Lex

She watched, almost shaking with rage, as Noelle shoved another stack of shirts into a cardboard box. "Tell me you know Jasper's an idiot," she demanded. "I mean, you're not actually packing your shit, are you?"

"Jasper's not an idiot." Noelle picked up a pair of jeans and smoothed out the wrinkles. "He's an asshole."

"Exactly. That's why you can't listen to a damn word he says."

"I know." She wet her lips and finally met Lex's eyes. "I don't know how to say this. I don't want you to take it the wrong way, because I appreciate everything you've done for me. You've helped me so much."

Oh Christ, she was leaving. "Uh-uh. You are too strong to puss out on me now, baby girl."

"I'm not." Once the jeans were folded and placed in the box, Noelle smiled. "I told Dallas that if I'm a full member and not just Jasper's stray pet, I deserve my own quarters. He agreed."

"Oh." Lex wrapped an arm around one bedpost and sank to the mattress. "Why would that offend me?"

Noelle's smile twitched wider. "If I stay here, I'll feel like your stray pet. I need to be on my own for a little while, I think. I need to know what it's like."

"I get that." Crawling into Lex's bed every night was the last thing that would help Noelle stand on her own feet. "I'm bossy, but you don't have to let me be. You can go your own way."

"I like it when you're bossy. I think that's the hard part." Noelle returned to the closet for two of the leather skirts Lex had helped her choose at the market. "You were right. I have to get better at saying no before yes means anything. Maybe if I'd tried it out on Jasper earlier..." She shrugged and looked back to the closet. "It probably wouldn't have mattered."

The pain was a tangible thing, stabbing at Lex until she wanted to stab it back. She stepped up behind Noelle and slipped her arms around her. "It doesn't always work out the way we thought, but the fact that we're able to fuck up in the first place... You're free. It's not nothing."

"I'm free." The words sounded thick, but the ones that followed were tiny and hurt, a vulnerable whisper from a heartbroken woman. "He didn't fight for me. Not even a little."

Lex was pissed as hell at Jasper, and the last thing she wanted to do was defend his sorry ass. And yet. "Maybe he thought he was," she ventured quietly.

Noelle stiffened. "By sending me back there?"

"Come on, honey. We got shot. I know Dallas lost his shit, and he's not even--" Lex sucked in a breath and turned Noelle to face her. "That kind of situation can make people crazy. It doesn't mean Jasper was right, or that his dumbass behavior isn't beyond-the-pale stupid. But it does mean you have to try to look at it from his point of view, if only to understand."

"We got shot," Noelle agreed, her voice as numb as her eyes. "You got shot, and it was my fault. That's why I almost went back."

"That's ridiculous, and if you say it again, I'll spank your ass," Lex told her fiercely. "Someone could be gunning for me every time I walk out that door. Why do you think Dallas wants to lock me up all the time? It's a fucking jungle wasteland out there--and I wouldn't give it up for anything."

Noelle blew out a breath, and some of the chilling emptiness in her eyes filled in with wry, sad humor. "That's what Dallas said. Mostly."

"Which part? The locking me up or the danger?"

"Both." She wrinkled her nose. "I told him I was worried about putting you in danger again. He said you'd never forgive either of us if I made that my reason, and he wasn't going to let me hurt you like that."

"Score one for Dallas." And for the tentative peace they'd forged.

"He was...blunt." Noelle tossed the skirts she was holding onto the bed and shrugged one shoulder. "Edwin--my father--offered to help him deal with the man who hired the sniper, but only if Dallas sent me back. I made the choice."

"Hopefully it was to tell your father to fuck off and give Dallas all the damning details you know about Gareth Woods."

"More or less. I think it'll be easier to do now that Woods tried to have me killed."

"It always is." An inescapable fact of life in the sectors. Lex picked up another shirt and began to fold it. "Fuck Jasper. I know you want him like burning, honey, but you don't need him. You've got your job, your ink. Your family."

"You." Noelle caught her up in a hug, clinging desperately. "God, Lex. I need my own space, but I still need you."

Even more heartbreaking than the palpable pain was the way tears thickened Noelle's voice. "You have me. I'm right here, whatever you need. I'm not going anywhere."

"Okay. I'm okay." A lie, and when Noelle lifted her head, the tears spilled over, tracking down her cheeks as quickly as she could wipe them away. "It's good that it hurts, right? That I can feel."

"Yeah." Lex smoothed the hair back from Noelle's damp face. "I know it's not a lot of comfort right now, but the bad reminds you just how good everything else is. You've got to have both."

Noelle nodded. "I can. I will. He's not the only man out there, right?"

She spoke the words, the right ones, but she didn't believe them, and Lex bit her lip against all the empty reassurances. Hell, she'd offer Dallas if only it would ease Noelle's pain, melt that lonely look in her eyes. "Plenty of men, and plenty of time."

"And I've got lots to do to keep busy." Noelle scooped up one of Lex's shoes, a towering five-inch heel she wore on stage. "You're still going to teach me, right?"

"To dance?" A sudden thought occurred to Lex--an utterly wrong, plain old evil thought. "Actually...I'll go you one better, honey."

Both of Noelle's eyebrows swept up, and finally something replaced the pain and sadness in her eyes--curiosity. "Better?"

"Better." Lex grinned slowly. "I'm gonna make you a fucking star."