Chapter 200: Sinking Into The Mire

LOUISE’S POV

Will Orion ask me about Alice? Will he demand to know whether I expected the attack? Will he accuse me of knowing more than I have told him?

He would not be wrong to ask. I have kept things from him. I have kept things from everyone.

But there is a difference between knowing that trouble is coming and knowing exactly where it will strike.

I did not know the Masamune mercenaries would attack the lake house. I did not know they would arrive with enough weapons to turn the place into a battlefield.

And I certainly did not know that being taken away from the house would make so little difference to the danger waiting outside.

I stand and walk to the curtains.

The guards have told me not to go near the windows, but they have not given me a reason I believe. I stop a few steps away and study the narrow line of light between the curtains.

It is enough to tell me that the day is still bright.

I could pull them apart and look outside. I could see the street, the passing cars, perhaps even the top of another building.

But what would that change? The city would still be there.

The people moving through it would still be unaware of what happened at the lake house. And I would still be here, behind a locked door, with no idea what anyone intends to do with me.

I turn away.

My reflection catches my eye in the mirror above the small table.

For a moment, I barely recognize the girl staring back.

My hair is untidy. My face looks tired, and there is a faint crease between my eyebrows that was not there this morning. I look like someone who has spent too long waiting for bad news.

Perhaps I have.

I smooth the front of my dress and tuck the loose strands of hair behind my ears. There is no reason to look frightened for an audience that cannot see me.

I return to the bed and sit down.

The pocketknife presses against my side again. I slide my hand beneath the fabric and hold it for a moment, feeling the cool metal beneath my fingers.

I think about the people who stayed behind at the lake house.

I do not know their names. I do not know whether they have families waiting for them or whether anyone will tell those families what happened.

I only know they were there when the mercenaries arrived, and they fired back because that was what they had been ordered to do.

I wonder if they were angry when they learned the men had come for me. I wonder if they blamed me for the damage.

The thought makes me press my lips together.

I did not ask to be the center of this mess. But that does not mean I am free of responsibility for the things that happen around me.

There is a difference between blame and consequence. I am beginning to understand that.

The attack will leave questions behind. Someone will want to know who sent the mercenaries, who gave them the information, and why they believed I would still be at the house.

Orion will want answers. His people will look for the men who escaped. The authorities may arrive at the lake before the smoke clears.

And Alice will hear about it. If she has not heard already.

I wonder what she will think when she learns the men failed to reach me. Will she be relieved? Angry? Will she see it as another problem she must solve, or will she finally understand that the people moving against her are no longer following the rules she has spent so long using?

I cannot tell.

I have spent too much of my life trying to guess what Alice feels. I do not want to spend another hour doing it.

But the questions remain, waiting in the back of my mind.

The radio outside my room crackles again.

I cannot hear the words this time. Only a few low voices, the sound of a door opening, and the quick steps of someone walking past.

The guards are moving more often now.

Whatever happened at the lake house has reached this hotel in ways I cannot see. People are making calls. Orders are being given. Cars are probably being sent to places I have never visited. Someone is looking at the damage, and someone else is trying to work out what it means.

The world is moving around me. I sit in the middle of it, doing nothing.

There was a time when I believed being left out of a decision meant I was not important enough to be included.

Now I know better.

Sometimes people leave you out because they do not trust you. Sometimes they do it because they want to protect you. And sometimes they do it because your ignorance makes you easier to control.

I do not know which reason applies to Orion. I am not sure I want to know. That should be left to Adrien to ponder.

The room begins to feel smaller as the afternoon passes. The air conditioner keeps blowing, and the curtains remain closed. Somewhere outside, a siren rises above the noise of traffic before fading into the distance.

I listen until I can no longer hear it. Then I lie back against the pillows.

The ceiling above me is plain and white. There are no marks on it, no cracks, nothing to suggest that anything bad has ever happened in this room.

I wonder how many other people have lain here and tried to make sense of their lives.

Perhaps someone came here to celebrate good news. Perhaps someone else cried over a broken promise. The room has probably held a hundred different stories, and none of them matter to the people who clean it each morning.

Tomorrow, the sheets will be changed. The curtains will be opened. Someone will wipe the table and replace the small bottles of water beside the bed.

The room will look as if nothing has happened.

I envy that, too.

I turn onto my side and pull one of the pillows closer.

The attack at the lake house has not freed me. It has not brought Alice back, and it has not answered any of the questions I have been carrying for years.

All it has done is show me how quickly things can move beyond the reach of the people who believe they are in control.

The mercenaries came too late.

Orion’s people left the house before the first shots were fired. The men who came looking for me found an empty room and a fight they had not planned for. They did not take me. They did not reach this hotel.

But they have made their presence known. And now everyone must decide what to do with that knowledge.

I close my eyes.

I do not pray for Alice to return. I do not pray for Orion to let me go. I do not try to imagine what the next knock at the door will bring.

For once, I allow myself to stop searching for an answer before the question has even been asked. There is nothing I can change from this bed.

The guards remain outside. The city carries on below. Somewhere, people are counting the cost of the attack, while others are already planning what comes after it.

I hear a car horn. Then another. Life continues without waiting for me to catch up.

I open my eyes and stare at the narrow line of daylight beneath the curtains.

I used to think the worst part of being trapped was losing the freedom to leave.

Now I think it is knowing that everything keeps moving while you remain in the same place. Decisions are made. People choose sides. Old promises begin to break.

By the time the door opens, the world outside may have changed in ways no one can explain to you.

I turn my face into the pillow.

The pocket knife is still against my ribs. The lock is still on the door. The men outside are still doing their jobs.

Nothing has changed for me. And yet, I know it has.

The attack at the lake house is over, but the trouble it has stirred is only beginning to spread. I can feel it in the way the guards speak more quietly, in the way their footsteps hurry past my door, in the silence that follows every new message on their radios.

No one has told me what comes next. Perhaps no one knows.

I let my eyes close again.

For now, I am alone in a hotel room, listening to the world outside continue without me.

And somewhere beyond these walls, the people who thought they could control what happens next are learning that they may have waited too long.