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I know what he wants to say. He thinks my uncle isn’t likely to kill me just because my uncle saved his life. But even to Paul, that logic is too weak to entertain. Uncle needs him and his grizzly talents. I’m expendable, and deep down, we both know it.
Before he can decide what to say instead, I blurt, “Most debts are forgiven after death.”
“For that to apply to this scenario, I’d have to be the one to die,” Paul says, a little bemused. “You got another gun stowed somewhere? Remember the way I taught you to aim?”
I could never hurt Paul, but I don’t think he’s ever believed me when I told him that. “You know what I mean.”
“I actually don’t,” Paul counters. “So tell me what your plan was.”
This question came from my uncle, I know. He likely expected Paul to rough me up first, but he hasn't laid a finger on me, except to gently apply an icepack to my cheek. Maybe I don’t have to be afraid after all.
“I told Uncle what I wanted,” I say. “I want a truce.”
“So you threatened him with an unloaded gun,” Paul says, raising a bushy eyebrow.
“It was a bluff,” I say, with a sheepishness I really feel. In order for it to work, my uncle would have had to be afraid of me, but that was always an impossibility. Even if I wanted to strike fear into another person, which I don’t. “It just… didn’t work.”
Paul smiles, the crow’s feet around his eyes deepening. “You were never meant for this kind of life, kid.”
That stings, although I would’ve been the first to agree a few days ago. Paul is the only reason I survived this long after my mother died. He was the one who made sure I ate regular meals, went to bed at a decent hour, and had enough tampons and ibuprofen every month. He’d ruffle my hair when I cried, bring me new art supplies, and he let me call him Polly when I felt comfortable enough around him to be irreverent. He knows me better than any living person, save Raleigh.
Or at least, he did know me, before I met Thomas. Before I realized that running and hiding weren’t viable options anymore. Before I heard those crucial words that changed the outcome of my life forever.
“I think… it would be a better use of my time to shape this world into what I want it to be, instead of just trying to leave it behind.”
I see myself in the mirror of the boutique, dazzling in lavender and pearls, with Thomas at my back. That was the first time I felt like I could seize some of the power this world had to offer for myself. Thomas might have said those words in a bid to make me a more compliant tool of his own, but the sentiment is the same. The hope that sparked in my chest then still lingers now.
Paul crosses his arms, reevaluating me for a moment. When he asks, “What are you doing here, Clara?” I can tell he’s asking for himself, not for Uncle.
This isn’t the original reason I came here, but it’s my priority now. “I need you to warn Thomas that Derrick Lindman is going to betray him.”
“You know I can’t,” Paul says immediately. But I’m not giving up that easily.
“Please, Polly,” I beg. He grimaces in pain, but doesn’t look away from me. “Please, don’t make me sit here while he’s in danger.”
Paul’s pale eyes sharpen a little at that. “All that stuff you said at the banquet… that was true?” he asks dubiously.
I did lay it on a bit thick, but I’d been trying to convince strangers of my feelings for Thomas. It had been a performance. The core of what I said…
I say the only thing I know will cut through his doubts. “I owe him my life.”
Paul’s jaw tightens, and he does look away then. My heart aches. I’ve just taken his most sacredly held belief and thrown it back in his face. Now we’re both immovable objects on opposite sides of a line. I can’t sit idly by while the man I owe a life debt to is hurt- and he can’t betray the man he owes his life debt to.
I don’t know the specifics of how Uncle saved Paul’s life. I know it happened before the schism, and sometimes I wonder if it’s the only reason Paul is here instead of with the Warwicks. Sometimes I think there’s someone he misses over there, though he’s never talked about it.
When I was younger, he’d ask to take pictures of my drawings to send to a friend, like a proud parent even when I thought my work was terrible. One day he snapped a pic of an absolutely failed self portrait that he claimed to love, and when I tried to snatch the phone away to unsend the message, I caught a glimpse of the text thread he was using.
The last message, sent to a contact known only as ‘yours’, said: someday this civil war will end.
Paul managed to grab his phone back before I saw anymore, but he hadn’t been upset, only sad.
That… gives me an idea.
“I guess that’s that,” I say, backing down first. “I’m sorry Paul. I won’t ask again. Can you… bring me some drawing supplies instead?”
Paul looks instantly suspicious, but this request, at least, he’s never denied me. Perhaps more than anyone he understands how much of an escape drawing and painting are for me. In the days after my mother’s death, painting was the only way I was capable of communicating. Now that I’m in great distress again, and worse, trapped in this cell, how can he say no?
CHAPTER 34
