As she heads into the Complex, she spots Wren. Viola runs to catch up to him, loops his arm in hers and begins to drag him into the Complex.
Wren takes control, because this is his world after all. He leads her to the very back of the Complex, to the barbed wire fence. There, he pulls himself free from her grip. As he snaps his fingers, she is already pulling out a cigarette.
"How do you cope?" Viola asks, as she lights the cigarette and passes it to him.
He takes a hit and then looks at her. Viola's face, though delicate and pristine, always has wide, emotionless eyes. "With?"
Viola's eyes flicker down to his hands. Wren follows her, looking down to notice that his free hand is shaking. The skin on it is peeling off and blood has crusted on it, from his repeated gnawing on his hands.
"You know, my hands might shake, but it doesn't make me an addict," Wren tells her. "I am an addict, unrelated. Why are you acting like it's some big secret?"
It unsettles her stomach, churns it inside out, how casual he is being. "I didn't ask if you were an addict."
Right, he remembers. He asks her how he copes with it. "What? Like, what prevents me from slitting my wrists every night? I don't know. Maybe because I failed once."
It frustrates Viola that she can't have a conversation about herself. She's the one who needs to apologize or to comfort. She is the one who gives, never the one who takes. Rinn needs comforting, and then Pluto has her head so far up her own ass that it's beginning to disintegrate from the high alcohol content of her stomach. Now, Wren is being a jerk.
"Stop sharing everything with everyone like what you say isn't upsetting," she snaps.
Wren shrugs. It isn't the first time someone has gotten mad at him for speaking his truth, just the first time someone believed him and was still angry. "Well, what do you fucking want me to say, Vi? That I cured myself by going clean here? Once you're an addict, your always an addict. What advice do you want me to give you? I'm out here, barely alive, while you barely seem to give a damn about sobriety."
"It's hard," Viola counters, her face turning red. More than she hates his words, she hates how calm his tone is. Every sentence breathed out, lighter than the smoke from his cigarette.
"Well damn, anything worthwhile is hard," Wren sighs. He imagines Reagan, on the park bench, reading a book by an author that Wren barely knows. "Doesn't mean you get to scare people away instead of trying to help them."
~~~
Pluto, while her roommates are out grabbing guns, grabs all of the alcohol in the apartment. Their collection, having taken several months to amass, sits in a garbage bag on the floor as Pluto smokes the last of their weed. Whatever is left, she washes down the sink.
Carefully, she brings the liquor down to the elevator, listening to the glasses clink in the most dissonant orchestra she has ever heard. The liquid sloshes in each bottle as the elevator moves down. Pluto barely manages to sneak around to the back of the building without being seen by her roommates.
There, she takes the first bottle. Winding it up in her hand, she grabs it and chucks it against the ground. It bounces off the snow, rolling over and over a few feet. Pluto scurries over, snatches it, and smashes it once more.
The glass sprinkles across the ground. Thankfully, she is close to the fence, which no one comes near since the Clears began to act up.
Then, she chucks the next bottle and the next. The glass explodes in bursts, splashing off the ground, while the liquid scatters. All of the shards and droplets reflect off the white snow falling to the ground. She cuts her hand but doesn't care. With each throw, she flinches backwards and covers her eyes to keep herself safe.
Once that is done, she goes back up, onto the second floor. Pluto is done pouting and partying. She is done being a stuck-up Blue.
~~~
"Harper isn't back," Reagan's throat is dry, from running back here once Wren disappeared, and then running around the Complex looking for Harper. He bursts into Noah's room, the only person he knows that is a Red and isn't losing their mind.
"How long?" Noah asks.
"He's been gone since before I left," Reagan continues. He looks up and looks at Noah's other roommates.
Quickly, Noah pulls himself off of his bunk and rushes out the room with Reagan. The two of them stand in the hallway, as Reagan struggles to breathe.
Noah takes Reagan's hands in his. "He's probably fine. He probably lost track of time at the bookstore."
No, that's impossible, Reagan decides. His legs give out beneath him, and then he is curled in a ball on the ground, only able to shake. Harper isn't the kind of man who loses track of time. Harper's heart is so perfect that it beats for every second that passes. If he isn't back, then that means something has happened. Did somebody manage to get their hands on a gun? What if it was those weird guys in the forest who seemed to know Edison? What if-
"You're having a panic attack," Noah says. He plays an invisible guitar with one hand, and holds Reagan with the other. "What can I do to help? Do you like breathing exercises?"
Yes, yes Reagan likes breathing. While his body becomes a marionette, and Reagan an armature puppeteer, he tries his best to nod his head. From there he does his best to match Noah's breathing. It's jagged, and uneven, but that's Noah.
"Are you okay?" Noah asks.
No, Reagan shakes his head no. He is sure that he is not okay.
"I want to help you, but I don't know how."
That sentence is enough to buckle Reagan's knees. Reagan, who has always felt like an outsider. Reagan, who has never been close to Noah, never really known him well enough to like him, never really known him well enough to leave shivers down his spine. Never enough to breathe in sync. And yet, Noah is putting up with this... this part of Reagan that is unlovable. The part which constantly fears death, to the point of delusion.
Reagan is sure that he is going crazy. He doesn't want to drag Noah along for the ride. Reagan doesn't consider that it is Noah's choice to follow, because Reagan only knows how to follow.
Noah knows how to run.
"How about I bring us back to Harper's room, and we wait an hour, until we are all supposed to meet up?" Noah asks, brushing a loose strand of hair out of Reagan's eyes. The gesture is gentle, a southern warmth that Reagan finds strange. All of this is strange.
Reagan nods. "Okay."
~~~
Rinn sits under a tree, hoping to see any Clears pass by. Her hands buzz in her pockets. The cold has been getting to her. Really getting to her. A strand of hair falls in her face that she does not dare touch. After all, whenever she runs a hand through her hair, it leaves with some of her blonde locks.
She hears a sob at the door and looks up. Three Red girls, wearing nothing but their underwear, coming stumbling through the gates.
Just beyond them, she sees Edison.
Rinn is up and running quickly. She rushes towards the gate, ducking behind the women, to look for him.
He is gone.
She goes to step out of the gates but hears the girl's crying behind her. So, she turns around. While she takes off her jacket, she moves around in front of them.
"Here," she tells them. As she looks over her shoulder, she tries to catch one last glimpse of him, to prove that she isn't hallucinating. After a peek, she turns back to the women. "I have an extra shirt and pair of pants. Is there anything else I can get to help you?"
~~~
As they walk, Jasmine and Corbin see Harper, shrugging out of his jacket. Just as Jasmine begins to sprint, Corbin wraps his arms around her waist and rips her backwards.
"We need a plan," he hisses.
Jasmine watches as Harper takes off his sweater and drops it in the bag. As he pulls up his shirt, revealing his ribs hidden below.
"It's fucking snowing," Jasmine says, looking up at the air. Indeed, it is snowing.
Corbin sighs, and drops her. He watches as she sprints off towards Harper, and, less than begrudgingly, follows after.
They reach them, just before Harper takes off his pants. Together, the two newcomers stare at them.
"Ooh, the Blues have come to play!" The boy laughs. Jasmine carefully keeps her wrist tucked in the sleeve of her coat. She recognizes him from the day the Clears attacked them all., but it seems that he doesn't recognize her.
"What are you doing?" she asks, her eyes flying between the Clears. "Give back his stuff."
"Or what?"
"Or we will beat you senseless," Corbin cuts in.
Jasmine bites her lip. She looks over at Harper, shivering, and quickly mouths sorry, so that the others don't notice. Then, she nudges, Corbin.
Corbin rolls his eyes but throws Harper his coat.
"It's okay," Harper says, but he still accepts the gift. He pulls the jacket over his pale, goose-bitten arms. He tries to take a step away but watches as the boy with the wooden stake steps closer. Rather than move, he swallows. "I've got this."
"No," Jasmine cuts him off. She steps in between the group, her face inches from the other man's face. "I can tap you stuff, if you'd like. Leave the Red alone."
Harper doesn't like to be called a Red. If Jasmine wasn't like a Red too, he might pulse with anger. He puts a hand on her shoulder, and she shrugs him off. Though he shakes his head back and forth, he doesn't step between them.
"Don't do this," Corbin is shocked by the venom in Harper's mouth. It yellows Harper's teeth and thins out his body.
She shushes him. She shushes him. If Corbin weren't staring down the wooden spike, he might laugh. Harper, on the other hand, feels his cheeks burn with cold and with bitterness and with the poison filling him.
"Let the lady do as she pleases," the woman asks who is standing in the centre. She tries to smile, but really she grimaces. She looks to the man with the weapon and waits for him to agree.
"You sure, Jaz?" Corbin asks.
Harper's head whips around, his eyes narrowing in on Corbin. After every time Harper backed Corbin, how could he leave him to hang?
After she swallows, she speaks. "Yes."
"Well let's go then," the man breathes.
Jasmine walks slowly off with them. She doesn't dare cast a glance over at the two boys behind her. She knows that they are undoubtedly creating a plan to rescue her, but she needs to get herself out of this pickle.
Once Jasmine and the Clears have disappeared, Harper whips his head around to face Corbin. "What the fuck was that? Why would you let her go? They are going to kill her when they find out that she is a Red!"
"She makes her own decisions," Corbin has to believe that. Otherwise, he has signed off Jasmine to her death. It frustrates him to no end, but he couldn't stand to see Harper, shirtless, shivering in the cold. If they had just waited, they could've gotten the jump on the Clears and pummeled them to death.
"She makes shitty decisions," Harper corrects, grabbing Corbin when Corbin looks away. There are tears in Harper's eyes. He can feel himself panicking. "Why weren't you there for me? I'm always there for you!"
"I know," Corbin scratches the back of his neck. He feels his arm yanked again as he is pulled down to Harper.
"I can't believe you. I thought you were good. I saw how you laid that Clear girl to rest in the park. I thought I could trust you."
"You can," Corbin feels his chest tighten as he watches Harper's face burn bright red, his black hair becoming knotted as Harper runs a hand through it.
Fuck it.
Corbin grabs Harper's chin and pulls his face close to his. Their lips almost touching. Corbin's hazel eyes trail over Harper's face. "Calm down."
~~~~~
Alright. This is exciting. That is basically all. Also, do you like the new covers more, or the old ones? I figured I'd take five minutes to try something new, and I like how they turned out.
Also, some of you mutuals might be hearing from me in the next few days (lol, it probably won't be a few weeks if we are honest) about a plan that I want your input on. Hopefully, it should go well.
Also, only fifteen chapters left! Ahh!