Page 50 of The Associate
Gael’s mouth twitched, a phantom of a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “You say that like I ever stopped.”
A grunt from the other end. “Publishing’s cutthroat, but law is fucking inhumane. You breathing over there or just hissing at interns until they catch fire?”
“Didn’t have to,” Gael replied, his tone dry as bone. “One of them spontaneously combusted.”
Landen’s chuckle was short, genuine. Then it faded. A pause, weighted. “...You alright, though? You sound off.”
Gael’s gaze drifted back to the window, to the now-discarded reflection. He let the silence stretch for a beat too long. “Just a long week.”
“It’s Tuesday,” Landen countered.
“Your point?”
Another pause. He could practically hear Landen weighing it. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, the humor dialed back to something more serious. “Nothing. Just… don’t go full crypt-keeper on me, alright? If I have to stage a wellness check, I’m sending someone annoyingly cheerful.”
“I’d rather die,” Gael said, the words flat and utterly sincere.
“Noted.” Landen’s sigh was audible. “Call me if you need a talk. Or a drink. Or both.”
Gael’s fingers tightened minutely around the phone. “Goodbye, Landen.”
A softer exhale. Landen knew a dismissal when he heard one. “Later, G.”
The line went dead with a soft click.
Gael stood holding the phone for a long moment before slowly returning it to its cradle. He returned to the window.
He stared at the waking city, at the spreading stain of daylight on the concrete and glass. But he didn’t see it.
He only saw a dark, trembling shape in an elevator. He felt the ghost of a pulse under his thumb. He heard a whimper that sounded like coming home.
∞∞∞
Samuel
The cold was what woke him.
Samuel opened his eyes to darkness, and for one heart-stopping second, he didn’t know where he was. The walls were close, pressing in. A faint, woody smell. Not mildew. Cedar. His own sharp gasp echoed in the confined space.
The closet. He was curled on the floor of his closet.
Memory returned in a sickening slide: the nightmare, the tears, the frantic scramble for a hiding place, the scripture chanted until exhaustion claimed him. A fresh wave of shame, hot and acidic, burned through the residual chill.
He was a twenty-six-year-old man, cowering among his hung suits like a terrified child.
He uncurled, his body protesting. Every movement was stiff.. He stood on unsteady legs, ignoring the discarded t-shirt on the floor; a testament to last night’s panic.
The morning passed in a silent, hollow ritual. A bath so hot it scalded his skin pink, the steam doing nothing to warm the ice in his core. He dressed automatically, selecting a suit of charcoal grey, a white shirt, a tie. Armor. Each button, each fold, was a tiny act of reconstruction, an attempt to assemble the person he was supposed to be over the trembling creature he was.
In the bathroom mirror, under the harsh fluorescent light, he studied his reflection. Pale. Shadows like bruises under his eyes.
His gaze, inevitably, dropped. To his neck.
He turned his head slightly, exposing the column of his throat, the vulnerable dip where his collarbones met, the sensitive nape. The skin was unmarked. Pale. Clean.
But he couldfeelit.
The memory of the touch was a brand beneath the surface.
