Page 97 of Slashed Bonds

That’s the arrangement. I hold the bottle. Niko holds the exceptions.

Below us, Mori and Niko are slowing.

She comes down out of the pace in stages, the way a trained runner does, and stops with her hands on her knees, dragging air. Niko pulls up beside her. He’s talking. I can’t hear what, but I can see his hands moving, and I can see the shape of his mouth, and he’s…

Taunting her. Grinning. Happy.

I can read lips well enough from here.

Four years of watching opposing benches will do that.

Five of five, he’s saying. Holding up a hand, fingers spread. Five of five. You don’t get to be tired.

She says something back, short, that makes him throw his head back and laugh, and I don’t need to read it, because I know what she told him.

She told him last night on the way past his crease and he’s been carrying it like a bruise he’s proud of.

You hold it too long.

It’s strange to watch.

Niko in public is a closed door with a smile painted on it. The only time anyone sees him with the guard down is in the house, with the two of us, after midnight.

And here he is on a track at seven in the morning with his whole face open like a window.

The roster’s going to notice.

If they haven’t already.

“If she gets that friend of hers to make the content,” I say, “and it goes viral, it won’t be good.”

Killian lets out a low, drawn chuckle.

Then he turns his head, slow, and looks at me from the side, and it’s the look he gives forwards in the corner.

Haunting. Threatening. Amused, underneath.

“You don’t give a flying fuck about that.”

He’s right. I don’t.

“You want her to get attention.” His voice drops. “Like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon, except the cocoon’s a private observatory with glass walls, and you want the world lined up outside to see how beautiful the wings are.”

He’s been listening to Niko. That’s Niko’s metaphor.

It’s also correct.

“True,” I mutter.

And my eyes go back to her.

She’s straightened up. Niko’s reached out, and his fingers find the elastic in her hair, and he tugs it free. All of it comes down at once, black, red, soaked through, falling around her shoulders in a way that shouldn’t be beautiful and is.

They share a look.

I don’t know what’s in it. I know what it does to me, which is something I don’t have a word for but am going to file under protective and refuse to examine.

I force my eyes off them.