CHAPTER EIGHTEEN- Paying a Price
He was self-satisfied to the point of smugness, and he thought he had every right to be. After all, Drake thought as he maneuvered his car into the garage, her parents had loved him. It marked the first time in his life he could remember making a favorable impression on someone. Then again, he'd never set out to do so before.
And her reaction-
He shoved it from his mind, the seriousness of her expression causing a queer ache in his chest and abdomen, coupled with an odd sort of light-headedness. She was an odd duck, that was all. Genevieve Wesley was determined to make his life difficult no matter what, he reasoned, and so this was hardly any different.
But he did feel a bit sorry.
He was loosening his tie as he came through the door, unaccustomed to the close, choking width of the cloth around his neck.
"Yes," his father's voice came to him from the darkness just beyond the foyer, the big den in the middle of the first floor. "Relax, Drake, for we have a bit of a palaver ahead of us." A single lamp clicked on with just a tiny motion from his father's long, pale fingers, and the sharp angles and planes of his face were harshly illuminated.
Melodramatic fucker, Drake thought with a sneer. "Oh, goody, is it time for a bit of father-son bonding, then? Care to catch up on my life, Father?" But there was something here, something different from the usual antagonism, something entirely separate. Lucas Mallory looked like he knew something, and Drake knew knowledge in the hands of a man like Lucas was a dangerous thing, indeed.
Genevieve, Drake thought, his fingers tightening into fists at his sides. It didn't seem a bit odd to him that she was the first thing to come to mind, that his worries would immediately fly to her.
"Please, have a seat, Drake. Make yourself at home." A hand gestured expansively at the many places to perch, the tones of false gaiety clattering like marbles off the hard surfaces and corners of the room.
"I believe I will, seeing as it is my home," Drake countered, crossing his arms over his chest and opting to stand.
Lucas arched an eyebrow at his son, already pleased with where the conversation was heading. It was so easy to bait the weaker specimens of the world, so easy to lead them by the nose. That much, Lucas thought, he had in common with Miss Genevieve Wesley. They'd both learned to bait Drake. Lucas intended to be much, much better at it, though.
"Is it? Well, perhaps it is now, but that is always up for debate." Lucas templed his fingers under his chin, relishing the role of the villain. "You have something of mine, Drake. I wondered if perhaps you'd like to make a trade."
"You're mad if you think I'd deal with you," Drake laughed, but the pit of his stomach was cold, so cold. "I've seen what you do to your 'business associates.' You never trade, Father, you get what you want and give nothing back." He'd spent his whole life taking, taking, taking, had somehow made a success of it. It was no wonder his father had been termed a thief.
Lucas withdrew a slim electronic remote from the pocket of his suit coat, pointing it to one corner of the room where a large, flat-screen television sat unobtrusively. "My, my, Drake, I'm very disappointed in you. This isn't business, dear boy, this is family." He leaned forward then, his eyes glinting with malice. "And there are no rules with family."
He turned on the television then, the sound coming in just a moment before the picture.
"Drake, please…" her voice, of course it was her voice, he heard it in his dreams, in his waking moments, in any moments where he found himself unguarded. Moans, pants, all the noises she made when they were together, his own low chuckle, his desperate, animalistic grunts-Do I really sound like that-and then the screen lightened, and Drake saw himself and Gen, tangled together as they had been several times in the past week, sheened with sweat and mad with want, fitting together perfectly.
He felt ill, felt part of himself roar with anger that his father would intrude on this, on this moment, on this part of his life. On Gen. He felt part of himself give up at the sight of that horribly clear picture, part of himself finally give in to the helplessness his father clearly wanted him to feel.
So he directed his anger at that helplessness, honed it like a blade, and turned sharp silver eyes to identical sharp silver eyes. "I never thought you for the voyeur, father. For that, you'd at least have to enjoy something in life, yes?"
If the impudence shook Lucas in the least, he did not show it. Instead, he watched the screen for a few moments, his face unreadable, then turned back to the young man he'd somehow fathered. If he hadn't looked so damned much like him, Lucas would have thought it impossible for him to spawn such a brat. "Now are you ready to deal?" he asked silkily, and before Drake could answer him, he spun out the terms of his transaction.
~~~
Gen splashed cold water on her face and let it drip into the sink, not yet ready to raise her head, dry her face, and look at herself in the mirror.
Things were beyond her control, and it was high time she admitted it to herself and to Drake. She'd wanted him there tonight, plain and simple, wanted him to be there with her family, to fit in, to enjoy himself. And she'd wanted him, too, when he'd shown his true colors, toyed with her at her own dinner table. She wanted him with her body, yes, but she was starting to see she wanted him with her heart, as well.
Finally she looked into the mirror, blotting the water off her face, and when she lowered her towel, a face other than her own looked back at her.
Hollow-cheeked young man, his hair and eyes the same shade of dark sable, his eyebrows keenly arched over the bright eyes, expression sharp and knowing, his mouth shaping her name…
She screamed and backpedaled, immediately hitting the wall behind her as the image-illusion? Memory?-vanished.
Rob was the first one to the bathroom door, yanking it open without so much as a thought to his sister's modesty. "What?!" he asked in a panic, wide blue eyes shooting around the room. "What is it?"
And what was she to say? She saw a ghost? Imagined a man in the mirror? "I… thought I saw a spider," she said lamely, wincing at the girliness of it. But it did its trick; Rob was backpedaling thrice as fast as she had, his face now milky pale.
The big athlete was afraid of spiders, and the thought made Gen bite the insides of her cheeks to keep from laughing.
She let herself hang onto that laughter, banishing the feelings she'd been contemplating for Drake, and banishing the memory of a man who, in another world, had been Tom Riddle.
Things were falling apart.
~~~
Things were falling apart.
Severus Snape paced in Dumbledore's immense office, face dour. "It has to end," he said for what seemed to be the hundredth time in just a few days. "You cannot bear it alone."
Albus Dumbledore struggled to his feet, face pale and hands trembling. It was not the worst he'd endured, but nor was it the best. He'd been in better shape, had accomplished more complex spells. It was just that there was so much depending on this one, so many people involved, and the headmaster was exhausted from holding the weight of another world in his mind.
"There are holes forming," Albus admitted, stroking his long beard in a gesture so familiar, so habitual, it comforted him. "You are correct, Severus, I cannot bear it alone, not for much longer. But I will sustain it until I can sustain it no longer, then I will rest."
He shuddered as the picture of Tom Riddle shimmered in his mind, and he hoped it would be over, one way or the other, soon.
~~~
"Five hundred thousand pounds." Drake mused over the figure even as he felt his stomach turn over. Was it really that important? Was she? Was the money?
Was he?
The terms his father had laid down were concise enough; the money would be Drake's free and clear if he had nothing to do with Gen ever again. No tutoring, no touching, not so much as looking.
The money was more than enough to buy him freedom from this house, from his father's tyranny, even to take his mother away from it, and with the money came the video playing on the big television in the corner, endlessly looping through the few liaisons they'd had, endlessly looping through their transgressions.
"What if I told you I wasn't for sale?" he asked, his voice sounding hollow and shaky, young. "That this is all one big fucking overused cliché?"
Lucas could hear the indecision, could nearly feel his son leaning into the deal, could feel the money changing hands. "I would give you a cliché of your own, Drake. Everyone has a price."
Drake pulled his knees up, resting his feet on the chair, and put his hands over his ears to block the moans, his and Gen's, that had been emanating from the corner since the inception of his father's "intervention."
"Everyone has a price," he whispered, and wondered what his own price was.