The silence that followed the crash of the door was worse than the shouting. Silas didn't roar. He didn't charge in like a hero in some shitty movie. He just stood there, his large hands trembling at his sides, his eyes fixed on the spot where Julian's mouth had been on mine.
He looked... old. Tired. Like a man who had finally realized that the world he tried to protect was already rotten.
"Silas, wait!" I screamed, shoving Julian back with everything I had. "He just—he moved, I didn't—"
Silas didn't even look at me. He just stepped back into the hallway, his boots heavy and slow on the floor. He looked at Julian, a ghost of a nod as if confirming a death sentence, and then he turned his back on us.
"Silas!" I bolted for the doorway, my heart screaming. I didn't care about being cool. I didn't care about my 'nightmare' reputation. I just needed him to not leave thinking I was part of this sick game.
I didn't make it two steps.
A hand caught my upper arm, the grip so tight it felt like the bone might snap. Julian yanked me back into the room, his strength startlingly fast.
"Let him go, Alina," Julian panted, his voice high and vibrating with that manic energy. "He's seen enough. He knows exactly what you are now."
"Let. Me. Go," I hissed, my vision tunneling.
"You're staying here," Julian said, his face inches from mine. He looked like he was vibrating. "You wanted a monster, remember? You wanted a nightmare? Well, look at me. I'm the only one left."
I didn't think. I didn't plan it. My body acted on pure, unfiltered instinct.
My right hand flew up, my palm connecting with Julian's cheek in a crack that sounded like a gunshot in the tiny apartment. It was a hard, stinging blow, the kind that leaves a white welt before the blood rushes in to turn it purple.
Julian's head snapped to the side.
I expected him to hit me back. I expected him to roar in anger. But he just stood there, his breath hitching in a sharp, jagged rhythm. Slowly, he turned his head back to look at me.
His eyes weren't angry. They were black, his pupils so wide there was barely any iris left. He looked... electrified.
I looked down, and my stomach did a violent flip of pure disgust. Despite the red mark on his face, despite the 'anger' he was trying to fake, the front of his expensive trousers told a completely different story.
He was hard. Harder than I'd ever seen a man.
"You're sick," I whispered, my voice trembling with revulsion. "You're a literal freak."
Julian's hand went to his cheek, his fingers tracing the sting I'd left behind. He let out a low, shaky laugh that sounded like it was being dragged through glass. "You hit me," he breathed, his voice thick and wrecked. "You actually hit me."
"I'll do it again if you don't get the fuck out of my house!" I yelled, reaching for a heavy glass lamp on the end table.
"Do it," Julian challenged, stepping closer, his gaze dropping to my lips again. He was breathing like he'd just run a marathon. "Show me how much you hate me, Alina. Because I'm starting to think your hate is the only thing in this world that's actually real."
He was faking the outrage now, his jaw set in a hard line as if he were offended, but the way his eyes tracked the movement of my chest as I breathed told the truth. The violence had done what his money and his silk ties never could. It had made him feel alive.
"Get out," I said, my voice dropping to a jagged, guttural whisper. "Get out before I kill you. I mean it, Julian. I have nothing left to lose. I will end you."
Julian stared at me for a long beat, his thumb pressing into the bruise forming on his face. He looked like a man who had just seen God and found out He was a twenty-one-year-old girl in a thrift-store shirt.
"This isn't over," he said, his voice regaining some of that oily composure, though the bulge in his pants betrayed him. "Silas is gone, Alina. He's back in his fortress, nursing his pride. You're alone now. And I'm the only one who knows how to handle you."
He turned and walked out, his movements stiff and awkward.
I stood in the middle of my trashed apartment, the silence rushing back in like a flood. I looked at my hand, it was still stinging from the blow.
I ran to the window, looking down at the street. Silas's truck was already gone. Julian's silver car was pulling away, tires screeching against the asphalt.
I sank to the floor, my back against the wall, and finally, for the first time since my mother died, I didn't scream. I didn't fight. I just buried my face in my hands and let the cold, sharp reality of what I'd lost wash over me.
I had pushed away the only man who ever saw me as human, and I had ignited a fire in a monster that I didn't know how to put out.
Fucking great, I thought, a single, bitter tear sliding down my cheek. I really am a disaster.