Page 103 of The Bargain

Fuck. All this work, all year. Planning, scheming, pretending. The favours, the parties. The articles, the gala, being thrown in a fucking lake. Making Desdemona fall for me, and falling for her in return. In the end, I’m walking away from Spearcrest exactly as I entered it: completely alone, with empty hands and empty pockets.

“Elias!”

A voice rings out a crystal note, high and clear through the cacophony. Her voice. It hits me right in the chest.

For the first time, I falter. I don’t want her to see me like this, being manhandled by police officers like the lowly thug she’s always suspected me of being. But I can’t help myself.

I turn.

Desdemona is running towards me; the crowd of students parts to make way for her. Her hair streams over her shoulder like a golden cloak; the silver sunlight, wreathed in clouds, seems to fall on her and her alone. Like a streaking comet, she crosses the space between us until she reaches me. The police officers crowd in closer, trying to block her out, but I hear her voice through them even as they bundle me closer to the car.

“He didn’t do anything!” she yells ferociously, and I see the officers step back in surprise.

She shoves past them, hurtling towards me.

“Don’t do this—don’t do this!” she says. “You don’t have to! I should never have asked, and I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Elias. I’m so sorry.”

The officers have no choice but to make way for her, now. Manhandling some scummy foster kid criminal is one thing—touching someone like her, on the other hand, would have real consequences. They move aside, part just enough for her to slip through, to get to me.

“Please, Elias,” she says when she reaches me. “Don’t.”

“You met your end of the bargain, love,” I tell her. I want so badly to touch her, to cup her cheeks, to hold her close, one last time. But my hands are trapped behind me, in the handcuffs I was always destined for. “It’s my turn to meet mine.”

“No, no, no—” Her voice comes out a broken sob. “I never wanted this, I never wanted to use you.”

“You don’t have to feel bad,” I say, low and soft. “I’ve got this. I’m used to it, aren’t I?”

“I’m going to fix this.” She’s sobbing so hard her chest is shaking. Her lips are swollen, her cheeks and eyes flushed red. She looks a total mess. A beautiful, perfect mess. “I’m going to fix this. I swear it.”

“Filthy habit, love,” I tell her. “Always fixing people’s problems for them. Look where it’s got you.”

“Look where it’s got you!” she says with a gasp of what could be laughter and what could be a sob.

“Let’s call it quits, then, both of us,” I tell her. “I’ll change my ways if you change yours.”

“I don’t want you to change,” she says. She’s speaking so softly, and yet she’s all I can hear, the police cars and flashing lights and officers and teachers and students, the whole machinery of Spearcrest and society and the world, all vanished, all absorbed by a Faraday cage that’s formed when we’re together, her and I. “You’re perfect the way you are.”

I smile down at her. “Sounds like you broke rule number five.”

She smiles back through her tears. “The deal’s over. There is no rule number five.” Around us, Mazzati and Mr North are arguing with lawyers, someone is barking orders, and police officers are pulling me away, but Desdemona follows me.

“You’re too smart to love someone like me.” I grin at her over an officer’s shoulder.

I hear a car door open behind me.

“Too bad,” Desdemona says. “I love you, Elias Lennox, and I’m going to save you.”

“I love you, Desdemona Sutton-Knight,” I answer her. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Watch me,” she says.

And then she reaches right back through the police officers: she grabs me by the lapels of my blazer, and she yanks me down to her, crushing her mouth against mine. She tastes of tears and metal and damage and salvation.

I kiss her back just as hard, deep and wet, a greedy, hopeless kiss—a final kiss.

And then I’m being dragged back, head shoved roughly down, bundled into a car, shut away.

The car rumbles, starts, moves, speeds, turns—and just like that, Spearcrest disappears behind me.