The ballroom is heaving with so many additional guests, all flown in especially for tonight.Lachlan and his teams are prepared to handle them.He’s pretty pleased with himself for how well he’s adjusted to the dual roles, learning and mapping the hideous nature of these events and securing them.
He’sproud.
But Lachlan should know by now that pride goeth.
He let his focus become fixed on the hosting of mild-mannered monsters beneath a glassy dome, keeping them from eating one another and causing too much destruction.Overconfidence let him forget about the outside world.
Pride goeth before destruction.
The first two hours go by swimmingly.Jules doesn’t drink much this early because otherwise it’ll drain him dry, so he paces himself.
Alistair is especially jovial tonight, probably because there are over three hundred people in the ballroom as opposed to the “typical” eighty or ninety.
Rook runs Control.
Bennett keeps the East Wing locked up tight.
Blaire stays with Mimi.
Lachlan manages the parties while watching Jules do exactly what he was raised to do, charm, smile, laugh and stir hunger in everyone around him.Sometimes it almost feels as though Alistair is harvesting the attention somehow rather than merely basking in the reflected glow of having a son people can’t stop wanting.
Alistair shows Jules off like a rare gemstone.
He tips Jules’ chin back and strokes a thumb across his cheekbone, openly encouraging others to touch him too, and they do.They can’t seem to help themselves.Jules handles it flawlessly.
Lachlan could endure it if he had to, could shut down enough to lock in and go numb, but Jules doesn’t merely endure being adored, he basks in it, encourages it.Turns instinctively towards it like a flower seeking sunlight.
He’s like a prism, taking the blandest of white light and splitting it into vivid colours with such definition you’d think it was magic to behold.
Lachlan never really lets himself think about Fenwick’s accusation, his cold certainty the day after.He never lets himself think too long about the fact he still doesn’t really understand how Jules disabled the trackers to slip free, how he knew about the threads.It’s strange too, how the rain and storms are all gone now that Fenwick is dead, or it would be if he thought about it.
Lachlan Tanner’s concern is the tangible world around him.
The Penhalyx family he will never be free of.
Practical matters, he’s pragmatic at heart.
Around midnight, there’s mild interference in the comms.
Lachlan takes it seriously but ultimately trusts that it’s teething problems in the new system Jolene set up for him.The Estate is huge.Interference isn’t unheard of when the signal is stretched and diluted by check-ins from other security teams.
It’s his first mistake of the night.
Maybe twenty minutes after the first round of interference, another crackle hits and this time Lachlan really listens, instincts coiling.It could be several things, among them a pre-jam diagnostic.Lachlan orders Rook to perform a full sweep, gather all images and strictly analyse them for any abnormalities.Rook confirms it all looks good.
Lachlan wonders if maybe another storm is building.
It’s almost one in the morning when he goes to check in and finds strangled air.No lightning, no power outage to blame.
He instantly knows what it is with a sick, swooping feeling.
The frequency is jammed.
He tries switching to short range.
Nothing.
Lachlan gets the attention of Carrigan, always his mirror in the ballroom.If he’s on one side, she’s on the other.She comes over quickly.‘Radio’s dead?’
