"Are you crazy? You trying to kill him?" There was screaming, too much screaming. Too much touching. Rose didn't want to admit it, but where Cepheus's calloused fingers anchored to his bare skin, Cepheus's hands felt like a jackknife was digging into his arm with the simultaneous feeling of a cool thrum of lightning coiling around Rose's bones.

"I was protecting him, Aldis! I was the only one looking out for him," Cepheus is angry. Cepheus is boiling over with an emotion Rose doesn't like. Not on him. He hates the crease in-between his eyebrows, and the mean, tight line that possessed his mouth.

"From what?" Aldis is loud, louder than his usual low, timbre of words.

From what? And Rose thought.

From himself.