8. Atlas

8

ATLAS

S he was on the floor, dried blood flaking away in chips between her breasts, the dark gash in her neck nearly black with the depth of the gouge. Wade, next to her—a far less gory sight, but no less dead.

"It's not her," I whispered, "It's not him. This isn't real."

I blinked back the image, opening my eyes, trying like hell to fill my vision with any other scene, anything but the horror that filtered like a film, non-stop.

Night after night, never ending. I hadn't slept for intervals greater than twenty minutes in weeks.

The only thing that even allowed me those brief respites was the feel of her body pressed against mine every night.

She was alive. She was here. She was safe.

By some miracle I still couldn't grasp, we all were.

And when I could hold her, could feel the gentle dips and curves of her body, the warmth of the blood rushing beneath her skin, it became easier to push back against the narratives clouding my mind—her dead, all of them dead. I'd run my thumb down her neck, feel for myself that she was still alive.

It's a lie. It's a lie. It's a lie .

But she wasn't here right now, so arguing with myself was more difficult.

I jammed my head back into my pillow. "Stop it. Just stop. You're being fucking ridiculous."

My body was stiff with unfiltered anger. It was an infuriating thing—having my brain work against me, spinning lies and twisting truths. Even when I knew it was happening, I couldn't stop the nightmares from filtering through.

I was here. In this dark, cramped room—a room I'd spent days in. But I was also there, trapped in the cyclic scenes the drude had crafted in my mind. He'd carved new pathways, new memories that felt more true, more visceral than the ones I knew were my lived reality.

My vision adjusted and I could see the dark hazy bedroom, the outline of the dark bed frame, the base propped up and bolstered with a few pieces of mismatched wood—the only lingering evidence of that blissful night with Max.

But layered on top of the bed, this setting, I watched clipped segments of scenes that I knew, logically, weren't here.

I'd blink, and there was Declan, head sitting face-up several feet from the rest of her body—blink again, and there was Eli, fastened to the far wall with a sword through his ribs, head lolling lifeless on his chest, the blood flow so heavy that his white shirt looked solid red.

When I reached out, I could feel these phantoms, as solid as the blankets that covered my legs, could see his blood stain the tips of my fingers.

"It's not real," I repeated again. I closed my eyes, focused on the sounds surrounding me, separate from those gruesome scenes.

Max, was finishing up in the shower, the quiet hum of a song I didn't recognize in harmony with the gentle drum of water.

Eli—in the kitchen, popping a tab off a fresh beer .

Declan's gentle snoring in the other room.

I didn't hear Wade or the fanghole, but I'd heard the front door open and close a few times over the last hour or so.

They were probably out getting fresh air, trying to dispel some of the tension from Max's bond—something I'd been doing my best to ignore for the last fifty-two minutes and fourteen seconds.

Selfishly, I didn't want to ignore it. For a few blissful moments tonight, the visuals drifted away. And as relieved as I was for the reprieve, I was disgusted with myself. They came at the expense of witnessing the connection between Max and Declan.

Those pulses of pleasure that sifted through from her to me were strong enough to sever my nightmare reality from this one. But they did nothing to hollow out the guilt that sat low in my gut from the uninvited voyeurism.

They're alive. They're here.

I sat up, watching my door, my body craving the soft light that would appear through the crack when she opened it, shadowing her figure as she came in, closed it behind her, and then tiptoed gracefully to my bed.

I needed to feel her, here and solid and more real than those phantoms could ever be.

I spent most of my nights watching her sleep, the curves of her body lifting and contracting with each soft breath, the quiet pressure of her warmth against me.

We never started the nights so close together.

I didn't allow it.

I hadn't touched her like that, let myself feel her like that since that moment. I'd allowed myself one night with her in that way—but only one.

Feeling that sort of belonging, that sort of pure ecstasy of being inside of her seemed undeserved after everything I'd done. All of the pain I'd caused. I didn't want to taint her with the horror that lingered with me, the two worlds I occupied—I wanted her as far from those sights as I could get her.

But I was weak, my resolve only so strong.

And when she crawled into my bed each night, I instantly sought her scent, my muscles relaxing just from the smell of her. She'd whisper a few quiet words, I'd give one-word answers when I could manage them, and then she'd fall asleep, exhausted from all of her work in the medical wards.

My self-control weakened as the night grew darker, the horrors of my thoughts louder. I'd press myself close to her, my body humming from the small whimpers she'd make in her sleep, and press my face into the curve of her neck.

I wanted to suffocate in that space against her soft skin, the silence of the cabin surrounding us.

The nights when I woke up and she was gone—a midnight visit to the lake—I'd wake up gasping, drowning with fear that I was back there. That this place too, with my brother and my team, was just another trick of the drude, longer and more cruel than the others because of the sliver of hope it had given me.

When she was gone, I'd give up completely on sleep, leave the confines of the cabin to find her, the tightness in my chest settling only when I saw her climb back up the rocky beach, her eyes black as night, lost in a trance.

In those moments, when I could take a full breath at the sight of her, at the pure relief of it, I felt more in control of myself, closer to the man I used to be, the man I wanted to be again. For her. For them all.

It wasn't enough—as much as I desperately tried to lift myself out of the darkness, to talk to her and hold her the way that she deserved, the words wouldn't form. It was like I was trapped, only offered brief moments here and there of clarity.

I didn't recognize myself anymore.

It was a bit ironic—that I'd spent so much time thinking that my wolf was the thing that would fracture me, cloud over and consume me.

Now, I missed that part of me—felt unwhole from whatever The Guild had done to quiet him down, to keep him from unfurling in my limbs, my thoughts.

My wolf lingered deep inside my bones. I could feel him, growing erratic and anxious with each passing moment that I didn't shift—but neither of us seemed able to do it. Reaching him was like trying to reach across an ocean, with nothing but my arm.

My limbs didn't work like they used to—as if they belonged to someone else. I didn't even recognize my own thoughts half the time, could hardly keep track of time passing or recognize reality from the dream world I'd spent months occupying.

The soft creak of the door hinge startled me—something that was usually difficult to accomplish with wolf senses.

"Is it possible you linger in the darkness because you think you deserve to?" she whispered to me, her voice rough and cracked in the dark room, as she slid between the sheets.

My skin came alive at her nearness, the desire to reach out and pull her to me almost impossible to resist.

Her gaze focused on the far wall, where Eli's pinned body had been replaced with hers. Her expression was unreadable, but her focus was precise. Could she see it?

Was I broadcasting these ghosts through the connection she'd blown open tonight?

My heart beat angry and ashamed against my ribcage as I fought to erase the visuals, to ground myself here.

No. This was my punishment, not hers. I wouldn't let her suffer it.

"Linger where?" I closed my eyes tight, trying like hell to push away the visual of her, now dead beside me, body angled and wrong, the piercing shriek of her scream as her body contorted and cracked still ricocheting in my mind—her joints only coming back together long enough to relive the torment and pain all over again.

That wasn't her. She was on top of that phantom, existing in this plane, alive and warm and good.

"No," I pressed my palms to my eyes, "no, no, no."

She gasped, her fingers gently closing around my wrist, pulling my hand back from where it clawed at my head. Her focus drifted to her lap, where the nightmare-Max's neck sat at a wrong angle, her other hand passing through the image like a ghost. She couldn't feel them like I could, they didn't take corporeal shape for her. Good.

"Is it always this bad, this loud?" she paused, her fingers trembling against me, "this real?"

Air pulled through my lungs in heavy pants as I fought the images and forced myself to look at her—to see the version that was next to me now.

Her hair fell in dark, clumped strands, still wet from her shower, the scent of her freshly-washed skin enough to make my dick strain in my boxers.

Not that the erection had ever completely gone down since she'd entered that bedroom with Declan.

I pulled my arm from her grip and swallowed back my desire as I carved more space between us. "What do you mean?"

The words came out nearly unintelligible, my jaw was clenched so tight.

Atlas?

The reverent sound of my name in her voice rattled through my head, competing with the terrified screams that usually took up that space.

Atlas, look at me.

My eyes widened when I realized what she was doing. I pushed back further in the bed, trying like hell to think of anything else—anything but those visions, anything but that relentless ache of grief. I didn't want her to see that, to feel that. She carried enough pain on her own. She didn't need to be burdened with mine.

"No," I said, teeth clenched as I curled in on my side, trying like hell to close my mind off. For a blissful hour tonight, fear and pain had been replaced by an intoxicating desire that I had no more control over than I did the darkness. I'd come twice, my body on fire with a pleasure that felt like a sin. Feeling Max's joy, her body alive and electric like that was a drug I'd never grow immune to—but I didn't want it if that connection came at the cost of my suffering filtering into her, of it becoming hers.

Atlas , she said again, the word like a prayer as her lips pressed gently against mine. I was too weak to resist the taste of her, minty from her toothpaste, but also uniquely her. I'm not afraid of your darkness. Please don't shut me out. Not again, not anymore. I only want to see you—and for you to see me too. Please. You're not there anymore, and I'm here. We're here. We're both terrible at getting out of our heads, at staying out of these thought loops. But Dec was right. We can help each other—together.

Her words were rushed, panicked, as they snaked beneath and then through my thoughts, replacing their clutch with hers.

So fight.

I know it's selfish to ask this of you, believe me, I know it. This isn't toxic positivity talking right now. The world is literally crumbling down around us, and I can't lose you again—not to fear and pain that's been wrung from you by people who couldn't see you, colonizing your every thought. They don't get to win.

You have to fight because we—I—I need you. So fight, Atlas. Please.

The plea filtered through my head, cracking and reverberating again and again, growing louder and louder until the memories of my nightmares seemed pale in comparison, effervescent—like fire turned to smoke, until it was nothing more than air.

Her own fear mingled with mine, taking shape until I could see the root of it.

The others the drude fed on weren't getting better. They were dying.

Max had been wringing herself out trying to help Sarah, but she couldn't.

She could only help me—but I had to meet her half way.

"Please," she said again, her voice whisper-soft with a tremble, "and not just for me—fight because you want that too—to find your way back to yourself."

"I don't know how," I said, hating the soft tremble in my voice, the hollowness of it. "I don't know how to exist like this."

She pulled back a few inches, her face still close to mine, but I found myself already missing the feel of her mouth against mine. "By letting me carry some of it."

"I don't?—"

Her finger pressed against my lips, and even in the darkness, I could see the hardness lining her eyes. "Seeing you like this, holding it all on your own—" she shook her head, dropped her fingers back down to the mattress between us, "that hurts more than these visions ever could. They aren't real to me in the way that they are to you. They're yours, not mine. I just want you to talk to me, please. I think—" She blinked. The waterline of her eyes was damp with unshed tears, as her chin dimpled. "I think I'm losing Sarah. I can't bring her back because I don't have a connection with her. But I brought you back, because we are built to support each other, to carry each other. I can't lose you—not again."

Her sadness, her fear struck deep into my chest. There was no hiding from it, not when the bond was flaring between us, not when she was this close to me.

For a moment, her eyes held mine, encouraging me to dig through, to feel the depth of her truth. She meant what she said.

"I don't know how to fix this," I whispered, afraid putting too much voice to the words would reveal the truth—that I couldn't. That I didn't deserve to be fixed. "I don't know how to fix me."

"You don't need to be fixed, Atlas. You just need to be . Talk to me. We haven't spoken about that night—about what happened, what you went through—none of it." The pain in her voice pulled at me like a bony claw. It only took me a moment to realize that it was pain she was feeling on my behalf.

She wasn't angry with me, not anymore—even after everything I'd put her through, put them all through, she'd forgiven me.

You are the only one still trying to earn your forgiveness, Atlas.

The words echoed in my skull, peeling back a thin but not unnoticeable layer of the gruesome reality competing with this one.

"I don't know where to start," I said, my voice unrecognizable to me. There was pain there, a deep sadness that I couldn't linger in or dissect for too long.

"What the drude put you through was horrendous." Her hand closed over mine, twining our fingers together, lending me her strength. "And your father?—"

"Deserved to die," I finished for her.

I held no sadness for his death. There was no regret buried in my bones for handing her the heart of the man who'd broken hers.

"He hurt you," I said, "took something from you that can never be replaced."

The depth of her grief at the reminder of Cyrus, of what she'd lost, rippled through me. It was cloying and heavy, and braided with mine like a companion seeking refuge .

"Yes, he did." She nodded, her tongue peeking out over her lips as her eyes searched mine. I wondered, briefly, what she saw there. "But he hurt you too."

I clenched my jaw, the memory of him sacrificing me to the drude crashing forward, relentless. "I didn't have the kind of relationship with Tarren that you did with Cyrus. I don't mourn for my father the way that you do for yours." Holding sadness for that man would be a dishonor for all that he'd put me through—for all that he'd put Wade through. For what he'd taken from Max. "He doesn't deserve my grief."

"No, he doesn't." She rolled her lips together, considering, "but you do. You're allowed to let yourself feel that loss, even if it doesn't quite fit the way it might otherwise have."

My jaw clenched tight as her words rolled over me—through me. Sadness I hadn't even realized I'd been holding clutched at my chest.

Was it hers or mine?

I wasn't sure it mattered.

"If I'm sad about anything where he's concerned," my voice was rough, unaccustomed to having conversations like this. I never really let myself linger in my emotions, let alone share them with someone else. I was bad at it. But I could try to get better. For her. "It's at the idea of what he could have been. The knowledge that he will never become the father that Wade deserved. There is no redemption for him, even if he never deserved it."

"You deserved a father too, Atlas." She cleared her throat, eyes darting to mine, then away again, hesitant. "I want you to fight for yourself the same way you've fought for Wade. For me. For us all." Her focus dipped down to our hands, and I realized I was squeezing hers in a python-like grip. I relented, slightly, still unwilling to part with her touch altogether. "I think that's the only path back to healing. It won't be easy and it probably won't be linear, and I honestly know so little about druden, if the pain of your time in those labs will ever truly go away. But I have to believe that it will, because you deserve to be free from it. You deserve to be happy. I refuse to believe in a future where you can't feel joy. And in the meantime, we're all here for you, happy to carry the weight of that pain, to spread it out amongst us. Dec has given me a very important lesson tonight." From the feel of it, many lessons, but I didn't interrupt her with the quip. Couldn't speak through the emotion lodged in my throat right now even if I wanted to. "That's what a team does—" her eyes found mine again, "that's what a family does. And that's what we are. We're all we have."

I swallowed, my throat tight as the force of her love poured into me. It was overwhelming. And while I didn't agree with her—that I deserved happiness, that I deserved family, that I deserved her, after everything I'd done—her stubborn resolve burrowed into me, wrestling with my own resistance, loosening it, at least in part.

"I don't regret killing him," I whispered, the words ripping free from my lips before I could hold them back, "I only regret not doing it sooner. I wasted so much time. I've only ever wanted to protect them—Wade, my team, and now, you—and no matter how hard I try, I fail. I fail you all, every time."

She shook her head, her hand pressing into my cheek, soft and warm. "You haven't failed any of us, Atlas. Only yourself. We're here. We love you. You can't always be the one protecting us, you have to let us return the favor." She grunted, her lips quivering into a small smile, the shadow of it still enough to make my pulse kick, even in the darkness of the room. "Hell, your brother's been spending most of his nights secretly sleeping outside of your door, as if none of us can sense him there. And I don't think there's been a single second that Dec's been in the same building as you without half of her focus spent assessing you—checking constantly for ways to help ease your pain. Same with Eli." The smile grew sharper, her eyes sparkling with life. "Hell, even Darius wants to help, in his own twisted way. He threatened to disembowel someone two days ago when they suggested having you sequestered away in another cabin, isolated from us all until we were sure you weren't a danger."

Her thumb stroked against my cheek, and I pressed my face into her hand, letting myself sink into her touch, allowing myself for, just a moment, to set down the guilt and fear that had occupied every molecule of my body for months.

When I closed my eyes, I could almost see the bond linking us, could feel it coil between us, flaring to life as I let her in.

Her lips parted in surprise, but I could feel her too—and knew that I wasn't hurting her, that she wasn't rejecting these parts of me. Instead, we lingered there, together, my pain and months of grief braiding together with hers, familiar and different—a peaceful, warm companionship.

And as my burden lessened, I felt hers do the same—as if carrying each other's hurt brought us each comfort in some strange, unfamiliar way. The connection helped ground me, when I'd been afraid it would only destabilize me more than I already had been.

For the first time since the drude fell into my cell, the nightmares he wielded seemed exactly that—like nightmares. Removed from me, temporal, not of this reality. Mere shadows compared to the feel of her skin against mine, compared to the terrifying power of letting her carve herself into my most vulnerable places, making a home there as I did the same with her.

Slowly, my wolf awakened, stretching through my limbs and twining us together—suddenly made tangible and real again, where he'd been cast as an echo, an empty reflection for so long.

Affection flared, hot and sweet in my chest. At first, I thought the feeling was coming from Max, from the bond. But it was me.

I let out a soft gasp of surprise, the feeling of relief almost overwhelming. I'd missed the wolf, this part of myself, more than I'd let myself see.

Connected to him and to Max, letting myself actually focus on the feeling of us lingering in the connection together, felt like finally seeing the sun, after years locked away in a dark cave. I felt more like myself than I had since Tarren cast me to the whims and cruelty of The Guild.

The shadows were still there, the phantoms of the nightmares still clouded my peripheral, but they no longer eclipsed my vision, my focus like they had.

And when I let myself meet her gaze again, it was like someone punched me in the gut—but it was a feeling I'd willingly seek out again and again. The pure, unbridled affection shining from her face, from every single pore of her skin, lapped against me—simultaneously saved me and made me feel undeserving of such light.

But I'd spend every last breath I had trying to be worthy of it, to earn even an ounce.

I slid my hand through her still-wet hair, letting the silky strands coil through my fingers and tangle me against her as I cradled the back of her head, tilting her face towards mine.

I wanted more of her light, I wanted it all—whether I deserved it or not.

This girl had been thrown into my life when I least wanted or expected her—but her presence was undeniable, every ounce of me lasered in on her every breath, even when I did everything I could to fight it, to resist it.

But I was a fool. There was no resisting her.

I was so fucking done trying.

And if she wanted me, as fractured and defeated as I was, then—even though I'd clearly won some ridiculous lottery rigged impossibly in my favor—I wouldn't deny her.

This was love, this impossible-can't-breathe-can't-think feeling that held a grip on my chest from the first moment I saw her and refused to let go no matter how hard I fought it. It was stronger than me, stronger than the wolf—and I was so fucking grateful for that.

I was hers, from the first moment I laid eyes on her, a naive girl, sequestered in a small town that had no idea what kind of a gem it had, her lips pressed against those of some human boy who never stood a chance. My recollection of that day had always been hazy, the wolf's memories often separate from mine, like dreams that sifted slowly away, with each moment I was awake, until there were only a few stray grains for me to make sense of.

But this one was clear, came back in a rush, hitting me strong and unbridled. The possessiveness that took over me when I saw her with someone else.

I'd thought it was the human who never stood a chance—but it was me. I was gone the moment she turned her righteous fury on me and tried to kill me.

Love in this world was strange—volatile and violent, but it was tender too. And we'd been dressed up and dancing in all those parts this whole time, resistance futile.

I didn't need to voice the words, I'd given her full access to my thoughts, my feelings. I was laid bare before her, torn in pieces and leaving her to judge which parts were best to sift through and put back together in whatever version of the puzzle we could manage to salvage.

It didn't even bother me that the others might be able to see these pieces too.

Her lips pressed against mine, soft and tentative—the kiss gone as quickly as it came. Her deep brown eyes were glassy with unshed tears as they held mine, but I didn't need to stare into them to feel her, to understand her.

I was consumed by her, and still it wasn't enough—this insufferable hunger flaring to life with a vengeance for all the time I'd wasted not holding her, not touching her, not showing her that she was mine, ours.

The insatiable need and desire I'd felt since that day, that I pushed and resisted, only letting slip through in slivers and moments of vulnerability when the wolf and everything I suppressed with it pushed to the surface—I let it unfurl and curl around me, basking in it.

"Atlas," she whispered, her lips parting from the force of the heat building between us, all-consuming and demanding, without even a touch.

"I don't want to talk," I said, gripping her hair at the nape of her neck, pulling her closer to me until she could feel me hard and wanting against her, "you asked what you could do? How you could help? You have." I wasn't who I was before the lab, and I probably never would be. But I could craft a version of myself from the wreckage, and maybe that version would suit me even better than the original. The ghosts weren't gone, but I wanted to bask in their temporary absence, sink into my body, feel it for the first time in months, linger in the corporeal world. "Right now, all I want is to sink into you. I don't want to think, don't want to talk—I'm an open book to you now. I've carved my chest open and pinned back my flesh. You can have your way with me—poke and pull out all that you wish. I won't hide from you anymore, won't insult you enough to think I can protect you from anything—not when it's been you saving me all along."

It would take time, I knew that.

Tomorrow, I'd go with her to the med center, try finding a way to integrate back into the team, to help. It would be easier—pulling myself out of the darkness, next time I slipped back into its grip—knowing that their hands were waiting for me to grasp.

"With you, and for you, I will fight. Right now, you're the only thing I want to feel, this feeling the only thing I want to fight for—but I want more of it. So tell me," I pressed my mouth against hers, hot and wanting, pulling back only long enough to whisper across them, "can you help me with that, Bentley?"