Patience was a lattice. You wove it strand by strand, day by day, until it was strong enough to hold the weight of everything you desired. Leo understood this. He had built his entire life his grades, his reputation, his control on a foundation of exquisite patience.
But watching Avery Knox now was testing its limits.
The boy was a masterpiece of evasion. He was a sigh in the hallway, a shadow at the edge of the courtyard, a locked door. Every time Leo tried to weave a new strand a casual greeting, an offer of help, a moment of shared space Avery would flinch, would melt away, would shatter the connection before it could even form.
The flinch in the diner had been a setback. The terror at the locker had been a regression. It was Ezra's fault. His brother's crude violence, his digital witch-hunt, had poisoned the well. Avery wasn't just shy or untrusting anymore. He was conditioned. He saw a threat in every offered kindness because the world had shown him that kindness was just the prelude to a nightmare.
Leo sat in his car across from Avery's apartment building, the engine off. He'd followed him home from the library, a silent, protective shadow. He watched the light go on in Avery's window. He could picture him inside: shoulders hunched, probably checking the locks again, jumping at every creak. Living in a state of constant, low-grade terror.
It was a beautiful, fragile state. But it wasn't the right state.
He didn't want a broken doll. He wanted a willing devotee. He wanted Avery to look to him not as another monster, but as the sole sanctuary from the monsters. Ezra's methods created dependency through trauma. Leo's vision was subtler, grander: dependency through salvation.
But to be the savior, he needed to control the narrative of the threat.
His phone buzzed. Ezra.
Ezra: The garden's clear. No more weeds. You planting the roses yet?
Leo's jaw tightened. Ezra saw people as weeds to be pulled. He saw Avery as a rose to be placed in a vase cut, controlled, beautiful and dead. Leo saw him as a rose to be tended in a private greenhouse, where he could bloom forever, safe and seen only by him.
He didn't reply to Ezra. Instead, he opened a different app. It showed a simple status readout: CAMERA 1: ONLINE. AUDIO FEED 2: ONLINE. Sasha's tech, harvested and repurposed. He now had eyes and ears in Avery's room. A necessary violation, to ensure his safety.
He watched the grainy, green-tinged thermal image on his screen. Avery's form moved from the window to the bed, a small, lonely heat signature. He was just sitting there. Not drawing. Not reading. Just… existing in his fear.
This won't do, Leo thought, a spark of frustration cutting through his usual calm. The isolation was meant to make him seek connection, not retreat further into his shell.
A new idea, delicate and precise, began to form. He couldn't force friendship. But he could engineer a crisis. A crisis where he, Leo, was the only logical, safe solution.
He pulled up Avery's class schedule on his phone. He cross-referenced it with the known schedules of Avery's few remaining points of contact. Mila was still lying low, skittish. His art teacher was out for a conference tomorrow.
Tomorrow. Third period. Avery had a free period. He usually spent it in the far corner of the library, a spot Leo had catalogued months ago. It was secluded, near a fire exit that was rarely used.
An idea crystallized, cold and perfect.
He typed a series of commands into his phone, accessing a different system the school's rudimentary building management software. A backdoor he'd created last year, just to see if he could.
He set a silent alarm. A small, contained incident. Not a fire. Nothing that would cause real panic or draw outside attention. A malfunction. A localized, confusing lock-down.
He targeted the library's annex, the section housing old periodicals, right next to Avery's chosen corner. At 10:17 AM tomorrow, the fire sprinkler head directly above carrel C-12 would engage. A torrent of cold, startling water. The annex's electronic door would simultaneously fault, locking automatically as a "safety precaution," sealing whoever was inside in a sudden, cold, dark space.
It would be terrifying. Isolating. And most importantly, it would be a problem with a very simple, nearby solution.
Leo would be in the main library, just on the other side of that fault-sealed door. He would hear the commotion, the spray of water, the startled cry he knew Avery would be too surprised to stifle. He would be the one to alert the librarian. He would be the calm, capable presence while they waited for maintenance. He would offer his blazer to a shivering, shocked Avery.
He would be the hero.
Not a friend forcing his way in. A savior, arriving exactly when needed.
He finalized the commands and put his phone away. He looked up at Avery's window one last time. The thermal blob had curled into a fetal position on the bed.
"Soon," Leo whispered to the dark, his voice a soft promise. "Soon, you won't have to be afraid alone. I'll be right there."
He started the car and drove away, the ghost of a smile on his lips. Patience was a lattice. But sometimes, you had to give fate a gentle nudge to guide the vine exactly where you wanted it to grow.