"Ma reine," Luc's voice called out to me from down the hall, "you have impeccable timing. Ten minutes later and I would have left for...merde, what happened?"
He stopped right in front of me and I let out this pathetic sound as I attempted to hold back a sob. He was in a tux, jacket hanging artfully from his right arm, and shoes shining as shock filtered across his face.
"I'll go," I croaked.
"Absolutely not!" He ordered and tossed his jacket at one of his security detail, while simultaneously snapping orders at them.
"I'm sorry," I sniffled and rubbed the sleeve of my jacket across my face, trying to stop my running nose.
"Is anyone dead? Hurt? Wait...where is everyone?" He looked around me and then realization dawned on his face, "so the birthday party didn't go so well?"
I couldn't hold back the tears any longer and Luc pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and passed it over. Of course, he would have remembered it was Stellan's birthday. I shouldn't have come here. But I didn't know where else to go. My life was so rigidly routine I went to my next designated spot even when I was distraught. Didn't I own like five other houses? God, I was a mess.
With a few soothing words, he coaxed me down the hall toward one of the spare bedrooms and then closed the door behind himself to give us some privacy. Glancing at his watch, he crossed the room and stood in front of me as I perched on the edge of the bed.
"I'm sorry, please don't cancel your night because of me."
"I'm not going to leave you here alone, Avery," he consoled. "But I also can't stay…"
He trailed off and I buried my hands in my face as another wave of tears threatened to break through my momentary control.
"God," I groaned, "don't make me come with you."
"You really want to stay here? Of all places? With my family lurking around?" He asked, incredulous.
"No," I sighed.
"It will be fun, you won't have to talk to anyone because it will all be in French, and you can just drink until we leave. And then I'll take you to my house in Rueil-Malmaison, away from all this."
"Can't you just have someone take me to the house now?" I begged.
"You know I would," he reached forward and squeezed my shoulder, "but...even Jack didn't come with you?"
"I fled the scene." I shook my head and stood. "I'll just go."
"Where?" Luc shook his head and pulled me against his side with an arm around my waist. "Be my date, I'll keep you distracted. It's bizarre avant-garde art and micro gastronomy with a bunch of people too old to understand it."
"I don't know if I can even pretend to care, Luc." I turned to face him, frowning. But he just smiled in return,
"Then you'll fit the part perfectly."
This was decidedly weird. All the food was in test tubes and on dry ice. It filled the floor of the ballroom with this smoky haze that swooshed around all the couture, making it seem like we were all trapped in some mad scientists lab. The art, if you could even call it that, was just blobs of what looked like slime with random objects inside them, suspended inside oblong glass sculptures. How, exactly, were marbles and jacks inside see-through goo art? After the tenth person had asked me what I thought about it in French I'd found a dark corner of the bar and stayed there. At least Luc hadn't made me squeeze into a corset. But I hadn't escaped a gown - and a dramatic merlot colored one at that.
Unfortunately, the longer I was trapped here the more claustrophobic it was becoming. A light dusting of snow had forced everyone to stay inside, despite the tables and chairs on the giant outdoor balcony. It was stuffy and loud and I could only watch Luc glad-handing people for so much longer before I was just going to ditch everyone - security detail be damned. More couples in sequins and bow ties pressed into the small space around the bar and a flash of panic filled my chest. I had to get out of here. I made a break for the balcony.
With the very first step outside the hit of cold air sucked the panic right out of my lungs. I took a deep breath of the clean, crisp air and moved further out, away from all the noise. My heels crunched the snowflakes as I made my way to the edge. Peeking out over the stone baluster the traffic below me was stopped at a red light - everything shiny and glittering from the ice. The door slowly closed behind me and for a single, glorious, moment I was actually all alone. I closed my eyes and tried to just relax into the sound of traffic, muted laughs, and wind as the storm continued to lazily make its way through the city. And then there was a cough and I turned around and came face to face with Jack, in a tux, leaning casually against the wall. All the relief I felt at slipping away from the party was doused with a wave of anger. I crossed my arms and leaned against the baluster, the cold seeping into the back of my dress.
"He sent you didn't he?" I snapped.
"No," he gave me a confused look. "You sent me by leaving."
"What does that even mean?" I heaved.
"That was the deal we made. Almost a year ago now, at Colette's villa. I was Anya's Keeper unless he could watch her. Then I became yours." He shrugged. "He never told you?"
I looked away at Paris spreading out before me, the Eiffel Tower running its light show in the distance. I shook my head.
"So are you here to protect me from this ugly art? Or make sure I don't run away?" I asked without looking back. My breath broke from my mouth in small little clouds that were sucked out into the city.
"Are you going to run?" He quietly asked. I shrugged and then turned to level a challenging stare at him. Jack pushed off from the wall and came next to me. He was close enough that I could feel his body heat but not enough to be touching each other. He leaned against the railing as well and we watched the last of the light show at the Eiffel Tower together, in perfect silence. The knot of anger that had been tightening in my chest slowly unraveled and all I felt was exhausted.
It was surreal. Jack and I, dressed up, together, in Paris. This is where it had all started, and look at where we were now. We didn't have moments like this between us anymore. We certainly didn't talk about our past, and honestly, I didn't want to. I didn't exactly long for who he used to be, I liked this version of Jack - beard and all. But I ached to remember who I was, she just kept slipping further and further away from me. I should have run when I had the chance.
"Kinda reminds you of the theater room at Lakehaven, right?" I lowly asked. Jack let out a little laugh of recognition behind me, and then the two of us went quiet again. Light show over and the cold starting to make me shiver I turned to Jack, curious, and asked,
"Why didn't you leave? After I shut down the Keeper program? You and Elodie could have escaped into the sunset together."
I looked back at the party, everyone drinking and laughing. Jack let out a deep sigh, his breath clouding over my view and said,
"It's all I know, Avery. And you four are all I have left."
Tears filled my eyes, stinging and hot against the freezing breeze that swept through the balcony. We were all he had left because I'd killed everyone else. I shook, cold and miserable and Jack shrugged out of his tux jacket, tossing it over my bare shoulders despite my sniffling protest of,
"I really don't deserve it."
"Nonsense," he chastised me, rubbing his hands together quickly to warm them up. "Things are immeasurably better than they were before you appeared. I might not always agree with everything we're doing but some sacrifices are always made for the greater good."
Wiping away some freezing tears from my cheek I croaked, "what sacrifices?"
Jack turned toward me, this angry bewilderment across his face that I didn't understand. "He still hasn't told you?"
"No," I whispered, shrinking a little away from him and the angry huff he let out. It broke across his head as he shook it, grumbling things I couldn't quite catch and then took a deep breath. I shivered again, pulling his jacket closer around me.
"Elodie murdered David Melech. While we were in Mexico."
The world around me started to fuzz out, distorting the roaring traffic below me, blurring the gentle snow that had begun to fall and I leaned hard against the ledge. Jack's warm hand wrapped around my arm, steadying me and I looked up into his face, stunned,
"Poison?"
He pressed his lips together and I wanted to scream. No. No, please don't say…
"Blood."
"What possessed her to think that," I started to say when he squeezed my arm hard and cut over me with,
"He gave her the order, Avery."
My hands flew to my face and I pressed them hard into my frozen nose and chapped lips. Jack dropped his hand and started rambling,
"I tried to talk them out of it. Too heavy-handed. They have too much Dauphin in them. I understand the need to make a statement but that…"
"Stop," I growled at him through my hands. I had to think. My brain was splintering out into hundreds of directions with thousands of clues. This was the real reason Elodie hadn't gone to Mexico. It explained Jack's whole mood at the ice skating date night. Even why that bitchy Hersh pre-teen had been terrified of taking a sip from my drink. It had absolutely nothing to do with everything I'd accomplished and worked toward - it was because everyone thought I was a sociopath. Who else would kill the head of a Family in the exact same way her mother had been murdered?
Jack fidgeted next to me as I slowly and calmly said, "I want to leave."
He started rubbing his compass over his dress shirt, shivering a bit as the snow continued to dust us. The door for the balcony swung open to reveal Luc,
"There you are! I should have known Jackie would find you."
"How'd you know I was here?" Jack crossed his arms over his chest, shrugging into himself.
Luc snorted, "comme Stellan la laisserait sans protection."
The rage ignited inside me at the sound of his name. I tried to contain it. I couldn't cause a scene at this stupid event in front of all these ridiculous strangers. Luc and Jack were rapping back in forth in rapid-fire French and I loudly ground out,
"Now. I want to leave. Right now."
They froze, I blinked off some melting snowflakes and Luc turned to Jack and asked, "how'd you get here?"
Jack immediately pulled out his phone and started texting, and then the three of us skirted along the slippery wrap around balcony and escaped out a service door, no one noticing.
We bumped along the cobblestone road, I was sandwiched between Jack and Luc in the town car. My dress' skirt was so huge it was spilling over the two of them covering their tux pants with its dark crimson satin. It was going to take at least a half-hour to get to Luc's château, more like an hour with the snow, and I'd promptly fallen asleep with my head against Luc's shoulder. But when we'd hit a large bump I'd become somewhat conscious again. At least enough to know we were still moving and I didn't want to talk to either of them. I kept my eyes closed, and leveled out my breathing right as Jack whispered,
"Oh, she was furious. Told him to fuck off. She's never even raised her voice to Stellan." Then he finished with an incredulous, "she slapped him."
Luc let out a noise of disbelief and then whispered back,
"What did he do?"
"If I heard it right from housekeeping and security he might have threatened her. She broke a bunch of priceless china and then changed her plans to come tonight instead." Jack shifted next to me, and I kept my breath slow and even.
"Oh, brutal. On his birthday of all days. And he threatened her?" Luc whispered, confused. "About what?"
"Am I the only one that sees this? They completely enable each other."
"Jackie, please..." Luc tried to dismiss him. Jack barreled on.
"It's complete fantasy fulfillment, they feed each other's weaknesses. Pretending like they can just play house and ignore everything else we still have to do. Most of the time no one would care - but we don't have that luxury, do we?"
"I think what has been most surprising for me is him getting so lost in this adjustment period. We all expected it from Avery." Luc locked his phone and slid it into his pocket, jostling my head. I tried to remain limp.
"Right, but it's not taking. We all let this go too far. I knew I should have forced his hand. I can only implore him so many times." Jack stopped, thinking and then added pensively, "something happened in the Maldives."
"Other than booze and Molly?" Luc supplied with a small laugh.
"Christ." Jack shifted, uncomfortably next to me. "It's like his bloody kryptonite. The moment she gets drunk he loses all cognitive thinking skills."
"You're being too harsh. You went right back to being a Keeper, but this is all new for them."
"Of course. But his patience over the adjustment period is over. We've given her ample time and we can't keep covering this up. She has to fall in line. I'd put money on that being his threat." Jack trailed off.
"But why threaten her? It seems so counterproductive." Luc let out a disappointed sigh. I tried not to shift as the car slowed.
"Maybe he was trying to trigger her?"
"Trigger her, what do you mean?"
"Her traumatic brain injury," Jack offered and Luc inhaled sharply. I was just as shocked as Luc that Jack had pieced it together. "From the tomb. I haven't puzzled all that out yet, but he has this way he says her name sometimes...that's what tipped me off."
"How?"
"It's like a warning. Like she's about to explode." Jack offered and then seemed to shrug next to me, "I don't pretend to know what's between them, Luc."
"Non. You've had plenty to provide to this conversation. You must know everything going on between them."
"I know enough to keep us all alive. I know everything they do, everywhere they go, I know he hasn't been sleeping in the same room as her."
"No," Luc hissed. "When did that start happening?"
"A few days ago. And he makes the bed every morning like I wouldn't figure it out. He doesn't talk to me about things like that anymore. He can't. It would cross a line. There are so many things only they know about each other now. Especially after whatever happened in that tomb." Jack answered and then shifted next to me.
"You still have no idea?" Luc whispered toward him. "It took a half a bottle of gin to get very little out of Elodie. She said Avery was dead, Stellan was dying and there was so much blood. She's buried that one deep."
"I can still hear the way she screamed my name," Jack darkly replied.
Jack went quiet and Luc let out a long noise of contemplation. I tried to fall back asleep, hoping the silence and the rhythmic thump of the tires would be enough to relax me. But after ten minutes of pretending I couldn't take it anymore and sat up, right as the driver parked.
The next morning I helped Luc pull off all the white sheets covering the furniture in his conservatory. He insisted that we have brunch there instead of the 'gloomy' kitchen. It faced out to the Seine and the rose garden in his backyard. If you could really call acres of ridiculously expensive property backyard.
"I haven't been here in years," he coughed swatting at all the dust flying into the air.
"God, why not?" I asked marveling at the way everything was sparkling from the light dusting of snow that still clung to the landscaping and sculptures outside.
Luc yanked the final sheet off with a flourish to reveal a long, mahogany-colored leather couch. The draft of it made me shiver, despite all the sunshine. I wrapped my arms tighter around the baggy sweater Luc had managed to find for me. It was a cable knit yellow wool that was slightly scratchy and clashed horribly with the light blue track pants he'd also wrangled.
"Busy I suppose," he shrugged.
I moved toward the floor to ceiling windows, mesmerized by the river and sighed, "if this was my house I would have found the time."
Luc laughed to himself and then flopped onto the couch behind me. I joined suit and closed my eyes, relishing the quiet. There was no one but the three of us in this house and I'd realized since I woke up this morning that I missed that part of my life. Sure, I had been bored for most of it, but the afternoons and evenings that I had spent alone with just my thoughts, on that tan couch we lugged to every state, seemed invaluable to me now. Thankfully Luc had seemed to need it to, or maybe he was just working up the nerve to start questioning me. How could he not after all of Jack's gossip last night? But I was going to need coffee before I deflected all that.
"Anyone hungry?" Jack's voice broke up the silence and we turned around to see him holding a cup holder with three steaming cups of coffee and a bag of something. I was really hoping it was pastries. He sat on the other side of me, the three of us now looking out onto the grounds, and passed over a cup, "cream and an ungodly amount of sugar."
"You remembered," I smirked at him as he passed the other paper cup over to Luc. He ignored my comment and instead ripped open the brown paper bag on the coffee table in front of us to reveal half a dozen delicious and delicate looking pastries.
I dove for the chocolate croissant before they could snatch it and inhaled deeply with the first bite. I never wanted to leave now. This could be my new home right? I could just steal it from Luc and hide here forever.
"I think you will be happy to know cherie, that I've already canceled your itinerary for today," Luc announced and then took a long sip.
"You're the best," I smiled at him, "I was trying to mentally prepare myself to deal with Circle suck-ups and pushy reporters for the rest of the day."
"I figured you weren't in the right mental state to do your public persona any favors," Luc smirked, grabbing a pastry for himself.
"I would have tried," I said after swallowing a giant bite of food. Then tacked on, "and probably failed."
Jack laughed, shaking the couch next to me until his phone started buzzing against the leather. Pulling it out of his pocket he glanced at the screen and the smile dropped off his face,
"What's wrong?"
Luc and I both stilled, Jack frowned and then said, "no, she's right here with me."
The room dipped into silence again and I heard Stellan's voice on the other end of the line. Beside me, Luc was already flicking through things on his phone, his frown deepening the longer he looked. Jack held out the phone to me, I shook my head, he gave me a patronizing look and I glared back but grabbed it,
"What?" I snapped.
"Good." He snapped back and hung up. I glared at the phone and then tossed it back to Jack and forced a burning gulp of coffee down.
"There was a botched attempt at the event last night. It seems it happened after we left." Jack explained. Luc piped in on the other side,
"I told Christian not to mix company, but he never listens to me."
"I better go debrief on this." Jack stood and left with his coffee.
"So…" Luc cautiously started, "can I just outright ask you what happened yesterday? Or will I need to pry it out of your drunken sobbing later?"
I shoved the rest of my croissant into my mouth to stall. Luc rose an eyebrow in intrigue and waited, patiently sipping his coffee and detailing me. What did I tell him? What did I keep back? I had been ready to unload all of this onto Colette because she could be the most impartial judge I had. It wouldn't be the same with Luc. And now there was the added complexity of what Jack had let slip on the balcony. Lies, secrets, manipulations, commands, orders - all of these things had been happening behind my back. Wrapped in pretty boxes and hidden from me to ensure I kept having the perfect attitude and reaction with every move I made.
Honestly, I felt used and naive, and absolutely furious. But did I tell Luc that? Where exactly did I draw the line of loyalty to Stellan? Or had I already tip-toed over it by coming here in the first place?
"My father tried to stop me from picking Stellan as my Keeper," Luc quietly started. "Apparently he'd tried to escape several times in the first couple of weeks after he arrived. As soon as he was well enough to try of course."
"What do you mean?" I eyed him cautiously.
"30 percent of his body had been burned in a fire. Damaged goods. Usually, they just kill the children that try to escape." He looked down at his hands, slowly spinning his coffee cup. The air froze in my chest. "I suppose they were feeling an unprecedented moment of mercy for him."
"Why are you telling me this?" I whispered.
"Because he didn't want it either." He replied, locking sad, purple eyes with my own. "That's the bond between you two."
"No," I shook my head and looked out toward the Seine. "Not anymore."
"People change," he gently said.
I frowned, "only circumstances do."
"What were you going to do, Avery? Run away?"
"Maybe," I huffed, digging deeper into the couch, still refusing to make eye contact with him.
"Where were you going to go?" He pushed.
"Mexico? Indonesia? Alaska?" I answered and Luc already started shaking his head.
"You might be able to figure out how to live, but you would have a steep learning curve on how to protect yourself. Then you'd also have to figure out how to slip the Circle the entire time, which is next to impossible." Luc tried to reason.
"But it can be done. My mother is a testament to that." I countered. "Besides I was never going to go by myself, I'm not that stupid."
"Fine," he sighed, leaning heavily onto the arm of the couch. "Let's even remove Anya from this hypothetical solution. Because I highly doubt you've thought through the complexity of caring for a small child on the lamb."
I flinched at his tone. It wasn't dismissive exactly, but he was clearly exasperated. I hadn't forgotten Anya in my plea to leave, she was always a part of this equation. But I hadn't exactly factored in how difficult it would be. After all, my mom managed to take care of me.
"So Stellan goes with you to Indonesia," Luc started. He paused to take the final sip from his coffee, "he's teaching fat tourists how to snorkel and you're bartending at a hotel. You dye your hair, gain ten pounds, get blue contacts - but what was he going to do? A giant, blond, Russian guy with a huge tattoo across his back and memorable scars."
"I...just…" I stammered. Luc tossed his empty cup at the table but it rolled off onto the ground.
"Let's say you both end up scrubbing toilets at night, no one sees you. You are making your meager existence in paradise. Because we can't get you money on the run without exposing you or having the information tortured out of us. Not when the Circle owns every bank in the world." He paused and waited until I looked over at him. I hadn't thought of that either. "What then? That's what you wanted out of your life? That's your purpose? How long do you think it would take for you to hate each other?"
"I don't think," I started but he cut over me.
"You will. He will grow to resent you. You will represent everything he left behind. Everything stopping him from his destiny. Everything wrong in his life. He will get bored with you because he feels trapped."
"Bored is harsh," I broke in.
"He speaks five languages. He plays three instruments. He knows how to kill people with his bare hands. He took the le bac just to see if he would pass without schooling. He did. You think scrubbing shit out of toilets and sleeping in some awful one-bedroom apartment is going to keep him? Is going to ensure he doesn't leave you?"
"So love doesn't count for anything?" I retorted.
"Avery, he is desperately in love with you. It is hard for me to watch some times." Luc snapped and then froze, pressing his lips together. I sucked in a sharp breath, shocked that he'd just admitted that out loud.
He took a deep breath to reset and then twisted on the couch so he was facing me completely. "You would grow to hate him too. You think you're mad at him now?" He held up his hands stopping my outburst. "You think trapping you here is what will break you, what will make you grow to hate all of us in the end. You think you're doomed to be told how to live your life. That free will no longer exist now that you ascended to power. You feel like only escaping with him will save you. I know how you feel."
"Oh do you?" I sassed back, the tears welling.
"Of course I do," he reached forward and squeezed my hand. "I wanted to escape too. And for a block of time, I did stupid, dangerous, things to rebel against this stranglehold my life had become. I was doing lines of coke off strangers bare asses in Ibiza for a month."
I looked away, wiping off my damp cheek with my free left hand. He squeezed me again,
"But there comes a point where you realize that the power you have ascended to, the power you possess can be shifted, moved, redirected to things that matter to you."
"Right, right," I sniffled. "I can protect the firstborn sons of the world again."
"No," he said, sounding hurt and I forced myself to turn and face him. "You can use all your wealth and power on things that will help the world, help the needy, help the powerless. You could order the entire Circle to ensure world peace. It would be with an implicit threat, but you could do it. And you're trying to tell me that cleaning up hotel room vomit is more appealing than that?"
"It's not. I know it's not," I sighed. "I understand what you're saying."
"Look at what you did for Samarah and Michiyo and all the other women heirs of the Circle. Look at what you did for all the staff! Look at what you've already done for me. And that was only in your first six months."
"Luc," I wiped at my face.
"My Queen," he smiled and then brought my left hand up and kissed my diamond ring, "don't ever underestimate your power. The Circle thought they'd marry you off and make everyone else bow to them. You bow to no one - least of all Stellan. Don't ever forget that."
His smile lit up his entire face and I threw myself at him in a crushing hug. Ignoring his oomph of noise as I made contact, ignoring my mascara tinted tears staining his sweater, ignoring the little laugh he let out as he started rubbing my back. I squeezed him as hard as I could until it didn't feel like my chest was going to burst.
"Don't ever leave me," I mumbled into his shoulder.
"You say that now," he laughed and then gave me a few more pats as I pulled away. "Want to go exploring?"
"Yes!" I sniffled and grabbed another pastry from the table before Luc lead me on a tour of his 'summer home'.
Jack and I didn't end up flying back until that evening. After the tour, the dinner ordered in from the best restaurant in town, the drinks in front of a roaring fireplace and several lost games of backgammon I'd relented. Jack helped guide my tipsy self up the stairs onto the chopper back to Riberton and I'd watched Luc's car head back toward Paris from my window. I wasn't sure how he'd managed to convince Jack to let me stay for as long as I did, but I'd have to find some way to repay him for it. By the time we landed and made it back into our wing, it was almost one in the morning. He broke off from me to go down the hallway in the direction of Elodie's room and I wandered toward the living room on my way to my own bedroom, expecting darkness. Instead, every light was on and the TV displayed ESPN on mute. I started moving through the space turning off lights as I went until I got to the couch and saw Stellan, asleep and sprawled across it.
I set my purse on the coffee table and turned the TV off, the room barely illuminated from a light in the hallway, he shifted on the couch and let out a long breath. Watching him, completely relaxed while he slept, I wasn't ready to jump back into this mess. But my fingers itched to touch him, to feel the familiar heat of his skin. I had a quick flash of my handprint across his cheek and clenched my fingers into a fist, pulling away from him instead. There was no way he wasn't still upset about that. I could just talk to him tomorrow, once I'd slept off Luc's heavy pours and my lingering anger. I turned to go and his sleepy voice called out,
"Anya?"
"Go back to sleep," I whispered. His eyes fluttered open and he pushed to sitting and immediately grabbed me around the waist to pull me between his legs, his face resting on my stomach.
"Avery," he sighed.
My hands fluttered above him, startled by how tight he was squeezing me. He took a large breath, relaxing against me and I dropped my hands to his shoulders and then started raking my fingers through his hair. I instantly started to relax as well, one hand sliding down his back, my palm pressing into his tattoo, while the other pulled him tighter against my stomach. Each beat of my heart was pumping out a flood of relaxation. My tight muscles started to soften, my rigid posture curved toward him, my stiff fingers curled around him, keeping him close to me. I'd forgotten how much I depended on him to be my pressure release valve.
I wanted to say something, try and explain myself, apologize, but it all kept catching in my throat. He pulled back a little and rested his forehead on my stomach. I was relieved he wasn't looking at me, this all still felt very fragile, and I was too exhausted to act for him.
"I was so worried about you," he whispered as his hands wrapped around my hips and the tips of his fingers curled into the small of my back.
"We were fine. Jack was there," I whispered back, gently scratching down his back.
"Every time you're out of my," he started to say and I shushed him,
"We left before anything happened."
They bombarded me immediately - the frozen balcony, the snow melting into my blood-red dress, the exasperated look on Jack's face, Luc's gasp. They flooded over all our whispers and relaxation and I stiffened in his hands.
"What?" He asked, clearly sensing my mood shift. From my peripheral vision, I could tell he had looked up at me but I couldn't bring myself to answer. I was exhausted and highly combustible. Now was not the time to scream at each other about this. Because I knew only one thing for sure - this was going to go from whispers to screaming in about 2.5 seconds.
"Nothing," I carefully answered and straightened, retracting my hands, trying to take a step back. He dropped me, like I was electrified, and threw his hands over his face as he collapsed back into the couch groaning,
"I can't take much more of this, Avery."
"Of what, exactly?" I snapped, crossing my arms over Luc's itchy sweater.
"I already told you," he growled, dropping his hands. "It's what I made you promise me when you stabbed me in Notre Dame and left with Jack. I was never going to run. That has never been a secret between us."
"Just about the only one," I ground out and we finally locked eyes.
Even in the dim light being cast from the hallway I could see the unease filter across his face. But I knew he wasn't going to say a damn word - just in case he ended up self-incriminating for other secrets he was keeping. My heart ached in my chest. It was like I was actually seeing him for the first time - or at least seeing a side he'd been hiding from me. I should have known. He couldn't have survived this long without becoming an expert liar. The weariness pulsed through me and I shook my head at his silence, turned, and started to walk away.
"Wait," he jumped up from the couch, but I ignored him and kept walking toward the bedroom. "What happened? What did you hear?"
"No way," I shook my head and scratched at the collar of the sweater, the wool getting really irritating as my anger started to heat me up.
His hand wrapped around my arm and spun me around to face him. I wrenched my arm away and then shoved him back. He put his hands up, placating, "sorry, I shouldn't have…"
"Why?" I snapped. "Why did you give her that order?"
"Who?" He narrowed his eyes at me.
"Elodie." I glared at him and watched as the realization spread across his face. He clenched his jaw and started shaking his head,
"He tried to kill you, Avery."
"Everyone's trying to kill me!" I shouted. "You had no right to do that without my permission."
He let out a single laugh, "if I had to ask for your permission every time we killed someone we'd never get anything done."
"No," I snapped and closed the space between us so I could glare at him, "this is different. And you fucking know why."
"He had to die. We needed to make a statement." He evenly replied.
"So shoot him, stab him, strangle him, waterboard him. You know hundreds of ways you could have killed him. But not that one. Never that one," I finished with a growl.
"What is the point of having this weapon if we don't use it?" He argued.
"Because we didn't decide," I emphasized. "You used my blood without my permission to kill someone in the same way my mother was murdered!"
"Because we had to!" He shouted back. "You weren't ready to make this kind of choice. I was trying to protect you from…"
"What? Helping?" I interjected.
He shook his head, exasperated. "This was the only way the Circle was going to…"
"Understand?" I cut over him. "Like how a union didn't mean a marriage? Or walks through fire actually meant fireproof? Or that the Order wasn't trying to kill us?"
His lips pressed into a thin line and he looked away, knowing I was right. I tried to take a breath to settle and said, "I see all of this differently than the three of you. I'm the one that decoded the bracelets. I'm the one who found all the clues that led us right here. I am not just purple eyes in a pretty dress."
"You never were," he quickly shot in. Piercing through my swirling emotions with a serious look. "But…"
I let out a growl of frustration. Interjecting, "if we keep doing the same shit in the same way it has always been done we will never evolve into what the Circle expected this to look like."
"Which is?" He challenged.
"Change, Stellan!"
"Change is gradual!" He reached out toward me and I took a step back. His pleading eyes went hard with resentment. "We can get there. But you have to believe me that it was the right call to make at the time."
"Then why was Jack the one that told me months later?" I crossed my arms over my chest. "Don't keep hiding behind this same lie. If it was the right call you could have told me at any point."
"When?" He snapped.
"In Mexico. On Thanksgiving. At the ice skating rink. In the fucking Maldives!" I flung out a hand and poked him, hard, in his chest. "You are not protecting me from shit - you are purposefully keeping me in the dark."
He grabbed my finger, tightly and lowly warned, "I protect you from more than you'll ever know."
"Only because you have to keep me alive, right?" I coldly asked, yanking my finger out of his hold. I threw the door to our bedroom open, the handle banging into the plaster and sticking, he followed me in.
My arm started to pinch and I spun around, ready to kick him and his lightning hands out of this room when he took a deep breath, shook out his left fist and then calmly said, "the only thing I've ever wanted to do is keep you alive, Avery."
Tears flooded me, stinging my eyes and making my nose tingle with warning. That wasn't fair. I sniffled, the boiling anger mixing with heartbreak in my chest, making everything constrict with misery. His worried eyes detailed it all as he slumped in front of me.
"Please leave," I said, my voice thick with tears.
"Is that really what you want from me?" He pleaded.
"You can't give me what I needed most from you anymore," I forced over the lump in my throat.
"And what's that?" He asked, his voice strained and hesitant.
"Trust."
He flinched, rolling his shoulders like he was in pain. My chest ached as I held back the wave of tears that wanted to explode out of me. What had started as lashing out to hurt him had managed to maim me as well. The truth too brutal for either of us to hear out loud. I put a hand over my heart, the other on my rolling stomach and waited. He continued to pale in front of me and then looked down at his hands for a moment before quietly turning around and leaving.