Page 56 of Burn Bright (Cobalt Empire #1)

BEN COBALT

F ear slams at me.

I shouldn’t have left my brothers—the thought is hacksawed as the rear passenger-side door whips open. While the car is still fucking moving. Sure, it’s going like a mile per hour, but for a split-second, my muscles flex in preparation to fight.

When I see Charlie in the car, glaring at me, I’m so caught off guard that I almost run into a lamppost.

Novak catches my arm and yanks me to the side so I don’t make a head-on collision with metal and gain a massive goose egg.

“Get in,” Charlie says more calmly than his eyes let on.

“Did Beckett send you?” I stop at the curb.

Charlie tilts his head. “Of course he sent me. Get the fuck in .” When I don’t move, he lets out an exasperated sigh. “It’s my birthday, Ben.”

Swiping the birthday card should not have this much power, but our mom treats birthdays like they’re coronations. Our day to reign. Even if some of us don’t care much about them. Honestly, if Charlie weren’t a twin, I think he’d Houdini himself on his birthday so no one could celebrate him.

Novak is silent, but I sense his utter relief when I step toward the SUV. My bodyguard rounds to the front passenger-side door, and I climb into the backseat beside my older brother. Oscar Oliveira mans the wheel, and I avoid making eye contact with Charlie’s bodyguard through the rearview.

Really, I just want this night to end.

I’m splintered open from feelings I can’t wrestle with properly. I still haven’t texted Harriet not to return to the club when she’s done at the lab. Because I worry if I tell her I’ve left she’ll think it’s because I’m angry at her.

Charlie lowers his window. “I don’t want to ask.” Cigarette between his lips, he lights it, then actually blows smoke outside and not in my face. “But this is my birthday present to Beckett, so I’m going to ask…” He raises his brows at me. “What’s wrong, Ben?”

The question sounds like he couldn’t care less for the answer.

“Consider your birthday present given,” I tell him with heat. “You asked me.”

He rolls his eyes. “I need an answer.”

I turn my gaze to the blurring city lights. “I’m not talking to you about this.”

“Eliot and Tom seem to think it has something to do with Harriet. They say she left, and your mood turned to shit, so what happened?”

I don’t reply.

He lets out an irritated exhale. “Let me guess. She offered to suck another guy’s dick?—”

“Fuck off.” I shoot him a glare.

“He’s alive,” Charlie golf claps with the cigarette pinched between his fingers.

“Do not fucking talk about her like that.” Anger lances my voice. Novak is casting glances back at us. He might need to physically restrain me from strangling my brother in the next minute.

Charlie takes a drag from his cigarette, then taps the ash casually out the window. “Then explain why you looked like you just saw roadkill?”

“I thought I was about to get kidnapped off the street!” I shout. “I had no fucking idea it was you.”

“This is a security vehicle,” he says like I’m a moron.

“We aren’t the only people who own Range Rovers!”

He pinches his eyes like my lack of forethought is a bullet to his brain.

We’re both grating on each other. “Before you stupidly thought you were going to be kidnapped, you were upset.” He drops his hand from his face.

“So let’s not do this pointless runaround tonight. I’m not in the mood to chase you.”

“When are you ever in the mood?”

“Good point,” he deadpans. “You’ve made one in a blue moon. Now explain what the fuck went wrong.” He hangs his wrist out of the windowsill.

I exhale a rough breath, trying to cool down. “You of all people aren’t going to understand.”

Charlie takes the longest drag, then slowly blows smoke outside. When he slings his head back, he says, “Try me.”

I release another coarse breath. Why not? What do I have to lose? My nerve? I’m already on edge. So I tell him, “Right before Harriet had to leave, I learned her research involves animal work.”

Charlie doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t roll his eyes. He just asks, “What are we talking about? Rats, mice, guinea pigs, rabbits?”

“Mice.”

He looks me over. “And you hate her now?”

My face fractures. “ No . I don’t hate her.

” I could never hate Harriet. “But I don’t approve of what she’s doing.

It’s just as unethical to experiment on animals as it would be humans.

” I’ve never wavered from this ideology.

I add, almost as an afterthought, “I got detention for spray painting frog killers in the science lab at Dalton.”

“I remember,” Charlie says, which surprises me. I was fifteen. He was twenty and already in New York by then.

I pull at the Capybara bracelet around my wrist. “I can’t justify animal suffering, even in the name of science. The thought of killing any living thing…it sickens me.”

“How do you know it doesn’t sicken her?”

That question catches me off guard. “Why would she do it then?”

Charlie lifts and drops his shoulders, shaking his head like he doesn’t have the answer. But then he says, “Sometimes we endure pain because the end goal has more value than our own suffering.” He lets out a dry laugh. “Or she could be gleefully murdering Stuart Little. You just never know.”

I don’t believe she’s happily killing mice—but I don’t know if she’s considered the ethical ramifications either. And should it matter what she does?

I’ve never taken it personally if those around me don’t share my exact ideologies.

Not everyone will care about the environmental impact of meat consumption.

How it contributes to deforestation, climate change, water depletion, and soil erosion.

Not everyone will be as eco-conscious as I am, and I would never claim to be the perfect hero called to save Mother Earth.

I know I could do more.

I know I might never do enough.

So people don’t need to practice veganism for me to love them. My brother abuses his private jet far too fucking much, and I haven’t shunned him out of my life. He’s sitting right next to me.

But I would’ve been hurt if my parents didn’t do the bare minimum.

Recycle. Don’t wear fur. Use less water.

Yet, my mom and dad continue to surprise me.

Like when they installed solar panels on the house.

When Dad planted more trees in the backyard.

When Mom sold her car for an electric Porche.

When they donated a shit ton of money to a clean energy organization.

I see them trying, and that’s more than enough for me.

My thoughts draw my gaze back to the city. The car is quiet for another few minutes before Charlie says, “One last thing. For Beckett.”

It’s irritating that he can’t just be nice to me without doing it for Beckett. But I’m too drained to say something about it.

He flicks his cigarette outside and rolls up the window. “Harriet makes you happy. It’s been very fucking obvious to all of us. Don’t push her away over this.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

Charlie takes out a pair of sunglasses and slips them over his eyes. “Then we’re settled here.” He lays his head on the window. Maybe to take a nap.

I’m not sure. I’m not trying to decipher the persisting riddle that is Charlie Keating Cobalt tonight.

He doesn’t ask who my text is from when my phone buzzes.

Harriet Fisher

Going to be a long night. I don’t think I’ll make it back to the club. Talk tomorrow?

I send her a quick reply.

Ben Cobalt

Definitely.

Slipping my phone in my pocket, I feel worse. I wish I could speak to her tonight. Tell her I don’t hate her. Maybe she could explain more about what she’s doing. Maybe it does tear her up inside. Maybe it doesn’t. I think, at this point, I don’t worry about the answer. I just want to know.

It’s another ten minutes to the apartment, and neither Charlie nor I talk as we trek through the lobby and ride the elevator. Our bodyguards slip past us down the hall to their rooms on the same floor.

Once inside, I shower. Brush my teeth. Say “I’m okay, just tired” to Beckett, Eliot, and Tom when they show up. I’m mentally drained and wish I could just pass out. Except, I find myself lying under the sheets on the pull-out, staring up at the ceiling in the darkened living room.

For at least an hour.

It’s too late to call Harriet. I’d rather she get the sleep I’m longing for. So I scroll through my texts. Earlier tonight, I wished my uncle a happy birthday, and I reread his reply now.

Uncle Ryke

Nothing beats getting old. Being alive. Really fucking miss you, Ben. When you’re free, let’s go hiking. I found a new trail I know you’ll love.

I breathe a deeper breath through my nose.

Ryke Meadows is one of the world’s greatest free-solo rock climbers, and he’s risked death ascending thousands of feet.

No harness, no rope. Just his body and bare hands.

He has an appreciation for life in a different way than my dad does.

Uncle Ryke isn’t weighing costs and benefits and always doing what’s in his best interest. He’s heart-over-head. All the time.

I’d already sent a reply that I’d let him know when there’s a good day.

Placing my phone aside, I close my eyes. Sleep. Sleep. Breathe. My body untightens, and I slowly begin to fade into a weighted slumber.

I’m out for minutes or maybe hours when the sound of rushing water and rustling stirs me awake. Rolling over, I squint out at the kitchen. Lights off, Beckett is drowned in a fuzzy darkness as he washes his hands at the sink.

He doesn’t notice me.

I prop up on my forearm, realizing all the cupboards are opened. Dishes, glassware, pots, pans—all pulled out of the cabinets. Gone.

Bar stools have been moved, made room for the massive black trash bags lined up symmetrically on the floor, each one spaced about three inches apart from the next. My pulse thunders in my ears.

“Beckett?” I call out in a whisper.