Page 12

12

STANDOFF

L éon’s shout of “Run!” rang loud, and émile was thrown through the doorway, Léon’s arms and body blocking any shot Henry might have taken at him.

Which he never would have taken in the first place, but Léon clearly didn’t know that, and Henry had to admire his bravery in the face of the firearm.

Léon didn’t even need a second to think about it—he was fire and protective fury and barely a spark of fear.

But Henry held the gun on him all the same, despite the muscles in his arm weighing heavily in refusal as the green eyes narrowed on him.

“Henri!” came the boy’s reprimand from behind Léon.

Henry held his aim. “émile, come here.”

Obediently, the boy attempted to slip under Léon’s arm to go to Henry’s side.

He was caught and restrained by Léon, half shocked at émile’s behaviour, half horrified.

He seethed at Henry, “You’re not having him!”

“I told you,” said Henry, every nerve on fire in the tense standoff, “you can have him back tonight.”

“Do you think I’d believe that?” Léon’s eyes were wide, terrified, his grip white on émile’s arm, and he looked at Henry with a revulsion—a sickened, pure hatred—that made Henry feel almost as ill as Léon seemed to be.

Léon gestured a shoulder towards the side-table, heaving with food.

“This isn’t a set-up for one night. Do you really think I’d believe you intend to bring him back to me?”

So perhaps he’d overdone it with the culinary bribery…

Léon had a point. A small one.

“That’s just… I needed to feed him, didn’t I?”

émile struggled in Léon’s grip, but Léon neither faltered nor lowered his gaze from Henry.

“Are you planning to sell him? Or is it that you wish to keep him?” He added, with a disgusted shake of his lower lip, as though he could barely say it, “For yourself?”

Henry’s grip loosened on the gun as he began to catch on—to realise the places Léon’s mind had already gone—as a sick disgust grew in his chest. “It’s not like that?—”

“Let me go!” émile snapped, digging nails into Léon’s unrelenting hand.

“You can trust him!”

Léon yanked him back sharply.

“He’s not your friend, émile. He’s tricking you.”

“No!” cried Henry, bolting forward as if his proximity to émile could in any way help the situation.

“No, no! No, I simply kidnapped the boy. I didn’t— wouldn’t ?—”

“You stay the hell away from him!” Léon shouted.

“This has gone far enough!” Henry shouted back.

“Look.” He brought the gun up slowly, away from Léon, then raised his other hand in surrender, pushing it forward in a shaky, calming motion.

“I’m putting it down.”

“Léon!” émile, wrist aching, shoved at his brother, but Léon only watched Henry tensely as Henry placed the gun on the dining table, the hold on émile never loosening.

“I need those keys,” said Henry, searching Léon’s eyes, glassy, red, and scared.

“And I need you to stay out of my way until I use them. I swear to you, that’s the only reason I took him. I would never… What you’re thinking— It’s absurd.”

“It’s not absurd,” Léon returned.

“No. Okay, you’re right. But it’s not me. It’s not. I wouldn’t do that. I know you don’t trust me?—”

Léon laughed, sharp and hysterical, and only stopped when Henry cut over him with, “Léon.” It was a blade in the spine, hearing his name on that man’s lips.

The fast logic of his mind told him of course he knew his name, he’d had his brother for the entire night, had known where to find him to steal him away, but it was so obtrusive, so familiar, that it halted him in his tracks.

Henry’s head dipped, and he shut his eyes tight, taking a deep breath before saying softly, “There’s someone I need to get out of that prison. Someone important to me. I would never have done this, would never have crossed your path, had they not taken… them.”

Léon wanted— needed —it to be true, for his own sanity.

Yet he held still, his horror not allowing him to even notice the red scratches émile ran down his arm in his fight to be free.

“Who?”

Henry ran his tongue across dry lips.

“I can’t tell you.”

Léon let out a loud scoff and walked straight out the door, dragging émile with him.

“Don’t make me shoot you!”

Léon didn’t pause when he heard the threat.

He was striding directly for the forest, émile running after him to keep up, crying, and Léon didn’t even throw a glance over his shoulder.

“Léon!” Henry yelled.

He snatched the gun off the table, dashed out the door, and took aim at a tree trunk just above Léon’s head.

The bark exploded with a shower of sharp splinters all over Léon’s back, and he dropped, cradling émile beneath him, arms around the boy like an iron cage, staring back at Henry in terror.

Henry’s lip rose in cruel defiance.

“Don’t make me shoot you dead in front of him.” The slip of Léon’s shoulders, the last ounce of fight in him ebbing away as he realised defeat, turned Henry’s stomach, but he kept that rod of steel in his back, his arm extended, and he made his eyes just as dark and ruthless as he could manage.

“Get back in the house. Now.”