Hunted

Sixteen: The Angel and The Warlord

James rolled over in his bed, dazed. His room was still cloaked in darkness, the island still in a deep state of sleep. He wondered if he had dreamt of a disturbance, if he had only imagined something interrupting his moment's respite from all the schemes and conspiracies. A sudden rap on the door, quiet but firm, caused his heart rate to quicken. It resounded again through the gloom, confirming that his sleep had in fact been disturbed by an outside source.

James switched on his light as he sat up, blinking away the sudden brightness and his lost sleep. Why can I not just be left alone, he thought bitterly? He ran his hands through his hair irritably, using his alteration to open the door. At least if it was Bennett, there was a few metres distance between them before the weasel-featured man could get his hands on him.

The door fell open against the wall, thudding and shuddering slightly from the impact. James was more than surprised to find Iseult Deluca standing there, framed in the open doorway. Her blonde hair fell about her shoulders, the warm light from the corridor catching in it and forming a strange halo about her. James laughed despite himself, shaking his head. This angelic girl was the brains behind their revolution, the most threatening mind Kingston had ever created.

"Why are you laughing?" she frowned, by way of a greeting, folding her arms obstinately across her chest.

James smiled, shaking his head. "I'm just thinking about how completely non-dangerous you appear and yet..."

"Yet, any warlord or dictator in the world would trade half their broken country to gain a whiff of what my mind can do?" she asked raising an eyebrow.

"Well I wouldn't have put it in those exact words - but yes," he grinned again. "Are you coming in, or did you just come by to wake me up?" he asked, sleep retreating quickly from his mind.

Iseult nodded, stepping in and closing the door. James didn't need her heightened sense of understanding to know why she was here. She couldn't be seen talking to him during the day and they needed to talk.

"How did you make it up here without being seen?" he asked, climbing from his bed and shrugging on his shirt.

Iseult rolled her eyes and pursed her lips, moving them from side to side before smiling. "Who said I wasn't seen?" James frowned, but bit back the response she was hoping for. She's testing my commitment, my fate in her, he thought, observing the blonde girl with a casual gaze, fitting his face with his mask of indifference, afraid of what she might be able to see in his true expression. "I met a few of the forgotten," she said, with a shrug, moving to the armchair James offered her by his window. He sat in the one opposite, watching her fold her legs beneath her. She was still in her nightclothes, looking more unassuming and saintly than ever. If only people knew, he thought.

"Desmarais had a lot of faith in the forgotten," he said by way of a response, trying to hide his own mistrust in them.

"Hmm, so do I," she nodded, smiling a bright, dimpled smile. "They will make all the difference in the end, I think".

"They didn't chose this life either, I guess," he nodded, not completely willing to commit to her belief. "How did you manage with Elmhirst after? Annakiya told me that he had you cornered in Ashley's office, but I haven't been able to speak to anybody since you resurfaced," he asked her.

"Oh that," she grinned triumphantly. "That was too easy," she nodded. "I just told him that I had come to look for some guidance from Porter for the next exhibition and when I arrived she was completely out of it. I told him that I had pressed the alarm, because I was afraid to move her," she shrugged, with a strangely happy smile on her face.

"Yeah - I heard she had been taking stuff..." he frowned.

"To help with her stress," Iseult sighed. "Rumours do fly. So many of the staff are self-medicating, it was only a matter of time before one of them slipped up. It explains her very strange behaviour recently though - or so Elmhirst concluded when he saw what she had been taking," she grinned broadly.