HEART OF GOLD | CORIOLANUS SNOW

𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙋𝙏𝙀𝙍 59

"You like seafood right?" Snow piped up.

Breezing through the deserted security stations, Lilith glanced over and realized her surprise extended only to the fact that he'd bothered to ask. Night in night out, he'd watched her pick a dish that contained at least one shellfish or another. Surely, he would have cottoned on to her preference.

"Yes, sir," affirmed Lilith, and Snow punched something into his cordless. "But I'll eat anything."

"Including a sandwich," he scoffed. He had made her throw it out, quoting all manner of hazards arising from consumption of stale food.

Suddenly, Lilith felt compelled to defend the poor thing.

"It was shrimp." And remarkably tasty for something from a vending machine.

With a look that might be the closest she would ever get to seeing him roll his eyes, Snow just shook his head. They crossed the plaza to his awaiting car, Lilith's brisk pace no trouble at all for him. He got the door for her, and Lilith hurried inside, which smell of calfskin and roses and was a comfortable refuge from the February chill. Snow was let into the adjacent back seat, then the besuited chauffeur climbed into the front, and they were rolling away.

A noiseless engine and excellent soundproofing rendered the interior so silent that, despite the softness of his voice, Lilith jolted slightly when Snow spoke.

"You have a little—" He gestured vaguely, and seemed to relinquish the attempt at once. Instead, he leaned closer, and closer, reaching toward her hair.

Instinctively—because her brain simply did not work anymore—one of her hands shot up. To stop him? To swat him away? To reach for her own hair? Lilith had no idea, but it shot up all the same. As if she needed tangible proof of her mindlessness, there was a sharp twinge. She had raised her right arm, the one nearest to him, the one whose bones were still healing, the one she had overworked and really ought to be resting. Recoiling it quickly, Lilith swapped to her master side, only for her hand to hover cluelessly over her head.

Her reaction seemed to sober Snow. Dropping his hand, he merely pushed a button on the panel in front of her seat before drawing back. The matte black rectangular screen that normally served as a mini television transformed into a reflective surface, its border flaring up like a ring light. Lilith appeared in the mirror, her face dazed, her chestnut mane limp and sparsely speckled with white.

Had it snowed? It had been absolutely freezing, but it had looked pretty clear, too. The cabin's illumination made squinting out the tinted window futile, not that it really mattered whether she discerned any flakes adrift.

Brushing off the ones on her head, Lilith let out a spontaneous chuckle. "Snow lands on top."

Amused, she glanced across the backseat. Snow was watching her, his impenetrable expression now spreading with a smile.

"It most certainly does," he agreed.

Not for the first time, Lilith was riveted as he held her gaze. Only, he wasn't just holding her gaze. Snow was leaning in—again. Closer and closer, until he was in the glow of the mirror, until she could see where his fingers had raked though his damp golden curls, until—

Until she couldn't.

The lights had gone out, albeit not all at once. Mirrors in Lilith's car did the same thing when being switched off, with about three-quarters of the power being cut at first, leaving the last quarter to gradually dim out.

Thanks to this technology, her eyes soon readjusted, and Lilith found herself still magnetized by Snow's gaze. In the rhythmic ebb and flow of orange luminescence flooding in from street lamps they passed, his irises were so blue—his irises were so close—they seemed to gleam in the dark.