55. Alexander #2
“You did this on purpose, didn’t you?” Alexander asks. “Were you planning it the whole time?”
“Go, Alexander.”
“There is no reason for this, estrela. Why are you doing this?”
Kallias doesn’t say anything more. Just taps:
--. ---
Alexander takes a step closer. “I’m not leaving without you.”
“This is pathetic,” the Educator sneers.
Alexander ignores him, stepping forward once more. “He’s the one, right? The one you talked about?” he asks.
“Alexander,” Kallias snaps.
--. ---
When he steps again, the Educator calmly reaches for the gun on his belt and points it at him.
Alexander has to laugh. Does he think that gun would stop him from reaching Kallias? Death would not stop him. Destiny would not stop him. A gun will not stop him.
He doesn’t hesitate to take another step, wearing the arrogance on his face like armor.
“Walk out the door, boy.”
He steps again.
Bang.
His vision flickers from the pain. When he comes back to himself, he’s on his knees, his leg screaming.
“Alexander, please,” Kallias begs, his eyebrows scrunched and his face finally, finally earnest. Alexander almost wants to smile. His beautiful boy, back again. No walls between them.
He stands shakily and, God, that really hurts.
It doesn’t stop him from getting closer.
He’s ready for another bout of pain, another gunshot, but it doesn’t come.
Instead, the Educator shakes his head. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do this,” he says, before grabbing Kallias by the neck and pushing the gun into his hair.
Alexander freezes.
“You wouldn’t,” Alexander says. It comes out like a question.
“I wonder.” The Educator kicks Kallias to his knees and yanks his hair to hold him up to the gun.
Kallias doesn’t struggle.
Alexander doesn’t move.
Go, Kallias mouths.
So Alexander puts his hands up in surrender and slowly takes a step back. And another. He drags them out, anything to stall for time. To come up with something. There must be something.
“Let him come with me. To the docks. It will be more believable, right? And you’ll catch us anyways…”
“Open the door,” the Educator cuts in, patience long gone.
He does.
“Walk outside.”
He doesn’t.
“Then why don’t all three of us go?” Alexander pleads. “You guys can lead me there, like a public execution. It’s a powerful statement.”
One that might end in his own death, but at least it would give Kallias a chance to run.
“Boy.”
“Kallias, please.” Alexander doesn’t even know what he’s asking for. Kallias has a gun to his head, he can’t just get up.
The gun looks so unnatural there, Alexander muses in his desperation. His hair is stardust. It belongs in a universe a million light years away. The wrongness of steel mixing with the shimmering gold is uncanny in the worst way. He needs it to stop.
No. He needs to stop it.
And he still has the sword. He could throw it. His aim isn’t particularly good but if Kallias jumps out of the way he could spear the Educator. Or Kallias could pick up the sword and do it himself.
He opens his mouth to tell Kallias to duck, but he doesn’t get the chance. Because the Educator’s gun is raised once more.
Bang.
The shot sends him flying backwards.
The sun is blinding. The pain is too.
He ignores it all, pushing frantically back to his feet. And for a second he thinks he’ll make it back inside. The Educator is out of sight, and all that’s left is Kallias, looking distantly at him through the doorway.
Forms, I love him, Alexander thinks, at the door’s threshold. But his view of Kallias is blocked by the Educator, who smiles at him, eye to eye, in the doorway.
“Goodbye, Alexander,” he says before slamming the door in his face.
The click of a lock sounds through the alleyway.
Just like that.
“No,” Alexander says softly. “Kallias?”
“Kallias,” he shouts, his hands shaking as he fights with the handle and kicks at the steel. It’s no use. The door only locks from the inside.
He doesn’t care. He pounds on it relentlessly anyways.
“Kallias,” he begs again and again, only met with the light echo of his cries against hard steel.
His eyes are clouded with red and his voice is raw, but he doesn’t stop. It’s hopeless and futile, but he doesn’t stop. His hands are bloody and his body is shutting down, but he doesn’t stop.
“Estrela, estrela, por favor. Te amo. Te amo muito.”
His legs give out eventually. He’s pretty sure it’s the blood loss. He doesn’t stop.
“Give him back, please. Please, I’ll do anything,” he sobs.
Only once his voice is so shredded that he can no longer speak and his hands are too swollen to ball into fists does something startle him out of his fog.
An alarm blares through the city. It’s coming from the Academy.
Something else has gone wrong.
With his friends.
The friends who are waiting like sitting ducks at the port. The friends who need him in order to get out of here.
Kallias manufactured this too.
He knew Alexander wouldn’t be able to leave their friends stranded by the boat. He’s making Alexander go to Arc Eight. Because, what, he thinks once Alexander is down there he won’t come back? That he’ll just get on the train and leave?
No. Kallias didn’t think this through. He didn’t realize what happens when you let someone love you.
Because, now?
Well, now, Alexander would let Kallias string him up and crucify him, as long as he got one more look at his face.