“I might say the same of you,” Fell commented.
“Thank you,” I replied.
“Might.”
I winced. I’d walked into that.
“If it helps,” Tiff spoke up for the first time since we’d walked into the apartment. “I respect you, and I like you too.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Yeah,” Alexis said. “I respect and like you too. Let’s keep it that way?”
“Please,” I said. I turned to address the room. “Alright. Let’s go! Get your stuff!”
I grabbed three mirror-shards off the wall, pocketed them, then got the goblin-sword and imp-book. The imp-book went in my backpack, along with the bottle and a few of the other stuff.
Leave the creepy Blake-doppelganger alone.
Don’t think too hard about why it bothers you so much.
Fell walked through my apartment with boots on, still wet from being outside, not long ago. He collected the wood from the destroyed chair, using the pieces to fill a trash can, deposited hammer, scissors and nails within, then left the apartment with the can under his arm, not even waiting for us.
We were still only a few steps behind him.
The elevators were out of order, so we used the stairs. Tough for me, but doable.
I did feel better, having Alexis and Ty close. I felt stronger, I was bouncing back… it still sucked, but it could have sucked more. I could be faceplanting like I had outside the factory.
Better or not, I still needed to stop partway down.
Rose appeared in the reflection of the door.
I turned to Ty, who was helping to support me and make sure I didn’t fall down.
“Go ahead,” I told him.
“You sure?”
“Need a private word with Rose, I’ll be right out.”
He nodded.
“You too, Evan.”
“I can’t fly that far away.”
“I know. Just… out of earshot, please.”
“‘Kay.”
A flutter, and Evan was gone. Sometimes he flew so gracefully, and then there were times like this, where he’d start flying, then flutter violently to reorient himself before he could hit a wall, fly a bit until he was out of sight, below us, followed by another audible flutter.
“You okay?” I asked Rose.
“Not really.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“I need actions, not words. I’m sorry too, but I need reparations.”
“What do you need? I freed you. That has to count for something.”
“I was only caught because of you. I’ve seen you go out of your way to try to balance the scales with your friends, with the bystander that gave you a ride to Jacob’s Bell. Always fair.”
“Yeah.”
“Why does it feel like you and I aren’t balanced? Like I’m the only person you’re not trying to balance the scales with?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Yeah. I don’t know either. You’re not denying it seems that way?”
“No, I guess not.”
“Well, keep it in mind, maybe. Weigh it in your head, and if and when you feel you’re sorry enough to act on it, that’d be cool.”
I nodded.
“You should go. It’s almost time, and you don’t want to be near the apartment when this contest starts.”
I nodded. “Are we okay? As a unit? A pair?”
“No. Third time’s a charm, remember? This is the third major time you’ve undercut me when I was helpless to fight back, and it’s making it really hard for us to be allies, Blake.”
“But we’re allies?”
“Yeah. I really don’t want to be enemies.”
“Do you think that’s in the cards?”
“I worry that it has been from the start.”
“We did pretty damn good going up against the abstract demon. We didn’t win, but, I mean, fuck me, we could have done a whole lot worse.”
“Yeah.”
“Why can’t we work together like that again?”
“We can try.”
So many noncommittal answers.
“Communicate with me,” I said, my voice low. “There’s no way we can fix this if you’re leaving stuff out. I’ve… I know I’ve maybe shortchanged you here and there. And it’s not equitable, but I’ve consistently tried to be…”
I grasped for a word.
Honest would be pushing it.
“…Straightforward. To act in our mutual interests,” I said.
“Sure,” Rose said, with a tone that was unreadable.
“You’re not being straightforward. What aren’t you telling me?”
“It’s… complicated.”
“What is?”
“Conquest. While he had me, he made me tell him everything I didn’t want him to know.”
“You told him about the books.”
“Yes. And when he ordered me to, I brought them to him. He would have made me summon something.”
“The contest here stopped him, right? You got the books back?”
“I did, but this only stalled him. If he wins, he gets you, and he gets access to the books all the same.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“Blake, there was more. I told him other things.”
“Blake!” A shout from further down the stairs.
“Trouble?” I called down.
“No. But don’t take too long!”
I started to head down the stairs. I grabbed a mirror from my pocket and held it for Rose.
I was down half a flight before Rose spoke again.
“I told him your weaknesses.”
Balls, balls, balls.
“You explained how I don’t like physical contact.”
“I explained a lot of things, Blake.”
“My patterns? Habits? Mindset?”
“Blake,” Rose said.
“What did you tell him?” I asked.
“I’d explain, but I’m really, really worried that if I brought it up here, you’d either never forgive me, or it’d affect your mind and emotions, and fuck you up in this thing that’s happening right now.”
“What did you tell him!?”
My voice rang through the stairwell, echoing off the walls.
“I- I speculated. I told him things that I wasn’t sure on, about why you were the way you were, on a lot of levels. The fact that you don’t like being touched was a part of it.”
There they were. The dark, ugly emotions, settled in the pit of my stomach.
The betrayal was a new one, separate.
I didn’t blame Rose for telling Conquest.
Or maybe I did. Maybe I would be lying if I’d said I didn’t blame her out loud.
But I didn’t blame her that much. I couldn’t say until I experienced it for myself, but a part of me wondered if she could have resisted more. And I knew that was horribly unfair.
No, it was that she hadn’t been upfront about it. That she’d felt like she couldn’t tell me.
That was the part that really got to me. That she could very well have let me walk into this without my eyes open, for Conquest to hit me with some custom-made flavor of fuckery, all of the horror and madness that an incarnation of Conquest could bring to bear, designed specifically for me.
I was a flawed person. I knew it. Had someone asked before all this started, I would have admitted it. But one of the places I felt most flawed, one of the least comfortable things for me to admit, was just how weak I was at my core. Some people could turn to the ugly incidents in their past and find a kind of strength there. An anger to drive them forward.