“That’s your response to everything, isn’t it!” I yelled. “Fuck everyone else because nothing is ever your fault.” I laughed darkly. “God, I think I understand Mark a lot better now.”

“Don’t you dare talk about him,” Damien snarled, stepping toward me.

“So what were your reasons, huh?” I asked. “Because it wasn’t to get Blaze, who was never there, so what was it?”

“I wanted my own file, okay?” he snapped. “I wanted to know what they’d done to me, if there was any way to reverse it.”

“Why not just say that?”

“Because you’d never have helped me!” he cried. “If it had just been about me, you would have told me to fuck off.”

“You don’t know that,” I said. “I’ve been trying, Damien. Trying to be your friend, to give you a second chance. I wanted to help you!”

“But you turned on me the moment you found out the truth about me!”

“You pushed me away! Because that’s what you do,” I said. “No matter how many chances people give you, you just squander them. But it’s never your fault, right? I try to give you another chance and it’s somehow my fault for falling for it.”

“You’re Dorothy, right?” he sneered. “Always heading off to Oz, to the land of Technicolor magic? Well, I’m the tornado and you didn’t get down into the basement fast enough this time.”

“You might be the tornado, but I’m not Dorothy, I was wrong,” I snarled. “I’m the—I’m the Cowardly Lion, I always have been and I’ve just been trying to find a way to be brave, to protect the people I love—”

“And you thought breaking into a government institution was the way to do that?” he said. “Don’t act like you’re so perfect. Just because you’re off in your own little world doesn’t mean that you’re not responsible—”

“I know that, Damien!” I shouted. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

Silence settled between us, heavy and sharp, as we stood glowering at each other, gasping for breath.

“Why did you come back, Damien?” I asked wearily. “It wasn’t just to get your AM file—it can’t have been that important.”

“It is important,” he growled. “They had no right—no right to hold that information from me, to keep me in the dark.”

“I’m not saying they did,” I said, trying to keep my head cool. “But is that really all you wanted?”

“What I wanted is my business,” he grunted.

“Of course it is,” I mumbled.

“Just—” He sighed, running his hands through his hair, the bags under his eyes creeping back in from the healthier version of him that I’d seen ten days ago. “Rose, don’t be like me.”

“What?” I asked, getting whiplash from the hard turn.