Interlude [h.s]

eighty-three

"Delivery," Jesse mutters, and Alouette sends him a dark look. If she ends up with a bullet hole on her forehead because of him, she'll haunt him until the end of the world.

"Speak up or we'll shoot!" the soldier on the other side of the glass shouts. The safety of his weapon comes off with a click, and now Alouette is gripping her thigh so hard she'll leave marks in her wake.

Jesse clears his throat but doesn't dare to lower the window. "We're coming through," he says, loudly enough to be heard. The skin between his knuckles tenses when he grips the steering wheel tighter.

Alouette is terrified. She likes to think she's used to playing games, but this isn't a game. It's a matter of seconds. They might not get out of here alive. She hasn't even properly said goodbye to Amina. She hasn't even fixed things with Elijah.

She feels so alone, a single girl in front of an approaching hurricane.

"With whose permission?" the soldier barks.

Alouette hasn't heard Harry get out of the car, but suddenly his door slams.

"Mine."

His voice descends on everyone like a wall of ice. Everyone freezes. They have the attention of all the soldiers in the square, now. Alouette watches him through the darkened window as he takes one single step away from the car, and immediately starts worrying.

He isn't dressed well enough. He doesn't look rehearsed enough. He doesn't look like he did when she took him away from the Palace—his features are sharper, his hair is a little longer. There's no makeup, no fancy suits, none of the things that have made up his persona for years. This isn't going to work.

As if on cue, the soldier in front of them points his firearm at him. He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out of it. Alouette can nearly see the myriads of thoughts that are running through his mind. The resemblance must be uncanny to him too, but there's something that isn't quite right about the figure in front of him. That something is in Harry's messy hair, in the black circles under his eyes, in the tense angles of his mouth and the folds of his clothing. The man in front of him looks completely, undeniably human. And that's something Harry has never allowed himself to be.

"Put that down," Harry says. Alouette can't see him well now, but he's completely still—but, somehow, his stillness doesn't seem to come from fear, but from something very different. She has never heard his voice this cool, this calm. It's as if, deep down, he knows the other man won't shoot.

There's a slight tremble of the soldier's hands, and for a terrible moment she fears a shot might ring out. Everyone else is closing in, now. Guards are abandoning their posts in large groups, firearms in hand, curious to see what's causing such an interruption.

"I'm asking you kindly," Harry continues, ignoring everyone but the man in front of him, with his rifle still pointed at him. "But I won't do it again."

The man breaks. "Call the upper floors right now! We have a situation," he snaps at his closest companion, without lowering his weapon. "This building belongs to the government," he repeats, his eyes wide and shocked. "Its security is of the utmost importance."

Alouette finally understands, and something inside her fractures. He isn't holding Harry at gunpoint because he's Harry. He's doing it because he can't believe he's truly Harry. Just because he doesn't look put together like he usually does. Just because he's wearing different clothes, because there's a roughness in his behaviour that wasn't there before. Harry has inadvertently trained them all to be part of his show so well that the smallest change is enough to make them suspicious. Alouette doesn't know if it makes it even more terrifying, or simply sad. Despite everything he told her, Harry too is just a performer—he only gets to play director when he's dressed for the role.