CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #3
Lachlan finds himself missing the arrogant brat who spat in his face, whose cleverness left Lachlan genuinely thunderstruck at times, having to backtrace via satellites to locate him. The kid with the fire in his heart, all brittle anger, sly cleverness and watery resentment.
Alistair knew exactly how to wear him down, and Lachlan hates it.
But he can’t do anything about it until the old man leaves, so he focuses on what he can do, which is keep his little girl safe. Mimi and Blaire are his touchstones to humanity and the more time Mimi spends with “Bee” the more she opens up to Blaire, the pair bonding beautifully.
Even so, Lachlan has the sneaking suspicion no one will ever compare to him in her eyes. The way Mimi beams whenever she sees him. How she runs stronger and faster thanks to fresh air, sunshine and swimming strengthening her legs, and how whenever she runs, it’s towards him.
Then there’s their secret language, which she’s absorbed almost instantly.
Fingers. Hands. Eyes. He knew she’d pick it up quickly, but her grasp of the basics is still startlingly good.
He reinforces it every day, always introducing another sign or two.
Blaire says she wants to learn as well, which Lachlan likes very much, a way to speak without being overheard.
It’s a borrowed language they’ll likely never speak with true fluency, but even imperfect secrecy is valuable in a place like this.
Mimi can fall asleep on her own. She still talks to Mari every day, locked in the box that Lachlan used to store his own personal handgun in. Her hair is longer and wavier now that there’s weight to it.
‘Daddy, I want a knife,’ she says the morning of the last party in August for which Lachlan has been thoroughly preparing. They’re walking outside before the heat kicks up dangerously high. She hates sunscreen and would rather stick to the shade and wear coconut oil like Blaire suggested.
‘What kind of knife, baby?’ he asks, casting about for a good stick, she always favours the shorter, thicker ones. ‘You wanna play swords?’
‘No, a real one.’
Lachlan bends to pick her up and sit her on his hip. He’s not surprised, nor is he horrified. Nothing about this place, this world or these kids is normal.
‘What kind do you want, princess?’
‘Like yours.’
She loves his KA-BAR.
‘Hmm, maybe for your birthday I’ll get you a little one.’
Mimi’s birthday is in three days’ time. ‘Little how?’
‘Like…’ he shows her, index and thumb stretched to fit a penknife inside, the type he has in mind. ‘This.’
‘That’s too little.’
‘You can’t have one like Daddy.’
‘Why not?’ She sounds just like Jules. ‘I always be very careful.’
‘You’re always careful but, babygirl, where would you keep it?’
‘In my Tower,’ she whispers.
The Tower is the second floor Lachlan added to her Wendy House because his little girl said she likes being high up sometimes.
Lachlan considers. ‘I don’t know if you’d be able to hold it.’
‘That’s why I wannit,’ the four-year-old says. ‘To learn.’
‘Well, that’s very smart. I can’t give you a big one like mine, but I’ll get you something very special, all right?’
‘Promise?’
He kisses her cheek, sets her down. ‘Promise.’
?
Prep for the party tonight is well underway.
Jolene’s new comms devices are in place, fully stormproof, and Lachlan has a new management system that’s partially automated. He goes about his checks before escorting Jules out of his bedroom and down to the ballroom. ‘Kestrel en route to Whiskey Reach with Cascade,’ Lachlan informs control.
Jules looks over at Lachlan, especially dressed up tonight. Diamonds and silver and sapphires and silk. He looks like royalty, treasure made manifest.
‘You never told me why Cascade,’ he points out to Lachlan who opens his mouth to offer the same nonanswer as before, but Jules goes on. ‘So I asked Mikhail what it meant and he told me.’
‘Oh?’
‘He told me in the military they have a term for when something goes wrong. Cascade failure. Code CF.’
Lachlan snorts. ‘That’s clusterfuck.’
‘On paper, it’s cascade failure.’
‘It’s just a codename, Jules.’
‘Mimi is Shimmer, and I’m a clusterfuck, is that right?’
Lachlan stops abruptly.
‘You know what? You’re right. That is why I chose it,’ Lachlan tells him, barefaced while the boy reels slightly.
‘Do you know how fucking smart the other side has to be to cause a CF? You have any idea the scope of ingenuity used to so catastrophically fuck up the best-laid plans of military men that they have to declare that? Power is power. Take it as a compliment.’
‘Whatever,’ Jules mutters as they resume their journey.
‘And besides,’ Lachlan adds, a little forcefully, ‘I didn’t call you a failure. A cascade is just the force of elemental momentum. Where it points and what it does is entirely—’
‘Yeah, I get it, thanks.’
Oh, he’s a pain in the ass, but Lachlan has actually missed him being bratty.
The ballroom is heaving with so many additional guests, all flown in especially for tonight. Lachlan and his teams are prepared to handle them. He’s pretty pleased with himself for how well he’s adjusted to the dual roles, learning and mapping the hideous nature of these events and securing them.
He’s proud.
But Lachlan should know by now that pride goeth.
He let his focus become fixed on the hosting of mild-mannered monsters beneath a glassy dome, keeping them from eating one another and causing too much destruction. Overconfidence let him forget about the outside world.
Pride goeth before destruction.
The first two hours go by swimmingly. Jules doesn’t drink much this early because otherwise it’ll drain him dry, so he paces himself.
Alistair is especially jovial tonight, probably because there are over three hundred people in the ballroom as opposed to the “typical” eighty or ninety.
Rook runs Control.
Bennett keeps the East Wing locked up tight.
Blaire stays with Mimi.
Lachlan manages the parties while watching Jules do exactly what he was raised to do, charm, smile, laugh and stir hunger in everyone around him.
Sometimes it almost feels as though Alistair is harvesting the attention somehow rather than merely basking in the reflected glow of having a son people can’t stop wanting.
Alistair shows Jules off like a rare gemstone.
He tips Jules’ chin back and strokes a thumb across his cheekbone, openly encouraging others to touch him too, and they do. They can’t seem to help themselves. Jules handles it flawlessly.
Lachlan could endure it if he had to, could shut down enough to lock in and go numb, but Jules doesn’t merely endure being adored, he basks in it, encourages it. Turns instinctively towards it like a flower seeking sunlight.
He’s like a prism, taking the blandest of white light and splitting it into vivid colours with such definition you’d think it was magic to behold.
Lachlan never really lets himself think about Fenwick’s accusation, his cold certainty the day after.
He never lets himself think too long about the fact he still doesn’t really understand how Jules disabled the trackers to slip free, how he knew about the threads.
It’s strange too, how the rain and storms are all gone now that Fenwick is dead, or it would be if he thought about it.
Lachlan Tanner’s concern is the tangible world around him.
The Penhalyx family he will never be free of.
Practical matters, he’s pragmatic at heart.
Around midnight, there’s mild interference in the comms.
Lachlan takes it seriously but ultimately trusts that it’s teething problems in the new system Jolene set up for him. The Estate is huge. Interference isn’t unheard of when the signal is stretched and diluted by check-ins from other security teams.
It’s his first mistake of the night.
Maybe twenty minutes after the first round of interference, another crackle hits and this time Lachlan really listens, instincts coiling.
It could be several things, among them a pre-jam diagnostic.
Lachlan orders Rook to perform a full sweep, gather all images and strictly analyse them for any abnormalities. Rook confirms it all looks good.
Lachlan wonders if maybe another storm is building.
It’s almost one in the morning when he goes to check in and finds strangled air. No lightning, no power outage to blame.
He instantly knows what it is with a sick, swooping feeling.
The frequency is jammed.
He tries switching to short range.
Nothing.
Lachlan gets the attention of Carrigan, always his mirror in the ballroom. If he’s on one side, she’s on the other. She comes over quickly. ‘Radio’s dead?’
‘No, it’s jammed,’ he tells her, heading swiftly for Jules, mind clear. ‘We’re under attack. Get Penhalyx somewhere safe, do it quietly. Don’t wait.’
‘What about the East Wing?’
‘I’m taking Jules there now.’
Lachlan is at Jules’ side in less than five seconds, carefully loops a hand through his arm and guides him away. ‘Apologies,’ he says to the people Jules was talking with. ‘He’ll be right back.’
Without waiting to answer questions, he pulls Jules away towards the staff stairwell they used last time. ‘What is it?’ Jules asks. ‘Is it Mimi? Is she—?’
‘Be quiet.’
‘Fucking answer me, Bodyguard.’
Lachlan doesn’t.
Along the way, they pass Roman, Vasily and Savannah.
Lachlan catches the other bodyguard’s eye. He’s holding a dead radio in his hand. ‘Jammed?’
‘Unclear,’ he lies, doesn’t want the extra weight. ‘Jules, with me.’
‘No, they’re coming too,’ the boy insists, slight panic in his voice shows that he knows something is up. ‘I’m not moving unless they come too.’
Lachlan grits his teeth. ‘Fine.’ Fuck’s sake. ‘Everyone stay quiet.’
‘What is happening?’ Roman asks, falling into step as they vanish around the corner into the corridor framing the ballroom. ‘Is it another storm?’
Lachlan scans the area before ushering everyone towards the same stairwell where he shot Fenwick.
He opens his mouth to respond when a heavy blast cuts him off.
A controlled explosion detonates somewhere inside the ballroom.
Lachlan instantly knows it’s the dome.