The Great Below

The Betrayal - Part 2

Alex stared at his own clenched hands against the cafeteria table. He kept his eyes open, only blinking when they'd gone dry and tingling, but he wasn't really looking at his fists.

In his mind's eye, he was staring at the number eleven. Each "1" was perfect, just as the first typesetters imagined it, with the dainty serif at the top and bottom. The gold was fake, tarnished, the wood underneath coated with so many layers of paint that it bulged and swelled where the color had pooled from a lazy brush. There hadn't been any time, when he'd first seen the door to that room.

If he'd looked down then, when the cold rain was still falling, he would have seen it filling his shoes and socks, spilling out from the hem of his pants. It had stained the concrete path around the hotel, turning it dark and at the same time, scrubbing it clean. The sensory information had been fleeting. Just a cursory glance and it was all filed away for later.

Octavia leaned in from the seat across from him, waving her fingers between him and nothing. "Are you all right?"

Alex blinked, rubbing at his face. "The cafeteria won't serve you."

"It's not the worst thing," she said. "It's not worth throwing pans over."

"We need to focus and make a plan, and in order to do that, we need energy." But Alex didn't look hungry. He looked like something had a hold of him in a place deeper than his stomach, like something had gripped him by the intestines, and smelling all of the unattainable food around them wasn't helping. He still hadn't managed to look up at her, his face reddening, his breathing growing more rapid. "Why were you talking to Victor?" he asked quietly.

She opened her mouth, then hesitated. "I was angry. I wanted to confront him."

"You didn't look angry, the part I saw. You were talking casually, like peers."

"Alex--"

"And here I thought you'd never want to speak to him again."

"Don't do this right now."

They both pulled away in silence as Nick approached, two plates of breakfast at the ready. "Here you go," he said gently. "Sorry about the nonsense earlier." They waited stubbornly, even after Nick had walked away and their food no longer steamed in front of them.

"You won't believe me," Alex said, "but I can fix this thing with Dominic."

"Can't you just let me outside?" Octavia countered.

"It doesn't work like that. If you escape, he still sends me after you and he still wants you dead."

"Then you don't come back. We both run."

"Then he sends someone else. It's not as easy as you're making it sound, Octavia, and I don't want to have some knee-jerk reaction out of fear that gets you killed. I have to talk him down rationally. Do you understand?"

"Oh, of course. He's very rational. When do you think you'll have him convinced?"

Alex glared. "I'll make my case tonight, before my next job. He'll be liquored up—"

"Wait – you're going on a job for him tonight?" There was a flash of conflicting thoughts: first, that his being gone would create an opportunity for Victor; and second, that he would do a job on what might be their last night together before either she died, or fled.

"My work doesn't stop," he replied.

She gaped at him, incredulous, suddenly understanding the urge to throw a pan of hot food at another human being. "I can't believe you would go out on a job for the man who wants me dead. The same man who did something else we can't seem to talk about."