Benedikt finally jolted to action. He picked up the nearest object he could find—an apple—and threw it at Marshall with all his strength.
“Hey!” Marshall yelped, jumping out of the way. “What gives?”
“You didn’t think to contact me?” Benedikt shouted. He picked up an orange next. It bounced off Marshall’s shoulder. “I thought you were dead! I mourned you for months! I slaughtered Scarlets in your name!”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Marshall kept darting around, trying to avoid being target practice. “It had to be this way. It was too dangerous to tell you. Juliette’s reputation is on the line if this gets out—”
“I don’t care about Juliette! I care about you!”
Suddenly Benedikt and Marshall both froze—the former remembering that Juliette was still within hearing range and the latter realizing that she must be outside if Benedikt was here.
There came a shuffling sound on the other side of the door and then Juliette, clearing her throat.
“You know what?” she called. “I think I might go take a walk.”
Her heels clicked off, fading into the distance. Benedikt felt like a hole had been punctured in his lungs as he leaned up against the table, all that fury and anger he had been carrying inside him finding nowhere to go and opting to deflate and deflate and deflate instead. He had expected to explode outward, to at last rid the darkness in his chest by seeking revenge and directing a very sharp object at Juliette. Instead, the darkness had turned to light, and now he was an overwrought light bulb, close to implosion when the vacuum space inside shattered.
“She didn’t have to save me,” Marshall said softly, when it looked like Benedikt was at a loss. Benedikt remained staring at the table, both his hands pressed to the flat surface. Slowly, Marshall crept nearer until he was right beside Benedikt. He opted to lean against the table, the two of them facing different directions. “She could have killed me and secured complete power, but she didn’t.”
“She has been hiding you?” Benedikt asked, his head lurching up. “Here? All this time?”
Marshall nodded. “If Tyler Cai finds out, it is not merely a fight that will result. It is Juliette’s entire position. She will be ousted.”
“She could have avoided pretending to kill you in the first place,” Benedikt muttered.
“And have us all die at the Scarlets’ hand in that hospital?” Marshall asked. “Come on, Ben. I already had a bullet in my stomach. If she hadn’t sent them running in those few minutes, I would have bled out.”
Benedikt scrubbed at his face. Try as he might to be resentful, he had no alternative to offer.
“Fine,” he grumbled. “Perhaps Juliette Cai knew what she was doing.”
Marshall reached out and punched Benedikt’s shoulder. It was something he had done thousands of times before. Benedikt’s pulse picked up regardless, like the weight of his newfound knowledge added to the weight of the hit.
“I owed it to her to lie low,” Marshall said, not noticing the turmoil unraveling right beside him. “Well, when people on the streets weren’t trying any funny business, at least. Otherwise I was lying low.”
“Funny business?” Benedikt echoed.
Marshall picked up a cloth on the table and mimed tying it to his face. In a flash, Benedikt saw that dark figure on the rooftop again, the one who had shot all those Scarlets when he had been badly outnumbered.
“That was you.”
“Of course it was,” Marshall replied, his dimples deepening. “Who else would keep such a close eye on you?”
Benedikt’s breath left him in a whoosh. The air in the room grew still, or maybe that was just him, his lungs reaching critical deflation. I love you, he thought. Do you know? Have you always known? Have I always known?
A notch in Marshall’s brow formed, accompanying his hesitant smile. Marshall was confused. Benedikt was staring, and he could not stop, all the terror and devastation that had wrecked him these past few months lodged right in his throat like a physical block.
You could reach for him. Ask if he loves you back.
“Ben?” Marshall asked. “Are you okay?”
If he loved me too, wouldn’t he have told me? Wouldn’t he have come to me, come hell or high water?
Benedikt reached over suddenly, but only to hug his friend close, only to do as he had always done in all these years they had known each other. Marshall jolted but was quick to return the embrace, laughing as Benedikt pressed his chin hard into Marshall’s shoulder, like the physical sensation was enough to confirm that this was real; this was all real.