When Marshall paused for breath, his chest was rising and falling, appearing exhilarated by the weight of his role. And without hesitation, Benedikt said: “In all my years knowing you, I’ve never imagined you could make such a daft decision.”
Marshall’s expression fell. “I beg your pardon?”
“They’re lying!” Benedikt exclaimed, the sound harsh. “Why would they ever allow the White Flowers to continue onward when the Nationalists have an alliance with the Scarlet Gang? We’re finished, Marshall. The gang is in shambles. There’s no going back.”
“No,” Marshall insisted. He stood firm. “No. Do you know how much violence I witnessed as a phantom in this city, Ben? The view from the rooftops is utterly, utterly different from the view on the street, and I saw everything. No matter the bloodshed, I saw how damn much every White Flower cared for us, for you, for the Montagovs. I can save them.”
“Is that what this is?” Benedikt resisted the urge to march over and shake his friend. He knew; he knew that physical force was not the right method of persuasion here, that if anything, it would merely rile Marshall into further stubbornness. “Some display of loyalty for the gang that took you in? It was never about the White Flowers, Mars. It was about what we believed in—who we believed in. It’s Roma, it’s a city where we belong, a future. And when that topples, then it is up to us to flee too.”
Marshall swallowed hard. “I have power here by mere virtue of my birth. You would ask me to abandon it, abandon the possibility of helping people?”
“What real help can you be?” This wasn’t what he meant. This was what was coming out anyway. “Will you march upon the front lines and massacre the workers to win your father’s trust? Rough up a few Communists for the freedom of White Flowers?”
“Why are you being like this—”
“Because it’s not worth it! Power is never worth it! You keep making trades upon trades, and you get nothing in return. Roma is running from it. Juliette is running from it. What makes you think you can handle it?”
A flicker of hurt—real hurt—flashed across Marshall’s face. “Is that what it is?” he asked. “You think I am too weak?”
Benedikt bit back a curse, swallowed his anger until it slid down his throat. How had this happened? He knew he shouldn’t have spoken so fast. He knew he shouldn’t have run loose with his words. There was never any good to come from it. And yet he could barely think. It was the oppressive air of this room and the steady trickle of rain from outside and that clock still chiming from someplace in the house.
“I never said you were weak.”
“Yet you would have me walk away. I’m trying to help us. I’m trying to have us survive—”
“What use is the gang’s survival if you do not survive?” Benedikt cut in. “Listen to me, Mars. No matter how much they trust you, this is civil war. This city will overflow with casualties—”
Marshall threw his hands up. “You and Roma may run. You are Montagovs. I understand. Why should I follow?”
“Marshall—”
“No!” Marshall exclaimed, his eyes ablaze, not finished with his rebuke. “I mean it. Why should I? With all that I am promised here, with all the protection I have, why would I run unless I was a coward? Why would I abandon such prime opportunities—”
“Because I love you!” Benedikt shouted. At once, it was like a dam in his heart had broken, smashing past every barricade he had built up. “I love you, Mars. And if you are gunned down because you want to fight a war that doesn’t belong to you, I will never forgive this city. I will tear it to pieces, and you will be to blame!”
Absolute silence descended upon the room. If Benedikt had thought it oppressive before, it was nothing in comparison to the weight of Marshall’s wide-eyed stare upon him. There was no taking it back. His words were out in the world. Perhaps those were the only words he had ever said that he didn’t want to take back.
“Good grief,” Marshall finally managed, his voice hoarse. “You had ten years to say something, and you choose now?”
And for whatever absurd reason, Benedikt managed a weak laugh. “Bad timing?”
“Horrific timing.” Marshall closed in with three strides, coming to a halt right in front of him. “Not only that, but you choose to blame me in a declaration of love. Didn’t anyone teach you manners? God—”
Marshall clasped his hands around Benedikt’s neck and kissed him.
The moment their lips pressed together, Benedikt was hit with the same rush of a gunfight, of a high-octane chase, of the thrill that came with hiding in an alleyway when the pursuit came to an end. He hadn’t ever thought much about the act of kissing, hadn’t much cared no matter who was on the other end of it. He had never craved it, had only thought about it like an abstract concept, but then Marshall leaned into him and his veins lit on fire, and he realized it wasn’t that he did not care. It was only that it had to be Marshall. It had always been Marshall. When Benedikt reached up and sank his fingers into Marshall’s hair and Marshall made a noise at the base of his throat, all that Benedikt could think was this was what it meant to be holy.
“Please,” Benedikt whispered. He pulled back for the briefest of moments. “Come with me. Leave with me.”
A breath jumped between them, an exhale into an inhale. Marshall’s hands trailed over Benedikt’s shoulders, down his chest, to his waist, gripping the loose fabric of his shirt.
“Okay.” His answer came shakily, the single word heavy like a sacrifice. It was a choosing—it was turning away from the commitment of family and following Benedikt wherever he was to go. “On one condition.”
Benedikt’s gaze snapped up. Marshall was looking at him with his eyes wholly black, pupils blown large, his expression pensive and serious.
“Anything.”
A grin slipped out. “Say it again. I didn’t pine all these years to only hear it once.”
Benedikt gave Marshall a shove—a force of habit, really, and Marshall stumbled back laughing.
“Idiot,” Benedikt chided. “In all these years, why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because,” Marshall said simply, “you weren’t ready.”
Idiot, Benedikt thought again, but it was with such fondness that his chest burned with it, a red-hot iron of affection that branded every inch of his skin.
“I’ll say it however many times you want. I’ll romance you until you get sick of me. I am horrendously, horrendously in love with your dreadful face, and we need to go, now.”
The smile that Marshall made was something glorious, so big that it felt uncontainable by the room, uncontainable within the house.
“I love you just as horrendously,” he replied simply. “We can go, but I have an idea. How certain are you that my father is lying?”
Benedikt wasn’t sure if this was a trick question. He hardly had the time to reel from the quick switch in topic. “Entirely certain. I heard him say the execution order was his command.”
Marshall pulled at the cuffs of his sleeves, rolling them up to his elbows as he wandered about his father’s desk, eyes searching through its contents.