Interlude [h.s]

fifty-four

Alouette chases after Harry and grabs his wrist. He spins around, burning rage in his eyes, but she doesn't let go of him.

"Aren't we past this?" she asks. "You try to escape, I come after you, I bring you back. How many times do we have to do this still?"

A continuous, exhausting cycle with no way out. He can't stay by her side, but she can't let him go back home—not only for herself, but for the Revolution too. She doesn't even dare to think of the terrible things he'd do if he ever managed to break free of her. It'd be death and destruction for everyone involved.

Harry lets out a sour chuckle. "Are you tired of going in circles, Alouette?" He pulls her towards him by the hand that's still holding his arm. "Imagine how tired I must be. While you run around playing with me as if I were a doll, my country is falling in shambles. You are ruining everything I've worked for."

"If you being absent for a few days is enough to destroy this country, then you haven't done a good job at all!" She realises a second too late it's the worst thing she could've said.

His gaze darkens. "How dare you."

Alouette's eyes widen in shock. It's the first time she hears so much venom in his voice, and it sends a chill down her spine. She automatically takes a step back and hates herself for it, because now he knows he was able to scare her. Now he knows how to gain power over her.

"This isn't a game, and you are no doll." If it were indeed a game, it'd be the most important one of her life. But no, it isn't a game. It's a gamble, and if it goes wrong, she'll lose all she has.

She looks away and sighs. The stairs are dark, and they feel colder than they did when they first came in. The distant hum of the cars speeding down the street is the only thing breaking the suffocating silence between them. No other soul is in the building but them, and for an odd second, it feels kind of intimate. A conversation just between them, like a secret whispered in the dark.

"The truth is, I really don't want to kill you." They both know it, but it's another thing to hear it said out loud. It sounds truer. "But if you get back to the Palace, it'll be over for me. For all of us. You understand, don't you?" She wraps her fingers around the back of his neck and pulls him closer to whisper into his ear. "Don't make me do something I don't want to do, Harry." She takes a step back and doesn't miss the look Harry sends her way.

It's one of those gazes that make her feel naked and young, one of those lingering moments in which a bottomless pit seems to be between them. They are not the same. To him, she must seem like little more of a child playing a game she can't understand, while he's the leading champion. He has been for years, without anyone ever being able to register a win against him.

Until she came around. She might be new to it, she might be even naïve at times, but she is not a child. She's willing to show him what it means to go against her. She wants to close the gap between them. She wants him to realise she's a worthy opponent to him. She wants him to discover what losing tastes like.

Alouette pulls him back into the apartment and closes the door. "I believe you should hand over the knife, now," she tells him, grabbing the gun from the floor and sliding it back in its place at her waist.

Harry gives her a subtle glance, the same satisfaction of a lawyer finding a loophole in a contract in his eyes. "I believe I don't."

"I said I'd only let you keep it as long as you didn't try to escape."

The corners of his lips turn up. "Actually, you said you'd let me keep it as long as I didn't use it to escape," he specifies. "I didn't use the knife, but your gun."