CHAPTER FIFTEEN #4
‘Oh, you’re such a little liar! Look at him, all muscle and man. You’d have to be blind not to want him.’
‘Ari, darling,’ Alistair sighs, ‘are you planning to poach my staff?’
‘If more of them looked like him, I might,’ she simpers, tone watery but her gaze is sharp beneath all the drink and drugs.
Ariadne Alderwyck is close to Alistair’s age, mid-sixties at least, but with all the guile of superficial beauty.
Her shoulder-length hair is chocolate brown, not a grey in sight. ‘Bodyguard, come here.’
Lachlan looks to Alistair, who gives a single nod. He goes where he’s bid, stands before Ariadne when she rises to meet him.
‘Oh yes, you’re a handsome thing,’ she declares, stroking his cheek, then his hair, then wherever she likes, gaze roaming appreciatively. ‘Alistair, tell me I can borrow him.’
‘For what purpose, my love?’
‘For play, of course. What else?’ She pushes manicured fingers into Lachlan’s hair, petting him like he’s a mannequin and she has a vision.
‘I don’t think his pay scale covers play.’
Ariadne smiles wide at Lachlan, lips red, teeth unnaturally white.
‘What would you like, hmm? Fifty? One hundred?’ She leans in close, painted lips on his ear, whispers, ‘How about if you make me squirt, I’ll—’
‘I’m tired,’ Jules declares abruptly, tone flat. He gets up, heads towards Lachlan and the door. ‘I need to sleep.’
Ariadne moves away, glancing between them.
‘Oh, angel, if you feel left out, you can come too.’
Jules looks at Alistair. ‘Father, may I be excused, please?’
Nothing touches the old man’s facade. He’s mild as milk.
‘Of course. Goodnight, Julian.’
Lachlan mechanically informs Rook of their movements as he opens the door for Jules. On the way out he hears Ariadne tittering, ‘Your boy has a crush, Alistair,’ to a round of laughter that only fades when there are three doors between them.
When they enter the East Wing, Jules breaks the silence.
‘I’m sorry about that.’
Lachlan frowns. ‘About what?’
‘That. Them. Her.’
‘Why are you sorry?’
‘Because none of this would be happening if I hadn’t fucked up.’
Lachlan stops him gently without ever touching him. ‘Jules,’ he says seriously. ‘This isn’t your fault.’
Jules still won’t look at him. ‘Next time just wait outside.’
‘That’s not my job.’
‘These people are inhuman. They do whatever they like.’
‘And that’s not your fault.’
‘Yes, it is.’
Jules is pressing his inner wrist, eyes closed. He’s just a kid.
A frustrated kid, trapped and controlled, reaching for anything that might distract from the invisible compactor steadily crushing him towards adulthood.
‘No, you’re all good,’ Lachlan tells him. ‘I promise.’
‘If I was good, this wouldn’t—’
‘Listen to me,’ Lachlan cuts over, can see the spiral building from a mile away. ‘When I was seventeen, I killed my father.’ Jules’ eyes fly wide open. ‘I didn’t mean to kill him, but I didn’t take care not to.’
‘Why did you kill him?’ Jules asks, raptly engaged.
Lachlan always feels sad whenever he thinks of the reason, not because it inspires pathos or empathy but just because the worst things that have ever happened to him resonate like sadness; soft and melancholy, he wishes they had not happened.
‘I wanted it to stop.’
Jules is like a mirror for all the sadness Lachlan feels inside, so expressive, helplessly rippled by feelings, like water beneath wind. ‘You were seventeen?’
Lachlan nods. ‘Meeting you has made me realise something that never occurred to me before.’
‘What?’
‘That I was a child.’
Jules’ brow creases. ‘I’ve never felt like a child.’
‘But you are, and children make mistakes. You didn’t do any of this. It’s not your fault,’ Lachlan promises fiercely. ‘And if that had gone a different way—’
‘I wouldn’t have let it.’
‘If it had gone a different way, that wouldn’t be your fault either. I’m an adult. You don’t need to protect me.’
‘Did anyone?’
‘What?’
‘Did anyone ever protect you, Lachlan?’
He thinks about it for a moment. ‘I became what I needed.’
‘That’s so sad.’
‘Not if I can protect you.’
‘You can’t.’
‘From most things I can.’
Jules looks at Lachlan for what feels like eternity before he says, ‘Some deaths don’t draw blood.’
Lachlan wants so much to grasp his shoulder, to cup his face the way he would with Mimi, but he doesn’t because this boy has endured all manner of unwanted touch for hours now and Lachlan won’t add to it.
‘And I can take more than bullets in your stead,’ he tells Jules. ‘If it keeps you safe, don’t intervene next time.’
Something pulls between them. An unspoken understanding of the grim reality they find themselves in. If he could impart any wisdom to this kid in the moment it would be that Lachlan couldn’t care less what he endures, so long as it’s instead of Jules, or God forbid Mimi.
He’s almost certain he could communicate it to the kid if he just said it now, said, I would die any death for you, even if it is one that draws no blood.
But the moment breaks when Jules looks away.
‘I will always intervene,’ he tells Lachlan. ‘You’re my bodyguard.’
Lachlan would smile wryly if he had more energy.
It’s very typically Jules.
‘Heard.’