Louis and I took the seats at the head and foot of the table, respectively. Dr. Ponds, Meredith, Remy, and Abigail were already there with files spread across the table, waiting. The younger students had been shifted around, while the eighth and ninth-years lurked in the corners of the room, desperately trying to catch something one of us said.
"So, what do we have?" Louis asked, sliding one of the files from Meredith to glance over it.
"Professor Swan just called from apartment complex C, next to the administrative building," Meredith said. "They still haven't had any activity over there. No noise, no shadows at the windows. It looks deserted."
Louis nodded. "The others?"
"Everyone's made their first call, but only Thistle Hall and apartment complex A have reported things out of the ordinary," Remy said.
"What did they see?"
"There have been sightings of an unknown creature. It has a humanoid figure, but the aura surrounding it is complicating classification procedures."
"In addition to that, the sightings have been accompanied by weird power surges," Meredith said. "The lights will flicker, the temperature will spike or plummet, it's like a demonic sensing, but more extreme. It's stronger than the usual sensations."
I frowned. It looked like a higher level demon, especially with the extreme sensations... "Sounds like they've managed the partial resurrection of the Aquireign emperor," I said. "It's matching the description anyway."
Louis nodded. "I really hope not, but it's plausible. It's likely they have your blood, so they really have no reason not to resurrect him." He looked to the others and put the file down. "Do we have any word on their potential motives or goals? Have there been any sightings of other noteworthy demons?"
They all shook their heads.
"It's only the first update. There's still several more to come, Lou," Meredith said, even and calm, like she'd done this before—soothed Louis. She probably had. They seemed like they were close.
Letting out a long, defeated sigh, he sank into his chair. "I feel like we're sitting ducks. How did they even get through the barriers to begin with?"
"Just think about everyone that has access to the main breaker for the barriers surrounding campus," I said. "Everyone knows where they are, but who is the one person on this campus that has the key to it?"
"Jackson."
"Bingo. Of course, someone could've stolen it, but with all of the other evidence we've discussed, he seems to be the most likely suspect. There's also always the scenario that the demons were strong enough to break through the barriers, but I was one of the developers of the latest barricade system. It would take a demon stronger than even the full resurrection of the Aquireign emperor to break them."
"Would—" Louis stopped.
The speakers crackled. The lines for the speakers ran to every building on campus back to the administrative building, where announcements were made. It'd only ever been used for emergencies in the past, and it didn't run on electricity, so it wouldn't have been affected by the power outage... What was this about?
"Attention all faculty, staff, and students—" It was Rainier. He was in the administrative building making the announcement, no doubt leading the entire infiltration on the academy. Gods, this was bad. "I apologize for all the trouble; however, the urgency of the situation needed to be stressed to you. If you want to get out of this situation with as few casualties as possible, I need everyone to make a decision, building by building."
Instinctively, my gaze switched over to Louis, assessing his expression, determining what he thought of the situation, seeing if our opinions aligned. His brows were knitted together and his mouth was pursed into a firm line. As if feeling my gaze, he glanced over at me, nodding a bit, and looking back to the speaker.
Sucking in a deep breath, I crossed my arms and tried to settle myself despite the sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach that everything was about to go wrong.
"Either Alexei Rivian or Louis Blanc must be surrendered to us. Each building will have a vote, which will be collected in 24 hours. At the end of the vote, we will take whomever you choose and leave the academy, officially providing it immunity from further attack. That is all."
The speaker cracked again. Silence weighed heavily on the room. Weight pressed against my chest and suddenly the room wasn't so quiet. My breath grated out harshly. My heart pounded. Everything ached. Gods, this was bad. Louis or me... Everyone else had to decide...
Maybe it was a blessing. They would all choose me to go. No one liked me. Everyone loved Louis. They had to choose me. They had to.
"It's going to be fine," I said, breaking the silence in the room. "They'll choose me, it's fine. Everything's going to be fine."
Louis was already staring at me though, just like everyone else at the table. Instead of looking relieved that I would be the one to go, he looked worried, almost scared.
"What? I said I'd go. Everyone's going to vote for me anyway, b-but I'll go. I've done it before. He wants me anyway. They still don't have your blood, s-so, I—"
Louis blinked rapidly, shaking his head as he leaned forward. "Hey, Lex, slow down. Slow down, okay? Just stop for a second. Breathe—"
"A-and I, I know that it's a bad situation, but it's okay. I'll just go with them. I'll figure it out. Y-you won't be able to come for me again, though, b-b-because I—because they—"
"Alexei—"
Dr. Ponds touched his arm and shook his head, never breaking his gaze from me. "He's having a panic attack."
Louis nodded. "Should I calm him down?"
"Are you going to make it worse?"
"I don't know. I hope not." Louis stood up and walked around the table, even as I sat there, still blubbering about the fact that I was definitely going to be the one to go, for him not to be concerned, knowing that once the whole thing was said and done, I'd be mortified.
Kneeling in front of me, Louis grabbed my hands. "Hey, Lex, just breathe for me, okay?"
"B-but, I don't—I can't—"
"Alexei, shut up. Stop talking. I know, everything's going to be fine. We're going to figure this out. Just deep breaths, in and out. Everything is going to be fine. Just breathe for me."
At some point, Dr. Ponds had wandered over, breathing audibly and coaxing me to follow his lead. Louis kept hold of my hands. His gaze anchored me to that moment. The sound of Dr. Ponds breaths in my ear kept me breathing steadily. My heart rate leveled out. I noticed I'd finally stopped talking. I could see the entire room clearly again.
And I'd embarrassed the hell out of myself.
Great.
"Hey, Lex," Meredith said, appearing behind me as she laid her hand on my shoulder. "Why don't we move into the other room, so you can wind down a little?"
I nodded. "Yeah, that's good. Uh, thanks."
"Come on." Meredith helped me out of the chair and walked with me to the other room, while Dr. Ponds and Louis trailed behind us.
Once we got into the last room, where we'd been earlier that day, Meredith settled me at another table. Dr. Ponds stepped around to lay my arm flat.
"The IV's been in long enough. I'm going to go ahead and remove it."
I nodded. "Thank you."
Dr. Ponds worked to remove the IV, while Meredith sat on my left. Louis took the seat on my right, scooting it a little closer so I could feel the heat radiating off him. A second later, Remy walked into the room, sat next to Meredith, and propped his feet up on the table.
"I thought you were going to stay back to manage the kids," Meredith said.
Remy shrugged. "Abigail and Joey said they got it. Besides, I figured I could be the messenger. The students have been scarred for life."
"Oh yeah?"
"Shut up, Rem," Louis said. "Are you okay?" he asked, looking at me.
"Well, I regained the ability to breathe and speak in coherent sentences, so it can't be all bad," I said, taking a deep breath and watched as Dr. Ponds wiped the spot of blood on my arm and bandaged it. I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Sorry about that, but I did mean what I said. I'm going, and we all know it. Besides, even if he gets you, all he wants is your blood for a full resurrection and to use you as bait to lure me."
"We still have time to figure out another plan. Recon is still—"
"Do you really think they're going to keep up recon when they've just found out that one of their colleagues is going to be surrendered?"
Louis went silent, frowning as he stared down at the table. "There's still time to figure something out. I'm not going to let you just give yourself to them without a fight, without some other plan in place."
"If we don't comply, we run the risk of losing students and other faculty members. I'm not allowing that. If giving myself over to them will stop this—"
"Alexei, you're being ridiculous."
"Am I?" I propped my chin on my fist. My head spun as a headache began to form behind my eyes. "Rainier has been after me for a long time. Maybe..." Maybe if I wasn't there, maybe if he got me, maybe if he didn't have me to chase after anymore... maybe if there was nothing for Louis to save after I was gone, maybe if I were never there in the first place... "Oh gods."
That was it. That was the plan.
It would have to be a little more delicate and play out exactly by Rainier's rules, but that was it. The school would be safe. The students would be safe. Louis would be safe. Rainier would be satiated... and the emperor would never have the opportunity to be fully resurrected.
The perfect plan.
"Alexei?"
I blinked and focused on Louis again, noticing that my eyes felt a little wet, which only got worse when I looked at him. Sucking in a breath, I forced a small, attemptedly reassuring smile to my lips. "Everything is going to be okay."
Instead of agreeing, of hopping on board and repeating it like he had, Louis frowned. Every line on his face, each twist in his expression, all of it was suspicious. Who knew the fucked up telepathy we had would come back so quickly?
"It is," he said at last, but it didn't come out quite so reassuring or calm. Questioning, stiff, that was how it sounded.
I nodded and leaned back in my chair, looking at the others to find them all glancing between Louis and I, like they weren't exactly sure what had just happened. "Telepathy," I said, nodding at Louis. "It's really uncomfortable; I'm sorry about that."
Meredith shook her head, smiling. "No, no it's fine. Just, uh, you two have a unique dynamic."
"Yeah, unique, that's it," Remy said, nodding blankly, blindly backing her up.
"You know," Dr. Ponds said, "I think we should wait until morning when the whole processing phase has died down, and then figure out step two. For tonight, I think we should go ahead, split up, and get some rest."
"Smart man," I snorted.
Dr. Ponds flashed me a tight smile and turned to leave. "I'll let Joey and Abigail know we're going to start dividing the students up."
*** *** ***
"I'm not tired," I said, staring up at the ceiling with my arms pillowing my head.
"Me either." Louis glanced over at me, raising a brow. "Not much we can do about it in a room full of students."
"Not these students anyway. I see them on a daily basis. Half of them have already seen me have a panic attack, so I'd hate for a few of them to wake up to see me fucking their espionage professor."
Louis snorted and pulled his knees up to his chest, propping his chin on them. "Don't you dare dirty talk right now. There's nowhere private enough for me to deal with it, and I don't have an extra pair of pants if—"
"If I make you come in them?"
"Shut up, Alexei." It was stern, but the threat was lost by the laughter underneath his words.
I chuckled quietly. "Think of it as payback for all the times I had to go through training turned on the entire time, because you have such a filthy mouth. Agility exercises are infinitely more difficult with a hard-on."
"But you looked so much better doing them when I could see your—"
I smacked his arm. "Shut up, Lou."
He raised a brow at me, sporting a shit eating grin. "Who's gonna come their pants now?"
I rolled my eyes, barely suppressing my laughter as I resettled. "You're such a dick."
Louis hummed in amusement, going quiet for a moment, which left both of us in relative silence. Only the sounds of some students snoring, others whispering among one another, broke the quiet. "I missed this," he said after a while, making me frown up at him. He shrugged, looking back at the students. "Just being around you, hanging out, forgetting that everything is about to fall apart and enjoying each other without bickering or all the heavy shit. Sure, we're both a little older, you're a little meaner, and I'm a little wiser, but other than that, it feels exactly the same."
I sat up and leaned over, sliding my hand over his and threading our fingers together. "I missed you."
Louis tilted his head, gently touching it to mine. "You're being awfully amicable this evening. No angst or piss and vinegar? No woe is me and the sky is falling?"
"Not tonight." I squeezed his hand a little tighter and ignored the way his eyes burned holes into me, opting instead to watch over the students.
All of them had dozed off with the exception of one small group about five feet away from us. In the group were the regular troublemakers: Grayson, Chelsea, Holly, Erica, Wilson, Chance, and... oh no.
Madeline.
I elbowed Louis, never taking my eyes off the group. "Holy shit."
"What? ...Oh."
We fell silent, both of us straining to hear them, to figure out what the fuck they were talking about. Surely Madeline wouldn't bring up what she saw earlier? It was just too scarring, right?
"You're full of shit," Erica said, staring at Madeline incredulously. "That couldn't have been—"
"Well, they have been getting along weirdly well lately," Chelsea said. "They were at dinner together. That was fucked up in and of itself."
"But kissing?"
Chelsea shrugged.
"I don't see what the big deal is." Grayson leaned back on his elbows. "Anyone that's ever been in this academy, student, professor, whatever, has fully believed that they're fucking each other."
"But now we have proof," Holly said. "Everyone else just has theories. Madeline fucking saw them."
Grayson shook his head. "You guys are blowing this out of proportion. People that fight like that are sleeping together, no doubt about it."
Chelsea sighed. "Say whatever you want, but the second I—" She stopped and glanced back, one of them finally sensing that Louis and I were both listening to their conversation a little too intently. Her eyes doubled in size, and she whipped back around.
Unable to stop myself, I snickered and clasped my hand over my mouth to stifle it. Louis dug his elbow into my ribs.
"Shut up," he hissed, unsuccessfully choking back laughter, grinning despite himself.
"I just don't know what's worse," I said, my voice coming out an octave higher from the poor attempt to keep myself from laughing. "The fact that literally everyone around us fully believes we've been having sex for decades or the fact that we've never had sex and never thought to until a few days ago."
Louis buried his face into his knees, shoulders shaking from laughter. I laid back down, covering my face with my hands, trying my damnedest to shut the fuck up.
"Fucking hell," I muttered as the laughter finally started to die down. I took a deep breath and forced myself to settle in as I tucked my hands back behind my head only to find Louis watching me, still grinning. Another peal of laughter bubbled out of my throat, and then stopped. I fell silent as Louis looked at me, from my eyes to my groin, and back again.
He leaned down, bracing a hand on the tile, and pecked me on the lips. "Don't take this away from me."
I looked away, back up at the ceiling, and didn't say a word. At that point, making promises I knew I couldn't keep would only hurt him more.