Interlude [h.s]

seventy-three

"What?" Alouette whispers. She can't deal with this right now. Harry is so still, so cold. She's holding his hand but he isn't holding hers anymore. Crying hysterically isn't enough anymore. It isn't enough to express the pain she's feeling, that smothering fear of what will come next. If the sun fell on the world by midday tomorrow, she wouldn't be surprised. It would be expected, because how could the world go on without Harry, as if he'd never been there in the first place?

If he has to shoot her, she wishes he'd do it now. She already hates every second of it.

The man lowers his gun. "Alouette, isn't that right?"

There's a pause of a second. "Yes," she then says. Who is he?

"Ha! Thought I recognised you." He looks away and shouts, "Elijah! I got her!"

Elijah?

Elijah comes running. "Al?!" he exclaims as soon as he sees her, and he seems to be so relieved. "Oh, thank..." His voice dies out in the instant his gaze falls on Harry. Unconscious Harry, with his head on her lap and blood on his clothes. He isn't moving—she doesn't even know if he's breathing anymore. Maybe it's the fear that's blinding her to the truth—whichever it is. "Is he..." Elijah struggles to find the words. "Is he dead?" he whispers out in the end.

Another sob breaks through Alouette's chest when she hears that word. Dead. She hates it—every part of it. The way it starts and the way it ends. Four letters are oddly diminishing compared to the extent of their meaning. Dead means no longer alive, and that means the world has lost something. "I... I don't..." She wipes her tears with her hand, but it's smeared in blood, and she only stains her face.

Elijah crouches beside him. "S... sir?" He's a little hesitant—he doesn't know how to call him. "Sir? Sir, can you hear me?"

Harry gives no sign. The world can't touch him now.

"Sir!" Elijah pats his cheek a few times. The man behind him lets out a gasp.

"I don't know, El, I wouldn't touch him. He might bite."

Alouette wants to take his gun and shoot him. She doesn't—but only because it means she'd have to look away from Harry.

"Shut the hell up, Jesse," Elijah mutters without looking at him. He pats Harry's cheek again, this time a little harder. "Sir! Sir!"

Harry's eyebrows furrow slightly, and he turns his head just barely. A sound comes out of his throat, too short to be any word, and he blinks a couple of times before his eyes fall shut again.

"He's still alive," Elijah announces, standing up and looking at the other man. Jesse. "Call the others. Tell them to bring the car over right now."

Alouette could cry.

Elijah looks at Harry again, taking in the condition he's in again. "Shit, this doesn't look good." He takes off his black jacket and drapes it over Harry's chest. "How long has he been like this?"

Alouette's teeth are chattering, from the cold, the fear, and the tension. "An hour. Maybe two," she can only let out. She doesn't know—she just doesn't know. And Elijah is here, now, and she wants to hope, she really does, but Harry's is just so pale and she's so scared he might not last much longer. Hell—she doesn't even know if the Revolution can help him, at this point.

In the distance, Jesse is talking on the phone.

"What happened?" Elijah asks her, kneeling next to them again so he can be on her same eye level. "How did he get hurt?"

"There was a group of them," she can only say before another sob shatters her heart. Where is the car? Why isn't it coming already? There's no time. Not enough time. "I'm so scared."