#asoe

Word count: 239

“Thank you for tonight.” Rayna squeezed the swing chain as she looked away. “Sorry, I pulled you away from work. Are you gonna be in trouble?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Shane said as he took a seat on the swing next to her. “I get a break anyway. Just took it earlier than I expected.”

“I feel so dumb,” she sighed. “The only person I knew back there was Ada, and I knew I should have stayed with her but—” She stopped herself. “I don’t know what I was thinking, believing that guy.” She kicked her boot into the sand under them. “Maybe it was my fault.”

“Hey, don’t say that.” Shane grabbed the swing chain and pulled her towards him. “It’s not your fault. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

She faced him and, for the first time, saw the color of his eyes. Even with the playground lights, she could tell they were a soothing green. They looked back at her with such intensity that she felt her cheeks become hot. 

“Thank you again for saving me,” she managed to get out.

“You’re welcome. If you ever need anything, you can call me.” He softly smiled. “Consider me your personal bodyguard.”

She bit her lip. “Thanks, but I already have Dre.”

He slid his hand down the chain until it rested on top of hers. “Now you have me too,” he quietly said with flushed cheeks.

Cress has officially had enough of this dumb plan.

She can't figure out why on Earth or Luna they couldn't find a more sensible plan that didn't involve sacrificing the integrity of her relationship.

As Thorne casually flirts with the brunette Iko had told them to approach, anger burns in her stomach.

If Iko's girlfriend needs to get evidence for a revenge plan aimed at the girl who's cheating on her oblivious brother, surely there was a way to do so without using someone already in a committed relationship?

But she hadn't complained; she'd trusted Thorne to know what he was doing and anyway, their squad - as Iko had taken to calling them - obviously wouldn't endorse anything that was problematic anyway.

That's what she keeps telling herself as she watches him guide their target across the room to where Cinder and Scarlet are acting as the bartenders.

Oh, and they're in a club.

Of all places for something to go wrong, this is the one that holds the most risk.

“Hey, are you doing okay?” Kai asks from next to her, having appeared from amidst the crowd without warning.

She jumps, accidentally nudging him, but he doesn't mind, only smiles and puts an arm around her comfortingly.

“It's painful to see people flirting with your significant other, isn't it?” he asks, as if abbreviating words is illegal or something.

It takes her a second to wonder how he can relate to her situation but then realises that his girlfriend is probably the subject of many tipsy attempts at seducing the bartender for a variety of benefits.

“Way more painful than it should be,” Cress agrees, leaning on him to try and get away from the mass of people swarming around the dance floor.

He's not the type for parties and crowds either but he's much better than her at pretending he is, probably a side effect of being the Emperor.

She's far more comfortable being behind a screen where she can control how many people see her and how many people she needs to interact with but she's not about to leave Thorne in a place like this without supervision. Not that she doesn't trust him or anything but for her own peace of mind.

Still, everything goes alright.

Except that it doesn’t.

Everything goes alright until she loses sight of Thorne.

Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be much of a problem but, considering the circumstances, she doesn’t want to risk anything and losing sight of her favourite human after having put so much effort into keeping track of him for hours is nothing short of a crisis.

She catches sight of Kai’s lowkey pretentious velvet jacket and makes her way over, poking his shoulder rapidly.

“Ow- Cress? What’s wrong?” Kai asks, concern laced in his voice as he looks at her worried expression.

“I’ve lost Thorne,” she mumbles and, for the briefest moment, she doesn’t even know which kind of lost he is, but then she takes a deep breath and remembers the conversation she’d had with him before. “He said to just keep his eyes on me but I don’t know where he went.”

Kai takes a moment to process this before nodding firmly. “Don’t worry yourself, Cress, we’ll find him. Don’t forget that Wolf is tall enough to see over just about anything, right?”

She finds a small comfort in his word and nods gratefully, taking another deep breath as he guides her along to where Cinder is looking at them with confusion. Once they reach the bar, Kai leans forward and easily murmurs something to Cinder - much to the irritation of two oblivious and hopeful guys - before winking at her and leading Cress into the middle of the crowd.

“What are we doing?” Cress all but squeaks, but she realises his plan before he has to answer: Just like the way being connected directly to the server that’s hosting hundreds of users makes it easier to get an overview of what’s going on, Kai wants to stay in the centre of the mass to see if they can spot Thorne.

“Keep an eye out, okay? You know him best out of all of us,” Kai almost shouts as they start moving, but it’s effectively whispering with how loud the music is and, anyway, shouting isn’t really how anyone would describe his speech.

On the other hand, she’s ready to shout the place down if it means Thorne might hear her.

Without warning, Wolf appears beside them and whispers, “He’s not in this room, look for anything of his he might have left behind.” Then he’s gone, dissolved back into the crowd.

So Cress looks over the men somewhat gracefully stumbling around, the women happily weaving through the dancers, and everyone else in between who’s just here for a good time. Her search comes up with no results and she’s ready to yell in frustration because this is all going so wrong and what if-

There.

“Thorne’s coat, on the vase to our left,” Cress reports, surprised by the steel in her voice.

He’d never leave his coat anywhere if it wasn’t to send a message; he loves his outfits far too much sometimes and she occasionally wonders whether she’d be annoyed by it if she didn’t appreciate how handsome they make him look.

Kai grins at her, deftly manoeuvring them towards the vase in question, exchanging polite smiles with the people around them while Cress stares at Thorne’s coat as if it can be prompted into revealing its secrets.

Cress grabs the coat as soon as they reach it, not really thinking before putting it on, instantly comforted by the strange scent of mint and vanilla Thorne seems to carry around with him.

Within seconds, Cinder is stood at her side, placing a hand on her arm as a promise to help and an apology at the same time.

“It’s okay,” Cress replies to that, and neither of them dwells on it as the three of them move forwards.

“That’s his tie, right?” Cinder asks after a while, gesturing to the fabric item currently dangling from the low chandelier above them, “I’d recognise that ridiculous thing anywhere.”

Kai jumps up and grabs it, then draping it around Cress’ neck with a soft smile. “Your boyfriend’s pretty good at leaving breadcrumbs.”

Cress beams, ignoring her panic for a moment, nodding her agreement.

“We’d better not find his trousers next, I’m not sure you can wear those,” Cinder mutters.

Kai clears his throat to hide his laughter and glances at Cress apologetically. “I’m sure he’s not far,” he says reassuringly.

As if on cue, there’s a bright blue of two figures across the corridor, from one room to another, and the three of them are moving immediately. When they follow the aforementioned blur into the room, all three of them stop, slightly confused.

Thorne and Iko’s girlfriend’s brother’s disloyal girlfriend are glaring at each other, both breathing heavily.

“You took your time! What else did you need, a lock of my hair?” Throne huffs, but his gaze softens when it lands on Cress. “Hey, darling, I’ve missed you.”

Cress blushes as the disloyal girl hisses: “Darling?”

“Does the name Iko ring a bell?” Iko hisses back, somehow just appearing from behind them, as if the other girl opening her mouth was somehow enough of a signpost to where she is.

The other girl pales, opening her mouth to say something before sighing in defeat. “This is about that guy, isn’t it?”

“Sorry, ‘that guy’? Do you mean the one who loved you?” Kai asks, clearly a little offended on behalf of said guy.

“Loved?” The other girl echoes, her brows furrowed in confusion.

Thorne raises an eyebrow at her. “He sure as aces isn’t going to stay stuck with you now that he knows your true colours.”

Iko huffs to emphasise his point, then marches up to the girl with a glare that could rival even the most draconian of world leaders. “If you even go near him again, you’ll find that things get so bad, you’ll have no choice but to flee the country, savvy?”

Cress doesn’t hear the girl’s reply and nor does she pay attention to Cinder gently pulling Iko back so she doesn’t cause any damage; her eyes are glued firmly to Thorne.

“Are you alright, love?” Thorne asks gently, cupping the side of her face with one of his hands, the other resting kindly on her shoulder.

Cress nods, then shakes her head. “Can we go home?”

Thorne pulls her into a warm embrace and kisses the top of her head apologetically. “I’m sorry,” he says, nothing but sincerity in his voice.

Smiling properly, Cress pulls back and lifts the tie off her shoulders, placing it around Thorne’s neck as carefully as she can before smiling and reassuringly saying: “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t know that.”

The grin that makes its way onto Thorne’s face is worth her previous fear, and, judging by the love in his eyes, she can tell he’s thinking the same about her own matching grin.

“Alright, lovebirds, wrap it up,” Cinder says loudly, even though her hand is now entwined in Kai’s and the two of them are both a little flushed.

“Make us, hypocrite,” Thorne retorts, slipping his hand into Cress’ and starting to follow them anyway.

Cress doesn’t even know they manage to assemble everyone every time but, sure enough, Scarlet and Wolf join them, the whole gang - sans Winter and Jacin since they’d been handling something in court - then piling into Scarlet’s minivan to get as far away as possible.

Thorne puts an arm around Cress, carefully running his fingers along her skin, tracing out random shapes as she rests her head on his shoulder and sighs contently.

“I think I’ve had enough of clubs,” she mutters, bordering on grumpy and not even caring.

“Perfectly understandable,” Thorne replies quietly.

Cress lets herself melt further into his warmth and closes her eyes, her earlier panic having exhausted her entirely. “Thank you,” she hears herself whispering.

She can sense Thorne smiling above her as he chuckles quietly. “Go to sleep, my brave damsel, I promise I’ll make sure you get enough rest.”

Regardless of her exhaustion, she knows that’s his way of saying he’s sorry and that he loves her, and that knowledge is more than enough to convince her heart to smile and to convince her brain to let herself fall into the most comfortable rest she’s had in a while.