Page 29 of Lovesick Titan

“Just then?Onlythen? And that’s supposed to mean something to me?”

“No!” Danny moved forward and Mal blasted him without hesitation, but because the cold field was down, Danny was able to dodge, causing the ice to coat the wall beside the door instead. He held up his hands, pleading with Mal to not attack again. “No, I promise, it was more than that, I just didn’t realize—”

“Then which ones, Danny?” Mal re-centered his outstretched palm. “Which times? Which words were true? Which times did you mean it when youfuckedme?” His voice cracked, and he sneered at himself for letting that weakness slip.

Danny really had broken him, opened him up and made him vulnerable in a way that the thief didn’t know how to face without taking back control with a blast of his powers.

“You don’t even know, do you?” Mal said when Danny didn’t respond, letting his hand drop maybe because he looked so weary—of Danny, of all of it. “At least Ludgate was real. I don’t think even you’d take a beating like that just to further your con. But what do I know, maybe you would.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Danny said, thinking of his own twisted reflection that kept telling him the awful truth—that Dannywasthe darkness he’d been running from—and he couldn’t escape it without help.

He needed Mal to listen, to understand, to forgive him, or how could he forgive himself? But the loathing in Mal’s voice wounded Danny deeper than he could say. It was everything he’d been feeling toward himself for so long. He’d thought that finally, in Mal, he’d found someone who could see his darkness and still want him, still believe in him, the way Danny had learned to believe in Mal, but he’d ruined it, just like he ruined everything.

“I swear, Mal, Iswear, it wasn’t like that. I’m so sorry. I’msorry.”

“Areyou, Danny?” Mal said, that numb icy presence firmly in place again as he glared across the space between them. “Sorry you got caught? Or sorry you don’t get to control me anymore?”

Danny’s fists started to clench so tight, they hurt like they had that morning from the blunt pressure of his nails and the remaining sting of ice. “Mal, please…justlisten…”

“You know, it’s funny, Danny. You. Playing it up like you’re scared to turn into Thanatos, when you’re gunning to be the next best thing. Maybe that was the point. Maybe this whole time you’ve wanted to reshape yourself in his image. Maybe you weregratefulwhen he killed your mother.”

Stomach bottoming out, all the protest died on Danny’s tongue. He started to shake. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not? Isn’t it true? Coz congratulations, Danny. You’re well on your way to being just like him.”

“Stop.”

“You’re living up to his legacy like a real champ.”

“Stop it…”

“I bet he’d be proud of themonsterhe turned you into.”

“Shut up!” Danny screamed—and saw nothing butdarkness.

In the blink of an eye he had his hands on Mal, clutching his sweater as he jumped them across the room and slammed Mal into the wall beside the desk. It all happened too fast for Mal to react, too fast for Danny to realize what he was doing until it was over.

When Danny recognized what had happened and tried to scramble back, Mal laughed in his face. He didn’t try to fight, he justlaughed.

R

Mal was right. All Danny had needed was the right push to reveal his true colors. And it was funny, wasn’t it? That Mal had believed he’d found something good, that he’d believed he could have someonegood, who wouldn’t do what everyone else always had—use and abuse him and throw him away. Danny was just another copy of the same story wearing a different face.

Mal wouldn’t be fooled again.Notagain. So as he leaned against the wall Danny had slammed him into, he was sore and beaten but not broken. He refused to be broken.

“There you are, Danny. There’s the real you. You wanna hurt me? Go ahead. Hurt me!” he yelled as Danny stumbled away, still trying to keep up the lie.

“No… I…I don’t…I don’t want to hurt you.”

Mal laughed—and laughed again. He couldn’t believe he’d ever looked at this kid with reverence. He wanted to ice him again, but no. Danny deserved worse. “You don’t want to hurt me. You just wanted toruinme. That takes a special kind of evil. But you felt justified, didn’t you? Because I’m a bad man, who’s done bad things, so that makes it okay. Coz if you’re the victim first, it’sokayto make a victim out of somebody else. Why, you can even justifymurderwith that logic.”

He pushed away from the wall and stalked slowly forward, making Danny back up with every step.

“The hero can do something as heartless as the villain, but as long as he pretends to feel bad about it later, he’s not the bad guy. If you’re good, and you climb your way out of the darkness, everyone cheers for you, but if you start out as trash, well…you’re just trash forever.”

“Mal, I never said—”

“You didn’thaveto.” Mal surged forward, feeling his fury building, and he let it build, if only to see Danny back off, finally letting him reclaim the power Danny had only pretended to give him. “I kept thinking, nah, the kid’s just hurting and in a dark place, whenever I saw that sinister part of you creep in. But I get it now. That’s the real you. The rest is just a convenient mask for those of us too stupid to tell the difference.”

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