Heart of Glass [manxman]

Chapter Twenty-Two

It was starting to get painful.

For the last two and a half hours, Meredith, Remy, Abigail, Dr. Ponds, and I had sat at the table in the last room on the right, watching as Louis paced the floor, phone attached to his ear, and frown engraven on his face. Occasionally, he would break to speak with the four of us, giving us an update from another building, another tidbit from one of the recon teams they'd forgotten to mention, or he'd toss out a suggestion for ways to get around forfeiting me to Rainier. All that desperation kept growing, gradually consuming him and pushing him into a state of panicked mania. It was hard to watch.

Each of us had tried getting him to stop, to sit down, relax and think clearly, but it didn't work. And every second we wasted trying to settle him down was met with frustration on his end, misunderstanding of our motives. Usually, he would know better, think clearer, but, in his mind, his colleagues were about to offer up his soulmate to a gang of demons on a silver platter and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it, not unless he wanted to risk his soulmate's—and not to mention everyone else's—life.

I folded my arms over my chest, watching as he paced and argued with someone from Thistle Hall. In the last update he'd provided, he said that he was attempting to orchestrate a tie between us, that way it would create ambiguity among the staff and it would make it difficult for Rainier to honor his word. What he didn't want to hear about that plan, however, was that the campus had an odd number of buildings. That wasn't even bothering to mention that Rainier didn't really care so much about honoring his word. If there was any way for things to be tied, he would either take that chance to capture both of us or have his pick of the litter.

"Gods, this is just sad," Remy muttered.

"He's killing himself over something fruitless," I said. "Doesn't matter what he does. It all ends up the same."

Meredith glanced over at me. "You seriously have your own plan, don't you?"

I nodded.

"Why not tell him and put him out of his misery? This is just cruel."

"He already knows I have a plan. He's not certain of what it is, but it's better that way. Nothing about this is something he's going to want to hear. As much as I don't like it, this is surprisingly more humane."

"Ever thought about lying to him?" Dr. Ponds asked, raising a brow as he looked away from Louis for the first time in half an hour.

I shook my head. "I've lied to him more than enough for this lifetime. I'm going to be as honest as I can possibly be without panicking him."

"Just what are you planning on doing, Alexei?"

"Oh, you know, something incredibly selfish and reckless and unprecedented. You know, the typical Wednesday." I tilted my head, watching as Louis raked his fingers through his hair again and his shoulders sank. He usually kept a bit of stubble on his jawline, but without a few days of shaving, the hair had grown thicker and darker. The facial hair suited him.

I dropped my eyes down to his chest, where he was using his marked hand to fidget with my tags. He had dark circles under his eyes from where he hadn't slept, and he looked like he was falling apart. I was doing that to him. I was ripping him apart at the seams without even trying.

I loved that man. We had our differences; we fought hard and passionately and dirty and without morals. We hurt one another repeatedly—a little more on my end than his. For a century, we had been unnecessarily cruel to one another. The brief time that things had leveled out and resembled the past—that had been all I needed. All those years ago, when I first came to the academy, it had felt cold and lonely, dull.