Interlude [h.s]

three

"Alouette? Or should I say Lark?"

Alouette turns her head towards Ezra as soon as he speaks. "Can I have a minute?"

He sighs. "Only one. You have to get there before it gets dark."

She nods, turning towards Elijah. He's holding Amina in his arms, that is looking at her sadly. "Hey Ami," she says quietly, "be good, okay? I'll be back soon."

"I'll miss you," the little girl replies, and she feels her heart break.

"I'll miss you too, so much," she murmurs, "but you have Elijah and Elodie, so I'm sure you will be just fine. I'll be back before you know it."

"Do you really have to go?"

"Sadly I do." She sighs, looking into her sister's dark eyes. "But it isn't for long, okay? So you be good because I don't want to come back to find out you made Elodie go crazy, alright? I love you."

Amina hugs her, almost slipping out of Elijah's arms. "I love you too."

Elijah puts her down, giving Alouette a little smile. "Be careful, alright? And come back soon, don't leave me alone with these people 'cause they scare me."

She laughs at the comment. "I'll be back so soon, you won't even notice I was gone."

"I surely hope so!"

"Time to go, Nathan is here," Ezra says suddenly, interrupting their conversation, and she nods, waving goodbye to her sister one more time before walking down the couple of steps and towards the black car that had just stopped in front of the building.

"Al!"

She turns around quickly, her lips curving into a smile when she sees Elijah trying to get her attention. "What?" She asked with a chuckle, stopping with her hand on the door handle.

"Be brave," he mouths in her direction and she rolls her eyes, but smiles again anyway.

"Come on," Ezra says, opening the door for her.

She takes in a deep breath and she gets in the car, eyeing a wallet that's on the seat next to hers while she sits down.

"Your fake documents are inside," Ezra tells her quickly, "you aren't allowed to bring anything else. We'll send you everything you need through Nathan later on. Goodbye and good luck." He closes the door and the car speeds away instantly, leaving her to sit there, staring at her home until it gets smaller and smaller, and then disappears from view.

"I'm Nathan," the driver says all of a sudden, and she jumps in her seat. "Sorry. I work as a guard at the lower levels, been there for a couple of years now."

Alouette gives him a nod, crossing her legs and wishing she could disappear into her seat. "What's it like there?"

"It pays well," he simply states. "I'm sure you've already been told everything in the past few weeks so I won't annoy you too much, but I'm reminding you that you'll have to meet me every other day to discuss the developments of the plan. There's a staircase we'll use for our meetings that isn't controlled, I'll make sure to show it to you once we get there."

"Alright," she replies, "thank you."

He glances at her through the rear view mirror. "I'll stop talking now, I don't want to be annoying. The drive will be a couple of hours long."

Alouette nods and lets out a sigh, turning to look out of the window, just to discover they're driving right through Dacran.

It shines of a multitude of colours like the wings of a butterfly or the tail of a peacock, as always.