It was not a question, and it was not kindness.

It was a door being held open for me to leave through.

Chapter 3 — Go Home

Damian turned to me then, and he put his hand on my shoulder, and he struck it — not hard enough to be unmistakable to the whole room, but hard enough that I stepped back into the edge of a champagne table and had to catch myself against it, hard enough that the glasses rang.

I would think about that sound afterward more than about the blow itself — the small bright ringing of crystal knocked together, incongruous and almost festive, in the half-second before anyone understood what had happened.