Interlude [h.s]

ninety-five

"Alouette." Harry's voice breaks the deep, rolling silence between them. Two days have passed, and they're now in the car, heading to the Revolution. Alouette has never felt so agitated before. "I wish you would talk to me."

Alouette's gaze stays to the barren ground outside, speeding past the window so fast she can barely make out the few, trembling trees scattered here and there. Over the past month, she'd forgotten how dead the world can look out of the main cities. "I don't want to talk." Her mouth moves and she hears her voice say the words, but she isn't certain she is the one speaking. Her mind is far away, a ghost wandering the desolation outside.

His head tilts in the reflection in the car window. "Why?"

She shrugs. "I have nothing to say."

"That's a lie."

Alouette sighs and turns to look at him. He's sitting in front of her, his arms crossed, one knee draped over the other. He looks oddly defensive, and she can't blame him. She has been a little sensitive over the past couple of days—not that she means to. It's just getting a little hard to deal with everything that's happening and its dangerous implications. "What do you want me to say?"

"The truth, for instance."

As if that's easy. Her head moves to the side, uneasiness washing through her, but then she remembers Jayden, on the other side of the separation behind her back, can't hear their conversation. She suddenly feels a little less agitated, foolishly so, as if Harry being the only one hearing her words would make a difference on her perception of them. "I just feel..." A wave of her hand, as if he could understand all her meanings from her body language alone.

His gaze dips to follow her movement. "Are you scared?" he asks quietly.

She frowns. "Heavens, no." A pause. "I don't think so? Not in that way, at least." She bites her lower lip worriedly. "I guess I keep thinking, what if something bad happens tomorrow? Not to me, but to the ones I care about. What if they..." Her voice dies. "What if I'm not enough to keep them safe? What if something happens that..."

"You shouldn't think of it that way."

"I know, but..." She looks down at her lap. "I keep thinking of it. What if something happens that requires me to be cruel, and I can't do it, and someone dies because of it?"

Harry looks at her for a long moment, at the skin she's worrying around her nails, at her nervous biting on her lips. When he speaks, his voice is slow, careful. "You once told me doing bad things for good reasons doesn't make you inherently evil. I don't believe it's something you should worry about. I know you'll do what is required of you." His eyes travel up to hers. They're that lovely shade of silvery green they only get in the late afternoon light. "But you don't have to go."

She looks back out of the window. "It's not like I can back down, now."

"You can always back down. I'll make sure of it. Do you want to?"

"No." Her reply comes fast. "Yes. I don't know. I don't want to do this, but I have to."

"You don't have to do anything." His assurance takes Alouette aback. "We don't have to do this now. If you wish so, we can turn the cars around and go back to the Palace. We can come up with a better plan, one that requires less danger."

She chuckles. "You want to infiltrate the Shade like I've infiltrated the Palace?"

He stares her down, fingers tapping against his arm. He seems restless. She doesn't think she's seen him this jumpy many times; it feels weird.

Realisation dawns on her. "You don't." There's surprise in her voice, though she can't tell why. She's known it unconsciously for the past few days—it's been the source of that dissonance that has been wrecking her from the inside. She can't keep a faint, disbelieved laugh from escaping her mouth. "I knew it was weird you were following Ezra's orders." She'd found it weird that Harry, the meticulous person she knows, would agree to go forward in a matter of days without a foolproof plan just because the Revolution suggested it. "You want this."