at least half of those paraded devils wrapped him in chains of loyalty, not of hate. There was no escaping such a web, no matter how far they ran. They had a good head start, though. The futility almost curved a black smile to her lips.

Natalie unravelled her arms, palms stinging where the nails had bedded. Her thoughts were surprisingly quiet as she bridged the distance, uncertain of the reception she would receive. A little kindness might shatter such a brittle shell, and she did not intend to push him toward that edge. Her hand brushed lightly against the dishevelled tufts of his hair, her insides squeezing at the haunt of his expression. Consideration of fragility vanished quickly under that weight; she leaned into his lap, arms wound fierce around his neck. It would not be terribly surprising to feel him flinch, and while it would hurt to recognise, she could hardly blame him either. It was a selfish act of possession more than an attempt at comfort. Because he was alive. Because maybe these were crossroads, whatever he chose. Tomorrow was never a certainty after all.

Natalie’s face pressed into the crook of his neck. A silent breath. Two. Remembering what home had ever felt like, and ready to let it go again when it inevitably slipped through her fingers like sand.

Her forehead lifted to touch his. “I won’t do this without you.” She repurposed his own words with steel; staring defiance into the void. It would not claim him whole while she had breath. That was the only thing she could promise, for there were not enough pieces left to fix. Though if she cut herself to shreds in the attempt, so be it.

There was little sentimental about her when she pulled back enough to meet his eye. “Jessika Thrice was on the verge of ceding Texas to the Custody, and I’m certain Amengual was among those vying for control of the new Dominance. He won’t go to ground long, I think. Not with those stakes. And if he does?” She’d had plenty of time to think this through. “The guy you were seeing in Moscow; Alvis accused him of being Atharim. They’d be interested in Amengual’s tech. They must have resources we could use to find him.”

Dangerous and foolish, both, though only if the Atharim discovered Amengual before they did. She gave the suggestion a moment to permeate, but was not finished. The last words were quieter; certain, but aware that the impact might erode what remained of his composure. "Jay, what would she want you to do?"

[Jay Carpenter]

His ass was glued to the seat. Good thing too. If it wasn’t for the chair holding him up, it would have been a hard fall to his knees. She spoke of escape. And fuck but he wanted to slip away. Take that hand she offered – if she was offering it – slip between the shadows and hide the rest of their long lives in guiltless abandon. Guilt was the noose he’d hang himself on someday. Another good reason to be glued to the chair: kicking it out from underneath would leave only two feet to dangle in the wind. So, he grit his teeth and listened to her words like they may breathe the secrets to survival. Because he wanted to survive. Right?

She was light as a cat curled up. He thought his heart would stop when she poured wounding words upon his neck. The bare skin was uncomfortably vulnerable, and he had the near overwhelming desire to turn his collar upright even as much as he wanted to yank it over his head completely and chuck it across the room.

His arms wrapped her waist without realizing it, but palms that spilled innocent blood weren’t crushing. His shoulders knotted to rocks. The barest turn of his neck tilted to her pressure. Hope welled and ideas formed. Bad ones. By the time Natalie’s whispers warmed both their lips, he was hopelessly buried.

If he flinched, it was only to tense his posture. To fight instinct. But Jay was as good a fighter as he was a liar. Natalie said so herself: he was a shit liar. Especially when the fight was against himself. Goddammit.

He was staring into her eyes, not even listening a little bit. Thrice and Texas. Custody and Atharim. They skimmed like rocks on still water. It would be a terrible idea. To pick her up. To feel that warmth pressed to his neck again. Palm pressed to palm. Sinking. Falling until buried by nothing but heat and hunger. His stomach turned to knots just thinking about it. At least between flashes of another face, illuminated by flickers of lightning from another life. Or what felt like it. Would be far better than counting flowers. Not that she was a distraction. She was far more. She was something else. Something else stirring… He squinted, grasping at focus. She was taken by something else. Something far remembered. Like living in exile. He frowned. But something familiar. The tension in his posture changed. She may not even notice it. He barely did himself. Except –

And then she mentioned him. Memories flashed. Memories that were his own, but not. Of all the emotions flickering his face, shame wasn’t among them. What he’d done with Anna Marie he’d carry like a ballast the rest of his life. Nox, on the other hand, was a friend. A soldier. A brother. Someone who understood the life they led. One of violence and blood, of screams and panic. Of going out night after night seeking more of the same. Not because they were heroes. But because they were warriors. Maybe – fuck, maybe because walked with a darker shadow than most.

Followed quickly by references to her. He could still feel the warmth in skin fading to lifelessness. Eyes empty and judging. A girl of salvation when she should have been saved. His own blues squeezed tight, unable to bear the sight of another human who shared the same final memories as he, because in Natalie’s eyes he saw reflections of another forever gone. Natalie was the older sister never known. The sibling deserved.

Did she see the horror stripping the bones from his flesh? The blood dripping from his face? Because she held the knife and words meant for comfort delivered the scalpels of torture. Which said a lot from a guy who was actually tortured. Placaso was easier to bear. Easier to endure. But why? Didn’t matter, he supposed.

The vulnerability of the moment of course meant it was the perfect opportunity for the self-imposed prison around his soul to crumble to ruins. He gasped before knowing what was happening. Realizing what he’d sensed all along without knowing it. The power burned like the sun. What blood was lost before flushed bright as that power denied. What grip before was gentle, now dug deep. Crushing.  
“It’s back,” he whispered, trying to withstand being pulled asunder.

His hands ached, and he realized with newfound fear that he may have hurt Natalie as he withstood the storm. Shaking, he tried to escape her perimeter. But even fear burned away. Guilt was forgotten.

He was walking the room, traversing dangerous footholds, bending it to his will, without realizing how he came to to his feet. Flower petals curled to cinders. Blankets crumbled to ash. He threw his hands to his hair, gripping the strands tight as the very walls seemed to crumble. Nothing remained except that blinding power that upon its horrible swarm, would devour everything until not even a shell of its host remained. It was fucking amazing.

He didn’t know how long it took. But it wasn’t the look of a conquering hero that informed more delicate company the news of triumph. The power was finally tamed. A wild horse broken by a master’s dominance. Jay was a different man – yet fully the same – when it was released from his grasp. Strength flowed limbs previously limp. Purpose planted him king of the hotel room.

He grinned, but it was a grin through a storm conquered.
“It’s back.” said breathlessly.

He breathed easier now. He swallowed nervously, none the less, studying the flesh and blood girl that breathed life to him. 
”Did I hurt you?” he wanted to be near her more than anything, but the ebbs and flows of storm surges were unpredictable. He knew that about himself now. The next time she may be truly wounded. He couldn’t bear another loss, another pair of eyes wounded. That was another reason Nox was a welcomed companion. His emotions were distant. Mutually understood. There were no wounds to inflict upon passing company. Even Axel’s death was not so horrible a witness. Though he would close the lids with esteemed hands to ensure a long rest after a lifetime of conflict. Axel, Nox, any of them, they weren’t shadows to haunt Jay’s conscious.

But Natalie was something else. He may run to the ends of the earth and those pale eyes would haunt his every step. Haunt him worse than the ghosts of sisters, brothers, friends and family.

Power or no power, he couldn’t do this without her either. Maybe he would hurt her. But he wouldn’t be timid about it either. Taking her hands was easy, and if he’d hurt them before, it was an easy thumb he rubbed across her knuckles now. “I won’t do this without you either,” he said, willing to sink into her arms if she would have him.

[Natalie Grey]

Natalie watched quietly as the thoughts thundered a storm behind his eyes. They closed when she pressed too deep, but she found no fault in it. Her comfort was a sharp thing, blinding in darkness, both unforgiving and unapologetic, yet the weight of his hands around her waist kept her captured when he might easily have urged her away. She was in no great hurry to vacate. Grief prowled too close to call it peace, but it had its own rhythm nonetheless; a bubble within which an entire world was encapsulated. Everything that mattered in this moment anyway. 

The sudden gasp caught her off guard. Jay’s grip tightened like he clawed a cliff-edge -- bruising deep, and enough to spring sharp tears to her eyes. A reflexive touch of power only heightened the pain, her own hand bracing his like she might pluck it free, but it was the battle of his expression that claimed her attention. She didn’t truly know what Orion had done to him, and she feared the jaws of loss more than the dig of his fingers. For a moment she really was afraid of what might be happening.

It’s back.

Jay shifted and she slid free even as he fought blindly for the space. A pinched gaze tracked his movements, and a step took her back to brace the desk. Fear burned her throat like the coiling smoke of a house fire, smothering her composure with a touch of something primal. She wasn’t stupid, and she had no intention of being ripped apart like a leaf in a tornado, but neither did she run -- even in those brief moments before she began to understand. The wallpaper charred and curled and fell in black ash. Her heart hammered in the cage of her chest at that. She wanted to close her eyes against the memory of a burning room and her trapped within it, but didn’t, caught instead in powerless witness.

The surge passed into silence, but it was the curl of Jay's grin that finally loosened the knots in her muscles. She stared a moment longer, expression as blank as snow. Something like a half remembered dream beat its black wings at the edge of her consciousness. At the casino she remembered telling him what it felt like for her, among a flurry of other things a sobre tongue might more wisely have kept to herself. If he’d replied in kind she did not remember it; had never truly had cause to consider that it might even be different. She realised she bore witness to the chasm between their experience now, and it was like staring into the jaws of an abyss. Utterly unknowable, a war fought and vanquished. And over, for now.

Her side throbbed. The desk bore her weight. 

“Which time?” A brow rose, but there was a sly tease to the way she said it. Forgiveness was not among her virtues, and she had a cynic’s armour. But apology was not something she sought from him. Despite the dichotomy of her porcelain appearance, there was little truly fragile about Natalie. It always chafed to be seen as such; worse when it isolated her to a pedestal, and often it did. The cut of her humour now threw suspicion on the direction this was headed. Even so, she chose to linger on the sudden sun of his expression more than the fading pain of frayed control, or how it might distance him. It shouldn’t have that power over her, but it wasn't the first time the hint of his smile had pulled her in directions her feet were unwilling to go. The gift still suffused her blood, and maybe it was only that casting new light on a familiar face. 

The truth was Natalie fully expected him to withdraw. The moves of this dance were well versed, and she knew its melody by heart. When he drew close again instead, surprise flickered her expression before self-awareness attempted to shield it from her expression. The sweep of his thumb against her knuckles ghosted a shiver that parted her lips, his words striking somewhere so deep even she didn’t follow the trail of it. She was wary of the feelings stirred in its wake, but these were waters still enough to lull the sting of repercussion from mind. Her fingers laced his and departed. Palm soft on palm, a touch never far. The power heightened sensation in a way she’d never much considered before. It felt like something brand new. It felt like something ancient.

This power could shred a man’s soul or knit his flesh before death’s scythe could finish the cut; it could raise a monument from the bones of the earth or wipe it from existence. It didn’t seem such a wide leap to speculate how it might bridge two distances like folded paper; open a window to somewhere else. Or a door. But if it were even possible, Natalie did not know how to do it. The gift still hummed her skin electric, but it was only a spell of words she painted in its stead. “There’s a peninsula on the western coast of Sierra Leone,” she said. The silver of her voice fell low, breathy with the tease of innocent touch; beckoning a closer ear. His body was maddeningly close, and caution was by now a lonely pennant in the wind. The play of her hands drew him into a closer welcome, slow and deliberate. “Tourists don’t know about it. White sands span untouched. The clearest waters.”

Maybe he wasn’t even listening; she could never tell when he looked at her like that. But she courted his attention nonetheless, ensnaring herself at the same time in this foolish dream, until she wasn’t sure there was any breath left in her lungs for the waiting. “It’s warm, Jay. Even by moonlight. Just melts into the skin.” A tease lit the depths of her eyes, and her palm traced a path low beneath his shirt, like the touch of those promised waves. Hot skin flared, making cinders of remaining control. A different escape. The last words whispered against his lips. “That’s where I’ll take you, one day.”

[Jay Carpenter]

The solitude of sand. He could practically feel his feet sinking into soft mounds. The licks of sleepy water. He could hear the ebb and flow of a mellow surf. It would be so easy. To carry her through breakwaters and into the stillness of tamer seas. Her hair would pool on the surface, inking shadowy tendrils all around. White light dimly glowing on shadowy shoulders. 

The unabashed teasing at his waist lifted a very weak resolve. Broke very flimsy armor. Sand. Her.
”I can’t wait.”
On the same breath, his lips found hers as if the last time never ended. Delicacy was abandoned in Moscow. She proved beyond that. Honor died yesterday. Or so he told himself since perceptions of permission were still noted. Fingers that pulled her harder were tempered from hurting her even more. Which time? He heard it. Would he hurt her again? He’d fall on his own sword to stop himself, but shit, he was such an idiot. 

Intensity scrawled hands over tender flesh. The peace they both sought was a distant dream while feverish storms rumbled the heart. Chains crumbled to sand.

[Natalie Grey]

From the precipice of her own defenses, Natalie fell willingly into the illusion; a world in which one day seemed more like possibility than dream, even if she only believed it for this moment. Moon-drenched skin and the vigil of a thousand silent stars proved a potent elixir. Tomorrow it might feel like foolishness, but today it was the centre of her universe. She treated it as such. 

Caught in the rush of wanting and being wanted she desired nothing of temperance. He tasted as tangible as the escape haunting every vision she ever had of the future, and she found herself smiling around his kiss like she was caught somewhere timeless. Such fleeting insights into her true emotions were rare, though she barely noticed it at the time. Heat trailed from the pull of his hands. Maybe he was still thinking about where the bruises lay, but she wasn’t. He’d made himself a forbidden thing, or circumstance had. She didn’t believe in kismet anyway. And fortunately she was no saint.

She tugged the shirt up and over his head. Her fingers traced the new web of his scars like tenderness might one day fight to layer new memory over their infliction. Not to erase or rewrite, but to reclaim. The past would always exist. Light, he was warm. Alive, despite everything, and the sear of his skin proved an intoxicating distraction to getting him out of his clothes. The play of his hands in turn made her breathless, mounting an avalanche of urgency. Power still flushed her through, and maybe that was cheating, but if he noticed it was only a devil’s smirk she offered in explanation.

Amid pleasant distraction she led him backwards. The bed made a disconcerting sound before she distantly recalled the ruin of the room, but since neither of them fell straight through she only pulled him closer.