CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The next few parties go more smoothly.
Lachlan has a better understanding now of what the coming weeks will look like, and he adapts quickly.
Additional personnel guard high risk corridors while select areas gain secondary authentication.
Guests are subtly steered away from restricted areas before they can wander too close, drunk socialites intercepted and rerouted with polished smiles before they ever realise that they’re being managed.
Lachlan safeguards where he failed to before, learning fast by the examples these fuckers set.
No better way to learn than from your own mistakes.
He and Fenwick form a temporary alliance around guest security, quietly managing the many visitors whose interest in the Estate extends far beyond the ballroom.
It’s an incredible turn of events to have to go to Penhalyx, the pair of them, and explain that the people he’s invited to spend the summer with him are casually trying to data harvest.
Alistair laughs, unbothered. ‘I’d be offended if they weren’t.’
Lachlan and Fenwick design a duplicate system they name Gemi-Sys.
Decoy architecture. Secure enough to appear legitimate and functional on a surface level, but seeded throughout with duds, dead ends and carefully planted misinformation.
Lachlan hires his friend Jolene to build it, pays her well for the work, and trusts her not to do anything catastrophically stupid like trying to map the real system underneath.
They deploy it, running tests and supervising initial use but early roll-out seems to work.
The problem is that it’s extra work, work that drags Lachlan away from the kids and disrupts the otherwise ironclad routine he’s built around keeping the Estate secure.
Even so, their combined efforts mean that the next few parties go well and as Mimi’s presence loses its shine, Lachlan is allowed to take her to bed earlier and earlier each time.
He’s been teaching her how to be boring, quiet, and dull around these people whose magpie eyes are always greedily scanning for shine, for a shimmer.
It might be her callsign, but around these monsters, she’s little more than furniture and her novelty, thankfully, wears off fast.
‘You’d make a good bodygarden one day,’ he tells her on the first night in weeks he’s able to tuck her into bed after a party while she’s still awake.
He sorely misses her old routine, the long easy days spent following whatever strange little thing caught her interest, the times she could simply wander the Estate and be with her big brother whenever she wanted.
‘Would I?’
‘Oh, definitely.’ He makes the bed just how she likes it, fluffing the quilt and arranging her pillows just so, the radio underneath just in case she wants to talk to Mari. ‘The cool thing about bodygardens is that they can shapeshift.’
Mimi sits up, all tiredness vanished. ‘Whass’a shayshift?’
He grins despite himself, loves when she gets that look of fiendish interest. ‘Means you’re so good at pretending to the point where people think you’re something else. Like, I can make people think I’m a wall.’
She giggles. ‘Daddy’s not a wall.’
‘No, but people think I am.’
‘How?’
‘Well, you have to become it. Like how I’ve been teaching you to be quiet and pretend like you’re not the coolest little girl in the entire world. You become like a stone.’
‘But I love stones.’
‘Me too, but these people don’t care about them. They just walk on by and don’t even pick ‘em up like we do. My point is, you’re very good at pretending, princess, and you make Daddy so proud.’
She climbs into his lap for hugs, stays a while.
‘Can we shayshift Jewel?’
Lachlan sighs, wishes he could. ‘I don’t think so, babygirl.’ He kisses her hair, sets her back down. ‘You get some sleep now, my little shadow sneak. Mari’s gonna make sure you don’t have any bad dreams.’
He stays until she’s asleep at which point Blaire takes over, and then he heads for the ballroom.
‘Kestrel en route. Status check and give me eyes on Cascade,’ he radios in.
‘Eight bells, Kestrel. Be advised Cascade is outside by the lake.’
Lachlan’s focus sharpens. ‘With who?’
‘Dreadnought.’
Mikhail Sorrenko. Fucking of course.
Thus far, Alistair’s friend has been well-behaved, but the fucker is here for a month, and Lachlan knows who it is he has eyes for. He sees the way he looks at Jules sometimes.
There’s a shortcut out to the lake which he takes. The earth is damp and warm, summer storms abundant lately. He spies Jules in the water, far out. Sorrenko is sitting on the shore, watching him swim.
All Jules’ clothes are in a pile by his shoes.
‘Hello, Tanner,’ Sorrenko comments lightly when he approaches. ‘Your boy likes the water.’
Lachlan scans around for context.
No big disturbances on the shore, no drag path, no sign of a struggle. Those touchstones of reassurance are only the most basic. It’s not like he expected Sorrenko to try and rape Jules, he’s far too smart for that but Lachlan needed to know anyway.
‘And you don’t?’ he asks Sorrenko, coldly insolent.
The older man smiles up at Lachlan. ‘I don’t swim in warm water.’
Lachlan looks out at the lake. ‘Julian,’ he calls, clipped.
Jules doesn’t answer. He’s swimming, backstroking beneath the milky moon above. There’s a bottle of champagne on the shore. Lachlan doesn’t want to have to swim in after him, but he absolutely will if need be.
‘Jules,’ he tries again, louder. ‘Come back in, please.’
Lachlan watches his movements, trying to ascertain how drunk he is.
‘Headstrong,’ Sorrenko observes, drinking out the bottle. ‘Your hands must be very full.’
‘You should go back inside, sir,’ Lachlan tells him, eyes on Jules.
‘You are right.’ To Lachlan’s surprise, Sorrenko gets up, takes the bottle with him and pats his shoulder. ‘Good luck.’
Lachlan waits until Sorrenko is a good distance away before he unties his laces just enough to pull his boots off and then sheds his clothes down to underwear.
‘Julian, get back here!’ he tries, voice no longer politely constrained for company, but it does nothing.
He pulls his rig off last. ‘Fucking hell,’ he sighs and then wades out to swim.
It’s not remotely warm despite what Sorrenko said, but considering all the rain, it’s nowhere near as cold as it could be. A few sharp, deep breaths help him to level out before he dives under to fully submerge. Lachlan is a good swimmer, reaches the kid in no time.
‘Hi, Bodyguard,’ Jules greets dreamily, staring up at the moon.
‘You need to come in.’
‘Is he gone yet?’
‘Yeah.’
‘He’s probably just waiting nearby.’
‘Did he hurt you?’
‘No.’
‘Did he try anything?’
‘He just wanted to talk.’
‘About what?’
‘It’s so nice here. I feel so relaxed. Never felt this… relaxed.’
‘Yeah, swimming while drunk will do that, but it’s also really fucking dangerous so get your ass on the shore right now.’
‘I feel like I’m home, and the moon’s there, so I can pretend—’
‘Do you know how much trouble I’ll be in if he realises you’re in the lake?’
‘He’s with Ariadne. He won’t notice.’
‘He notices everything.’
‘He’ll assume I was entertaining Mikhail.’
‘Not if it’s only you and me who are soaking wet.’
Jules pushes up from his float, upright. He stares at Lachlan.
‘You’re pretty like this.’
Lachlan tuts and rolls his eyes. ‘You’re drunk. Let’s go get you dry.’
‘Mimi’s safe?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then let me stay.’
‘Jules—’
‘You could say I drowned.’ Lachlan falls silent so fast it’s like a blackout. ‘Just say you tried to save me, but it wasn’t enough,’ Jules whispers, half smiling. Dreamy, distant but always so fucking sad. ‘I trust you, Bodyguard.’
‘To let you die?’ Lachlan utters, unreasonably angry. ‘Get your spoilt ass on the shore before I drag you!’
‘Your life would be so much easier.’
‘Fucking teenagers, I swear to God.’
‘Mimi has you now. She only matters to him as a means of controlling me. If I died—’
‘I would never let that happen and you have no idea how insulting it is for you to say that to me. If I’m your bodyguard, then you’re my—’
Jules kisses him… or tries to.
It’s clumsy and it kicks up a splash because he has to put hands on Lachlan’s shoulders to do it and the force of motion pushes them both down, but the clumsy kiss lands just shy of full on and Lachlan is briefly transported to a no man’s land of wait, what the fuck until his brain helpfully reboots and informs him that his charge is kissing him on the corner of his mouth.
And it hits like failure, like the core of how Carrigan really sees him made manifest, that he should have stayed distant, should not have let himself become more than furniture, a wall.
Lachlan treads harder to take the extra weight and cups Jules’ face to remove him. Jules lets him, breath shallow and rapid. His eyes kept a little of the moon above, they’re bright again, so beautiful.
‘Stop,’ he bids gently.
‘I already did.’
‘Yeah, you did.’ Lachlan looks away. ‘You did.’
Jules doesn’t apologise.
But he does swim back to shore.
And if Alistair noticed them missing, he never comments.
?
Mason Fenwick makes a catastrophic mistake the night the lightning hits.
Up until now, he and Lachlan have worked together almost flawlessly, no friction, no hesitation, no meaningful cracks in coordination. Setting aside his instinctive dislike of Fenwick, Lachlan is enough of a professional to recognise competence when he sees it, and Fenwick is competent.
Their fragile unity comes to an abrupt end that July.
During parties, Fenwick usually operates out of the Control Room alongside Rook, where his talent for surveillance and movement tracking is useful. It’s an effective arrangement when it works.
But on the night the lightning strikes the Estate, too many things go wrong at once, and Fenwick placing himself so centrally within the system becomes part of the disaster rather than protection against it.
A storm system of unprecedented scale settles over Varrow City.