Chapter 248: The Distance Between Them
Elias had not said that Giselle thought he was dirty.
He had not even thought it.
That was the difference between him and many people in the Trash Trope Intervention Division. Some employees stepped into a role so deeply that they began to borrow its emotions. They made its grief their grief, its humiliation their humiliation, until leaving the world behind became nearly impossible.
Elias never allowed that.
A mission was work. The tears, the fear, the heartbreak, and the helplessness were tools. Useful tools, sometimes exhausting ones, but tools all the same. If he let himself truly become every abandoned child, every betrayed lover, every desperate victim, then forgetting would become difficult.
And difficult was often another word for painful.
He had no interest in taking someone else’s suffering home with him.
The thought was not his.
It was for Giselle, Sloane, and Naomi to supply on their own.
He had given them the right silence, the right tired laugh, the right flick of his eyes toward Giselle. Their imaginations could take it from there. People were generous that way. Give them an empty space that suited their fears, and they would fill it with more cruelty than he ever needed to say aloud.
Without looking up to see who had taken the bait, Elias turned toward the door.
A hand closed around his wrist.
The grip was hot and damp, Giselle’s palm slick with nervous sweat. She held him tightly enough to stop him completely. Then, as if she realized she had used too much force, her fingers eased.
She did not release him.
Her hold simply became gentler.
Out of sight of the others, the corner of Elias’s mouth lifted.
There it was.
Giselle had imagined it.
Sloane saw the sudden movement and rushed forward. "Giselle, calm down. Don’t do anything stupid."
She had mistaken the grip for anger. The fight with Naomi had already left both women bruised and furious, and Sloane had spent the whole night expecting furniture, glass, or someone’s jaw to be the next casualty. Giselle hitting Naomi was one thing. They were both wealthy women who could survive a few minor injuries without falling apart.
Elias was different.
He looked slight beside Giselle, tired enough to sway if anyone pushed him too hard. Sloane could not imagine him taking even one clean slap without crumpling.
Giselle looked at her.
Her expression did not need words.
Do you really think I would hurt him?
Sloane’s concern softened into something more complicated.
Of course Giselle would not hurt Elias. The reason she had fought Naomi in the first place was the belief that Naomi might have touched him, hurt him, or taken something from him. Giselle cared too much. That was the entire problem.
Sloane lifted the car keys in her hand. "Then you should..."
"I don’t need your car," Giselle interrupted.
Her brow pulled together slightly, as if Sloane had forgotten something obvious.
Giselle had a car.
She stepped ahead of Elias, still holding his wrist, and began to lead him from the private suite. She made it three steps before the restraint inside her finally gave way. She turned her head and looked at him.
Elias lowered his eyes at once.
He avoided her gaze.
Giselle’s lips parted. A question appeared to reach her, then remained trapped there. Her mouth closed again.
"Don’t follow us," she said.
Then she led Elias out.
Sloane stood in the doorway, keys still in hand.
She wanted to follow them. Giselle was not calm, not really. She was too quiet, too pale, and too rigid through the shoulders. Elias did not look better. Leaving them alone might be exactly what they needed.
Or it might become another disaster.
Naomi reached out and caught Sloane’s arm before she could move.
"Hey." Naomi’s mouth was bruised, but some of her usual bite had returned. "A couple needs to talk things out. Why are you trying to become an audience?"
Sloane gave her an incredulous look. "You were ready to kill her ten minutes ago. Now you’re speaking for her?"
Naomi’s expression went strange.
She was not speaking for Giselle.
She was preventing Sloane from walking outside and seeing something that would make the whole night worse.
It was better for everyone if Sloane stayed inside.
Outside The Pinnacle Club’s private grounds, the air held none of the suite’s stale warmth. The night was open, quiet, and bitterly cold. Stars sat sharp above the dark tree line. Landscape lights painted the walking path in scattered pools of gold and blue, bright enough to guide them toward the parking area without touching the rest of the grounds.
The club’s luxury stayed behind them.
Out here, there was only the wind, the silence, and the distant hum of traffic beyond the gates.
Giselle and Elias stood close together.
They might as well have been on opposite sides of the city.
Neither spoke.
Elias could have held the silence until dawn. Pain Conversion made the cold irrelevant to his senses. Warmth ran through his body where a normal person would have felt the wind cutting through thin clothes. Standing there was not uncomfortable. He could wait as long as Giselle wanted and let the stillness grind against her resolve.
[System Theta: Host, you may not feel cold, but your body does.]
Elias blinked.
Right.
Pain Conversion changed perception. It did not make him immune to temperature, fatigue, or the consequences of standing outside in the middle of the night. He could pretend the cold did not exist until morning, then wake feverish and waste an entire day recovering.
His time was too valuable for that.
And if he developed a fever, the most obvious person to call would be Dr. Quinn. Elias pictured Yvonne’s calm, clinical smile and immediately dismissed the idea. A fever would probably give her an excuse to inspect him until he regretted ever becoming sick.
No, thank you.
Elias turned toward the driveway.
Giselle’s fingers caught his wrist again.
This time her hand was cold.
He looked down at it.
She was freezing too. Her body was not protected by any useful system perk, and yet she had stayed silent long enough for the chill to settle into her skin.
Why was she still not saying anything?
Sometimes being too innocent was a defect. Even a simple campus heartbreak story needed somebody to move it forward, and Giselle apparently expected him to do all the work.
Elias let out a breath.
"Let go," he said quietly. "I’m going home."
"I’ll take you."
At last.
Elias said nothing. He only began to pull his hand back.
The attempt was pointless.
Giselle’s grip held firm. He had no chance of breaking it with brute force, not against her and not with the natural disadvantage men carried in a world like this. He turned sharply, green eyes fixed on her.
"Let go."
Giselle’s expression stayed calm. In her white clothing, with silver hair falling over one shoulder beneath the lights, she looked like a star caught too close to the earth. Bright, cold, and impossible to approach without getting hurt.
She shook her head.
"I’ll take you home."
"I don’t need you to."
Elias lifted his chin. The line of his throat showed pale against the dark night. His eyes were already reddening at the edges.
"I know you think I’m dirty."
His voice broke on the last word.
"I don’t need you to take me home."
The strength he had shown in the suite seemed to drain away. There was only hurt now, close enough to overflow.
Giselle’s breath stopped.
"No." The word escaped her before thought could interfere. "I don’t think you’re dirty."
Her answer was immediate, firm enough to cut through the quiet.
Then she said it again, slower.
"I don’t think you’re dirty."
Elias looked at her.
"Then why wouldn’t you look at me in there?"
Giselle hesitated.
For the first time that night, uncertainty crossed her face. She considered the answer carefully, then said, "I had to watch Naomi. I thought she might attack again. That’s why I didn’t look at you."
Naomi, somewhere behind the doors of the suite, had just been made responsible for a problem she did not even know existed.
Elias nearly laughed.
That was not why Giselle had avoided him. He knew it. She knew it too, on some level. She had not been able to face him until she decided what she believed about him, about Serena, and about the person she thought she had been trying to save.
But she had finally chosen an answer.
Elias let suspicion cover the amusement in his eyes.
"Is that true?"
Giselle nodded.
The motion was slow and emphatic.
"It is. I’m looking at you now."
Elias held her gaze.
Her eyes were blue in the low lights, clearer than the cold sky above them. He watched her for several seconds, long enough for the silence to make her wait for his judgment.
Then he said, "I can’t see you clearly. Come closer."
Giselle obeyed.
She took a few steps forward.
The distance between them narrowed.
Elias moved first.
His free hand caught her at the collar. He rose onto his toes, shut his eyes, and aimed for her mouth with a desperate, sudden kiss.
Giselle froze.
Then instinct took over.
She stepped backward.
The kiss missed.
Elias opened his eyes.
The hurt on his face did not look like anger. It looked worse. Confusion arrived first, raw and blank. Then it gave way to disappointment, and finally to a sorrow so complete that it seemed to empty the air around him.
He did not need to say anything.
His expression asked it for him.
You say you do not think I am dirty. Then why did you move away?
Giselle’s chest tightened.
For one suspended instant, she forgot that she was holding him.
Elias tore his wrist free.
He turned and ran.