Page 36 of Mischief

Marit at a party. A buyer taking an interest. My baby sister with her flat eyes, sixteen and photographing ‘well’, and me a thousand miles away, forbidden from the one woman who's the target, distrusted by the only men strong enough to end this, carrying it all alone in a bedroom they'd throw me out of if they knew.

Every road still ends in the same place.

Only, I can't see it yet.

* * *

I stay strong for nearly a week.

Six days of not going to her.

Days of hearing her name in other men's mouths, at the bar, in the lot, Tindra this and Tindra that, and every time it hits me like a punch to the gut.

She's back at the shop, somebody says. Throwing herself into work like a woman with something to prove.

Aren, Runes and Fern’s son, says that she won’t talk to her father.

Something ugly and hopeful twists in me at that, because it means she's still angry, still fighting, even if she's not fighting for me anymore.

I tell myself staying away is the one gift I've got left to give her.

I tell myself the ruling keeps me breathing, and a breathing man twenty feet away is worth more to her than a dead one.

I tell myself a lot of things in the middle of the night, staring at that water stain.

None of them stop my heart from cracking straight down the center, one hairline at a time, every hour I don't reach for her.

* * *

She comes to me on the seventh day.

It's late, past two in the morning, the clubhouse gone dark and mostly empty, and I'm in the kitchen because I couldn't sleep and a man's allowed to get a glass of water even when he's a ghost.

The door swings open behind me and I know it's her before I turn around.

I know her in the dark now.

The sound of her breathing.

The way the whole room seems to lean toward her when she walks in.

"So," she says, low and shaking with something that isn't fear. "You're really not going to speak to me?"

I grip the edge of the counter and I don't turn around.

"Tindra. You can't be in here."

"I’m part of this club as much as you are, prospect. Maybe even more." She comes closer, her bare feet silent on the tile. "I've watched you for a week. Watched you keep your eyes on the floor every time I walk in a room. Watched you clear tables three feet from me like I'm a stranger." Her voice cracks and she shoves right through the crack. "Days, Bodul. I love you, and you haven't looked at me once. Notonce."

"You know why."

"Say it to my face, then. Turn around and say it."

I turn around.

Gods, she's wrecked.

Her eyes are red-rimmed and swollen from a week of crying she'd never admit to, her jaw set hard, her whole body vibrating with a fury that's only heartbreak wearing armor.