CHAPTER 41: SHATTERED MASKS

Alistair’s POV

The house wasn’t loud, but the silence had a weight to it—

the kind that formed after something went wrong.

I’d checked Charles’ room three times now.

Bed cold.

Window locked.

No shoes missing.

No coat gone.

He hadn’t just left early.

He vanished.

And Louis...

Louis wouldn’t even look at me.

He sat at the table with that stiff, quiet panic he tried so hard to hide. His jaw kept tightening, his hands flexing under the table. His scent was unstable—fear layered over guilt, then something I couldn’t name.

Something that felt like loss.

I watched him pretend to eat. Pretend to breathe normally. Pretend he didn’t feel like he was breaking apart.

I’d never seen him like this.

When father started another lecture about alliances and families, Louis didn’t even hear him. His eyes kept drifting—toward the stairs, toward the door, toward anywhere Charles might be.

So when breakfast ended, I followed him.

He didn’t get far. Just the hallway, the one between the dining room and the front door—like he wanted to run but didn’t know how to start.

"Louis," I said.

He froze.

Slowly, he turned, and for the first time since yesterday... he finally looked at me.

Not with affection.

Not with warmth.

But with someone’s eyes who was about to admit something he didn’t want to say.

I stepped closer. My voice was calm, but my chest was tight.

"Tell me the truth," I said.

"What happened last night?"

His throat moved.

He didn’t speak.

So I asked the real question.

"Louis... who were you terrified of losing?"

Louis froze when I asked the question, but only for half a second—just long enough for me to notice.

Then his expression shuttered, cold and controlled again.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about," he said.

There it was.

The wall.

The same wall he used whenever he felt too much.

I stepped closer. "Louis. Charles is missing. You haven’t slept. You haven’t eaten. You can barely look at me. Something happened."

"I said nothing happened."

His tone was sharper now, defensive.

A warning.

But his hands... his hands betrayed him.

They kept clenching, unclenching, shaking just slightly.

"Louis," I said quietly, "you’re worried."

"I’m not."

Too fast. Too forceful.

His jaw tightened, his eyes flicking to the door again—like he expected Charles to walk through any second. Like he needed him to.

"Then why can’t you stand still?" I asked.

Louis swallowed hard.

He looked away, voice low and frustrated:

"This is pointless, Alistair."

"No. Running from it is pointless."

His shoulders stiffened—he hated when I said things like that. He hated being read.

"I’m not running," he muttered.

"You’re terrified," I pressed.

Louis snapped his eyes to mine, irritated.

"Don’t put words in my mouth."

"Then say something real," I said.

"Who were you afraid of losing?"

Silence.

Not peaceful silence—

the kind that vibrated with the truth someone refused to speak.

Louis didn’t answer.

He couldn’t.

Not because he didn’t know.

But because admitting it out loud would break him.

And Louis always chose breaking quietly over being honest loudly.

"You’re such a liar, Louis."

His head snapped up at that, but I didn’t stop.

"You’ve never confided in me. Not once. Not really."

His brows pulled together—offended, but not enough to deny it.

"And that jealousy you show?"

I stepped closer.

"It’s fake. All of it. The only time you’ve ever acted like you cared—actually cared—was when Charles was involved."

Louis’s jaw clenched so tight I heard his teeth click.

"I’ve been pretending," I continued, voice low, steady.

"Pretending I don’t notice how you look at him. Pretending I don’t feel you shift away from me every time he enters the room."

Louis exhaled sharply.

A warning.

A plea.

I wasn’t sure which.

"You’ve been different since we got here," I said.

"Since you saw him again."

He didn’t deny it.

"You’re angry one minute," I said, "antisocial the next. Then proud and distant like nothing touches you. I don’t get it. I don’t know what’s in your mind anymore."

Louis’s eyes flickered—fear, guilt, frustration, something old and heavy.

I took a step closer.

"So tell me," I said softly.

"What changed, Louis?"

"Because it wasn’t me."

Louis’s shoulders lifted in a small shrug.

"I haven’t changed," he said quietly. "If I have, then you have too."

I stared at him.

He wasn’t joking.

He wasn’t mocking.

He was... deflecting. Again.

Then he forced a small laugh—thin, brittle, the kind that didn’t reach his eyes.

"And please don’t yell too loudly," he added. "I still want my parents to think my relationship is stable."

He chuckled at his own words.

I didn’t.

My temper snapped like a wire pulled too tight.

"What?" I yelled before I could stop myself.

Louis flinched.

He tried to recover, tried to hide it behind that calm mask he wears like armor, but I saw it—the guilt, the fear, the panic he couldn’t swallow.

I stepped forward.

"You think this is funny?" I demanded.

"You think all this is some little joke? That you can just—just laugh and everything magically becomes normal?"

His eyes dropped.

Not in shame.

In avoidance.

He wasn’t trying to piss me off.

He wasn’t baiting me.

He was terrified.

Of what?

Of who?

No—

I already knew the answer.

I just hated it.

Louis’s eyes flicked up, finally meeting mine.

For a second, just one second, everything in him slipped. The wall. The calm. The jokes.

Gone.

What was left was something I had never seen on his face before:

Dread.

"Alistair—" he started.

"No," I cut in, stepping closer.

"You don’t get to dodge this one. Not today."

He swallowed, throat tight.

"You haven’t said one honest thing to me since we got here," I said, voice shaking. "You look at me like you’re scared. You talk to me like you’re tired. And every time Charles enters a room—"

Louis’s jaw flexed.

"Don’t," he whispered.

"—you act like you’re losing something."

His breath hitched.

"Tell me the truth," I said. "Tell me why you can’t stand being around him. Tell me why you look guilty every time you say his name. Tell me why you keep pretending nothing is wrong."

He shook his head, backing up a step.

"Alistair—"

"Look me in the eyes," I said.

He froze.

"Now tell me," I said softly, "that the fear in your face has nothing to do with him."

Silence.

A thick, suffocating silence—so heavy I felt it in my ribs.

Louis’s lips parted.

"I—"

He didn’t finish.

He didn’t have to.

Because the truth was already there, shining in his eyes like a wound he’d been trying to hide:

He wasn’t afraid of losing me.

He was afraid of losing Charles.

I stepped back as the realization hit me like a punch.

"My God," I whispered. "It was him."

Louis’s breath shattered. He reached for me, instinctively, like he could take the words back, like he could drag the truth back into the dark where he’d been hiding it.

"Alistair, wait—"

But the damage was done.

"You should have told me," I said, voice breaking. "You should have told me before I started trying to fix us alone. Before I started thinking I was the problem."

His chest rose sharply.

"You weren’t," he said, voice raw.

"You never were."

And that—

that hurt more than anything else.

Louis said it softly—too softly for someone who’d just been confronted with the ugliest truth between us.

"Let’s just focus on finding him," he murmured, already turning away.

"I know he’s no longer a child... but he’s my baby brother."

He started walking down the hall, and for a moment I just stood there, stunned.

That was it?

After everything—

after the panic in his voice,

after the guilt in his eyes,

after he almost admitted what he felt—

He was just going to walk away?

"Louis," I said sharply.

He didn’t stop.

Not until my hand closed around his wrist.

Even then, he didn’t turn fully. He just looked back over his shoulder, jaw tight, eyes hollow in a way that hurt to look at.

"That’s all you have to say?" I asked quietly.

His lips parted, but no words came out.

So I kept going.

"You were ready to break down two minutes ago," I said, stepping closer. "You were terrified, you were shaking—and now you want to pretend this is just about finding him?"

His gaze flickered, the smallest break in the mask.

"Please," Louis whispered.

His voice wasn’t pleading.

It was tired.

"Alistair... don’t do this now."

"Now is exactly when this matters."

"No," he said, pulling his wrist free, breath unsteady. "Right now, Charles is gone. And I can’t—"

His voice cracked.

He caught it instantly, straightening, forcing calm over himself like armor.

"I can’t talk about... anything else until I know he’s safe."

"Louis," I said, softer now, "this isn’t just about him being missing. Something happened. Something you’re not telling me."

His breath hitched—for a heartbeat, so quick I almost missed it.

"I can’t talk about this," he murmured. "Not now."

"Why not?"

"Because," he said, voice cracking before he forced it back into place,

"if I stop and think about any of it—about him being gone, about last night, about..."

He looked down.

"...about you—

I won’t be able to function."

I froze.

About... me?

Before I could speak, he gently pulled his wrist free.

"Please," Louis whispered. "Let’s just... find Charles first."

That wasn’t avoidance.

It was fear.

Not of me.

But of whatever truth he was swallowing