Break stood alone with the corpses of the Pandora members and the not-Baskervilles. Him and corpses, him and corpses; Lottie and her large friend were gone, and Yura was gone, and like so many other times in his life, it was him and corpses.
He only knew they were Pandora members because of the light glinting from the gold buttons on the uniform.
Standing in silence now, Break could hear the sounds of the party continuing above him, barely. He heard it when the music stopped, and he heard the pleasant drone of aimless chatter begin to morph into sounds of alarm. He'd known since they left Barma's place that something was going to happen at this wretched, wretched party. And he really should head back upstairs. Sharon probably needed him.
But dammit, Sharon had the stupid rabbit with her and even useless seaweed-headed Gil would be around, and Gil was somehow managing to be an eensy bit less useless lately and if Oz were in danger — he was — his servant would up the ante to protect him and his added competence would benefit the others by proximity. If nothing else Sharon had Eques. It wasn't a fighting chain, no, but it certainly did have a very sharp horn planted right on the top of its head.
Liam had none of these things, March Hare's cute little pincer-fangs notwithstanding.
Break remembered the time Oz and Alice had burst into Pandora and Oscar had charged Liam with doing something about it. He remembered sneaking up on Liam while the younger man was giving himself his amusing little pep talk — "I'm Liam! I can think of a plan!" — and the words kept ringing in his head, thrumming underneath his racing thoughts. Liam was alone hopefully alone please let him be alone because alone won't attack him no but Liam was also one of the most efficient, quick-thinking people Pandora had ever seen. Liam had the whole of Pandora supporting Jack-in-Oz's-body. Liam could get himself out of trouble. Liam could think of a plan.
Ohhh, but what if all his plans needed him to fight, what if he had a plan and it failed —
Break was the only one who even knew Liam had gone missing and Liam was of incredible importance to him and once upon a time Break abandoned a little girl. She had the most unfortunate habit of slamming her way back into his mind at times like this, and it was hard to fight against her memory when every bone in his body was screaming that he was needed, he was needed, don't leave, but Liam had his job and Break had his and Sharon needed him and Liam needed him and he was already ruining his own plans to use the Baskervilles for his own cause because of this and when he found Liam he was going to tie the man to his desk and never let him do anything like this ever again —
But Liam would never say, "Kevin, don't leave."
Liam would say, "Xerxes, you moron."
This did not make him feel any better. But he was loosing precious seconds letting these thoughts run rampant in his head like this while he just stood there, and Liam needed him, and Sharon needed him, and Liam had his job and Break had his.
Gritting his teeth, Break turned back towards the party and his lady. If Liam was in less than perfect condition when Break saw him next, there was going to be hell to pay, but in the meantime he was going to have to trust Liam to hold out on his own.
Granting that trust was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do.