Silver Stilettos

25 | cruel intentions

The space between my last word and the time it took Matt to respond loomed in front of me, wide and gaping, like the jagged silver teeth of an undone zipper.

I was conscious of my own breathing, the soft, shallow pants that seemed so slow and out of sync with the pattering beats of my heart. The useless organ thrummed inside me, beating its agony against my chest, like a spray of rain pelting against tin.

I wished, desperately wished, in those seconds that I had taken Matt into my confidence from the moment Reed had come to me, knife in hand, Trojan horse eyes and off-kilter smile.

I wished I had been a better friend.

"Forget it," said Matt. He sounded defeated. Something hit against the side of the door. His shoulder, maybe.

"Matt?"

"Look," he said, almost shouting the word. "I get it. You don't have to...baby me. Or humor me. If you don't want to be friends anymore, you could have just said so."

"No, Matt, that's not what—" I was forced to stop. Caroline had steadied her grip on the knife and had repositioned it in a subtle way.

I swallowed. I had to let him go.

"Good girl," murmured Caroline after Matt's steps faded into the music still blaring downstairs.

I was conscious of everyone's eyes on me, including the one person who I didn't want to see: Reed. I found myself avoiding his gaze as Caroline lowered the still-bloody knife from my throat. I had forgotten, for a moment, that Baron was dead.

In an instant, it all came crashing back. I was a speck in the universe's grand tapestry, just a thread pulled raw, coming undone faster and faster until all that was left was an exposed strip of skin that didn't even feel like it belonged to me.

Maybe it made me a bad person, but I could feel no pity for Caroline. I shoved myself away from her, and was welcomed into Dom and Fen's embrace. "It's okay," whispered Fenris. "You tried."

A shadow fell in front of me, and reluctantly, I pulled my gaze up to look into Reed's eyes. He squinted down at us, eyes focused on the parts of my body that were brushing against Fen, the parts that Dom had wrapped her arm around.

I was sandwiched between the couple, but even in Dom's protective half-hug, I felt more like a human shield. Not because she was wielding me that way, but because I knew I was our only hope. Dom was reckless. She would try and fight and get herself killed, and get them killed with her.

"Mayuri," he began to say, reaching a hand out as if to touch me, but then stopping himself with a sharp breath.

Lenox sniffled, the syrupy, viscous sound of mucus slurping noisily in her throat. No one spoke. Even Caroline looked a little lost, but when she caught me looking at her, her face twitched into a sneering mask.

"We have to deal with this," she said, and for some reason, she addressed the words to me.

"You're just going to kill us, anyway," said Dom, her voice like Fourth of July fireworks. Her face blazed with anger. "Might as well try to get the upper hand. Four of us against two of you?" She laughed, a brittle, racking thing that was more like a sob. "I like those odds."

But we all knew that Lenox was in no fit state to do anything other than whimper. She'd crawled from the floor to the bed, crumpled on the other side of Fenris, and buried her head between her knees. Only the top of her head was visible, and as if she knew I was thinking about her, she slowly tilted her face up, revealing her dirty face, makeup blurred and dripping from wet tear tracks.