Page 46 of The Vagabond

“I’ll never stop coming for you,” I say. “Even when you hate me. Even when you pretend you don’t want this.”

She closes her eyes. Her lips part, smeared and swollen. And then, softly, she confesses.

“I do want this.”

I kiss her again. And this time? She kisses me back. She kisses me back like she means it. Like I’m the only goddamn thing keeping her tethered to the ground. But then, all at once, she rips herself away.

“No—no, no, no!” she gasps, voice cracking as she shoves me. Hard. Her palms slam into my chest with a strength that’s not physical—it’s emotional. It’s soul-deep. “Get away from me!”

I stumble back. My hands go up, but not because I want to. Because I have to. Because she’s feral, eyes wet, mascara smudging as angry malice spills out of her in violent, beautiful pieces.

“Do you think this is okay?!” she screams, her voice echoing off the tile walls like thunder. “Do you think you can just break into my life—again—and touch me like nothing ever happened?! Like you didn’t leave me in that hell?!”

“Max—”

“No!” She points at me like she wants to drive her finger through my chest. “You don’t get to say my name like that. You don’t get to kiss me. You don’t get to want me. You’re a Fed, Saxon. You’re not my hero, you’re my biggest fucking mistake.”

My jaw clenches. I take a step toward her.

“Don’t,” she warns, backing up so fast she hits the counter. Her hands are trembling, fists curling like she doesn’t know whether to punch me or fall to the floor. “Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare touch me.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I say, barely able to get the words out. “I was trying to protect you. He would’ve killed you, Maxine.”

Her laugh is hollow. A broken sound that makes something in me split clean open.

“You think that makes it better?” she cries. “That you left me there? That you vanished after promising I was safe? Do you know what happened after you whispered that bullshit in my ear and disappeared?”

My throat goes tight. “Tell me.”

“No,” she snaps. “You can’t have that story. You don’t get my trauma. You don’t get to collect pieces of me like they mean something. Because they don’t. Not to you.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is.” Her voice breaks. She slams her fist against the sink. “You used me. I was a fucking tool to you so you could get what you want."

“Maxine—”

“I let you touch me,” she whispers, quieter now. Devastated. “I let you get under my skin. I told myself you were different. I needed you to be different.”

She turns away. Her shoulders shake. And then—she collapses. Not to the ground, but inward. Like her body’s too tired to keep housing the pain.

“I can’t do this again,” she says, and it’s barely a sound. “I can’t feel this again.”

I want to reach for her. I want to drop to my knees and tell her I’d burn the Bureau, the world, myself just to undo the pain I caused her. But I don’t. Because she’s right. I did use her. I lied. I let her believe I was the light in the room, when I was just another monster lurking in the shadows.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m so fucking sorry, Maxine.”

She doesn’t respond. She stares into the mirror, at the pink smeared across her mouth, her cheek, her chin. Her war paint. And then she scrapes the lipstick off with the back of her hand like it disgusts her. LikeIdisgust her.

“Get out,” she says. “Before I scream.”

And I know she will. So I leave. Because this time? She means it.

20

MAXINE

The next morning, I wake up feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck full of emotional baggage. The kind that smells like Saxon North. My mouth is dry. My head is pounding, my skin itchy from dried makeup, and my dress? Still on. Wrinkled. Twisted. A strap halfway off my shoulder and bunched around my ribs like a noose.

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