Chapter 18:

Blaine crouched in the shadows, breath struggling raggedly out of his lungs as he attempted to remain quiet. The thudding in his chest seemed to reverberate around the library as he cowered behind the dusty volumes. The night blanketed the vaulted room in darkness with only a shard of silver slicing across the floor; it touched the tip of his shoe and he silently slid his foot back, retreating further into the stacks.

Somewhere to his left, rubber soles squeaked against marble. His breath caught as he felt the air shift.

In the darkness, the sharp click of a barrel slotting into place echoed loudly. 

****

12 hours earlier:

 Kurt's original decision to head directly back to the mansion had been somewhat forestalled by the second blizzard in less than a month rendering the interstate impassable. The surrounding roads were a chaos of vehicles, all victims to the sudden onslaught of the weather; shrouded in white and immovable.  The taxi driver had shrugged impassively and turned off the engine, settling back against the leather and closing his eyes. "Won't be going anywhere for a while lad." He stated placidly.

Kurt watched the world whiten out with the thickening snow and felt nothing. It seemed apt that the icy coldness of his heart was mimicked by the gentle touch of the elements around him and he felt oddly comforted by it. His eyes slid to the coveralls lying challengingly on the seat beside him. The smell of oil still seemed to linger in the cloth despite Kurt knowing they'd been laundered by the hospital. The tangy familiar scent made his stomach turn and he clenched his jaw. He tried to close his eyes and sleep for the first time in nearly forty-eight hours, but the white emptiness remained behind his lids and peace seemed elusive.

****

The letter lay at his feet; obscene and like torch-paper. It fluttered slightly in the shiver of air that invaded the room from the slightly open window and then lay still. Blaine stared ahead, eyes unfocussed and blank.

It was quite simple really; had all been laid out in clinical and orderly terms. Murder outlined in five simple paragraphs.

Something buzzed in his brain. Words, climbing like creepers in his head, stumbled and writhed in confusion. Her face, crumpled and grotesquely twisted appeared before him, curled cruelly around the wine-coloured rug. He blinked but she remained, body hideously mimicking its position of that night. The stairs. The blood. The sixteen year old Blaine cowered with him amongst the shattered glass and the whiskey and he felt his tongue stick in his throat.

Seth. Everything came back to Seth. His scrawled signature at the bottom of the paper in thick black ink crawled like a spider around his feet. They'd plotted it together it would appear. The why wasn't outlined in the letter and the young Anderson searched his childhood for explanations. There'd never been love there. He knew that; the marriage was a necessary obligation, fundamental to the stability of the Lord's society and was founded on mutual need. Towards the end they'd been louder in their discontent. Previous silent breakfasts had become caustic and high pitched. China plates broke and swollen purple bruises went unmentioned. Had she simply become too loud; too public in her vocal protests about the Lords' business, Subs.....

Quinn.

The document was dated four weeks before his mother's death and three weeks after the pretty blonde sub had apparently arrived. They were obviously connected but having known little of his parent's relationship or the existence of Subs in general, Blaine had been unaware of the trouble that the young blonde maid had clearly brought.

The mirage of his mother's prone body had disappeared from the rug now and Blaine scrunched his eyes shut trying to make sense of the thoughts in his head. The paper rustled beside him again and he picked it up tentatively, re-reading through blurred vision.

Increasing issues concerning the Subject over recent months have made a final solution paramount. This needs to be dealt with swiftly and discreetly.

Her name wasn't mentioned but words like seeming accidental and ensuring we are alone made it evident that his mother was the ‘subject' they spoke of. Seth had been careful in the construction of the letter; nothing was incriminating, no names, no finalised plans, no details, but it was painfully obvious to Blaine. What could have been a simple advice letter ordering the dismissal of an employee, screamed at him from between the lines. Blood words.

The file contained no reply from his father; no evidence of his guilt and yet the scrawl of his name was in every sentence. They'd planned together as they always did. A death dressed up to look like an accident. A casual fall. A casual murder. Filed away and complete. The paper crinkled in his unconsciously clenched fingers, crumpled beyond repair.

The sound of footsteps echoing in corridors above his head brought him back into the present. Somewhere a door slammed.

Breathing heavily, Blaine willed his sixteen year old self away, fighting to drag himself back into his Lord persona. Tears threatened and he bit them down, steeling himself against the pain. Another image, this one fresher and more vivid circled over him; the soft curve of muscles in a sleeping back; downy feathers of brown hair brushing against his chest in the quiet morning. He growled to himself in disgust. Kurt was gone. He'd let him go. He needed to let it all go now. 

Levering himself off the floor, Lord Anderson stood. Another noise sounded outside, voices hushed in the hallway. His hand shook as he watched the clock on the mantelpiece tick over the hour. Folding the letter carefully, Blaine slid it into his breast pocket alongside his mobile phone. His fingers stroked the device thoughtfully, his thumb tracing a rhythmic pattern over the record switch.

Seth Schoen was a murderer but the letter wasn't enough.

He needed proof.

****

Afternoon had started to sink over the snow covered lawn when Blaine entered the dining room and found Seth seated at the table. There was a laptop open in front of him which, Blaine noticed, he closed rather rapidly on seeing the young Lord. Blaine let it pass and forced himself to fix a smile across his face in greeting.

"I've been looking for you" he said, voice neutral and without reproach. Seth's eyebrow raised in question but his face remained expressionless.

"I've been thinking about what you were saying a few days ago..... about the workers at the Lyth plant. I think perhaps you were right about coming down strongly on them." Blaine swallowed down the lie and pretended to look contrite. He lowered his eyes in an attempt at bashful submission and tried to look young.

 "There's been some dissent... murmurs of dissatisfaction. All quiet and covert obviously but....well I..,I guess I misjudged their loyalty." He met Seth's now smugly satisfied gaze and forced down the urge to tear his nails through the marble facade. "You were right Seth. I guess I really don't know what I'm doing with all this lord business." He paused to allow the admission to fully feed the older man's ego and felt a tiny glimmer of triumph as he watched it take hold.

Stretching languidly and smoothing this hands down his trousers, Seth watched him coldly. He took in the slumped posture and woefully naive, almost haunted eyes and felt a calm settle over him that he'd not felt in a while. Little Lord Blaine was finally starting to see who really controlled the machine. He sat back slowly against the high back of the chair and folded his arms.

"You know...." he narrowed his eyes, "you remind me so much of your father at times Blaine. Always thinking you have all the answers. Always trying to do everything yourself." He laughed and Blaine flinched at the hollow sound. "You forget that I'm paid to help you. It's what I do. I'm here to protect your best interests. The interests of your father's empire. We built this together, him and I.." he stretched his arms wide as if trying to sweep every luxury of the mansion into the circle of his arms. "And I'll do everything in my power to keep it."

The threat hung in the air between them and Blaine fought back the bile rising in his throat and the increasing tightness in his chest. He forced himself to smile and leaned against the table in feigned nonchalance. The weight of the phone in his pocket seemed to burn against his rib. "I know you would Seth. My father used to tell me constantly how loyal you were to this family, how much you'd helped him over the years. I think he knew that at some point I'd need you."

"Except you've been ignoring me lately, haven't you Blaine." There was an acidity to his voice that sliced through the air. "You and that Sub." The word was spat out as if dirty to him. "Have you heard from him by the way?"

The enquiry was casual but the implication not lost on Blaine. He met Seth's gaze levelly. "No."

The older man didn't answer, just nodded in satisfaction and sniffed deeply. "The lower classes really are nothing but trouble. Always with their little attempt to insinuate themselves. Always upsetting the systems with their provincial little ways." He laughed again and traced a circle on the lid of the laptop. "Always getting their little emotional claws in."

Blaine watched as something dark passed across Seth's face and felt the hair at his neck prickle. Suddenly he didn't feel so in control. He flicked his eyes across to the window and watched as new flurries of snow blanched the landscape. "I think I lost track of myself for a while Seth, lost sight of what's important. It's gone now." Kurt's gone now he added silently and felt his stomach turn painfully. He could see the dark eyes regarding him with suspicion.

"Good." A look of detached indifference settled on his face as he drummed his fingers against the computer again. "Disposing of him was necessary Blaine, I'm glad you could see that. Although he still is under contractual obligations......."

"No!" Blaine interrupted, panicked as to what Seth might have been suggesting. The eyes narrowed further. "I mean...he's gone now. A final solution...no...no point involving ourselves again. He's nothing. Like you said Seth. Nothing."

It took a two second beat before Blaine realised he'd accidently repeated the exact words of the letter back to Seth. His breath caught slightly in his throat and he forced himself to hold the other man's gaze, bluff through his stupid mistake that was so incriminating. Seth's eyes flashed before he tilted his head slightly and locked at Blaine. His voice was smooth and measured when he next spoke.

"Yes...... A solution." He rose then, lifting the laptop and tapping it absently against his woollen suit trousers. He moved to leave, striding past Blaine before pausing at the door as if in afterthought. "His father died by the way."

Blaine knew his face had frozen, unable to conceal his pain for Kurt before Seth registered it. The knowing smile that stretched across the waxy features made Blaine's stomach turn again.

"So not quite ‘gone' then." He smirked before lowering his voice again to a dark murmur. "and not quite an adequate ‘final solution'." 

The slam of the wooden door was what finally had Blaine sagging against the desk, heart racing and mind whirring with what any of it meant. Clearly the upper hand had gone and Blaine doubted that either he or Kurt were safe now. Seth seemed to have eyes everywhere and Blaine's faux pas with regard to the letter hadn't gone unnoticed. Panic sliced across his brain as he realised yet again that the power had shifted entirely in the advisor's direction once more.

The pocket of his jacket vibrated suddenly, alerting his attention back to the phone ensconced in its folds and the still recording device. Sliding it out, Blaine pressed his thumb over the screen, and turned off the function. The realisation that he'd recorded nothing that would help washed over him and he grimaced in frustration. The letter. The letter was all he had and it would have to be enough. There was no time. Seth was on to him and Blaine was under no illusions that the advisor would have any qualms in eradicating the final problem.

Stroking the flimsy material as he slid the phone back in to his pocket, Blaine moved quickly. He could hear Seth's footsteps echoing across the marble floor of the hallway and knew instinctively that he was heading for the office. The gaping empty compartment beneath the desk flashed into Blaine's sight and he felt fear grip his chest as his perilous position became evidently clear. With no time to form any sort of plan, Blaine's sole aim was to get out. Get away from the mansion and keep the letter safe.

Pulling back the heavy wooden door of the dining room, Blaine peered cautiously into the deserted hallway. The mansion was ominously quiet; there were none of the usual sounds of life from the servants' quarters below, only the repetitive tick of the grandfather clock resting solemnly against the flock wallpaper. With little time to question the absence of life in the house, the Lord bid a rapid retreat to the back staircase leading to the upper landing and his bedroom. The room was as he'd left it, bed still un-maid and dressing gown still hanging damp and limp over the bath. His morning coffee sat cold and untouched on the wooden bedside cabinet. The tightness in his chest increased at the dawning realisation that he was utterly alone in the house with Seth.

Urgency gripped him and he flung himself into action. Grabbing the small holdall from the wardrobe, Blaine stuffed jeans and a few jumpers inside haphazardly and yanked his trainers on under his suit. His eyes flew to the safe at the bottom of the wardrobe and he hurriedly punched in the four digit code, listening impatiently for the click before the door swung open revealing its contents. Its mouth yawned emptily as Blaine's eyes grew wide. It was gone. The empty casing for his father's gun lay mockingly before him.

"Now what could you possibly be looking for?" a voice slid out of the darkness.

His fingers froze on the zip of the bag, and he rocked unsteadily on his haunches in his hunkered down position. Back still to the shadowy form of the advisor blocking the doorway, Blaine rose steadily, hand still gripping the bag as if it offered some sort of pathetic protection.

"Turn around." The voice demanded.

****

Sharp horn blasts penetrated the white silence of Kurt's sleep and he found himself jolting against the chill leather of the car's interior. His neck ached from the awkwardly propped position against the window and he watched his breath paint strange clouds of air on the glass.

Waking fully, he stretched his heavy limbs. He groaned slightly at the leaden weight of each muscle as he uncurled and pulled the thin jumper tighter around his limp form. It took him several moments to work out they were moving, the gentle rocking rhythm of the car lost in the initial moments of consciousness. There was soft music rippling out of the speakers, volume dimmed to a gentle murmur but still an audible beat against the hum of the engine.

"Where are we?"

His voice was tinny and shook and he frowned before trying again. The driver glanced over his shoulder briefly, smiling slightly, "welcome back" he said, before turning his attention back to the road. "Not far now".

Kurt watched the back of his neck quietly for a few minutes before trying again for more information. The scenery outside the window was unrecognisable in the blanket of snow that shrouded the world but he could make out the dense line of trees that indicated they had left the city far behind. "How long was I asleep?"

He could see the shadows of early evening had started to creep across the frozen blanket of the forest and the blizzard had bleached out the earlier rays of the sun. He guessed it must be nearly six but there was no clock visible on the dash to confirm this.

"A long time." was the only answer the driver gave, before reaching and turning the volume up slightly on the radio. A man's voice was singing now, some mournful country ballad that spoke of loss and retribution and Kurt felt the weight of the driver's words as they drifted out on the lyrics. He felt as if he'd been asleep most of his life. He thought of his father, their sheltered and bubble-wrapped life. He thought of his mother and her inability to keep the outside world outside and then, perhaps inevitably, he thought of Blaine.

He realised, with a strange sense of clarity that the Lord had woken him up; in every way imaginable, his Lord had shocked and enraged and inspired and punished and broken and revived him over and over again and Kurt had never felt so much. The decision made back in the hospital to return to the master had been almost instinctual; made, he'd believed, out of a complete loss of hope and utter surrender......but now, he realised that was wrong.

As the car sped on into the encroaching darkness, Kurt felt something like peace settle over his heart. Blaine wasn't the last resort; Blaine was his final hope.