by Victoria Lee
As king, Lehrer’s first act was closure of Carolinian borders, ostensibly to prevent further spread of the virus.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Noam didn’t go to the barracks after Lehrer dropped him off. He spent what felt like hours walking in circles around the government complex, trying to drag his thoughts into some semblance of order. It was late when he got back, but everyone was still up. Dara, Taye, and Bethany sat at the kitchen table, the two boys teaching Bethany the basics of poker. A half-gone bottle of whiskey sat on the empty chair.
Dara tensed as he met Noam’s gaze. The movement was almost imperceptible, an unhappy ripple that Dara quickly wiped away.
“Hi,” Noam said, careful to sound casual. Normal. “Who’s winning?”
“Dara, as always,” Taye said with a dramatic sigh, tossing his cards onto the table. “I don’t know why I bother. I’m just hemorrhaging argents at this point.”
Bethany giggled, burying her pink-flushed face in her hands.
Noam pointed his finger down at the crown of her head and raised a brow.
“Oh yeah,” Taye confirmed. “Wasted.”
“Ames is gonna kill you for corrupting a fourteen-year-old.”
“What Ames doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
Dara picked up the cards and started shuffling. He hadn’t said a word.
“Dara,” Noam said. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
Dara did something complicated with the cards, the kind of elaborate shuffling trick Noam used to watch gamblers perform at card tables crammed onto sidewalks and in the back rooms of stores. “What is it?”
Great. Dara had apparently decided to revert to old habits. Like he’d forgotten all about the way he moaned Noam’s name, fingers all tangled up in Noam’s hair.
Now it was back to how it was when they first met. Dara certainly had a flair for timing.
“Alone,” Noam said. He tried not to sound snappish; he didn’t want to give Dara an excuse to say no.
“I can finish shuffling,” Taye piped up.
Still, Dara hesitated for a long moment before he sighed and put the cards down. His chair legs scraped against the floor when he pushed back from the table, an obnoxious sound that grated Noam’s last nerve. His stomach was a mess of buzzing insects. He didn’t know how Dara was gonna react when Noam told him what he saw. But he couldn’t . . . he had to say something. Dara shouldn’t have to carry this secret alone.
Noam led the way down the hall, glancing back once to make sure Dara still followed. He was there, a featureless shadow in the dim light, but Noam didn’t need to see his face to know the expression on it. He sensed Dara’s magic, a dark-green glitter barely restrained, as if Dara thought he might have to use it.
Dara didn’t shut the bedroom door behind them, so Noam did it himself, a twist of telekinesis flipping the latch. He turned on the light.
“I’d rather not have this conversation,” Dara said.
“I’m not here to talk to you about the general. Well. I am, actually, but not . . . not the murder.” Noam forced himself to flex his fingers.
Dara stayed by the door, one hand resting on the knob.
“Do you . . . want to sit down?”
“I’m good, thanks.” Dara’s face was so deliberately blank. Only Dara couldn’t hide from Noam anymore. Noam knew him too well.
He was afraid.
But afraid of what?
“Okay,” Noam said. “Okay. I don’t know how to put this, so . . . I’m just gonna say it? I went upstairs during the wake. I wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything left behind that might tie you to the assassination, but then I found the general’s computer, and I . . .”—wanted to dig up anti-Sacha shit for Lehrer—“I don’t know, I’m nosy, I guess, so I looked through it. And he had these . . . videos.”
He spoke the word so carefully, the syllables like poison on the tip of his tongue, but Dara was perfectly unaffected, as if Noam had said nothing at all.
Did he not realize the general filmed them together?
He had to. Someone had tried to erase those files, and whoever it was did it the same night the general died. It had to be Dara.
“Dara, are you listening to me?” Noam pressed, and he took a half step closer. “I saw the videos. I know what he did to you.”
“I told you I didn’t want to talk about this.”
Untrue, as Dara had no way of knowing this was what Noam wanted to talk about. But Noam kept that particular comment to himself.
“We don’t have to,” Noam said quickly, because even though he already—ugh—knew all the dirty details, he didn’t want to discuss them with Dara either.
“But,” Dara finished for him, tone flat.
“But,” Noam said, “Dara, have you . . . told anyone?” Someone who could put a stop to the abuse. Someone who could be a support for Dara when he needed it. Obviously Lehrer and Dara had problems, but Lehrer still cared. If he knew Dara was in trouble, he’d intervene. Even so, Noam sucked in a steadying breath before he could make himself say, “At the very least, you have to tell Lehrer.”
“Tell him what, exactly?” Dara snapped. All at once the pretense of insouciance vanished, replaced by a savage anger. “That I fucked his friend? Lehrer wouldn’t care. He’d say, ‘I should have known you’d throw yourself at him eventually’ and laugh.” Dara moved forward, his eyes gleaming like black glass in the lamplight. “Because, as you’ve astutely pointed out, that’s what I do. I’d fuck absolutely anyone.”
Noam swallowed. It shouldn’t hurt; Dara hadn’t said it like that to—to cut. But it did anyway. Because that was Noam. Noam was absolutely anyone.
“This is different,” Noam said, once he was sure he could speak. Dara was too close. He’d been drinking again; Noam could smell the alcohol. “General Ames raped you.”
It was the wrong word. Dara recoiled, cheeks flushing dark. “No. He didn’t.”
“You were fifteen, Dara, and he’s . . . it can’t have been consensual.”
“Well, it was.” Dara’s shoulders shook with each shallow breath. “Not only was it consensual, but I liked it. I loved it.” He hurled the word toward Noam like a live grenade. “There’s something so much better about being with someone older, isn’t there? Someone experienced.”
It was Noam’s turn to flinch. Don’t react. Don’t react.
The sharp curl to Dara’s lips suggested he knew exactly what he’d said and how Noam felt when he said it. He took a step toward the door.
“Dara,” Noam started, but Dara ignored him.
No, fuck that, he couldn’t just walk away from this—
Noam grasped Dara’s arm. It was like touching white-hot iron. He yelped and stumbled back, Dara’s magic sparking over skin.
“Don’t you touch me,” Dara hissed, and he shoved Noam so hard he nearly knocked him off his feet. “Don’t you fucking touch me.”
“I’m sorry,” Noam said. “I didn’t—”
“You should mind your own goddamn business, Álvaro.”
Dara pushed Noam again, rougher this time. Noam’s head slammed into the wall. Silver stars burst behind his eyes, a searing pain that made him gasp. Dara’s face swam before him, blood-drained and furious.
This time, when Dara left, Noam didn’t bother chasing him.
Noam spent over an hour in the bathroom with the door locked and the water on, huddled under the heat with steam filling his lungs. His argument with Dara played on an unending loop in the back of his mind.
He should have let it go. Dara was right. It was none of Noam’s goddamn business, and if Dara wasn’t ready to talk about it, well, that was that.
He sat down on the tile floor and stared at his arms resting atop his knees. Training bruises he got sparring with Lehrer blossomed beneath his skin, all ages and colors. A sudden sickness knotted in his stomach—Dara killed Lehrer’s best friend. What would Lehrer do when he learned Noam was hiding Dara’s betrayal from him?
And Lehrer wo
uld find out. Sooner or later.
Noam stayed until the water went cold. It was only when he had turned off the shower and started toweling himself off that a knock came at the door.
“Noam?” Dara’s soft voice said. “Are you all right in there?”
Noam froze where he stood in the middle of the bathroom, towel around his waist and comb halfway through his hair.
“I’m fine.”
A heavy sound, perhaps Dara leaning against the shut door. Noam imagined him in his drabs with the sleeves rolled up, one hand on the doorframe.
“Let me in?” Dara asked.
He could have let himself in, of course. But he didn’t. Surely that was a good sign. Noam clenched his hands against the sink counter and made himself exhale, nice and slow. “We’ll talk after I get dressed. All right?”
“All right,” Dara said. His footsteps retreated into the bedroom and then away, the bedroom door clicking shut.
It wouldn’t look good to rush to obey the second Dara wanted to talk. Still, Noam barely managed to wait about ten seconds before he stepped out into the bedroom, scrambling to grab civvies out of his dresser drawer. He heard voices down at the end of the hall as soon as he opened the door, Bethany’s and Taye’s, but not Dara’s. Even so, Noam sensed Dara’s wristwatch and the buttons on his uniform, warm against his skin. Noam entered the common room, where Dara was sitting in an armchair.
“You ready?” Noam asked.
Dara nodded, pushing up to his feet. “Want to go for a walk?”
He meant outside, of course; you couldn’t talk treason in the barracks like it was just any Wednesday.
“Sure.”
Dara trailed after him out into the corridor and down the stairs to the ground floor. The street was quiet this time of night, just a few cars idling beneath the black sky and glittering streetlights. It was hot even for June, humid air clouding his lungs.
The farther they got from the complex, the more Noam thought he ought to say something—I’m sorry or I’m glad you want to talk—but nothing came. His throat was too dry to speak.
“We should keep walking,” Dara said when Noam slowed. “The more distance between us and those guards, the longer we’ll have before someone comes to retrieve us.” A beat. “Don’t worry—I’m not going to hurt you.”
Noam wondered if this was what passed for an apology in Dara-land.
“I know you’re not,” Noam said.
“That’s not what it looks like.”
“I can’t help my face, Dara.”
“It’s not just your face,” Dara said. “You think I’m unstable. That I might get violent.”
“Not really. Maybe you’ve been a little moody lately, sure.”
A lot moody.
Sixteen times.
“You said you wanted to talk,” Noam said.
“Yes.” Dara exhaled long and heavy, glancing at Noam like he thought Noam might have changed his mind about listening. “I think there’re some things I ought to tell you. Things I should have told you a long time ago.”
“Okay,” Noam said, but Dara didn’t speak again, at least not immediately.
After several silent moments, Dara unearthed a flask from his back pocket and took a long pull.
“Okay,” Dara echoed at last. “So. I was fifteen the first time I slept with Gordon.”
He hesitated again, fidgeting with the flask.
“How did it start?” Noam nudged gently.
“That doesn’t matter. But it did, and we . . . it wasn’t the way you’re thinking.” Dara drank again. “I know it was stupid, getting involved with high command like that. I think I hoped it would get back to Lehrer somehow, and he’d have to . . . I don’t know. Pay attention to me, for once. I wanted him to be angry.”
Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to make Dara talk about this. Dara was . . . Noam had never seen him so on edge, not if you didn’t count the time after they had sex. He kept fiddling with the flask, kept reaching up to tug at his hair. His temples glimmered with sweat.
“It’s okay,” Noam said, reaching over to touch Dara’s wrist, only just remembering not to grasp. Dara’s skin was summer-hot. Dara let his hand drop from his hair and, after a beat, he laced his fingers together with Noam’s.
“Not really,” Dara whispered.
“General Ames is dead. You never have to see him again.”
Dara’s grip tightened, and he laughed, a low bitter sound.
“You don’t have to call it rape if you don’t want—but Dara, he hurt you. That’s . . . is that why you killed him? The real reason?”
“He didn’t hurt me.”
“Dara, someone did that to you. The bruises—”
“It wasn’t him,” Dara insisted. He yanked his hand out of Noam’s grasp, face pale and eyes dark; he looked like a ghost. “I killed Gordon because of what he did to Ames, and because Chancellor Sacha asked me to.”
The relief was short lived.
Noam felt like he’d been stabbed in the stomach, acid burning on the back of his tongue. He didn’t want to believe it. He couldn’t. But Dara wasn’t lying. Noam should have known this a long time ago, but he hadn’t wanted to believe it.
Dara didn’t just sympathize with Sacha. He killed for him.
For the same man who spent four years undermining and oppressing people like Noam.
The back of his throat was dry. Noam swallowed against it twice, three times. It felt like gagging.
“You . . . you’re working for him.”
“Yes. I have been for a while.” Dara’s gaze was fixed on a spot on the ground some inches ahead of them.
“How?” Noam demanded. “How did this happen?”
Dara’s expression did something complicated. “Someone approached me several years ago, around the time Lehrer . . . around the time I realized the truth about Lehrer. I was planning to do something stupid, but they talked me out of it. You can imagine what a boon it was, to have Lehrer’s ward as your spy. I was able to steal all kinds of old files from Lehrer’s apartment and the MoD servers. We’d hoped some of it might undermine Lehrer’s legacy in the court of public opinion, when we moved against him.” He waved a hand, dismissive. Noam felt motion sick just watching him. “But I’m about to graduate now, so I’ve outlived my utility.”
“That’s why you killed the home secretary. Because it doesn’t matter anymore if you get caught and executed for it.” Noam’s nails dug into his palms. He wished he could walk fast enough to leave Dara behind. “Fucking hell, Dara.”
“You should talk,” Dara snapped. “Everything you’re doing with Lehrer—you know that’s why Sacha had me kill Gordon, right? Because Lehrer’s planning to overthrow Sacha. Texas is practically salivating for the chance to jump on a weakened Carolinia. Sacha thinks maybe, maybe Lehrer won’t usurp him if the political situation is destabilized by an assassination. Of course,” Dara said with a snort, “that just goes to show Sacha doesn’t understand Lehrer at all.”
Noam stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “How do you even—how do you know about that?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Dara said. “But I’m not going to apologize. I don’t regret what I did.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re a fucking white knight, galloping in on your mighty steed to save the world. And who cares what you have to do or who you have to hurt?”
Noam said it as cruelly as possible, wanting Dara to feel pain, to feel as cold and hollowed out as Noam did. And from the look on Dara’s face, he was succeeding.
Dara dragged his fingers through his hair, the gesture rough and the curls catching against his knuckles. “I don’t expect you to forgive me—”
“Oh, I don’t,” Noam snarled. “And now you’ll ask me to keep your dirty little secret, won’t you? Do you really think I won’t tell Lehrer?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Dara said. “You’ll do what you think is right.” A moment passed, then Dara abruptly turned his face away. His spine was too straight, h
ead bowed like he was waiting for the blade to fall.
“Dara,” Noam started.
Dara looked at him. Noam was shocked to see his eyes were wet. “I’m sorry,” Dara said. “I . . . I had planned to tell you when we came out here. But now I don’t know what I can tell you without putting you in danger. I don’t know how close you are to Lehrer. You might be too close, in which case, the less you know the better.”
Noam frowned. “I don’t understand. If there’s something you can tell me that would explain all of this, I think you’d better just fucking tell me. Let me make my own decisions, Dara.”
The sound Dara made was like a laugh, but not. “No. No. I can defend myself, but you . . .” He shook his head, letting out a rough sigh, then turned his face up toward the streetlamp. “Tell Lehrer whatever you want.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Jesus, Dara, if you could stop being so obtuse for just one second—” Words failed him. Noam’s rage was a living thing inside him, clawing up the ladder of his rib cage and scratching at his sternum. He growled out an exasperated noise. “And you—I don’t understand how you knew. About the coup. Or . . .”
Or when Noam came back from the funeral and Dara didn’t want to talk to him, as if he’d predicted what Noam was going to say.
No.
Lehrer, in that room: With your remarkable gift, Dara, surely you must already know the answer . . .
Noam’s pulse roared in his ears, that sudden realization crashing down on him like a massive wave.
Impossible. There would have been signs.
Only there were signs; Noam just hadn’t been paying attention.
