Bitch, I thought. Pushing my buttons.
But I’d kissed her first. Crawled back, missing this intimacy. I didn’t want it with her—I wanted it with Tamsin, with a girl who saw me as the boy I really am. But maybe this was all I’d ever have. Because I was broken, my heart’s compass cracked, the needle pointing to this person, forever.
Get out. Get air.
Before I grabbed my coat, the buzzer rang.
“That’s Tam,” Inge said.
My eyes narrowed. “You asked her to come over?”
“We have a new development.”
“Adam?” I said, strangling the name.
Ingrid didn’t respond. She opened the door, smiling.
Tamsin sensed my sullenness and clasped my hands, but I slipped free, guiltily. I couldn’t touch her when my dick was hard from Ingrid. Such a fuckup.
“What’s this development?” I said.
Inge pulled up the map of Adam’s movements on her iPad. We already knew that he’d been sniffing around Corgan U, coffee shops, even, once, my parents’ house.
Trying to run into me.
Odd, because Crito knew where we lived. Wouldn’t he have told Adam? Weren’t they best bros? Hadn’t they already gotten Norah to drag me through the mud?
Something didn’t add up.
Ingrid zoomed in on downtown. To Umbra.
And pinned a marker on the map.
“When?” I said.
“Last night.” Tam frowned at her phone. “Couldn’t get a good pic.”
“What was he doing there? They’ve already driven me out. I can’t show my face at Umbra anymore.”
Just a week ago it was the face of a “hero.” A survivor.
Now it was a monster’s face.
Inge shrugged. “Maybe he’s meeting with someone.”
“Who?”
“Who, indeed.”
Tam touched me and again I withdrew. This time I got my coat.
“Where are you going?” both girls said, then eyed each other, shrewdly.
“Where do you think? Tam, stay here with Inge.”
“Like hell I will. I’m coming with you.”
“So am I,” Ingrid said.
“No.” My voice boomed through the apartment, startling them both. “This is my fight. My responsibility.”
“Don’t be a tool,” Inge said. “He’s dangerous, and Black Iris doesn’t have your back.”
Quieter, Tam said, “You don’t have to do this. Why don’t we wait and see what he does?”
“Wait for what, Tam? Another false accusation, another nail in my coffin?” My teeth gritted. “He’s taken enough of my life. But I’m not dead yet. He won’t take all of me.”
“We’re going with,” Inge said. I opened my mouth and she preempted, “Don’t argue. Two versus one. You lose.”
Again they exchanged glances. These girls.
“Nice full-court press,” I said. “Let’s go, princesses.”
———
First bad sign: the bouncers carded me.
Armin had beefed up security after the accusation vid, both as a gesture to clubgoers that we took their safety seriously and to cover our own asses. CC cams everywhere. Floodlights. No more dark hallways, no cloak of shadows and fog. No comfort of being half-seen, fashioning yourself from ambiguity and suggestion. It had helped once, before my beard and muscle filled in—Umbra’s ambiance had been a soft-focus filter blurring away the parts of myself that T was slowly blurring away from the inside. At Umbra I was seen the way I wanted to be seen. I learned to be myself in the shadows until I was ready to step into the light. But things were different now. We didn’t want anyone to feel unsafe.
Not that it mattered. The damage was done.
Second bad sign: When I sat at the bar, Sox cap shading my eyes, two slices of beefcake in button-downs joined me, towering at six foot fuck-off. I knew them vaguely: gay guys from some frat. There was a hierarchy of privilege in the queer community, and this sort sat at the very top: white, cis, moneyed, male. Cocky, but harmless.
So I thought.
I lifted my drink. Something bashed my shoulder. Rum slopped onto my thighs.
The man on my left said, “Sorry, miss.”
From my right: “Need some help, little girl? Looks like you wet yourself.”
I set the glass down. Thick honey beads rolled between my fingers.
Behind me a crowd gathered. At first I saw them only as pitchforks and torches, icons of hate, but when I looked harder they were faces I knew: boys I’d danced with, girls I’d kissed, all of them looking to see what the fuss was. To see the villain come home to roost.
Me. The rapist.
Instinctively my back flexed, feeling for the gun that wasn’t there. It was down in my locker in Black Iris HQ.
I thought of an alley, the asphalt slick with rain, and my blood.
All I said was “Excuse me, please.”
Walking through that gauntlet of my so-called peers was one of the most terrifying moments of my life. I could’ve called Armin, asked him to oust them, but then Black Iris would know I was here, up to something.
And if Adam was around, I didn’t want to draw any further attention.
So I was on my own.