The Edifice

39. Angel-Light

OTIS

What we are to do, if Lee's actions are anything to go by, is drink. He finishes his third glass of pinot noir by the time Olivia and I are done eating, barely touching the food himself. When he disappears out the back, presumably for another nicotine fix, he already has a fourth in hand.

I follow Lee out to his greenhouse, concerned with the speed at which he's distanced from the two of us.

Tonight should be a moment of euphoric triumph for me, given Olivia's promise earlier. I've been able to shrug off the guilt that's been haunting me since I saw her teary-eyed face chastising me yesterday. For once a plan of mine has actually worked flawlessly.

I don't care that staying in the Edifice with her was never in my plans. In three days I will be human or dead. Either way it means I'm useless to my parents, to the Potentate, to everyone excepting those who really care for me. If Olivia thinks she can love me then goodness knows I'll give it my all, give her whatever remains of me. She's already earned it by easing the weight of the world from my shoulders to her own.

Well, almost all of the weight.

"How's your plan for defeating me coming along?" I joke as I wind my way through the maze of plants to Lee's little corner of solitude.

His silhouette fades in and out of focus between long plumes of smoke, but when his face does reappear, it's clear the alcohol has done little to cloud the sly cleverness behind his eyes. Lee tilts his head appraisingly, taking another drag of the cigarette. The smoke curls between his lips as he speaks.

"I don't want to stop you giving away your soul, Otis. I'm counting on it, actually. People have hurt you for your power and you don't deserve to live your life like this."

This is... a surprising change of heart. One I'd thought too far fetched to hope for. Even after the things he'd moaned to me last night, a small part of me has still been terrified that the blood and homeland he shares with Olivia would keep him against me to his final breath.

While Zagan may outmatch me in playing others against me, at the very least I have a few advantages at reading people. While Lee chooses his words with utmost care, I can still read the electricity of his firing neurons, hear the steady beat of his heart. He's not lying to me.

 Lee lets out a long and weary sigh. His words, soft and hesitant, strike me harder than if he'd cursed me instead."I'd like to be the place you can rest, Otis."

"Excuse me?"

"You've been running your whole life, haven't you? Running from your parents, from your brother- from the fucking obligation you have to your country by being the man you are. I think you're a coward, Otis. I'm not a fucking hypocrite, though." Lee rubs his eyes and stomps the butt of his cigarette out beneath the heel of his boots. "And I like you. A lot. I want to be the place you can stop and rest, human or otherwise. But Olivia is getting back to Earth."

He gets to his feet, towering above me, heat radiating from his body with all the comfort of a hearth-filled with fire. Not the consuming, destructive blaze that courses through my brother, but the warmth of embers on a winter's night. Fragile and searing to the touch but once you've stood close enough to him you can't help but feel how bitterly cold the world is without it.

I've lost half of what he's said to the rushing in my ears, rushing that shouldn't be there.

The place I rest.

How long have I spent running from my home thinking it would keep me safe? How many years have I wasted dreaming of Earth like my life depends upon the soil beneath my feet? Solace doesn't have to mean isolation, the bliss of last night is all the proof I need of that. The safety I'd dreamed of for over twenty years had come so easily in the arms of two tiny, little humans.