It takes me a good minute before I realize I can't let Rax go through this alone. I rip myself free of where the wall's begun to cave in and sprint after them. They're down by the lobby when I catch up. Tiana's already got her head turned when I round the corner.

She blinks to me.

We don't say anything because between us is a storm made of fire and rage, our emotions glinting as they spark off one another. Tiana doesn't want me here. She wants to save me from the flashing lights outside. More than anything, I just don't want to feel useless.

I don't want to fail him.

Tiana nods to me. This isn't going to be okay. She blinks me alongside Lindsey and Rax.

"Why is she here?" Lindsey growls.

"Leave it alone, Lindsey." Even when we didn't get along, even when I called Tiana a tourist... I've not heard her this angry.

I accompany Rax as we push through the crowd.

I don't know why, but it feels funereal as we move closer — like I'm a pallbearer carrying Rax's coffin even though he's still alive.

All of this feels wrong. So wrong and I can't be bothered with the voices shouting at me for comment.

Jessica is gonna have a field day.

The moment I think it, I need to be anywhere but here. And Tiana feels it, too. She must because I feel her hand close against mine and then the voices are gone. I'm in my bedroom. The camera's across from me. The same one that I recorded my first video on days ago.

The one that made Tiana proud.

It all feels like a lie.

"I could stay," Tiana says.

I shake my head, numb.

She wants to stay. I want her to stay. "Rax is alone. He shouldn't be alone right now."

She gives my hand another squeeze. Just something light, and then I feel her go.

Only when she's gone do I actually break down.

I roll onto my side and curl up the way I did when I was young, knees to my chest, and feel a wailing moan building in my throat. And then I go silent as a fear overtakes me. Irrational, awful fears about how thin my walls are.

About what my neighbors might hear.

Who they might talk to.

Have they heard every time that Tiana and I were together? Are they talking to the press right now? Are they posting about it?

How many of them are like Lindsey? How many will blame me? How many will see that I just happened to be there when this all went down and presume the worst?

I stay like that for a while. Trapped. Not moving. Not doing anything. All I do is let the pain settle on me, a crushing weight I didn't know anyone could bear.

All I allow myself is my shaking breath and the worst thoughts.

Not even alcohol can reach the pain that overtakes me.

Then I hear a deadened thudding at the front door, the sound of a weighty paw banging against it.

I don't know how long it takes me to get up, but it must be a minute because Lis starts in with "I was out there forever, Kam," before she pushes past me.

I don't know what to say, so I sit down.

I remember, not too long ago, when Lindsey had me in handcuffs. I'm struck by the cruel symmetry. Tiana was here. I sat in this chair.

I warned her I was a monster.

"How could anyone ever feel safe around me?" Rax's words, and the pain in his voice as he asked it, freeze something inside me.

It should be me. Rax is the one who deserves to be a hero. Hell, Rax was a hero. And somewhere across the city, Rax is having the worst day of his life.

"Kam. What the fuck happened?" Lis' voice edges on judgmental. I don't blame her for it. I don't. To everyone else, it must look like...

Like I'm exactly the thing they spent their lives being afraid of. Any nuance, any truth stripped away and replaced with one simple fact: I was there, and must be complicit.

"Decay. It was Decay." I can't help but remember the way he pushed me. Shoved me away. I feel the ghost of him even now.

"How?"

"Desdemona, she must've..."

"Why didn't you do something?"

"I don't..."

And then my phone buzzes. Again. And again. And again.

I take it out of my pocket, surprised it's even intact.

K: You're twisted lmao
T: For you? Yes.

Tiana's mouth, lolling open.

Our sexts. Out there. Online.

And then all hell breaks loose.