Tom tossed Alex his helmet and they climbed onto his bike. She tried to ride side-saddle, but Tom insisted it wasn't safe. "Just pull up your skirt. Hurry!"

She bunched the long skirt up around her thighs and straddled the machine like a horse, clasping her arms around Tom's waist. He struck the kickstand with his heel and they launched forward, motor buzzing.

"Watch the exhaust pipe. Lean with me, when I lean. Got it?" Tom had to shout as the wind picked up. Alex's eyes widened when she saw the icy roads twisting out of the forest. Her heart pounded in her chest as the bike accelerated.

"Hold on to me!"

Arms tightly wound around her Perseus, she rested her head against the back of his neck and closed her eyes. They raced down winding roads, passing tall cabins with snow covered roofs and wooden columns. The trees and lawns were coated in white. The roads were plowed, but every turn and lean that came their way made Alex think they would slip and be dashed across the pavement.

It's just like riding a horse, she told herself. Her mother would scream if she knew. "They'll have to scrape you up in a bucket!"

Tom tilted onto the onramp of I-9. As they got up to sixty miles an hour, Alex felt herself lifting off the seat. Cold air rushed up her sleeves. She gripped tighter, her hair flicking in her face. The gale froze her nose and cheeks red, but her soul was singing. Heart full of helium, she kissed behind Tom's ear.

They reached their exit, came to a stop at a stoplight, and Tom planted his feet on the road. He must have felt her shaking against him, because he took off his jacket and had her put it on.

"Thank you for coming back," she said now that he could hear her.

"It's nothing."

The light turned green. Tom kicked up his feet and they propelled into the intersection. It seemed impossible that he wasn't cold.

They tore up the streets of Shark River Hills. Low to the ground and drunk on the raw power of the engine, they zipped around the shady lanes. Alex felt immense relief when she saw the vine-covered brick face of her house. Tom dropped her off out front, but when she took off her helmet and handed it to him, she froze. His wrist had a phone number written on it in blue pen.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Whose number is that?"

Tom glanced at his wrist and scoffed at the nuisance of it. "Nobody's. Nobody I want to know."

"Are you going to call her?" Alex asked. Before he could answer she started up toward her front door.

Tom parked his bike and chased her. He grabbed her wrist, whispering, "Hey, cut it out. Look at me."

Against her better judgment, she looked into his eyes; and they were as blue as the winter sky.

"I woke up on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, and you don't even know what I had to do to get back to you. Don't believe me? Just ask Nathan. I had nobody else I could call to pick me up."

Alex frowned, conceding at last with a nod. "I get jealous easily."

"That's okay. I kind of miss that in a relationship."

"Is this a relationship?" she said, looking away and trying not to sound too hopeful or too unaffected. Tom chuckled but didn't answer. They stood in silence for several long and drawn out moments until finally she said, "Do you want to come upstairs, Brash?"

"Are you parents home?"

"Nope," she said, itching at the flakes of hairspray on the back of her neck.

She helped him move his bike behind some tall snow-covered piles of mulch along the side of the house. She unlocked the front door and led Tom into the sitting room filled with priceless art and oak furniture. Colored light from stained glass windows painted rainbows over them. As Tom stared at a portrait of her as a child, he backed into a pedestal and rattled a vase.

"Jesus!" he whispered, catching it. And at the same time, Alex caught it too, her fingers touching his.

They set the vase away and their fingers laced into warm and hopeful tethers. She took him upstairs to her room where they fell into bed together.

Mouths fused; hands wandered. Tom's fingers brushed her inner thigh. She decided to trust him as they slipped under her panties and inside of her. She sighed, eventually rolling over and asking him to get her zipper in the back. The tips of his fingers on her nape made her head light and airy. She heard the zipper and then the sudden quieting of Tom's breath. She glanced over her shoulder to see he was staring in shock.

"You're one of them," he whispered.

Alex sat up and craned her neck. She checked herself in the mirror and saw her back was marked with henna in the design of Solomon's Star.

The blood sank out of her face as she remembered Hypatia painting her the night before.

"We'll make it permanent when you give your name to the Night Man."

Alex's lips tingled. She climbed out of bed and fixed her zipper.

"I had no idea they put this on me."

"Right. You got indoctrinated without actually being indoctrinated? Do you think I'm stupid?"

"Tom. I swear to you. I—" The tears stung in her eyes.

All she could think about was Nathan now and how she'd betrayed him. She remembered his leg detaching for the first time in front of her eyes. She felt the nightmare of it in her own body and wished for a chance to go back to that moment when she reacted in the worst possible way. When Christine removed the Phantom's mask, she didn't recoil in horror.

She remembered the innocence with which she had once thought of Nathan: the fairytale, the white wedding. All of that was dead to her now and there was no going back. She broke down crying. Tom took hold of her, shushing her and stroking her hair.

"I'm sorry," he said. "You're not one of them. How could you be?"

"Last night was my first time," Alex confessed. She felt her face get hot as she divulged her secret, but when Tom didn't react, she realized it wasn't a secret at all. He had known, and she could tell he didn't even care. It had meant nothing to him, and in that moment as she looked back on the night, it hadn't really meant anything to her either. Every ounce of rapture she felt had been in those brief seconds that she forgot Tom wasn't Nathan.

"Alex. Do you remember anything from the second party?"

"Just bits and pieces."

"I don't want to scare you, but I saw you wander into an orgy. In fact, that was the last thing I saw before I got jumped."

"An orgy?" Alex caved into herself, sick to her stomach.

"I think we should go to the hospital."

"Why?"

"For a rape kit. You might need a morning after pill. Anti-virals."

"You think I was raped?"

"They put their mark on you, Alex. Whatever happened in that room after I was gone was enough for them to think you were one of them."

"No," she said. "Liam said he protected me all night."

"You need to take off your dress and put it in plastic."

"I need a shower."

"You can't. You'll destroy evidence." He opened her dresser and handed her a long-sleeved shirt, a sweater and jeans.

Alex modestly changed her clothes and donned a long overcoat. She stuffed the Gunne Sax dress into a plastic bag from Macy's and tied it shut.

"You can think about whether or not you want to press charges later. Right now we need to collect evidence."

Collect evidence. He sounded so objective and calm about an idea that made Alex want to crawl out of her skin. She reminded herself he was the son of a detective. He only wanted to help her. If what he conjectured had actually happened, she believed there would be no helping her. It might be better to pretend nothing happened. Burn the dress, take a shower, resume life without knowing. But that idea could never be scraped out of her brain. She would always wonder how many men had been inside of her that night. Had she smiled? Had she asked for more? Had she lain there like a corpse and been a toy for their amusement? That much she could never know. Even the greatest detectives cannot piece together the horrors to which only shadows bear witness.

She placed her hand into Tom's and told him plainly, "Tell me what to do."

______________

Music: Muse "Invincible"