Chapter 7: Watching You

Lucien told himself he was taking a different route.

The south path ran parallel to the athletics track and he used it sometimes when the east corridor was congested, which it was on Thursdays, which was why he was here, which had nothing to do with anything else. He told himself that, then he saw Eli and stopped walking.

The track was mostly empty at this hour, a few athletes at the far end, a coach with a clipboard, and Eli alone on the straight, just running, like really running.

Lucien hadn’t seen Eli run before, this was him without an audience, without the brightness he wore like a second jacket, without any performance.

Lucien stood at the edge of the path and watched him, he tried not to think much about the fact that he wasn't walking past like he planned to.

Eli ran two lengths before he slowed, hands on his knees, breathing hard. Then he straightened and looked up and found Lucien standing there, they just stared at each other across the distance.

Eli didn’t smile, he just looked, catching his breath, and waited after a while, Lucien crossed the grass toward the track boundary.

“You’re fast,” he said.

“I know.” Eli’s voice was even. “What are you doing here?”

“South path.”

“Right.” A pause. “South path.”Eli replied squinting his eyes slightly

Neither of them said anything, they just looked at each other and somewhere at the far end the other athletes were laughing about something, the sound carrying easily in the cold air.

“I said things,” Lucien said.

“In the council room. Things that were” he stopped. “Harder than they needed to be.”

“Yeah,” Eli said. “You did.”

“I’m not apologizing for the content.”

“I know.”

“Just the delivery.”

Eli looked at him for a long moment with those amber eyes that had a way of locating things Lucien didn’t leave out in the open.

Then something in his expression shifted, something looking indifferent but still practical.

“Okay,” Eli said.

“Okay.”

“You want to walk back or are you still taking the south path?” Eli said sarcastically.

Lucien looked at the south path, then at Eli.

“I’ll walk back,” he said.

Eli picked up his water bottle and jacket from the grass. When he straightened his dark curls were damp against his forehead, cheeks flushed from the cold and the running, and Lucien caught himself staring and told himself absolutely nothing.

They walked back toward campus in the comfortable silence. It was, Lucien thought, the most dangerous thing about Eli Thorne.

It was not the desserts or the shamelessness or the way he said true things without warning it was this.

The ease of being near him, it felt like putting something down that Lucien didn’t realise he’d been carrying. They were nearly at the junction when Eli spoke.

“The stuff getting posted,” Eli said, not looking at him. “About you and Adrian.”

Lucien said nothing.

“Are you trying to find out who’s behind it?”

“Yes.”

Eli nodded slowly, like he’d already suspected the answer. “Do you know yet?”

“I have a direction.”

“But not proof.”

“Not yet.”

They walked a few more steps, the junction came into view ahead, the path splitting toward Lion’s Den and Bee’s Hive.

“I got a message,” Lucien said, he wasn’t sure why he said it. “Unknown number. Told me to ask Adrian what he said to Mira Solene last Tuesday.”

Eli was quiet for a moment. “Are you going to?”

“When I know more.”

“And until then?”

“Until then I’ll just observe.” Lucien looked ahead.

“People who leak things always leak more than they intend to when they don’t get a desired reaction, you just have to wait.”

Eli absorbed this. “That’s smart,” he said simply, Lucien glanced at him.

He said it the way he said everything,like a fact he’d just noticed.

They reached the junction and Eli stopped and turned to face him with his water bottle still in his hand, and his jacket still over his arm.

“For what it’s worth,” Eli said. “Whatever they’re posting about you, doesn't change anything, not for me.”

Lucien looked at him.

“I know what kind of person you are,” Eli said.

He said it without weight, like it was simply true and he saw no reason not to say it. Then he turned toward the Bee’s Hive.

“Two o’clock tomorrow,” Lucien said.

Eli glanced back. “I’ll be there.” he walked away.

Lucien stood at the junction and watched him go, and he thought about the bet again, how it would destroy whatever it was he had here. He swallowed and stared at the path Eli took for a while.

He took out his phone, opened the unknown number’s message again.

“Ask Adrian what he told Mira Solene last Tuesday. Then ask him why”

He stared at it, then he typed one line back.

‘Who are you?’

Three dots appeared immediately.

Then stopped.

Then nothing.

Day eleven of thirty.

Nineteen to go.