CHAPTER THIRTEEN / VOL. I, STAY

DON'T HOLD ONTO THAT ANGER. That's what his mom used to tell him. Even as a child he'd felt too much all at once. His mother had been the one to carry his burden; it's always someone else carrying his burden. But his mother is gone and there is no one left to keep it at bay. It's twisted and he knows it, but sometimes he thinks that if she had kept some of her anger then she would still be alive. Maybe spite could have given her the strength to claw through the fire, burning flesh and all. Leo wants to let his anger go but he doesn't know how to. What he needs is for someone to tell him: you can't hold onto that anger. Once it has you, it won't let you go. Get rid of it before it gets rid of you.

But no one does. No one says anything at all.

He tries to focus on the task at hand, to keep his mind off of the noose that's tightening around his neck. This is familiar—listening to the clicks of the lock and feeling for the small shifts of movement. He understands it. At least more than he understands the heaviness of loss and the slow decay of unbridled rage. And even though he's seen no progress, at least it's something. If his hands didn't have something to do, they might have started to pull the viscera from his body and he would have let them. Unfortunately, giving his hands something to do does nothing to silence his dark thoughts.

Leo isn't the only one that seems to be held at gunpoint by his own emotions. Jason is sat on one of the couches, elbows digging sharply into his knees as he hunches over the edge. His eyes are boring into the calloused ridges of his hands, but Leo has an inkling that his troubles run deeper than the marks on his palms. He swears that Jason's thoughts are loud enough for him to hear. That or he knows Jason well enough to know how guilt has one hand on the wheel and the other around his neck.

He can't take it anymore.

          "Has anyone ever told you that you think too loud?" Leo asks with a huff. He's feigning vexation to mask his concern, humor in place of vulnerability.

Jason lifts his head up, but his confused expression suggests that he hadn't really heard Leo at all. He'd been too busy drowning in his own shame, soaking in those harrowing emotions rather than swallowing them down. He needs to feel them. He needs to know that if nothing else, at least his feelings are still his own.

          Leo turns back to the locked cage. Unlike Jason, he doesn't want to feel so much. He can't stand to be alone with his thoughts. "You should get some sleep," he says and then spares a fleeting glance at Jason's tired form—dark eyes, pale skin. Leo can't imagine he isn't the mirror image. "You need it."

          Jason takes a deep breath, trying to find the words that will mend the gap. He couldn't possibly sleep at a time like this when there were so many apologies to be made and so much guilt to be weighed down by. "Leo, I—" His breath gets caught in his throat and he stumbles. "I'm sorry about that stuff I said in Chicago. That wasn't me." Or he didn't want it be him. He didn't want himself to be capable of such casual cruelty. "You're not annoying and you do take stuff seriously—especially your work. I wish I could do half the things that you can."

Leo lowers his screwdriver, hands going stiff as he looks up and shakes his head. Insecurity tugs at his gut, but he buries it—buries it like he does with everything else. He can't find it in himself to carry a grudge against Jason. Not Jason, never Jason. That's his friend—one of his only friends—and he loves him, truly. So of course, if Jason apologizes all is forgiven. But the things we try to hide will always come to light, no matter how deep we try to bury them.

          "I try very hard to be annoying," Leo insists. "Don't insult my ability to annoy. And how am I supposed to resent you if you go apologizing? I'm a lowly mechanic," he teases, but an itch in the back of his mind tells him it's true. "You're like the prince of the sky, the Lord of the Universe. I'm supposed to resent you."

          "Lord of the Universe?" Jason asks in amusement. There's the familiar quirk of his brow and toothy smile that makes Leo feel like he's known Jason for the longest time.

          Leo nods earnestly, revealing his own smile as he finally turns to look at his friend fully. "Sure, you're all—bam! Lightning man. And 'watch me fly.'" He spreads his arms out and flaps them like a bird. This elicits a chuckle from Jason. It fills him with warmth. He continues. "I am the eagle that soars—"

          "Shut up, Valdez."

          "Yeah, see," Leo grins impishly. "I do annoy you."

          Jason shakes his head fondly. "I apologize for apologizing."

          "Well, thank you," Leo says, uncharacteristically soft. He turns back to the lock, feeling less heavy than before but still being crushed by an unseen force. He's not so angry now—just sad. He can still feel Jason's eyes boring a hole in his head. So he says, "Seriously, you should get some sleep."

          "You did fix Festus, you know," Jason mutters suddenly. It's quiet but it carries across the silence. "You gave him a purpose again. I think this quest was the high point of his life." Leo says nothing and the back of his head gives nothing away. Jason starts to worry that he's gone and said the wrong thing. He feels like he's always saying the wrong thing.

          But Leo just sighs heartbreakingly heavy. "I hope so," he all but whispers. He clenches his eyes shut tightly as if that will quell all of his violent emotions. It doesn't. And then, against his better judgement, he looks to the empty couch that has a gaping tear in it—likely from Éleos making a home in it. "She's gone, you know?"

          "Who is?"

          "Will," Leo says quietly. He feels that anger and guilt rise up, swelling in his mouth. "I'm surprised you didn't notice."

          "What do you—" Jason stops short and looks to the spot that Will had been occupying. It's empty. What he wanted to say was: what do you mean? But he knows what Leo means. He doesn't know how he hadn't noticed that Will left. Lately all he'd done was think about her and dream about her—so caught up in his own sickening desire to know her. He doesn't know what he'd call it, but it's something. "Never mind. Did you see her leave?"

          Leo shrugs. He tries to pretend that he doesn't care. But the problem is that he has always cared too much. "She's probably gone, man. Probably found a way out and left us here. I'll bet she's already on her way back to Camp Half-Blood by now."

          "She wouldn't do that..."

It sounds like he's trying to convince himself more than anything.

          "You give her too much credit," Leo snaps. He can't help it. It's the anger that grapples at his throat. It wants to kill him. He wants to let it. "Look, Jason, be realistic. She never wanted to be on this quest in the first place." And then softer: "I know you believe in her, but I don't think she believes in you."

"Why do you always do that?"

"Do what?"

"You're always so quick to find fault with her."

Leo huffs, dropping the screwdriver. Piper stirs momentarily but goes still again. "She's a bad person—"

"No, she's not," Jason interjects quickly. His voice comes out sharper than he means to. "She's done some bad things but who hasn't? No one's clean—not really."

          "Fuck," he scoffs. "You're even starting to sound like her."

Jason knows why he sounds like her too. It's because those words aren't his—not really. They're Will's of course. But he knows she's right. No one's clean.

          He sighs. He's tired and all he wants is to forget about his troubles for a moment. But he has wrongs to right and he knows that he has to defend Will. There is no one else left to do it. So he says, "I know that you don't like her—maybe even hate her—but I really don't get why. I know that she left us and that she's a bit...hostile—"

          "That's putting it lightly."

          Jason ignores the interruption. "But you don't know what she's been through."

          "And you do?" Leo jeers. Truthfully he doesn't know what Jason knows. All he knows is that he's angry and someone needs to pay for that pain. So he's cruel and calls it honesty. There are worse things someone could do. But he has to stop himself before he says something worse. He's only just mended the growing fissure between him and Jason. He can't throw that away. "No, I'm sorry, Jason," he apologizes. He means it too. "You're right. I don't know what she's been through."

Lie. He does know. He knows because Will had poured her heart out in the only way she knew how. She had walked back into the fire to gather up lost memories just so Leo could feel like he wasn't so alone in the world. Because Leo had begged her to tell him they were the same and came to hate that she had. And Will put up her walls again. And Leo tried to burn them to ground.

And why is that, he asks himself. Because you're scared that one day that'll be you? You can see the monster that you're becoming and it terrifies you. You want to kill it before it kills you. But Jason doesn't understand. Of course Jason couldn't understand. He's in too deep to know the full depth of Will's wrath. He'd forgive her for the emotional slaughter, the cruelty that she calls a kindness. Leo's just trying to protect him—his first friend, his only friend.

"I'm just trying to look out for you. I don't want you to get your hopes up..." he trails off, leaving enough room for them to feel the weight of his words.

"I appreciate it, Leo. But I don't think she'd just leave again. You know, she came back—"

Leo cuts him off. "I know."

Only this time it isn't so bitter. There's barely any anger clinging to the underbelly of that statement. It's soft. Not so much for himself but for Jason. And he's right. She did come back.

That has to mean something.

Jason sits there for a moment, fiddling with the coin in his pocket. He's thinking very loudly again. "I think I'm gonna go look for her."

Leo isn't surprised by this. But now there is a morsel of resentment. "What happened to not splitting up," he asks. But he knows. Of course, the rule unravels when it comes to Will.

Jason's next words are quick to silence that incessant spleen. "We're already split up. She's probably just checking for threats. I won't be gone long. It won't be like last time," he promises.

"Yeah, alright," Leo agrees. "I'll hold down the fort here. If you find her—" He stops when he sees the way his friend's expression falls. "Uh, when you find her, will you tell her—"

Will you tell her I'm sorry? That's what he wants to say. Too cowardly to tell her himself and too cowardly to even let the words fall from his lips. Worse than a monster, a coward.

"Yeah?"

"Never mind," he mutters.

"You sure?" Jason's standing now, hovering by the entrance as he waits for Leo to change his mind.

He doesn't.

"It doesn't matter..."

"Well, you can tell her whatever it is once we're all together again," Jason says. He tries to swallow the part of him that says, if we're ever together again. He's half-convinced that Leo is right, that he'll never see her again. It terrifies him in such a visceral way—the fear that burrows itself deep in his gut.

But even if she had left and he never saw her again, he'd forgive her.

He already has.

HE FINDS HER IN A BATHROOM. He sees the light seeping between the crack and the dark shadow that moves across it. With sword in hand, Jason swings open the door—quiet enough that no one else will be alerted but quick enough that a potential threat would be caught off guard. But she doesn't even turn around to look at him. He can see her reflection in the mirror, the crusted blood in her hairline, a permanent frown etched onto her lips. She had already heard him coming.

He takes a step into the bathroom, startling himself as his sneakers squeak on the tile floor. This earns him a mocking lilt of her lips. He knows because he hasn't taken his eyes off of her. He's truly terrified that if he does she'll disappear. She's so good at it too.

When her voice finally comes, it's jarring and rough despite the fact that it's low enough that he almost doesn't hear it. "Close the door. You don't want someone to see the light."

Jason looks behind him at how the light stretches down the hall, casting a harsh glow across the walls. He obliges hesitantly. With the door shut, he takes a cautious step further into the room. He doesn't understand. She should be gone by now, heading back home to Sherman and Will Solace and the people she's missed since the quest began. But here she is, in the nearest bathroom, washing the blood and dirt from beneath her nails.

Jason doesn't dare move closer. He's scared to. Scared that she'll flee if he does. So he presses his back to the wall, only a foot away from the door. And he watches her. He doesn't understand how he found her so easily when he knows what she had meant to do. So he tells her, "You're leaving, aren't you." It's not so much a question.

          He knows.

Her fingers keep digging at her nail beds. "You know I am."

"Why?"

"Three is a sacred number. Four... not so much." It's true but it's not the reason. Jason knows that much. Still, Will continues. "I'm righting this mistake before the fates do it for us."

"Meaning?"

"Before one of us ends up dead."

Jason tuts. He's growing frustrated and they both can sense it. "That's not why you're leaving."

"Oh," Will says absently. "It isn't?" She's goading him—pressing a finger to the bullet hole just to see him writhe. It's working. He's writhing.

"You don't want to be here. You never did..." he trails off. He can't hide the hurt in his voice even if he wanted to, so he doesn't bother with feeling ashamed. He's baring himself. She's giving him nothing.

Will turns the faucet off abruptly and turns on her heel to face him. There's still blood beneath her nails and stuck to her temple, but her jeering expression is worse than the gore on her body. "I never tried to hide it either. I don't want to be here. You want your life back. Oklahoma wants her dad back. But me? I've got nothing to gain from this. I have people who are missing me." It seems strange to say that. For so long she had no one but her own thoughts to come home to. But now she had people that loved her. And that was worse than anything. "I can go home to them."

Jason understands. She's baring herself in the only way she knows how. It's not soft or kind. It's cruel and comes at the expense of others, but it's still vulnerability if you dig deep enough. He keeps asking himself why she needs to gain something at all. He wants to keep searching for humanity, but he knows he will only be disappointed. Instead he asks, "What will they say about you leaving the quest? About leaving us?"

She tears her eyes from his and turns back around. He assumes that she is closing herself off again, but really she can't stand the way he's looking at her. "Nothing, I imagine." She really does think it's true. They're probably surprised that she hasn't come home yet. And they likely wouldn't question if she did. They don't ask for her to change, so she doesn't. "They've forgiven me for worse."

It goes silent. The only thing that can be heard is running water and the sound of Will clawing at her own fingers just to peel the blood away. Jason knows that she doesn't mean to hurt him—not this time at least. He's seen her bury salt in an open wound, and he's seen Leo follow suit. This isn't like that. She's being painfully honest, but it's really only hurting him.

Her eyes meet his in the reflection. She can see him crumple, see his chest grow tight as her stoney eyes weigh down on him. He feels a sharpness building against his skin.

She's holding a knife to his throat without lifting a finger.

But he can forgive her for that. She's done it before.

Jason stands up suddenly—so suddenly that it manages to catch Will off guard. She turns her head to him quickly and looks back at the bloody water. It fills the room with the smell of iron and dead things. Turns the air ripe with filth.

"You don't want to be here, but you don't want to leave." He speaks so certainly. He knows, he knows, he knows. "Why else would you still be here? You could have left by now. At any point you could have left. And now..." Jason says, reaching over the sink to turn the faucet off. "You could have left. You want someone to tell you to stay."

Will grips at the edge of the sink so hard that her knuckles turn white. There's no water or scratching to fill the silence. And the silence has always been so harrowing.

"So stay."

She's spent the last ten years of her life running. It's all she knows. There is only one way this ends. Losing. Broken promises, bloody hands, guilt wringing your neck. She knows the end. And still, she stays.

Will doesn't bother saying anything. She does nothing to soothe his worries, instead letting them linger in the air. She hates that he cares.

Digging around in the backpack at her feet, she is surprised when she finds a soft roll of gauze and tape. But of course, Sherman would have been prepared for this. When she pulls the items out, her hands are covered in cuts from the various weapons she had thrown in there at the last minute. She reaches back in and pulls out a box of multicolored bandaids. There's sloppy lettering on the back in jagged sharpie. It's the names of her brothers and sisters, all jumbled together in a mess of letters. She bites her tongue so hard it bleeds, but it does nothing to kill the wave of emotions.

          "You should have some ambrosia," Jason says, eyeing the angry burn on her arms as she unwraps the orange fabric from around it.

          "I don't need it."

          Jason hesitates, but after another glance at the burnt flesh, he decides. "I'll go grab you some."

          "Suit yourself," Will replies, not looking up.

          "Will you still be here when I get back?"

She doesn't answer. He just has to trust that she will be.

Jason makes his way to the door, lingering for a moment. He's watching her again, only this time he's tracing over her features like it might be the last time. He knows that he should feel embarrassment wash over him, but he doesn't. He's just glad to be feeling anything at all. At least he knows it's his. He leaves before her eyes flicker up to the reflection. She's met with a closed door, retreating footsteps, and a decision.

If you look out the large window of the bathroom, in the distance, you can see the corner of the looming fence. There's a chink in the armor, an Achille's heel, a weakness that could easily be be exploited. There's a dark strip along the fence where the lights and lasers don't quite reach. If someone was skilled enough to scale the fence within a narrow margin then they might get out unscathed. For someone that had been training their entire life it would be easy.

Will spends the next minute staring out the window at that same spot, thinking about how easy it would be to leave. And she's still staring at it when Jason returns. He doesn't look surprised to see her—just relieved. She takes the bag of ambrosia he hands her and breaks off a small square. His gaze trails to the window. And then he looks back to her, oddly calculating.

He doesn't ask though. He's not sure he wants to know the truth.

          So, instead he asks, "What does it taste like?"

She swallows quickly, doesn't savor it. Just washes it down with water. She wants the taste to be cleansed from her mouth. She'd even substitute it with clotted blood too thick to swallow. And yet, she answers honestly.

          "Jook."

Will knows that he doesn't understand, so she lets him sit with it for a moment. Again, he can see the corner of her lip tug upwards. Suddenly, he's alright with a little humiliation.

          "What's that," he inquires curiously.

          "Rice porridge. My mom used to make it a lot." She's trying not to dwell on it. None of these memories bring her any comfort and yet they still had the power to heal her. The burning on her arm subsides though it's still just as red and violent as before. However, it doesn't hurt so much when she wraps the gauze around and tapes it up.

Jason is still looking at the small squares of ambrosia.

          "You can try it. Just not too much. Otherwise, you burn up."

          "Burn up how?"

          Will shakes her head, suppressing an amused smile. "Don't dwell on it."

He doesn't.

          "Will it taste like jook?"

          "I doubt it. It'll taste like something comforting, maybe something you miss..."

He pinches a piece off but looks to Will to see if it's really alright. She nods and Jason is at ease. He brings it up to his lips, well aware of the fact that Will has stopped dressing her wounds to gage his reaction. The moment it hits his tongue, his pupils dilate and a warmth spreads across his chest. It tastes like brownies and he doesn't know why but it makes his heart ache. Will was right. He's longing for something. He just doesn't know what.

          "Well?" Will inquires, genuine curiosity seeping into her voice. "What's the verdict?"

          "It tastes like brownies," Jason replies simply. He doesn't really know how else to describe it. There's not a way to explain the way it made him feel. He wants to ask for more. He wants to feel that way again. But he knows better than to ask. Her ominous warning is enough to deter him and he feels enough already.

          Will is quiet for a moment. "You like brownies?"

          "I guess so." Jason's surprised by her question. She is too.

He sinks down onto the cold tile floor, back pressed against the wall as his shoes squeak agains the floor again. He's in a much better mood, feeling brighter, still tired but less so. Jason's watching her contently, a slight pinkish hue to his cheeks that she assumes is from the warmth of the ambrosia. He's got this smile on his face like he's just happy to be there, and Will has truly never felt so murderous. She doesn't understand him right now even though he's usually so easy to read.

Will drags her eyes from him, turning her attention back to her wounds, though she can still feel the digging of his gaze. When she tugs at the hem of her shirt there's a sharp intake of breath. Before she can even think to plunge Éleos through a major artery, Jason is standing in front of her with his brow furrowed.

          "Is that from when you landed on Festus?" He wants to reach out to her, but he's scared to lose a hand. Instead, he keeps his hands tucked in his pockets so that they're not tempted to do anything else besides lay stagnant.

          "Yeah," she mutters, taking a step back. She's watching him warily, not knowing what to make of him. She tugs the shirt up higher so that she can start to bandage her torso. Jason is quick to sit back down, keeping his eyes trained on his dirty sneakers.

          "I'm sorry," he blurts out suddenly. He looks up briefly to see her reaction. There is none. His eyes fall back to the floor. "I'm sorry for what I said at the department store," he clarifies.

          "Why?"

          "Why did I say it?"

          "No," Will corrects. "Why are you sorry?"

          "Well..." Jason trails off. He hadn't been expecting that question. "Because I shouldn't have said it. I didn't mean it."

Leo hadn't questioned his apology. He'd taken it at face value, shook his head fondly, and forgave Jason without a second thought. He takes the lie before the admission. But Will isn't like Leo. There is, of course, a dichotomy that can't go unnoticed. Will doesn't want Jason to rest easy, thinking that his paltry excuse could save him from self-loathing. She wants him to look in the mirror and see the truth. Selfishly, she wants him to see a monster looking back at him.

          "But you did," she insists.

          "Yeah, but Medea—"

          "Didn't force you to say anything. Whatever you said, whatever you felt..." she pauses, shrugging. "That was already there. She can't force you to feel something that you don't. If Hera couldn't do it, then Medea certainly wouldn't be able to. The only person who can make you feel something you don't is yourself." Now she tilts her head to meet his gaze. She wants to see the guilt brimming at the surface. "We lie to ourselves all the time, right?"

          "I'm sorry," he repeats feebly.

          "And what does that do for me?"

Again there is silence—long, dull, loud silence. Will is still watching him, so unbearably cold and calculating. His apology means nothing to her because it's not really for her. We don't apologize to people to make them feel better—it won't. We say we're sorry to alleviate our own guilt, so that we can sleep at night without choking on remorse. It's inherently selfish. Will knows that. Jason doesn't. What he does know is that the distance between them feels impossibly wide. She only gets further and further away.

He'll never reach her now.

She finishes wrapping her torso, tossing the supplies into her backpack before easing herself onto the cold tile floor. Her already cold hands sting as her palms press against the floor, so she busies them with applying various colored bandaids to her more minor wounds. Jason just keeps watching her, trying to figure her out though he doesn't think he ever will.

          "Did you mean what you said about it being better to have someone than no one at all?" He wants her to look at him. She's peeling the wrappers off of the bandages and leaving them scattered across the floor; she's never had to clean up a mess—even one that was hers. No one asks it of her—not anymore at least. And Will has become comfortable with the cycle of stagnancy. She doesn't look at him.

          "Yes," she answers honestly, tiredly almost. "You disagree?"

          He frowns. "I don't think it's right to keep someone around just because you're lonely. That's not love," he says quietly; the words coming out as a whisper, something so small for someone who has always been so potent. But he's right. It's not love. Using isn't love no matter how often it's mistaken for it.

          She rolls her eyes, saying easily, "I never said it was. But what's love got to do with it?"

It comes out so bored, so indifferent that Jason swears he can feel the invisible knife loosen from his neck and plunge into his heart instead. It shouldn't bother him as much as it does. Jason has always had thick skin, even if he can't remember it. And he knows Will enough to know that apathy is second-nature to her. But there's something so personal about this. Because Jason wants to know that she is capable of mirroring his affections. He's met with disappointment.

          "It's got everything to do with it," he asserts and in an uncharacteristic display of raw emotions, his closed fist slams against the tile. The way he sees it, companionship needs some degree of love—real love that goes both ways. It's not right to use someone just because you're scared of being alone. "I mean, it's not fair to that person to keep giving and giving and get nothing in return."

          Her eyes flicker up at the sound of his fist meeting the floor. But if she feels anything, she doesn't show it. Will is collected, disinterested, always in control. "Well, maybe if they were really in love then they wouldn't expect anything in return. You know," she hums; it's mocking, almost patronizing. "I don't know much about love but I do know that it's not as pretty as everyone thinks. Love is transactional, but that doesn't mean it's a fair exchange. Someone always takes more than they give. Someone is always losing. Maybe that's not how it should be, but that's how it is. So no, I don't think it's wrong to want someone around. It's better than being alone."

Her words seem to weigh heavy in the air and Jason goes silent. She's right of course, even if he doesn't want her to be. Love is not an equal transaction. But maybe if you really love someone, you wouldn't need them to love you back. The problem is that everyone wants to be loved; no one wants to be in love. Love is self-destruction and no one's a martyr.

          He can't argue so he says, "I guess I just don't know how can you keep loving someone who doesn't love you back."

          Will shrugs; apathetic once more, but something in her voice burns with bitterness. "Sometimes we're just desperate enough and keep hoping that something will change. That some sliver of their heart will beat for us." She knows that Ares was not made for fatherhood, nor was she made for daughterhood. And yet there was always that suffocating longing for something more. Everyone wants to be loved. She'd given up on it by now, but everything lingers. Nothing ever really leaves.

          "Yeah," Jason sighs, looking at her with the deepest longing he has. She won't look at him. "I guess I know what you mean."

He wishes he could have the warmth that the ambrosia gave him again. It made him feel full, and not the kind that you can only feel in your gut, but the kind in your chest that is bright, hot, and threatens to swallow you whole.

But all he has is this.

HE FEELS BARE, empty, stripped of anything that is truly his.

For so long, his powers had been something that haunted him. All he knew was smoke and the smell of burning flesh; all he had were ghosts that chased him like shadows. He was scared of what he could do, of what he was capable of. And he had spent the better half of his life burying this part of himself. But now that it's gone, he feels incomplete.

Leo knows that he's a nightmare. He's been selfish and scared and insecure to the point where he burns bridges before anyone else can. He knows that they're all waiting to leave him. He doesn't blame them. He would leave himself too if he could.

Sometimes, he gets this feeling, like he's outside of his body, looking down at himself. And he hates it. He hates the way he looks, how he acts, who he is. And he hates that this is how everyone else sees him. But he doesn't know how to change it. He doesn't know how he can shape himself into someone he could stomach. Maybe if he was brave like Jason, more charming, handsome in a way that people cared for. Or if he was kind like Piper, more honest, and kept his heart on his sleeve instead of embalmed between his rib cage. But he's none of these things and he knows that this feeling will stay with him forever.

When Jason returns, sober and debased like a prodigal son, Leo anticipates his disappointment. He expects his friend to return alone; and Leo would dry Jason's eyes and absolve his shortcomings through the alleviation of his own guilt. But Jason merely sinks into one of the couches and faces the wall, not saying a word. Leo is staring holes into his back when a shadow moves in the corner of his eye.

Will deposits her backpack next to the couch that had been branded by her knife. She sits with her head tilted up, glaring at the ceiling as if she wants the gods to see her—to look down at this small, beady-eyed creature, covered in scars and filled to the brim with wrath. She wants them to know that she sees them too. Unlike everyone else, she sees them for what they are and not what she wants them to be.

Leo drags his dark eyes away from her profile. He knows that she can feel his stare. She always knows.

He's trying to dissect her, to understand her fully. But it doesn't come as easily for him. Will has spent her entire life, picking apart everyone's actions and mannerisms to unveil their intent. It's a skill she learned early on to survive because everyone lies and everyone wants something from you. Leo's never been able to pry people apart like this. He's never had the patience, never really tried to. Most of the time, he doesn't want to know why people do the things that they do. He's scared of what he'll find. So he shies away from the truth.

Lies are always easier to swallow.

          "You can't leave." His voice is hoarse from the crying, his throat dry and his lips cracked. He feels so sad and small in front of her because she exists and is seen. And Leo has always felt so small in comparison to everyone else.

          She doesn't say anything and he starts to wonder if she had heard him at all. "I didn't," she replies dryly, after a tense minute of unbearable silence. "I'm still here, aren't I?"

          He scoffs with no reservation. It's an ugly sound—purposefully cruel and brutally honest. If he looked at himself right now, he wouldn't like what he saw. "For how long," Leo asks. When Will says nothing, he's not surprised. He shifts from his knees onto the floor and presses his back against the cage. He's looking at her now. She can't hide from him this time. "You can't leave them. For some reason, they're both convinced that there's good in you."

          Will tilts her head sideways, dropping her gaze from the ceiling to the boy in front of her. His eyes are red and swollen from how violently he rubbed at them, and his skin had started to look ghostly pale, blanketed by a sheen of sweat. It's like looking in a mirror. She almost smiles, thinking, but not you. You know the truth.

          Instead, she shakes her head and dismisses the thought altogether. "Their savior complex isn't on me."

          Leo couldn't fathom that kind of apathy—the complete disregard for anyone else. "It's more than that," he stresses. "They—" But what can he say that is the most true? He wants to think that it's more than personal sacrifice and moral masochism. From the outside it looks like they care for her; but from the inside, maybe it is self-sabotage. Why else would they give so much of themselves to someone who would kill them again and again and again? And she must know why they relentlessly defend her despite how undeserving she is of their devotion. She has to know. But Leo doesn't mention it. "Look, I care about them."

          "OK," Will says.

          He bites his tongue. "They're my friends."

          "So you keep saying," she retorts.

He's growing frustrated by how little she gives. Conversations with her are always hard to swallow and feel like pulling teeth, only Will is the one with a pair of pliers and her hands wedged between your molars. But this time he tries to see her as something more. Writing her off as monster is easy.

          "Why did you save me?" He's not sure what he's looking for when he asks the question; maybe an answer that hints at a sliver of humanity or disappointment when she counters with apathy. What he does know is that Will won't tell him what he wants to hear. Everyone else would tell him that he is wholly and resolutely good; Will would tell him that his anger would consume him. But Leo doesn't want to hear it. He'd sooner take the lie.

Will looks at him with her dark eyes like stones. The absence of blood across her temple does nothing to alleviate how menacing she looks. She's unraveling him just from her gaze, pulling him apart to appraise the spleen tucked into his viscera. She dissects him in a way that he can't, because she is armed with an arsenal of tools and he only has his hands.

          "Because i know you," Will says, making sure to watch him now. Contrary to what Leo believed, it's him that can't hide from her now. She wants to see whether or not he has the stomach for the truth. "You wouldn't have walked away. You would have stayed with him until the very end. And it would have been your flesh scattered in the snow."

          He stumbles, folding in on himself. Turns out he can't stomach it. "You don't know me," he mutters.

          But she does. Her lips tilt upwards into a jeering smirk. She's amused by how unwilling he is to face reality; she finds it funny that he's afraid of the truth—a truly monstrous admission. "I do know you. And I know exactly why you hate me," Will adds. "When you look at me, you see the worst parts of yourself. The selfish, depraved, inhuman parts of yourself. You see the fire in my eyes and think about how good it would feel to burn everything to the ground."

He had noticed the flickering fire in her eyes and had written it off as a trick of the light, but even in this darkness there are dim embers still aching to destroy all good things. He wonders if it's hereditary, some part of her father that she couldn't get rid of. Something bred into her like ancestral anger.

It is.

"I don't blame you for hating me," she says gravely, in an atypical moment of sincerity. "I would hate me too."

If Leo weren't so caught up in his own descent into monsterhood then he might look at the depth of her vulnerability, seeking out humanity where he once thought there to be none. But hating someone is easier than understanding them. "Well, what about Piper? How come you didn't save her, huh?" There's desperation laced between his words. He wants so badly to understand why without understanding her. "Why did you leave her?"

          "It was different."

          "What was so different," Leo presses. "How could you save me and not her."

          Will just shakes her head, pushing herself to the edge of the couch where she can take Leo in without anything to obscure him. He looks so small and spiteful all at once, beady-eyed and soft, only moments away from emotional ruin. "Why," she asks flatly. "Because Piper deserves to live more than you?"

          "Yes," Leo shouts in frustration. His voice is still raw but it's enough to be heard. He has to be heard for once. He won't collapse or hide his pain behind something more pleasant—he's being honest with himself, learning to stomach the truth. "Yes! Because you're right. Every time I look at you, I see everything I hate about myself. I'm a monster! But Piper is good." His voice breaks. "She has been nothing but good to you."

She could have done a great deal of things in this moment—relieved his pain, relieved her own. Instead, she chooses to hurt them both. She holds the dark mirror up to his face so that he can see the wretched, snarling thing looking back at him. It exists in the shadows where he hides it away, pretending that it doesn't exist though it eats away at him. She brings it to the light and calls it a kindness.

"You love them," she observes.

Leo wants to scream. He's spread out on the table, skin pulled back so that the viscera can breathe, and that's all she has to say. "Of course I do," he snarls.

She hums contemplatively. It's terrifying how unflinching she is when doling out emotional torment. But she wants to hurt him and to condemn herself as a monster in his eyes forever. "You're not good enough for them, Leo."

Of all the things he expected her to say, this was not one of them. He should've anticipated her casual cruelty—how she can tear apart his existence with an offhanded remark. She doesn't even care that her words leave no exit wounds. They sit beneath the skin and fester.

"What?" she asks in response to his withered stare. "It's the truth. You're never going to be enough for the ones you love. Not brave enough, not smart enough, not good enough." Will knows what he needs to hear—it's not this. But in some twisted way, it's exactly what he wants to hear. He wants her to confirm his worst fears, that he too is irredeemable, so he can finally progress to the next stage of monsterhood—learning to live with it. "People like us have to live with that simple fact of life. We will never be enough for the ones we love."

Leo wants to cave in on himself, bury himself beneath all of the things that he couldn't make right. He's learning to swallow the truth whole and it's killing him.

"But that's why we love them," Will continues. When she slaughters him it's almost exactly like self-destruction. It's killing her too but she can hardly feel a thing. "They're everything we're not. And because of that, it doesn't matter how hard to try to change yourself. You'll only disappoint them in the end."

"You're a monster," he says weakly. There's no bite because he knows that she's right. She is the mirror feeding him the dark truth.

He can feel the noose tighten.

"And yet, here you are, still hoping that I'm not."

note: no action rn just will being a big meanie. also i don't know why they did not leave like i would have been gone out of that mansion. rich people are terrifying and every mansion feels like a get out situation. also also jook is one of my comfort foods 10/10