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The stone wall is cold on my back, the flagstone floor cold underneath me. My raised knee provides a rest for my elbow as I carefully guide my little carving knife along the edge of the wood.
It’s good for me to have something to do with my hands. Otherwise I start getting antsy, edgy. And it’s important that I stay calm and don’t get riled up.
I can’t afford to present an angry front. Gotta be calm, chill, likeable. It’s something Xaden doesn’t understand—he wears his anger like armour, but it only protects him. I make sure I’m a likeable, happy guy because it protects all of the other marked ones.
They’ll leave me alone; I’m big, I’m fast, and I can take anyone in a fight. But if I’m angry? Sullen? It’ll provoke them. They’ll get mad at me, angry that I’m better than them, and then they’ll pick on the smaller ones. The ones who didn’t get fostered at a sympathizer’s home. Who didn’t get to train with Xaden Riorson before Basgiath.
Likeable, happy, calm. Safe.
Everybody likes Liam.
Wood shavings pitter-patter onto the floor around me every few seconds.
Every one of us deals with trying to protect ourselves in our own way. Imogen wears the angry armour, but it works, because she’s one of the ones people might try to pick on. Tavis is more of a softie than he lets on. He’s loud and aggressive and intimidating to everyone that’s not Xaden, but when he actually relaxes, he’s kind of funny, even goofy sometimes. Durran’s the opposite—he comes off all shy and sweet, but the guy’s got a hard edge lurking under there somewhere. Kind of like me.
It’s getting harder to separate certain things for myself. To separate the happy mask from the inner nerves. I find it easier and easier the longer I’m here to pretend, to smile and duck my head and just be the gentle giant. It’s not a bad thing—I genuinely do like people. But I wish there were more of them who...I dunno, liked me for me, not just because I’m nice to them.
Or because I’m there protecting them at all times.
My fingers tighten too forcefully and the knife skids across the part of the figure I’m carving, leaving a rough-cut snag along the arch of the back. Fuck.
The wood block slips from my grip and clatters to the floor as I drag my fingers into my hair and rest my forehead on the heel of my hand.
Sometimes I wish I hadn’t ever met her.
The hell of it all is I never even would have if it wasn’t for Xaden. The only reason I know her at all is because he put me in her squad—and on library duty, and into the dorm room right next to hers—so I could keep her safe for him while he can’t be there. Gods, she hated it for the first few weeks. Can’t blame her, really. I’d be pissed too if someone was assigned to me, outside of my control, who was asked to dog my every step and make sure I didn’t stub my toe or whatever Xaden’s afraid of her doing.
I’d be just as pissed as she was.
And the wild thing is, she doesn’t need it. She’s capable. Smart. Her reflexes are good, even if her joints aren’t strong. She hasn’t even lost any challenges yet. And she's fast, especially with those daggers she tosses and flips all the time.
I’ve wondered to myself whether she does it out of habit, or to practice...or if maybe it’s because she also needs something to do with her hands. If maybe she’s got some kind of mask on too—if her softhearted exterior hides something harder, more cunning, underneath. I feel like I see glimpses of it all the time, emerging; a version of her that she wouldn’t have been able to let show if she’d gone into the Scribes’ Quadrant like she was supposed to.
Nah. Too much, probably, to hope that she’s that much like me.
“Mairi?”
I jerk my head up at Matthias’s voice echoing in the corridor. She eyes me as she pauses with her hand on her door handle.
“What are you still doing up?”
I duck my head and let a sheepish grin turn up the corners of my mouth, scratching the back of my neck. “Oh, y’know. Just winding down for the night.”
“In the hallway?” She raises a skeptical eyebrow.
I gesture to my block of wood. “I’m alright out here.”
Matthias rolls her eyes as she opens her door. “Riorson really has you whipped, huh?”
My smile stills for half a heartbeat before I give a little shrug. “I’m happy to do it.”
“If you say so.” She shakes her head and disappears into her room, the lock clicking shut and echoing in the once-again empty hallway.
I close my eyes and slowly let my head thunk back against the stone wall.
Yeah. Riorson’s really got me whipped, alright.
Gods. I wish that was it. I wish the reason I sit outside her room at night was as simple as because he told me to. I wish it was entirely because I owe him my life—like all of us do, for getting us into Basgiath instead of onto an execution block—that I keep finding my gaze wandering back to her, that I haven’t been putting my heart into flirting with her cute scribe friend lately, that I can’t keep anyone close long enough for an attachment to form.
Sooner or later everyone who finds their way into my bed—who finds my big blue eyes, easy dimpled smile, and broad shoulders appealing—eventually finds a reason to avoid me. Somehow they always seem to sour on me; maybe when I’m not a hundred percent perfect, or not quite as happy-go-lucky as I come off initially. Maybe they can sense there’s something about the cheerful mask that isn’t totally genuine.
Or maybe it’s because I’m sending out some kind of signal that I don’t want them to stick around.
Because the thing is, around her...the cheerfulness is genuine.
I like shadowing Violet. I like spending time with her, joking with her, and talking to her. I wake up every morning and hop out of bed knowing I’m going to walk down to breakfast with her, and it’s comforting. Easy. And the longer this goes on, the more I hate having to go report to Xaden about whatever she’s gotten up to. The more it feels like a betrayal of her trust; of her privacy. Of her friendship. And that’s something that’s grown...more and more important to me.
When Xaden told me he was sticking me with the girl who bonded Tairn, the day after she got attacked in her room, I honestly didn’t think much of it. I liked everyone in Second Squad well enough, and they liked me too, even if they were a little suspicious of me at first—only Violet herself was outright hostile to me. But there was always sort of an underlying sense of humour to her grouchiness. Like she knew it wasn’t my fault she was stuck with me.
Frankly, it was fucking adorable. Despite my best efforts to stay aloof.
Xaden—without knowing it—had put me in the absolute worst position he could have. He took a girl I would never have even spoken to otherwise, who’s smart, gorgeous, a little bit scary—I’m not afraid to look in the locked drawer she keeps in her room that I am certain is full of poisons, but I’m not exactly excited to look in there either—and very capable; made me spend every waking moment with her; and then had the gall to be obviously smitten with her himself.
I’m not your babysitter, Mairi, you can do what you want. But don’t get distracted.
Code, for hands off.
So...I’m left with no ability to act on any of these feelings. No matter how much my heart starts to pound these days when I catch the scent of citrus and vanilla.
Xaden mouths off at me when I try to tell him she’s trustworthy enough, and cares enough about justice and doing what’s right, to be told the truth; that she could be brought in, and I know she wouldn’t betray us. He says there’s too much at stake. I tell him I spend every minute of every fucking day with her and I know her, I see her, and she deserves to know the truth.
Then he gets sullen and just stews in his jealousy, of the position he put me in, and insists that her friendship with Aetos means it isn’t safe to tell her yet. Yet. Whenever yet will be.
So now here I am on the hallway floor, pretending I’m the most easygoing guy in the world, just doing what I’m told and watching over the girl who holds Xaden Riorson’s life in her hands. Carving my little wooden figurine to keep my own hands busy.
To give me something to think about other than wishing I was on the other side of her door.