Chapter Three
1/
He woke with one foot poking outside the warmth of his blankets; shivering, he pulled it back in. Shreds of a dream filtered through his sleep-clouded mind but--there, it was gone. The world slowly came back into focus. The sky beyond his window was paling from black to blue, night giving way to dawn. Within these walls no one stirred.
Peace fell around Quatre in soft folds. He forgot that he was anything more than a drowsy young man in a comfortable bed, listening to the creaking and groaning of an old house.
The soft slide of feet upon a wooden floor didn't so much invade Quatre's quiet serenity as enhance it. A tiny yellow bar of light stretched from under the door leading into Wu Fei's small quarters--Quatre stared at it sleepily, comforted and at the same time wondering why Wu Fei was up so early.
Quatre's toes touched the carpeted floor before he was aware of what he was doing, and then he was across the room, pulling Wu Fei's door open and... Watching.
The movement was fluid and beautiful, like water swirling in a clear glass, and then it was as sharp as sudden sunlight. Quatre didn't know anything about martial arts, but he was sure that this was what Wu Fei was doing. The Chinese boy's eyes smoldered beneath fine black brows, so intensely focused that he didn't notice Quatre standing silently in the doorway.
One combination of fists and feet moved to another, the slender body bending and twisting from form to form. The very air seemed to dance with energy, and Quatre fought to keep his breathing slow and his heartbeat steady though adrenaline pulsed just beneath his skin. Something about the way that Wu Fei's white nightshirt kept riding up whenever his arms extended in a powerful punch, revealing the brown flesh of his stomach or his back. Something about the way that his thin lips were parted just a little and he kept sweeping a pink tongue across them.
And then Wu Fei was staring at him, flushed and a little startled, though he quickly assumed an air of cool indifference. His hands fell to his sides and all the tensed power collapsed back into him, like a coiled wire pulled too far out and then released.
"I'm sorry if I woke you, Mr. Winner."
"Please don't--" Quatre's mouth went dry, and he had to force the words out. "Don't call me that."
He'd been Mr. Winner from the cradle onward. He'd learned to read and write perfectly by the time he was seven, and to dance and bow properly and dress well even before that. His father and his sisters had always treated him as a sort of outsider. Of course they hadn't meant it, but it was there all the same, a warm world from which he was excluded because upon his shoulders rested the future of the Winner family.
Wu Fei's smile was sharp. "You are, strictly speaking, my employer. I didn't think 'Quatre-chan' would go over well."
"Just 'Quatre' is fine," Quatre said, a little more calmly. "After all, it only makes sense that we should try to get on well with one another, since we'll be spending so much time together."
"As you wish," said Wu Fei.
By now Quatre was considerably more awake, and his thoughts were no longer in tangles. He was ill at ease--he had intruded on Wu Fei at an ungodly hour of the morning, and really, he didn't know how to explain himself. He wanted to ask Wu Fei about the martial arts or whatever it was he'd been doing. Instead he said, "You'll probably want to have a shower--the bathroom is at the south end of the hall."
Once Wu Fei had gathered up his outfit for the day and stepped noiselessly from the room, Quatre sat down upon the floor, his back to the wall, and purposefully did not think of anything.
2/
Wu Fei was essentially self-taught. Of course, on L5 he'd had many tutors, but a great deal of his knowledge came from old books and self-experience, both of which he valued above formal schooling.
At the moment, he was in an uncomfortable chair of the aristocratic persuasion--lots of sewn flowers upon the cushion, but hardly any padding to speak of--a worn copy of Machiavelli's The Prince open in his lap, though he wasn't reading it. His English was perfect, and in fact he'd read the book years and years before (and quite enjoyed it, though purely from a scholastic point of view--he didn't totally agree with its cold logic). Still, it was much more interesting to observe Winner--no, Quatre-- struggling with a particularly difficult calculus problem.
"Can't we move on to geography?" Quatre inquired hopelessly. The piece of parchment on the desk in front of him was covered in inky scribbles, but all of them seemed to have come to a dead end without a solution in sight.
"No, Mr. Winner," chided the tutor, a trim young woman with a ready smile. She'd had this position for a little over a year, since Quatre's studies had shifted from advanced algebra to calculus, from history to geography (one of his favorite subjects), from political papers and colonial accounts to classical literature, and from English to French (he knew Arabic and Japanese as well). "Keep at it, you're very close."
Quatre tapped his pen upon the desk impatiently. The afternoon sunlight streaked in around the heavy dark curtains, making the shadows in the room even more bleak and oppressive.
"C'est très stupide," the little blond muttered despondently. He scratched down something quickly and drew a little box around it. "Est-ce que c'est parfait?"
"Monsieur Chang ne parle pas français," the tutor said severely. "Vous êtes beaucoup difficile aujourd'hui, Monsieur Winner!"
"I'm sorry," Quatre sighed. "I don't mean to be."
Wu Fei listened to this exchange calmly, though he didn't know any French at all except for a couple of words Quatre had been taught in the few days he'd been Wu Fei's charge.
In fact, the past few days had been very uneventful. There had been no further threats, and mostly the two boys stayed within the manor, Quatre attending his classes and the occasional social call from an old friend of the family, or a business associate. During these meetings Wu Fei was always near, eyes on the guests and one hand discreetly on his gun.
"Are you quite bored, Wu Fei?" Quatre interrupted the Chinese boy's thoughts, ignoring his tutor's displeased grunt. "We've been cooped up in here for so long . . ." He brightened. "You know, we should definitely go out tonight."
"Mr. Winner--Mr. Winner, you haven't even finished--"
"How does that sound, Wu Fei?" Quatre plowed on over his tutor's insistent voice.
Wu Fei surprised himself by saying, "That sounds fine."
3/
Wu Fei blinked when he saw Quatre, standing at the foot of the first floor staircase. The little Arabian was clad in elaborate silk trousers and a long, beautifully embroidered shift of pale blue and gold. His wrists were encased in delicate gold cuffs, and his pale hair appeared softer, wilder than usual, falling in curls around his ears.
Wu Fei bowed, feeling suddenly short of breath. The other boy was stunning to behold, and far overshadowed austere Wu Fei in his black slacks and dress shirt.
"Where is this . . . party?" Wu Fei asked a little suspiciously.
"Now that would ruin the surprise, Wu Fei." Quatre turned and strode through the front door, hardly noticing as the butler bowed to him. Wu Fei followed, frowning.
The night was beautiful, the sky star-studded and clear. A warm breeze lifted the hem of Quatre's outfit as he slid into the back seat of the waiting car and murmured a hello to the driver. Wu Fei cast one last look at the manor and climbed in after Quatre.
4/
"I really did have a, a whatchamacallit. A point."
Quatre laughed carelessly, firelight flickering over his handsome features. His breath smelled of heavy wine and the sweet cakes he'd been gorging on all night.
"Lost it, have you?" Wu Fei observed shrewdly. He hadn't really been listening to whatever Quatre had been saying, but he was very good at pretending.
"Yes, I think so." The Arabian boy leaned into the heat of the dying bonfire, his features relaxed. His loose hair fell into his eyes, hiding them. "I'll find it again, maybe someday."
Wu Fei almost smiled, his body and mind at ease. He suspected that considering who he was and whom he was with, this could not be a good thing. "I'm a bodyguard," he said fiercely, to remind himself.
"That too," agreed Quatre.
The night had gone surprisingly well. Wu Fei, having never been to a celebration instigated by a group of young, single-by-circumstance, former Mobile Suit pilots, had been a little out of his league, but Quatre had walked among the Maganac (those that were on this particular colony, anyway) as if he was one of them. In light of the reverence they directed toward the young Winner heir, Wu Fei supposed this couldn't be too far from the truth. Quatre's clothes were outlandish to say the least--the Maganac attire seemed suitable for a desert climate, and Quatre was like a prince among servants.
Not that Wu Fei had been any less outlandish. He'd hung by Quatre's elbow for more than an hour before one of the Arab men had begged Quatre's presence at some sort of meeting. Wu Fei had stood by himself and watched a line of men making their way around the huge bonfire before a complicated discussion of politics caught his attention, and he unashamedly plunged into the conversation.
Now most of the Maganac Corps had either disappeared from the open clearing (it was surrounded by trees and beyond those, buildings) or gathered into small, exclusive groups to talk among themselves. Quatre had chosen to remain by the fire, Wu Fei by his side.
"Venus, that's it," Quatre said suddenly.
Wu Fei gave him a questioning look.
"The Goddess of Venus, I mean," Quatre tried to clarify. "Look, there she is," and he pointed up, to a yellow point very near the moon. "Rashid told me--long time ago--that the Goddess of Venus is a patron of . . . of love or something. Yes, love. I tease them about it sometimes, because of course they don't really believe in any goddess," he added.
"Ah," said Wu Fei.
"You know, I--I'm glad you're here, Wu Fei," Quatre said earnestly, one hand grasping the sleeve of Wu Fei's shirt. "Sometimes my own room gets so small I want to die."
Wu Fei stared at the thin fingers pressing into the white fabric, warm fingertips almost touching his skin. He thought he might understand, just a little.
5/
Quatre woke to find himself alone and in the dark. His room. Right. At some point he must have changed out of his silk and into cotton pajamas, which now clung to his sweat-slicked skin like mold. Something warm and wet ran down his left cheek and he automatically brushed it off. It was a tear, but he was too caught in a sense of deja vu to care.
He'd been exactly like this before, and there had been soft butter-yellow light drifting underneath Wu Fei's door, but that was not so now. Now all was dark and dark was all. He felt like he should go into Wu Fei's room, and so he did, following a script that he'd used already.
Wu Fei's room was pitch-black, having no windows, and Quatre fell to his knees and listened. A wet, swallowing sound, and then Wu Fei's smooth baritone, "What is it, Quatre?" Quatre realized this was the first time Wu Fei had really addressed him by his given name, and a pleasant little ache sprang up in his belly. He crawled forward, one hand stretching forth into nothing and then there was the edge of the futon, soft and pliant, and some part of Wu Fei that was warm and alive. Wu Fei didn't pull away, but didn't move to turn on the light or help Quatre up, either.
The something within Quatre that picked up on people's feelings, that functioned a bit like an emotional radio, throbbed in painful sympathy. He gasped, and coughed to cover it up. Wu Fei had been hiding for a very long time, anger building up and building up and now it was seeping out of him like a deadly toxin, invisible but terribly destructive.
Quatre pulled himself into a comfortable position, his hand reluctantly leaving Wu Fei. There was the clear chink of a glass being set down, and Quatre said, "Are you drunk?"
"No," said Wu Fei gruffly, but Quatre knew he was lying. "What, not sophisticated enough for you, am I?"
"You're all right." Quatre closed his eyes to stop them for searching for the Chinese boy in the darkness. "Where were you before . . . before you came here, before you--"
"It doesn't concern you," Wu Fei said, irritation evident in his tone.
"All right." A silence that was not quite companionable fell between them. Quatre absently stroked the side of what must have been the bottle Wu Fei'd been drinking from. It was warm from where his hands had held it. "Did they let you hear the message when you took this job?"
"Yeah. Had to demand it, though. Very close-mouthed, your Maganac guardian."
Quatre chortled softly. Wu Fei was probably referring to Rashid. "He really is."
"So, are you a devil-worshipper? A Satanist?" Wu Fei let out a harsh little laugh. "A witch?"
"No," said Quatre. "I'm not really anything. Of course, the Winner family has always professed to be Muslim--but it's all public relations. Most of L4's inhabitants originate from the Middle Eastern countries on earth, and my father--and his father, and his father's father--all used this to their advantage." Quatre frowned. "I still can't figure out if the person who wants me dead really thinks I'm Muslim, or if he intends to make an example of me. Not," he amended, "that he's right either way."
"He believes he's right." Wu Fei jerked the bottle out of Quatre's grasp. "Doesn't matter if he is or not. People like that only care about themselves."
"Maybe . . ." Quatre sighed. "Maybe he's had a really difficult life. Maybe he was a soldier, or his family was killed in the war--"
"Oh, here's the heroic young billionaire, sympathizing with his would-be killer!" Quatre winced at the scorn he heard in his bodyguard's voice. "Do you want him to kill you?"
"I don't know." Quatre plowed ahead through the sudden silence his admission had produced. "It's like--there's nothing new, nothing happens to me that hasn't happened before. Ever since I . . . destroyed Sandrock--and I'm glad I did, but ever since I've been walking on a path already beaten firm with old footsteps, and I get so tired of it sometimes I could--I could give it all up. All the money and social status and education, I could throw it all away just to get rid of this horrible status quo."
After a while, Wu Fei said, "Here," and shoved something into Quatre's open hands. For a dizzy moment Quatre was sure it was a gun, and Wu Fei was going to ask him to commit suicide, but then it dawned on him that this was the bottle of alcohol.
Quatre brought the mouth of the bottle to his lips, sipped carefully--and sputtered a little on the bitter tasting liquid. He forced himself to take a large gulp, and then handed the bottle back to Wu Fei, not bothering to say thank you because he knew that Wu Fei understood.
6/
Hana looked up as a worried servant entered her office--it was on the first floor of the Winner manor, and much more comfortable than her ultra- professional office at the headquarters of Winner Enterprises. She'd just been gathering together some documents she needed Quatre to sign, and was a little annoyed at being interrupted.
"Miss Winner, we've received a phone call--would you like me to forward it to your private phone line?" The servant's voice trembled, and Hana's brow furrowed in concern.
"Please do."
7/
"But how did he get our phone number?" Quatre said again. "It's not listed anywhere, we've never given it to any of our clients, it . . . it's impossible." His blue eyes were wide and shocked.
"It shows," Hana Winner said patiently, "that the security here must be heightened. And you are not to be out of your bodyguard's sight--ever."
Wu Fei leaned against the doorway of the second-floor computer room, where Quatre had been researching one of his pet projects (endangered bats or something of the sort) before his sister had come to him with a recording of another vaguely veiled threat.
"'Thou therefore, O Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, awake to visit all the heathen: be not merciful to any wicked transgressors,'" she quoted now, thoughtfully. "I swear, I've etched it into my memory, and besides the fact that it's clearly a . . . a Bible verse condemning non-Christians, I'm not sure what to make of it. Of course," she sighed, "Private Investigator Jordan will surely have some ideas, but probably none pointing to a clear suspect, just as with the other message."
Quatre's fists clenched, and he looked away. A complicated ensemble of emotions flitted across his face--guilt and anger and fear and above all, frustration--but eventually he just said in a defeated voice, "Is there anything I can do?"
8/
The next few days passed in a blur. Wake up, eat, accompany Quatre to his lessons, follow him about his business, watch him fret and worry himself into a self-made hell, eat, practice an old kung fu form, try not to think of anything beyond this stifling lonely house, make sure Quatre sleeps, and dream of what may come.
The monotony wasn't much different from life on L3; hell, he even had a constant supply of good alcohol thanks to his recently acquired paycheck, and the Winners' affection for wine with their dinner. It bothered him how well this lifestyle suited him, and he began to wonder what had happened to the proud warrior he'd once been.
Nataku would have laughed at him, but Wu Fei realized he no longer cared.
1/
He woke with one foot poking outside the warmth of his blankets; shivering, he pulled it back in. Shreds of a dream filtered through his sleep-clouded mind but--there, it was gone. The world slowly came back into focus. The sky beyond his window was paling from black to blue, night giving way to dawn. Within these walls no one stirred.
Peace fell around Quatre in soft folds. He forgot that he was anything more than a drowsy young man in a comfortable bed, listening to the creaking and groaning of an old house.
The soft slide of feet upon a wooden floor didn't so much invade Quatre's quiet serenity as enhance it. A tiny yellow bar of light stretched from under the door leading into Wu Fei's small quarters--Quatre stared at it sleepily, comforted and at the same time wondering why Wu Fei was up so early.
Quatre's toes touched the carpeted floor before he was aware of what he was doing, and then he was across the room, pulling Wu Fei's door open and... Watching.
The movement was fluid and beautiful, like water swirling in a clear glass, and then it was as sharp as sudden sunlight. Quatre didn't know anything about martial arts, but he was sure that this was what Wu Fei was doing. The Chinese boy's eyes smoldered beneath fine black brows, so intensely focused that he didn't notice Quatre standing silently in the doorway.
One combination of fists and feet moved to another, the slender body bending and twisting from form to form. The very air seemed to dance with energy, and Quatre fought to keep his breathing slow and his heartbeat steady though adrenaline pulsed just beneath his skin. Something about the way that Wu Fei's white nightshirt kept riding up whenever his arms extended in a powerful punch, revealing the brown flesh of his stomach or his back. Something about the way that his thin lips were parted just a little and he kept sweeping a pink tongue across them.
And then Wu Fei was staring at him, flushed and a little startled, though he quickly assumed an air of cool indifference. His hands fell to his sides and all the tensed power collapsed back into him, like a coiled wire pulled too far out and then released.
"I'm sorry if I woke you, Mr. Winner."
"Please don't--" Quatre's mouth went dry, and he had to force the words out. "Don't call me that."
He'd been Mr. Winner from the cradle onward. He'd learned to read and write perfectly by the time he was seven, and to dance and bow properly and dress well even before that. His father and his sisters had always treated him as a sort of outsider. Of course they hadn't meant it, but it was there all the same, a warm world from which he was excluded because upon his shoulders rested the future of the Winner family.
Wu Fei's smile was sharp. "You are, strictly speaking, my employer. I didn't think 'Quatre-chan' would go over well."
"Just 'Quatre' is fine," Quatre said, a little more calmly. "After all, it only makes sense that we should try to get on well with one another, since we'll be spending so much time together."
"As you wish," said Wu Fei.
By now Quatre was considerably more awake, and his thoughts were no longer in tangles. He was ill at ease--he had intruded on Wu Fei at an ungodly hour of the morning, and really, he didn't know how to explain himself. He wanted to ask Wu Fei about the martial arts or whatever it was he'd been doing. Instead he said, "You'll probably want to have a shower--the bathroom is at the south end of the hall."
Once Wu Fei had gathered up his outfit for the day and stepped noiselessly from the room, Quatre sat down upon the floor, his back to the wall, and purposefully did not think of anything.
2/
Wu Fei was essentially self-taught. Of course, on L5 he'd had many tutors, but a great deal of his knowledge came from old books and self-experience, both of which he valued above formal schooling.
At the moment, he was in an uncomfortable chair of the aristocratic persuasion--lots of sewn flowers upon the cushion, but hardly any padding to speak of--a worn copy of Machiavelli's The Prince open in his lap, though he wasn't reading it. His English was perfect, and in fact he'd read the book years and years before (and quite enjoyed it, though purely from a scholastic point of view--he didn't totally agree with its cold logic). Still, it was much more interesting to observe Winner--no, Quatre-- struggling with a particularly difficult calculus problem.
"Can't we move on to geography?" Quatre inquired hopelessly. The piece of parchment on the desk in front of him was covered in inky scribbles, but all of them seemed to have come to a dead end without a solution in sight.
"No, Mr. Winner," chided the tutor, a trim young woman with a ready smile. She'd had this position for a little over a year, since Quatre's studies had shifted from advanced algebra to calculus, from history to geography (one of his favorite subjects), from political papers and colonial accounts to classical literature, and from English to French (he knew Arabic and Japanese as well). "Keep at it, you're very close."
Quatre tapped his pen upon the desk impatiently. The afternoon sunlight streaked in around the heavy dark curtains, making the shadows in the room even more bleak and oppressive.
"C'est très stupide," the little blond muttered despondently. He scratched down something quickly and drew a little box around it. "Est-ce que c'est parfait?"
"Monsieur Chang ne parle pas français," the tutor said severely. "Vous êtes beaucoup difficile aujourd'hui, Monsieur Winner!"
"I'm sorry," Quatre sighed. "I don't mean to be."
Wu Fei listened to this exchange calmly, though he didn't know any French at all except for a couple of words Quatre had been taught in the few days he'd been Wu Fei's charge.
In fact, the past few days had been very uneventful. There had been no further threats, and mostly the two boys stayed within the manor, Quatre attending his classes and the occasional social call from an old friend of the family, or a business associate. During these meetings Wu Fei was always near, eyes on the guests and one hand discreetly on his gun.
"Are you quite bored, Wu Fei?" Quatre interrupted the Chinese boy's thoughts, ignoring his tutor's displeased grunt. "We've been cooped up in here for so long . . ." He brightened. "You know, we should definitely go out tonight."
"Mr. Winner--Mr. Winner, you haven't even finished--"
"How does that sound, Wu Fei?" Quatre plowed on over his tutor's insistent voice.
Wu Fei surprised himself by saying, "That sounds fine."
3/
Wu Fei blinked when he saw Quatre, standing at the foot of the first floor staircase. The little Arabian was clad in elaborate silk trousers and a long, beautifully embroidered shift of pale blue and gold. His wrists were encased in delicate gold cuffs, and his pale hair appeared softer, wilder than usual, falling in curls around his ears.
Wu Fei bowed, feeling suddenly short of breath. The other boy was stunning to behold, and far overshadowed austere Wu Fei in his black slacks and dress shirt.
"Where is this . . . party?" Wu Fei asked a little suspiciously.
"Now that would ruin the surprise, Wu Fei." Quatre turned and strode through the front door, hardly noticing as the butler bowed to him. Wu Fei followed, frowning.
The night was beautiful, the sky star-studded and clear. A warm breeze lifted the hem of Quatre's outfit as he slid into the back seat of the waiting car and murmured a hello to the driver. Wu Fei cast one last look at the manor and climbed in after Quatre.
4/
"I really did have a, a whatchamacallit. A point."
Quatre laughed carelessly, firelight flickering over his handsome features. His breath smelled of heavy wine and the sweet cakes he'd been gorging on all night.
"Lost it, have you?" Wu Fei observed shrewdly. He hadn't really been listening to whatever Quatre had been saying, but he was very good at pretending.
"Yes, I think so." The Arabian boy leaned into the heat of the dying bonfire, his features relaxed. His loose hair fell into his eyes, hiding them. "I'll find it again, maybe someday."
Wu Fei almost smiled, his body and mind at ease. He suspected that considering who he was and whom he was with, this could not be a good thing. "I'm a bodyguard," he said fiercely, to remind himself.
"That too," agreed Quatre.
The night had gone surprisingly well. Wu Fei, having never been to a celebration instigated by a group of young, single-by-circumstance, former Mobile Suit pilots, had been a little out of his league, but Quatre had walked among the Maganac (those that were on this particular colony, anyway) as if he was one of them. In light of the reverence they directed toward the young Winner heir, Wu Fei supposed this couldn't be too far from the truth. Quatre's clothes were outlandish to say the least--the Maganac attire seemed suitable for a desert climate, and Quatre was like a prince among servants.
Not that Wu Fei had been any less outlandish. He'd hung by Quatre's elbow for more than an hour before one of the Arab men had begged Quatre's presence at some sort of meeting. Wu Fei had stood by himself and watched a line of men making their way around the huge bonfire before a complicated discussion of politics caught his attention, and he unashamedly plunged into the conversation.
Now most of the Maganac Corps had either disappeared from the open clearing (it was surrounded by trees and beyond those, buildings) or gathered into small, exclusive groups to talk among themselves. Quatre had chosen to remain by the fire, Wu Fei by his side.
"Venus, that's it," Quatre said suddenly.
Wu Fei gave him a questioning look.
"The Goddess of Venus, I mean," Quatre tried to clarify. "Look, there she is," and he pointed up, to a yellow point very near the moon. "Rashid told me--long time ago--that the Goddess of Venus is a patron of . . . of love or something. Yes, love. I tease them about it sometimes, because of course they don't really believe in any goddess," he added.
"Ah," said Wu Fei.
"You know, I--I'm glad you're here, Wu Fei," Quatre said earnestly, one hand grasping the sleeve of Wu Fei's shirt. "Sometimes my own room gets so small I want to die."
Wu Fei stared at the thin fingers pressing into the white fabric, warm fingertips almost touching his skin. He thought he might understand, just a little.
5/
Quatre woke to find himself alone and in the dark. His room. Right. At some point he must have changed out of his silk and into cotton pajamas, which now clung to his sweat-slicked skin like mold. Something warm and wet ran down his left cheek and he automatically brushed it off. It was a tear, but he was too caught in a sense of deja vu to care.
He'd been exactly like this before, and there had been soft butter-yellow light drifting underneath Wu Fei's door, but that was not so now. Now all was dark and dark was all. He felt like he should go into Wu Fei's room, and so he did, following a script that he'd used already.
Wu Fei's room was pitch-black, having no windows, and Quatre fell to his knees and listened. A wet, swallowing sound, and then Wu Fei's smooth baritone, "What is it, Quatre?" Quatre realized this was the first time Wu Fei had really addressed him by his given name, and a pleasant little ache sprang up in his belly. He crawled forward, one hand stretching forth into nothing and then there was the edge of the futon, soft and pliant, and some part of Wu Fei that was warm and alive. Wu Fei didn't pull away, but didn't move to turn on the light or help Quatre up, either.
The something within Quatre that picked up on people's feelings, that functioned a bit like an emotional radio, throbbed in painful sympathy. He gasped, and coughed to cover it up. Wu Fei had been hiding for a very long time, anger building up and building up and now it was seeping out of him like a deadly toxin, invisible but terribly destructive.
Quatre pulled himself into a comfortable position, his hand reluctantly leaving Wu Fei. There was the clear chink of a glass being set down, and Quatre said, "Are you drunk?"
"No," said Wu Fei gruffly, but Quatre knew he was lying. "What, not sophisticated enough for you, am I?"
"You're all right." Quatre closed his eyes to stop them for searching for the Chinese boy in the darkness. "Where were you before . . . before you came here, before you--"
"It doesn't concern you," Wu Fei said, irritation evident in his tone.
"All right." A silence that was not quite companionable fell between them. Quatre absently stroked the side of what must have been the bottle Wu Fei'd been drinking from. It was warm from where his hands had held it. "Did they let you hear the message when you took this job?"
"Yeah. Had to demand it, though. Very close-mouthed, your Maganac guardian."
Quatre chortled softly. Wu Fei was probably referring to Rashid. "He really is."
"So, are you a devil-worshipper? A Satanist?" Wu Fei let out a harsh little laugh. "A witch?"
"No," said Quatre. "I'm not really anything. Of course, the Winner family has always professed to be Muslim--but it's all public relations. Most of L4's inhabitants originate from the Middle Eastern countries on earth, and my father--and his father, and his father's father--all used this to their advantage." Quatre frowned. "I still can't figure out if the person who wants me dead really thinks I'm Muslim, or if he intends to make an example of me. Not," he amended, "that he's right either way."
"He believes he's right." Wu Fei jerked the bottle out of Quatre's grasp. "Doesn't matter if he is or not. People like that only care about themselves."
"Maybe . . ." Quatre sighed. "Maybe he's had a really difficult life. Maybe he was a soldier, or his family was killed in the war--"
"Oh, here's the heroic young billionaire, sympathizing with his would-be killer!" Quatre winced at the scorn he heard in his bodyguard's voice. "Do you want him to kill you?"
"I don't know." Quatre plowed ahead through the sudden silence his admission had produced. "It's like--there's nothing new, nothing happens to me that hasn't happened before. Ever since I . . . destroyed Sandrock--and I'm glad I did, but ever since I've been walking on a path already beaten firm with old footsteps, and I get so tired of it sometimes I could--I could give it all up. All the money and social status and education, I could throw it all away just to get rid of this horrible status quo."
After a while, Wu Fei said, "Here," and shoved something into Quatre's open hands. For a dizzy moment Quatre was sure it was a gun, and Wu Fei was going to ask him to commit suicide, but then it dawned on him that this was the bottle of alcohol.
Quatre brought the mouth of the bottle to his lips, sipped carefully--and sputtered a little on the bitter tasting liquid. He forced himself to take a large gulp, and then handed the bottle back to Wu Fei, not bothering to say thank you because he knew that Wu Fei understood.
6/
Hana looked up as a worried servant entered her office--it was on the first floor of the Winner manor, and much more comfortable than her ultra- professional office at the headquarters of Winner Enterprises. She'd just been gathering together some documents she needed Quatre to sign, and was a little annoyed at being interrupted.
"Miss Winner, we've received a phone call--would you like me to forward it to your private phone line?" The servant's voice trembled, and Hana's brow furrowed in concern.
"Please do."
7/
"But how did he get our phone number?" Quatre said again. "It's not listed anywhere, we've never given it to any of our clients, it . . . it's impossible." His blue eyes were wide and shocked.
"It shows," Hana Winner said patiently, "that the security here must be heightened. And you are not to be out of your bodyguard's sight--ever."
Wu Fei leaned against the doorway of the second-floor computer room, where Quatre had been researching one of his pet projects (endangered bats or something of the sort) before his sister had come to him with a recording of another vaguely veiled threat.
"'Thou therefore, O Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, awake to visit all the heathen: be not merciful to any wicked transgressors,'" she quoted now, thoughtfully. "I swear, I've etched it into my memory, and besides the fact that it's clearly a . . . a Bible verse condemning non-Christians, I'm not sure what to make of it. Of course," she sighed, "Private Investigator Jordan will surely have some ideas, but probably none pointing to a clear suspect, just as with the other message."
Quatre's fists clenched, and he looked away. A complicated ensemble of emotions flitted across his face--guilt and anger and fear and above all, frustration--but eventually he just said in a defeated voice, "Is there anything I can do?"
8/
The next few days passed in a blur. Wake up, eat, accompany Quatre to his lessons, follow him about his business, watch him fret and worry himself into a self-made hell, eat, practice an old kung fu form, try not to think of anything beyond this stifling lonely house, make sure Quatre sleeps, and dream of what may come.
The monotony wasn't much different from life on L3; hell, he even had a constant supply of good alcohol thanks to his recently acquired paycheck, and the Winners' affection for wine with their dinner. It bothered him how well this lifestyle suited him, and he began to wonder what had happened to the proud warrior he'd once been.
Nataku would have laughed at him, but Wu Fei realized he no longer cared.