Chương 31

The doors opened onto a private floor. The three of them stepped out almost together. A hotel liaison stepped forward at once. Angelique was shown to the second room past the corner. Gladice's was at the far end. Louis's room was between them. Angelique paused at her door and turned her head toward him.

"Rest," she said.

"You look like you need it." He gave a small nod.

"Maybe he doesn't want to rest," Gladice called back from halfway down the hall. Angelique ignored her. She stepped inside, and the door closed behind her. Gladice glanced toward Louis over her shoulder.

"I meant to say I'd be in the lounge later if you want to prove her wrong." Then she stepped into her room. Louis entered his room. He loosened his collar and walked to the window, then back again. There were too many things in the room he could do alone. He could sit on the sofa. He could go into the bathroom, wash his face, look in the mirror, and try to pull himself together. He could lie down for ten minutes and shut his eyes. He wanted none of them.

He took off his jacket, draped it over a chair, and stood there in shirtsleeves doing nothing. His phone lit on the table. For one stupid second he thought it might be Angelique. It was Gladice. You look tense. He stared at the message, then at the empty room around him. Another appeared before he could decide whether to answer. Meet me in the lounge. He set the phone down and did not touch it again for nearly a minute. He hated that she always seemed to know when he was easiest to move.

She had been doing it since the range, making everything sound like a joke before he had time to decide whether to refuse. He hated that it worked. Worse, he was already thinking of her waiting in the lounge. Then he thought of her behind the rifle. She had killed men without shaking. She was a lioness, a predator, and a ruler. She would make soft Californians tremble under her knee.

He was thinking of how beautiful she had looked behind the rifle, and how deadly, and he hated that the two things had become tangled together in his head. His phone lit again. I won't bite. He let out one short breath through his nose and picked up the phone. Five minutes. Her reply came at once. Good boy. He looked at the words for a moment. Then he set the phone down, splashed water over his wrists, ran a hand through his hair, and left before he could decide that going was a mistake.

The private sitting area was at the end of the corridor. Security had taken it over along with the rest of the floor. No staff lingered. A guard stood beyond the turn of the corridor, close enough to watch the approach without standing in front of the door. Gladice was already there. She sat at one end of the sofa with one leg tucked under her, a glass in her hand and another on the low table in front of her.

She looked up as he came in, glanced once at his face, and made no effort to hide that she had invited him because she was bored.

"You came." She said it like she had won something.

"You didn't think I would?"

"I knew you would." She lifted her glass.

"I just wanted to see how long you'd make me wait." He remained standing for a second.

"I'm here now."

"Good." She nodded at the chair opposite.

"Sit down." He chose the far end of the sofa, leaving enough space between them. She watched him choose it and looked amused, not disappointed.

"Scared to be too close?" she asked.

"Being close to you is exhausting," he said.

"I'm conserving energy." Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. She gave him a real smile.

"Fair enough." She took a sip from her glass, then gestured toward his.

"It's not poisoned." He took a swallow. It was bourbon, better than what they had served on the plane and worse than the one his father preferred. It burned in his throat. Gladice watched him. He had the feeling she was checking how much of the day was still showing on his face. He waited, keeping his expression still, determined not to look away first.

"You're trying too hard again," she said. He raised the glass but did not drink.

"I'm not trying anything."

"Yes, you are." She set her glass down.

"You're trying to make yourself presentable before anyone's even looking." Irritation hit before he could stop it.

"What do you want me to be, then? Tired?"

"I want you to be you." Her voice dropped.

"I like you better when you're not performing."

"I don't perform for you."

"Of course you do. You perform all the time. It's what you grew up with." She shifted on the sofa and turned more toward him.

"It just doesn't work with me. Because I know what you are underneath it." He stared at her and did not answer at once.

"And what's that?"

"A boy who's been good for too many people in one day." She crossed one leg over the other.

"You stood where they told you to stand at the memorial. You said the right things about the dead. You talked to the prisoner like some kind of saint. Then you watched me kill him." She stopped there and watched him.

"That's a lot to carry."

"Is that why you called me here?" he asked.

"To analyze me?"

"Of course not." She smiled again.

"I called you here because I wanted to see you when you stopped pretending you weren't affected."

"By what?"

"By Houston." She leaned forward and picked up her glass.

"By the fact that you saw me shoot a man for no other reason than that the state had decided he should die." She took another sip.

"And that it didn't bother me." He looked at her.

"Did it bother you?"

"Should it have?"

"I don't know. Shouldn't it?" She gave a short laugh.

"I threw up after the first one." She said it without changing her voice.

"They trained us not to. But I did. Right there in the bay, in front of everyone. I thought they'd expel me." She lifted one shoulder.

"They didn't. They just told me to practice until I could do it without losing control." Louis looked down at his hands.

"How many times have you done it?"

"Enough." She waited for him to ask.

"Do you want to know the number?" He shook his head.

"No."

"Good. Because I've forgotten it anyway." She set her empty glass down.

"The point is, it gets easier. That's what they teach you. Everything gets easier with practice." He didn't answer. He turned to the window and stared at the Mississippi. Then she said, "You feel guilty, don't you?" He turned back and looked at her.

"About what?"

"About not feeling guilty about the right thing." He opened his mouth to deny it, then stopped.

"I don't know," he said at last.

"I do." She looked him in the eyes.

"You feel guilty because you sat in that cell and talked to a man like he was a person, and then you watched him die like it was nothing. And you didn't do anything to stop it."

"I couldn't have stopped it."

"No." She leaned back against the arm of the sofa.

"But you could have felt worse about it. And you don't. That's what's eating at you." He drank the rest of the bourbon in one swallow and set the empty glass down.

"Maybe I just don't know what I'm supposed to feel," he said. She shook her head.

"You're not supposed to feel anything, Louis. That's the point. The world is full of people who do terrible things because someone tells them it's necessary. The trick is to make sure you're one of the people who get to decide what's necessary." He stared at her.

"And you think you are?"

"Of course I am," she said.

"You think I'm just a girl with a bad attitude because I like the attention? No. I'm the daughter of a man who kept New Orleans alive when everyone else thought it would burn. I'm the next person who gets to decide what this city needs to survive. And if that means shooting fanatics before they blow up my port, then yes. I get to decide." He raised his voice.

"Is that what you think he is? A fanatic?"

"He was a Covenant soldier. What else?" He stood up.

"Did you hear what he told me? He liked fishing with his father. He liked cornbread. He lost a girl he cared about. He was a person, Gladice. Now he's dead. And you're telling me it's okay because your country decided it was necessary." Gladice stood and walked toward the window.

"You don't get it."

"Don't get what?"

"That all of that is exactly why he had to die." She turned back and looked at him.

"People aren't good or bad, Louis. They believe things. And some beliefs get in the way of other people living. He believed in the wrong thing." Her eyes narrowed.

"People who believe the wrong things get the wrong end of the gun. That's how this works." She walked to the bar cabinet, set her empty glass down, and poured herself another bourbon.

"You don't have to like it. You just have to stop pretending you don't understand it." He watched her.

"And what about you? What happens when you get in the way of something?" She turned with the glass in her hand.

"Then I hope someone better than me pulls the trigger." She raised the glass.

"But I'm not planning to let that happen." He snorted.

"You like being the one who decides."

"I'm good at it." They stood there, facing each other across the room. She was hard, and certain, and completely unafraid of what she was. He thought of Angelique and felt the sharp, disloyal tug of wanting to be with someone who did not ask him to be anything other than what he was. But Angelique was not here. Gladice was. And Gladice, for all her cruelty, was at least honest about what she wanted. He took a step toward her. She didn't move.

"Is this part of the plan too?" he asked.

"Seducing the Supreme President's son?" Her mouth curved.

"This isn't seduction." She stepped closer, close enough that he could smell the bourbon on her breath and the faint scent of her perfume.

"This is me being honest." Her eyes searched his.

"I want you. I've wanted you since I saw you naked in the woods. You're a beautiful mess who doesn't know what to do with himself when the world stops being polite. And I like that." She lifted her hand and let her fingers brush the side of his face.

"So. If you want me too, stop pretending you don't." Louis felt his breath stop once, then start again harder. He looked at her mouth, then back to her eyes.

"And if I say yes?" She stepped back, set her glass down, and smoothed one hand once over the line of her skirt.

"Come to my room." She turned toward the door.

"And don't take too long deciding." She walked out without looking back. He stared after her, his heart beating too hard, his mind full of noise. Then he set his own glass down and followed.