The Arcane Trilogy: Better Call Paul - Book 1

Chapter 26: What Could Have Been

The night was long, and Paul awoke several times as his mind continued to rage on with furious waves of thoughts. He could not rest when such a grave threat hung over him. Whenever he tried to fall away into sleep's warm embrace, he was ripped from it as he instinctively stayed restless as he desperately planned ways he could escape from Hoskel's vice cold grip.

After experiencing intermittent bouts of sleep, Paul deemed the next best step would be to get to work, and to try and put the plaguing thoughts at the back of his mind for a time. Perhaps if he shut out the thoughts for a while, he could revisit them, allowing him to see them in a new light and for him to potentially undergo a moment of clarity. At the very least, the former worked for a time. As clients came in to meet with Paul, he found himself slipping into the 'Magic Man' persona more often than not, where he could forget about how his world had been flipped upside down over the course of a single conversation. He even got to the point at the later portions of the day where he was able to stay focused on the job in between clients. That said, his mind did occasionally fall onto the Hoskel situation, especially when he realised he had not seen the mother who had pleaded with him to take her case as he was interrupted by Ran and Dustin.

Soon enough, closing time came upon Paul, where he forced himself to work late into the evening. He enjoyed the feeling of normality, as he could pretend that he wasn't being blackmailed by one of the councillors, whilst also working under a ruthless kingpin from the undercity who both wanted the same service from Paul. That feeling was nice, but as the final client left Paul's realm, he was forced to confront the dilemma that haunted him.

He returned to his desk after locking the front door to the office, pulling out various pieces of scrap paper and scribbling down ideas on them. He sat at the desk and worked through his brainstorming for the better part of an hour, writing down any potential ideas that could blossom into a full-blown plan of action. As his desk became a minefield of small scrap notes, he began grouping ideas together, hoping that by pouring all his random thoughts of what he could do out in front of him, an answer would eventually reveal itself to him. Small little columns and congregations had formed, but nothing jumped out at Paul. At most, a few ideas linked together, but nothing of substance could be drawn from the pockets of notes that scattered the desk. No matter how he arranged his thoughts out in front of him, no clear path lay before him. To avoid his mind exploding with stress, Paul decided to take a break from his frantic planning.

He walked down the path and sat on one of the high walls that flanked the sea that flowed under the bridge, trying to enjoy a moment without thinking about the Hoskel situation. He sipped away at a simple beer in hand as he watched the sun set in Piltover. However, his mind couldn't help itself. It continuously floated towards his predicament, causing a cloud of despair to hang over Paul at the notion that he had nothing he could use against Hoskel, and the one thing he could use that would also endanger himself. If Paul brought up the Kargen case, he would land in hot water as well, with Paul being complicit in Hoskel's illegal chicanery. Paul was about ready to give up for the night, as dread and despair sunk their claws deep into the lawyer. That was, until he had an epiphany, as he realised, he had been thinking about it all wrong.

'It's not about what I can do. It should be about what someone else can do for me.'

The fact was, Paul was ultimately powerless to deal with his dilemma at that moment. Wriggling out of Hoskel's grasp would take a long time of careful plotting and planning, but he could not make progress if he was in constant fear of receiving two conflicting orders. If Silco and Hoskel began pulling each way, one of them would be unhappy and would take action, so he needed to slip out of the thumb of one of them. Considering that Hoskel had only recently put pressure on Paul, the lawyer was left with no choice but to try and reason with Silco. He had Marcus in his back pocket, so Paul prayed he had someone else that he could use to help Paul.