Page 85 of The Shape of my Scar
“She doesn’t want to talk about it,” Thane snapped, his arm still around her.
“I’m not starting anything, but don’t act like you’ve got the moral high ground now,” Maro shot back, voice rising. “You’ve been obsessed with her since day one. I just said what we’re all thinking.”
Thane stood, slowly. “Keep talking…”
“Am I alone in this?” Maro demanded, looking around at the others. “Don’t pretend you haven’t felt it. She is special to every one of us.”
Zel closed his eyes and muttered, “Not again.”
“I’m not denying it,” Lirian said quietly. “But now’s not the time.”
“Exactly,” Maro said, still glaring at Thane. “And he’s the last one who should act like he’s got some kind of claim. He treated her like she was disposable.”
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!” Thane raged.
“Don’t I?” Maro stepped forward. “She was one of your ‘takeout girls,’ remember? Until you figured out who she was.”
The room went still like the quiet before the storm.
Thane’s hands curled into fists.
“Maro,” Zel said in a measured voice of reason. “Take it outside.”
“She’s not yours,” Maro said, ignoring Zel.
“And she’s not yours, either.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“I do now.”
The air cracked.
Chairs scraped. Knuckles cracked.
And then all hell broke loose.
They got a couple of punches in before Zel got in between and said, “She will get hurt.Take, It. Outside. Now.”
Not a word was exchanged as they stepped out into the deserted back carpark.
Maro rolled his shoulders.
Thane stretched out his neck.
Faolan followed, steps quick, eyes wide. “Are you serious? What are you, five?”
She moved to step between them.
Zel caught her wrist gently. “Let them get it out of their system.”
“But—”
“They’ll be fine. They won’t kill each other,”
She looked up at him, disbelief in her eyes.
Zel shrugged, one corner of his mouth tilting up. “We all had a version of this in our heads. What we’d do or say if we ever found you…even me.” He said it like a joke, self-deprecating, but there was something in his gaze—a flicker, too steady.
