InsaneJournal

Who: Wren and Luke
What: A drive, and a perfectly pleasant chat. Except not. [1/2]
Where: Caesar's Palace -> A car
When: Recentish
Warnings/Rating: Please fit in one entry.

Despite his initial reluctance to allow Bruce to enter Gotham, Luke found himself almost disappointed when he finally returned to his side of the door. He hadn’t liked the loss of control at first, but then he realized how easy it was to simply exist as a presence within the other man’s mind, free of burdens or concerns for an albeit limited amount of time. It was Bruce who had to deal with some unfamiliar aspects of his city, Bruce who was forced to come to terms with the reality that he had a son and a sidekick, whether he liked it or not, and wander the halls of Wayne Manor wishing Alfred was with him. The crime that still ran rampant on Gotham’s streets, hierarchies of carefully constructed empires teeming with greed and corruption, that was Bruce’s problem too-- well, Batman’s. The billionaire playboy had an image to maintain and while Wayne Enterprises was hardly the bloodthirsty corporation many made it out to be, it was Batman whose efforts were focused upon, talked about, and even condemned depending on who you spoke to. For once in his life, Luke could take a backseat and allow someone else to shoulder an impossible burden for a change. The man was far more controlled than he was, and while he’d known his fair share of loss, he didn’t allow it to consume him. That hardly meant he wasn’t broken in his own way, but he certainly bore his guilt and responsibility better than Luke had, even as a teenager.

There was one thing, however, which was not solely Bruce’s concern. As much as he claimed to hate the man, Luke could understand how he felt about the necklace Catwoman had stolen and bragged about selling on the Vegas side as soon as she was able; had someone taken something of his own mother’s and threatened to sell it to some low-life criminal, Luke would have fought to hell and back in order to regain it. When Bruce asked (rather than simply commanding him, which was a surprise) if he would stop Wren before she could sell it, he couldn’t refuse. It wasn’t about the bet; Bruce didn’t care about his cars, and he didn’t believe Catwoman’s promise for a moment. No, it was about his mother, and the sentimental value, and though Luke cursed the man he agreed all the same. Part of him didn’t want to believe that Wren would sell it in the first place, and he did consider attempting to reach out to her, but his hurt was still too raw. One way or another, he’d get it back himself.

Luke had a tentative plan, but in the end it was sheer luck that came through. He’d just gotten off work, still clad in black slacks and a slightly rumbled polo shirt (which he’d tugged on after changing out of his uniform shirt) when he caught sight of her in the lobby. His surprise was so great that he just barely managed to move out of sight in time, and he did a double-take to ensure that it was her; it was. A rush of conflicting emotions flooded forth as he watched her, but he ground his teeth and resolved himself to not letting his feelings get in the way. This was about getting Bruce’s necklace back, nothing more, and all he had to do was follow her. No problem.

Under normal circumstances, Wren would probably consider Selina little more than a nuisance in her carefully constructed life. She could control Selina in Las Vegas, keep her from stealing everything she saw that glittered, keep her from using the varying contact numbers in Wren’s phone to incriminate every wealthy client Wren ever had, keep her from getting them both in a world of trouble. But that was in Las Vegas. In Gotham, Wren had no control of what the other woman did and, more to the point, she didn’t want to control her. There was something liberating about the suit and the whip and the attitude, something about scaling walls and going places she wasn’t supposed to go. Plus, Wren agreed with her on so many levels. Or, rather, she had agreed with her - once upon a time. Selina railed against the rich and defended the people who didn’t have anything to their name, and it wasn’t a very long leap from that to Wren’s own activities with a blade in her youth. Normally, she would have left it alone, left Selina to her pursuits. There was no one to hurt in Gotham. She didn’t know the comics, had no idea who loved who, or who hated who. It was like watching a movie full of victimless crimes.

Or, it was until Wren found herself standing in that hotel hallway with a necklace in her hand. She tried to open the door again, to put it back, but she knew Selina wouldn’t do that, even if she did manage to get back to Wayne Manor. She knew, too, that Selina had made a a deal to sell the thing to a fence in Las Vegas. And, lastly, she knew the necklace belonged to the man Luke had in his mind. All of that added up to a problem, and it meant Selina was more than an entertaining nuisance just then.

Wren was careful. She had multiple arrests in her pasts, and she had a high profile job with high profile customers. Most importantly, she didn’t want anyone paying attention to her comings and goings. She didn’t drink in public, and she didn’t take risks. She was carefully polite, carefully distant, carefully cold. She didn’t steal things and fence them, and she didn’t draw attention to herself that wasn’t very intentionally sexual. She also didn’t deviate from a very set schedule, and the day of the necklace fencing was no different.

She’d spent the day before shopping online, receiving package after package that she’d had delivered overnight. Finally, after thousands of dollars, she had a necklace that was close enough. When she left her suite at Caesar’s, it was with that necklace tucked into the clutch she carried. She would worry about how to get Bruce Wayne’s necklace back later. Right now, she had to keep a fence from tracking her down. She dressed as she always did for her lunches - a pale cream, a-line skirt to her knees, paired with a white shirt and cardigan with thin, gold wire glasses and her pale hair pulled back in a tortoiseshell comb. She looked wealthy, religious, virginal, pristine and pure, and she managed to net two new clients before even stepping foot out into the setting Las Vegas sun.

Silver wasn’t available to drive her, and she asked the concierge to have a car brought around with a privacy divider. She wasn’t in the mood for distracting conversation. She had no idea she was being watched, and though she tried to keep her calm demeanor, there were tells that she was nervous, tells someone who knew her would be able to pick up on. She worried her lip (a habit she’d never fully broken herself of), she rocked onto her tiptoes slightly, and she rucked the fabric of her skirt when she forgot herself.

Luke might as well have been invisible for all the attention he received from people milling about, employees and guests alike. No one ever noticed him. He’d learned to blend in, and now he was largely ignored, which was almost ironic considering he’d once wanted nothing more in the days when the tabloids loved him and all the scandal attached to the boy heir of the billionaire. It was lonely, being invisible, but he felt as though he’d been alone for so long that numbness replaced the ache. He’d made the choice to isolate himself back in New York, not that anyone had made a real attempt to break through his barriers before he’d taken off. That was the past, however, and this was the present, in which he thought about how beautiful Wren looked even as anger mixed with a hint of jealousy burned hot in the pit of his stomach. She’d never dressed like that before, all demure and innocently chaste, and he couldn’t help wondering if it was all an act; she had a job that paid well, after all, and here she was in Caesar’s Palace. His assumptions would hurt her, he knew, but what was he supposed to think? She became angry when he came to his own conclusions and yet she refused to give him proper answers. Bruce chose that moment to interject, instructing him to cease his staring and start paying attention to the task at hand instead.

So Luke did as the man said, falling into step alongside a family also leaving the hotel as he followed her outside into the sun. She hadn’t noticed him yet, not that she would, considering he tracked targets nearly every night, and that gave him the opportunity to calculate his next move. She must have had the necklace on her, and the car would likely be taking her to wherever she was meant to meet the buyer; then again, perhaps she’d stashed the necklace elsewhere and planned to pick it up en route to the predetermined meeting point. If the latter was true, he’d have to wait until she actually reached wherever her destination was before confronting her. If, however, she did have the necklace with her now, perhaps he could stop her before she even got on her way. Luke was momentarily distracted by his plans when she began to exhibit achingly familiar signs of nervousness, which only confirmed where she was headed. It also suggested that she didn’t actually want to be doing this, and suddenly he was angry at her for going along with what Selina wanted, because it was stupid, what she was doing. It was so very, very stupid, and Wren had to realize that. He fought Bruce on a daily basis, and she couldn’t refuse Selina one time? The post looking for a fence had been from Catwoman, not from her, and even if the buyer did give her trouble Luke had a very easy way to take care of that. He might have been angry with her, and maybe he still wished he could hate her, but none of that changed the fact that he cared. He had then, and he did now. He’d never stopped.

Bruce instructed him to hang back, to wait and follow the car, but whereas he was all tactical calm, Luke was hot-headed and impulsive. Sometimes he could control it, but sometimes he couldn’t, and this particular time was the latter. Either he stopped her from going entirely or he went with her to get the necklace (in the chance that she didn’t have it); either way, he’d have it back. He was counting on her not wanting to make a scene in front of all these people, as well as the fact that it was him, to prevent things from backfiring. He approached in a few swift strides, and when he reached her side Luke smiled down at her as though they knew each other quite well-- which they did, but this smile was practised rather than genuine. “Mind some company?” While he worded it as a question, his tone suggested that it wasn’t one.

In Wren’s mind, he was still that uncertain nineteen-year-old boy, and she actually stopped and stared for a minute when he approached her and posed his question. The smile was fake (she still remembered exactly what a real smile looked like on those lips), but the confidence in the stride and the tone of his voice when he asked the question wasn’t faked. This wasn’t the dark hallway of an abandoned hotel, and the lights of Caesar’s canopy meant that she could see all the things she’d been unable to see that night, things that he’d denied her by refusing to step out of the shadows. The rumpled shirt made her smile just a little before she could stop herself. He’d always been terrible at dressing himself. Her gaze dropped to the uniform issue pants before she could stop herself, and her expression turned curious. It made her, finally, wonder what he was doing there, and it brought her firmly back to the moment at hand.

He was right to assume she wouldn’t want to make a scene. Discretion was the backbone of her profession, and making any kind of scene outside her place of business would hurt her. She had assumed she would be able to meet the fence without him finding her. She’d been sure he would try to find her, because she knew him well enough to know he’d make an attempt to stop the selling of the necklace, but she didn’t think he’d succeed. He didn’t know where she lived or worked, and it was unlikely he’d be able to find her in a city as busy as Las Vegas, at least with the tight timeline. But that didn’t matter just then. He was there, and she had to do something.

The car pulled up, and the driver (Fredrick) opened the rear door and asked if she wanted to go to her usual place, which made her tense visibly. “No, Fredrick, thank you,” she said, buying time while trying to keep from panicking. She kept her attention on the driver, in his smart blacks. Fredrick, for his part, didn’t even look at Luke. He didn’t expect Wren to be with anyone who wore rumpled shirts, and therefore discounted Luke’s presence entirely. The concierge came up as she tried to decide what to do, and Wren mentally cursed her own indecision. A high roller wanted an appointment for that evening, the concierge explained. The man would be leaving town in the morning, and he was willing to pay double to get on her calendar. Wren had been hoping to avoid work for the next few days, until she could explain to MK that she worked out of the suite, at least, but she didn’t want to have that conversation with Luke standing there, so she simply nodded at the concierge in agreement.

In the end, she had little choice but to climb into the car. She gave Luke an almost imperceptible nod, and then she slid into the darkened leather interior. The Town Car was built for privacy and comfort, so there was that blessing, at least. Fredrick began to shut the door before Luke could get in, still not acknowledging him there.

Luke was aware of the way she was looking at him, but beyond his initial feigned smile he offered nothing else, no sign of warmth or answers in response to her curious gaze. He simply waited. He knew she had to realize why he was here, just as she’d know him too well to think that he would be willing to walk away without Bruce’s necklace in his possession. She might think he was still too angry at her to care about the fact that she was getting herself in trouble as well, but that wasn’t a problem. Childish as it was he didn’t particularly want her knowing he cared. In one fell swoop of luck he’d not only found Wren before she could sell the necklace but also discovered where she was staying; there was no concrete confirmation, but he figured it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to assume she’d taken up residence in the Palace. With her well-paying job she could certainly afford it. A hotel room or a suite would, in fact, serve as a residence and a place to conduct her business if she was doing what he suspected she was. The fact that he worked there and she lived there was one hell of a coincidence, but he tried not to dwell on it. There were more important things to focus on at present.

Her indecision was evident in her extended silence, but he was surprisingly patient. Oh, he wondered where her ‘usual place’ was, but he allowed no curiosity to be visible in his expression, which had more to do with Bruce’s iron will than it did his own. Luke wasn’t surprised by the driver’s complete disregard for his presence; he was invisible, after all. Had he wasted a few paychecks on a ridiculously expensive suit then perhaps things would be different, but dressing as an average working-class citizen meant that no one particularly cared. There was a hint of old bitterness there, but Luke would prefer cruel reality to the false importance placed upon those who had wealth to their name; people cared about the money, not the person. It was a farce, fueled by selfishness, and he wanted no part of it, not anymore. For his part, he remained impassive as the concierge spoke to Wren, though what he said only led credence to his suspicions about how she was making money. She might notice, knowing him as well as she did, that there were cracks in his blank exterior; if one looked closely enough, they could see how he truly felt beneath the mask of detachment.

I might as well be a ghost, he thought, before stepping forward to put a restraining hand on the door in order to prevent it from being shut in his face. “I’ll be joining her,” Luke told the driver with a cool smile. “You should pay more attention in the future. Maybe this will help.” He pulled out a fifty dollar bill, a clear mockery of how the rich slipped money left and right in order to gain privileges the rest of society was denied, and pressed it into the driver’s hand before pushing the door open and climbing in after Wren. He shut the door himself, not waiting for the driver to do it for him, and sat stiffly on his end of the seat. “You know what I’m here for,” he said after a long moment of silence. It wasn’t a question.

She didn’t answer immediately. She was trying to figure out how best to proceed, and it was the bitterness and anger that she could see beneath that almost perfect exterior that made her decide. “Fredrick,” she said when the driver slid back into the car, “to Fremont, please.” She gave an address which was, conveniently, just alongside Roger’s shop. If worse came to worse, she could involve him. It might be distracting enough to work. There was one thing she was certain of; she needed to get the necklace in her purse to the fence, lest the fence (or, worse, whoever paid the fence for the necklace) come looking for her. Everything else was secondary; she wouldn’t risk jail time again, not for anyone, and fences were bad news if you caused them trouble.

Fredrick, who didn’t seem to like his second passenger, nodded and said to let him know if she was having any trouble, which made the calm, fake smile on Wren’s lips falter slightly. “Thank you, Fredrick,” she said, every bit the educated socialite and nothing of the little girl that had grown up on the streets. She pushed the button that slid the privacy divider into place and, once they were alone in the near-darkness of the car’s interior, she turned slightly to look at the man beside her. Even in the darkness, she could see the stiff way he held his shoulders, the way he seemed like he didn’t want to be there, the rumpled shirt and uniform pants. Her knee brushed his, and she kept the purse clutched securely in her lap, in order to keep from reaching a hand out to touch him. It would be so easy; he was so close.

She wanted to offer him the fifty dollars back, because she knew he couldn’t afford it, but she didn’t want to sting his pride. It was a long silence before she spoke, and she worried her lip for a second longer before saying anything at all. It took effort, being calm and vacant with him; she was starting to think it was something she wouldn’t ever be able to manage. In the end, she didn’t mention the necklace at all. Throwing him off balance seemed a better idea. If she could keep him off balance for the entire ride, she could get Fredrick to keep him from following her once the car stopped. It was her best plan at present; she’d never been very much of a planner.

“MK’s in town,” she said, as if they were having a perfectly calm conversation, as if they were reminiscing. “She’s staying with me until she’s settled.” She paused, nerves getting the best of her and a hint of hurt at her reunion with MK slipping through. “Las Vegas is a popular place lately, oui?” The French was a security blanket, one she was sorry she’d used as soon as she did it. There was something intimate about it, and even she realized it once it was said.

If he was surprised that Wren was proceeding with her foolish little excursion with in the car, Luke did a commendable job of hiding it. He knew the address might be a fake, just as he knew she might have some sort of plan up her sleeve, but he wasn’t worried. One way or another, he’d get the necklace back. Luke sincerely hoped he wouldn’t have to consider taking it by force; he really, really didn’t want it to come to that. The fact that the address was near Roger’s shop was brushed off as a coincidence, because he had no reason to believe that Roger and Wren knew each other. Once he had the necklace he could worry about the fence and whoever was coughing up the money, but she didn’t need to know about that. Luke knew she wouldn’t want his help, nor would she like his willingness to take extreme measures if she was ever to find out about it. When it came to Frederick, the feeling was mutual, and he kept any scornful comments about the way she sounded (like she’d been born into money, even though he knew it was all a lie) to himself as he sulked in the darkness. There was no room for him to move away when her knee brushed his, so he tried to act like he hadn’t even noticed the brief contact even though he had. He hoped it didn’t happen again. Seeing her in the hotel was one thing, but this was an enclosed space, and he had nowhere to escape to unless he felt like jumping out of a moving vehicle. Bruce would have to keep him in check here.

Her mention of MK was sudden, and for a moment Luke found himself scrutinizing her in the dark. She was playing at something, he knew, to so blatantly ignore the subject of the necklace and feign normal conversation. “I haven’t heard from her since I left New York.” Wren had left both of them behind, and MK had gone through an even worse time than he did; her boy died, someone Luke himself had known, and he knew it affected her deeply. “How’s she doing?” They’d gotten closer, though their friendship had never come close to becoming what he’d had with Wren. He wondered if MK had told her that. A small, irrational part of him felt almost betrayed that MK would move in with her like everything was fine, but she probably found it easier to forgive than he did. He would cling to his hurt, allowing wounds to fester instead of heal, and while he was miserable in his bitterness he would stubbornly refuse to change. It was a self-destructive cycle, at least in Bruce’s opinion. His jaw tightened at the use of French, and he shifted against the back of the seat. “Yes. It seems that way,” he said, attempting to maintain a monotone sort of calm.

For all his pretense, however, Luke found it difficult to sit and pretend they were having a nice session of catch-up like everything was fine. His gaze dropped to the purse clutched in her hands. “You don’t have to make this difficult,” he told her. “Give it to me now, and you’ll save us both a lot of trouble. It wasn’t hers to steal.” He couldn’t come right out and say she wouldn’t have to worry about the fence, if that was one of her concerns; it was better if she believed he was too angry to care.

She was better at hiding what was going on in his head than he’d been all those years ago. She’d always been able to see through his lies and discomfort then; he’d been terrible at lying. He was better, yes, but he wasn’t perfect, and she knew every nuance of his expression, every nervous habit, every indication of whether he was angry or happy; she knew he wanted to leave, that he felt crowded, that he didn’t want her touching him. It hurt like blades and glass and things that never healed right, that look on his face, like the last thing he wanted was for her to be this close. Selina thought she was playing the game wrong, but it wasn’t a game to Wren; if it was, she would actually have a chance of winning. She reacted to his discomfort on an entirely emotional level, almost forgetting what she was trying to do. She scooted back, carefully out of his personal space, the center of the seat between them and feeling like miles.

“I didn’t talk to her for a long time either,” she said of MK, but her voice had lost the hint of hopeful warmth that she hadn’t been able to keep out of it since seeing him outside the hotel. “After awhile, we talked at holidays, but we never said very much. I didn’t know what had happened, and you don’t have to worry. She hates me as much as you do for leaving.” She looked out the tinted window after she said it, needing to look away, even though she knew she should memorize every little thing about this moment. She was so silly. She thought she’d changed so much, and all it took was his presence to make all the calm she’d carefully constructed disappeared. She looked back a second later, facade carefully rebuilt and more of that cool ice in her voice. “I recommended she consider working for your brother. She needs something real to focus on.” It was a calm volley, and it was a desperate attempt to throw him back off balance. If she thought it out, she wouldn’t have let him know that she actually knew Roger, but she would never be a criminal mastermind; she didn’t have the machination for it. She was too much emotion and not enough logic. Secrets?

She went on about the necklace then, counting on the statement about Roger to distract him from her reply, which was, simply, “no.” She let the word hang between them a moment, and she shook her head, blonde hair tumbling over her shoulder and the scent of honey and vanilla chasing the movement. “I can write you a check to cash, and you can take it to him when you go through again,” she said, because it seemed logical enough. She could tell him that the necklace in her purse was a fake, but she didn’t. Luke - the Luke she had known - wouldn’t let her con a fence either. Coming clean wasn’t an option. Plus, she was angry. Angry that everyone was so quick to condemn her without ever giving her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she didn’t have any right to feel that way, and maybe it was Selina fueling the flame, but she didn’t want to just give in because he showed up and turned her world upside down just by being around her.

Luke stole a quick glance at her when scooted to the side, putting more distance between them, but while it should have been what he wanted it was, in truth, the exact opposite. He didn’t want any of this. The problem was simply that what he wanted wasn’t a factor, at least not in his mind. If she touched him, or if he touched her, it would be difficult to keep up the wall he’d constructed to protect himself, and if he let it fall he was allowing himself to become vulnerable just as he had all those years ago. She’d hurt him once, and he couldn’t give her the opportunity to do so again. What if he did let her in, and she took off again because she had another ‘reason’ to do so? Trust had all but been ruined for him, and if she expected him to simply forgive her in the blink of an eye and go back to the way things were before, she was sorely mistaken. As much as he might want to do all those things, Luke was not the boy he’d been the last time she’d seen him. So he would watch, and he would want, and he would hate any man he saw her with; because what else could he do?

“So she told you about him.” Once again, it wasn’t a question, and he felt a sudden wave of sadness for MK and the boy she’d lost. He looked at her again when she said MK hated her as much as he did, because he knew that wasn’t true. MK might be angry, yes, but she’d never hate Wren. No more than he did, but then again she’d never been very good at believing anything he said. “I’m angry at you for leaving, and I’m sure she is too,” he said, with rare blunt honesty, “but we don’t hate you.” He didn’t know why he even bothered, really. She’d think what she wanted to think regardless. Honestly, he couldn’t understand how she could leave and expect things to not be like this when they inevitably ran into each other again. Had he been the one to leave like that, she would have been hurt too. She’d probably come to her own conclusions, just as he had, yet he was still the bad guy for doing so. He was genuinely surprised when she mentioned his brother, because Luke had never told her about him, and he’d never told Roger about her either. Surprise turned to anger a moment later; another secret. He should have expected as much. “You know Roger,” he said slowly, mirroring her icy tone. “How?”

It was Bruce who bristled at her no, and Luke caught on belatedly a few moments later. He turned to look at her, properly this time, a frown creasing his brows. “It’s not about the money,” he snapped, almost disbelieving that she could reduce the sentimental value of the necklace to dollar signs. “That necklace belonged to his mother. I’m not letting you sell it. Do you even realize what you’re doing, or do you just not care?” He adopted Bruce’s possessiveness over the necklace as his own, and spoke as though it was his mother’s necklace she’d stolen. “I know you’re living the high life now, Wren, but money can’t replace something like that. He wants it back.” Like hell he was leaving this car without it, even if he had to rip the purse from her hands himself. He’d given her a chance to be reasonable and she threw it back in his face.

She nodded at the question about MK, and some of the ice melted for a moment as she looked down at her hands. She was unbelievably sorry she hadn’t been there for her friend, and his honest reaction made her repay him with honesty of her own (even if she didn’t intend to). “I didn’t think she needed me around. She had him, and she had Nell and Audrey, and they were supposed to be fine. I really didn’t think it would even matter to her if I wasn’t around,” she said, which was the truth. She’d known Luke would notice, but MK was in a different city, living a different life. No, she hadn’t realized it, and she sounded as guilty as she felt for a moment. She looked up when he said they didn’t hate her, Maybe it was the truth, but she was pretty sure they both would hate her eventually. It was the entire reason she couldn’t let herself believe she could fix any of this, the entire reason she couldn’t even let herself try. Because she was still lying to him, there, in that car, looking at him; she was still lying. She looked away guiltily, and she was sorry about the Roger jibe just then. His reaction made her wince, even though she’d poked him hard enough to get it. God, she didn’t know if she could play this game just to keep him at arm’s length.

The car turned onto the street that would lead them to the edge of Fremont, and she slid a finger over the window, then the door, unlocking her door with the casual (and hopefully unnoticed) gesture. “I met him a year after leaving New York.” The timing was, of course, a lie. She was counting on it being enough of a lie to keep any math from adding up anywhere. He had no reason to doubt her timeline, and Roger didn’t know when she’d actually left. And she knew Roger; he wasn’t going to have an emotional heart-to-heart with anyone, even Luke. And this version of Luke? He wasn’t going to offer anything up either. Unfortunately, she was still a terrible liar, and she had to look out the window to keep him from noticing the way her eyes watered. She bit her lip, that old tell from so long ago, and she ran her thumb along the hem of her skirt. “Do you ever feel like you’re making a terrible mistake?” she asked out of the blue, tone genuine, looking up at him with gray eyes that glittered damp in the darkness. It was a stupid question, and even Selina (risk taker of all risk takers) thought it was a stupid question.

“She made a deal with the fence, Luke,” she finally said, snapping back when he snapped. It wasn’t anger, but frustration, and too many shoved away feelings and regrets. “Do you have any idea what fences in Las Vegas are like? He already has a buyer.” She wanted to confide in him, if only to get that look of betrayal off his face when he looked at her, but she didn’t know how to backpedal in the middle of a lie. “Just-” She breathed sharply, an inhale. “Just let me take care of it. I’ll try to get the necklace back to you, but let me do this. If it works, then it’ll be fine.” If it didn’t? If the fence could tell the difference? She’d have no choice but to give over the real necklace, but she wanted to avoid that if she could. Her fingers closed on the door handle, and her other hand closed tighter around the purse when he glanced toward it.

Luke was slowly beginning to realize that Wren regretted a great deal of decisions she’d made in New York, and likely afterward as well, but he didn’t know if or how that could change the way things were now. She still wasn’t being honest with him, he knew that, and it made him doubt nearly everything she said; sometimes he could tell when she was being honest, but enough time had passed that there were so many things he didn’t know. “That’s the problem. You didn’t think,” he said before he could stop himself, a weary sort of frustration replacing his usual fiery anger. “You didn’t think it would matter to me, and you didn’t think it would matter to MK, but it actually mattered a lot.” She sounded guilty, and he was just repeating what they both already knew; he got himself caught in cycles he never managed to find ways out of. “Did you tell her why you left? I mean the real reason, not some vague explanation.” There was a hint of hurt there, and he really did feel that honesty would go a long way even if it couldn’t change the past. Then again, pregnancy had never even crossed his mind, and were he to ever learn the truth it was difficult to say how he might react. Luke had become unpredictable over the years, but perhaps in some circumstances there was a common response; no one ever wanted to learn that their child had been given away without their knowledge.

One of the first things Luke had learned about Bruce was that he noticed everything. He saw her unlock the door, subtle as it was, and he passed the silent knowledge along to the boy, who pretended he hadn’t seen. “That’s some coincidence,” he said, trying to determine once again whether she was being honest or lying to his face. He could easily ask Roger. Luke could count the number of people he trusted on one hand, less even, but Roger was one of them. He wouldn’t lie, not about this. Of course, if she was lying, that bore the question of why she would in the first place. He was more likely to get a straight answer out of Roger, so he didn’t bother questioning her further. The sudden change of direction was unexpected, but nothing was more surprising than the way she sounded, or how her eyes looked in the dim interior of the car. Despite all his walls and resolutions to keep his distance, he softened at the way she looked at him. He wasn’t strong enough to maintain his cold exterior. Still, he intended to answer no; the word was on the tip of his tongue, a lie he’d convinced himself was true. “Every day,” came out instead, and Luke immediately wished he could call the words back. He wasn’t sure if there was some of Bruce’s influence in his show of unintentional honesty, and his shoulders tensed as he realized how that must have sounded. “Do you?” He couldn’t think of what else to say.

Then she was snapping at him in frustration, and Luke managed to regain his former composure. “I know what she did,” he snapped back, “and I know more about the fences here than you think.” That had slipped out unintentionally, but he didn’t notice, and barrelled forward regardless. He didn’t believe for a moment that she’d be able to get the necklace back if she sold it, and her empty reassurances meant nothing. After all this, he wasn’t backing down. “Are you listening to yourself? It won’t be fine. You’ll never get it back once it’s sold.” He knew she was going to open that door and run once the car stopped, and an altercation with the driver was the last thing he needed. If he simply sat there and did nothing, he’d lose the necklace, and that couldn’t happen. Clearly words were no longer enough. Abandoning his previous decision to keep his distance, Luke reached over her to lock the door she’d unlocked minutes ago, and instead of sitting back caught her wrist (the one of the hand curled around the door handle) in a grip that was firm without being painful. He didn’t want to hurt her, after all. It was an awkward position to hold himself in, and he was far closer than he’d ever wanted to get, but he tried to ignore the proximity despite it being near impossible to do so. Fortunately, Bruce was aware of the ways in which she might attempt to retaliate, so at least he was prepared for that. “I can’t let you sell that necklace, Wren,” he said, almost regretful. “I’ll follow you to wherever you’re meeting the fence and make a scene if I have to, but I’d rather not. Look, just give it to me, and I’ll take care of the rest. You won’t have to worry about anyone coming after you,” he added, cursing himself for doing yet another of the things he promised himself he wouldn’t. Bruce had better be pretty damn grateful after this was over.

She almost laughed when he said she didn’t think. “I know I didn’t think, Luke. Do you always think when you’re scared?” she asked, and she knew the answer to that question, because she’d seen him scared. She’d seen him so scared that he hid it from everyone and walked right into hell without a safety net. “We don’t always do the smartest things when we’re frightened,” she said, in her own defense. She’d told herself that if (when) this happened, she wouldn’t defend herself, that she would let him say what he would, hate her, despite her, whatever he needed to do, but it was so much harder to actually do it. His question about MK brought her back to the moment, and she shook her head. “No, I didn’t tell her. She didn’t ask; she was too angry,” she explained, which was also true. “But I wouldn’t have told her anyway,” she said truthfully. There were so many lies that she was trying to avoid them whenever she could. The question about MK wasn’t something she needed to lie about, and she didn’t want him thinking she trusted someone, when she hadn’t trusted him. “Sometimes the truth only makes things worse, Luke,” she said, and she wholeheartedly believed that.

She could tell from his expression, from the sound of his voice that he would ask Roger to verify her story. It felt like a noose closing around her neck, and she was starting to feel like a death row inmate receiving her last meal. He was talking to her now, but she couldn’t let herself believe that he would want anything to do with her if he found out her secrets. She wasn’t sure what was worse, not having him talk to her, or having him talk to her and then losing him again. She could foresee another layer of lies, this one thicker than the one before, and it made her heartsore in a way she hadn’t been in a very long time. She wasn’t expecting the answer to her question, and she tipped her head to the side in question, surprise showing in the widening of her damp eyes. She started to reach a hand out for his, an old habit that apparently hadn’t died as she thought, and she caught herself before she touched him, fingers closing on the purse once more. “Every day,” she echoed. “Every time I talk to you,” she added quietly, with additional, unintentional candor. “I’ve never been very good at choices.” But he knew that already. “My maman always said to make the right choices, you need to have nothing to lose.” She hadn’t talked about her mother in years, hadn’t thought about her in just as long. More memories.