I glance toward the two-lane, beaten-up road, a phantom of Luke’s bike speeding past. Where did he go? I don’t think he’s got a girl in town. Wait, does he? Is he going to work out some of that sexual tension we had in the garage, on someone else?
Wincing at the twist in my stomach, I run a hand through my hair. “Where did Luke go, did he say?”
Atlas trudges five feet or so behind me. “Soph, I’ve gotta tell you something.”
“You’re pregnant,” I joke.
“I’m serious. I’ve gotta talk to you.”
I walk backwards, but that’s the best I’ll give him. “No more heart-to-hearts tonight. This day sucks enough, okay?”
He stops walking, which makes me groan and stop, too.
“I did a shitty thing.”
“Don’t feel bad about the marriage idea. Drop it! Let’s just go back home.”
“They found out.”
The wind knocks out of me and I choke, “How?” I cut a pained glance to our home, groan, feeling dizzy, “No no no! What were we thinking? We never should have done it. This is all wrong! Maybe they just suspect! They can’t really know. No wonder you’re trying to marry me, you’re freaking out. Just get a hold of yourself, we’ve gotten out of worse things. You know what, we’ll deny it!” He shakes his head so I try, “We’ll tell them it was just once, we’re over it!”
“Soph—”
“No, wait, we’ll go in there, you and I, say we talked it out and nothing is weird between us! Nothing’s changed, right? We’re both in agreement, just friends, Cipher family, and it’s all good from here on out, right?!”
“Sofia Sol, listen—”
“They’ll tease us, make our lives hell for a couple months, but then it’ll blow over like everything else does!”
“I told them it was Luke and you who did it.”
Dumbfounded, I stare at Atlas. I cock my head and ask a blank, “What?”
“I told them it was Luke. Not me.”
I start slapping him, not trained punches, but emotional, girly, losing-my-shit slaps as he covers his head. “Why would you do that? How could you do that to him? What kind of brother are you?” Gasping for air I careen away to stare at the road. “Is he leaving because you betrayed him?”
Atlas’s voice rises, defensive, “Hey now, that’s a harsh word!”
“Because it’s true? Why do people always call it harsh when you hit the nail on the fucking head?”
I break into a run for the house.
He comes after me, and he’s quick, too. Racing next to me he shouts, “I didn’t mean to do it!”
“Luke and Sofia fucked just slipped off your tongue?”
“That’s not what I said!” He grabs my arm and I punch him. This time the right kind. He grabs that arm, too, and I do my damnedest to wrestle out of his trained grip. “I wanted a chance with you, Soph!”
“You never had one!”
His eyes harden. “I knew it.”
“Of course you did, you idiot! What have you done?”
He releases me, drags his hands through his long hair. A million emotions wash over him. Regret, pain, loss, confusion, and a wish for redemption. Staring at the house where he betrayed his brother, his voice is distant, quiet, as he tries to figure out why. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Luke gave me a hard time about us. I told him I was gonna marry you. Never wanted to, but he acted like…I’d done a dishonor to you, to the club. Like it was just a fuck, so I just blurted it out that we were gonna get married, and then I couldn’t take it back. That’s why I’ve been trying to spend time alone with you, needed to see if I could picture you as my wife. I’ve been trying to make myself want to, but I don’t. I’d get so sick of your shit I’d claw my eyes out.” This admittance is the first sign of his sanity, and it gets through to me, like truth always will. “It was my ego. He challenged me. I wanted to prove we could. I don’t admit defeat easily, you know that. He knows that!”
“This wasn’t defeat—who gets married when, isn’t a competition!”
“Tell that to the rest of the world.”
“We aren’t them, Atlas!” I cry out. “We’ve never been like the ‘normal’ people. We live by our rules. That’s what makes us so great! Where did Luke go?”
“They sent him away.”
I rasp, barely able to breathe, “What? Why? To make us get over each other, huh, that why they did this? And you let it happen!”
“Soph!”
“Get away from me, Atlas! I need some space from you before I hate you for the rest of your life.” He stays behind.
I break into a run, abandon our old path, the wind rushing through my hair, overgrown grass breaking under my boots as fog makes way for me.
CHAPTER 18
SOFIA SOL
T he front door slams behind me. “Mom! Dad!” I shout. “Where are you?”
Their bedroom door opens and shuts upstairs as I pace in the foyer. Someone else is coming out, too—more doors. Could be a curious Cipher, but no, it’s Meg and Honey Badger coming down the stairs.
Sage appears in the parlor’s doorframe to my left. “You found out he’s gone, huh,” she whispers before our parents get here. I hate the sad look in her eyes.
“Yeah, just now.” To both sets of parents as they arrive, I announce, “Let’s talk in here,” doing an about-face and marching into the parlor. I’m going to include Sage in this bullshit, she’s not a kid anymore. I have to tell them all it was Atlas, not Luke.
In silence we lower ourselves into worn velvet chairs that circle a coffee table stained with more than a century’s worth of wear. The front door opens and closes. I know who it is so I don’t look over as his boots heavily
