Chapter 4
I left the Gym alone. Tristian had grabbed my bag and offered to escort me to my living quarters, but I refused.
I didn’t want to be near him. My feet carried me down random tunnels, thoughts lurking a step behind me.
My feet grew tired as bells passed, and my stomach growled incessantly.
Eventually, I trudged back to Unit Seven’s living quarters. Thankfully, it was empty.
My eyes swept over the common area. There were two worn sofas and a chair positioned around a rickety wooden table covered in papers, a deck of cards, and someone’s ruck.
In the left corner was a mat, Unit Seven’s sigil tacked on the wall above it.
Their insignia, a fabric flag, was dark blue with a raven in the center surrounded by seven stars, Ubi Vita ibi spes written on it.
I didn’t know what that meant. Three doors lined the back wall.
I didn’t know where to sit—what to do. I was alone in someone’s home. My thoughts pounced.
I fell into the sofa, clutching my bag to my chest. Cadell.
I stared at the front door and lost track of the bells, my last name reverberating among my bones, leaving me raw.
As if hearing the name I had shared with my family brought them back from the dead.
The name on the letter delivering the news of my father’s death that sent my mother reeling.
The heartbreak killed her. I had been left to care for my younger siblings.
The last fragments of a family. The measures I took to destroy myself to keep them alive.
Only to fail.
If she fails, we all fail. I knew how this would end.
At some point, Patrick emerged from the room on the right. He stared at me, confused. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know,” I mumbled. Patrick spared one more puzzled look before he left. Probably in search of answers.
My stomach gave a brutal growl, the ache jarring me to my core.
I forced down more nutrient paste. I hadn’t consumed real substance in a while.
Once, I would have been clawing at the walls, desperate for food, but years of near starvation had changed how I saw hunger.
I could go for another full bell rotation.
My stomach protested. I ignored it, curling into a ball, closed my eyes against its distressed pleas.
My family’s faces greeted me immediately.
I fought the ache in my chest, as hollow as my stomach.
In the varying years since seeing them in person, I somehow remembered every detail and none at all.
I didn’t know which frightened me more—seeing them every time I closed my eyes or not being able to see them at all. To be haunted or to forget.
I pushed myself up, desperate for a distraction—to be anywhere but trapped in my own mind. I needed to leave before anyone returned.
The door creaked opened, ruining my plans.
The unit filed in. They all looked at me, too coordinated to be a coincidence.
I did a quick head count—Levi, Patrick, Isla, Rumi, Ingrid, Damien, and—entering last—Tristian.
The room felt too full. I was used to cramped spaces, but those places were filled with strangers.
This was totally different. I had healed these people, covered for them, talked with them. And I had run from them.
Now, I had to face them again, and it was all Tristian’s fault.
“Welcome to the unit, Sasha,” Isla said, smiling. “Usually, we all take our boots off to keep the quarters clean.”
Her long, bright red hair was braided, displaying her freckles and the scar above her left brow I had left after stitching her up. Out of everyone, Isla had tried the most to be my friend in that closet.
Everyone huddled near the door as they removed their boots, except Ingrid. Her sharp blue eyes locked on me. I saw the hatred there. I knew it and gladly welcomed it.
“Ingrid, leave it,” Damien advised, plopping down on the other sofa as Rumi made her way to the corner of the mat. Her inky black hair flowed freely as she rolled her neck, sitting cross-legged, and closed her eyes as if none of us were here. “Rums, you really going to meditate and miss this?”
Rumi said nothing.
“I hear you’re supposed to take Lily’s spot,” Ingrid shot at me.
“Ingrid, boots,” Isla called, lining up the shoes according to size.
“We all knew our rent-a-cadet would run its course,” Patrick said, crossing the room. “We have to replace Lily. It’s the logical thing.”
Ingrid whipped her head toward him, furious. “It’s not your partner we’re replacing, Patty. So I don’t want to hear it from you.”
“Ingrid, it sucks,” Damien said. “We all miss Lily, but we need a full team. The vacancy is holding us back. If you didn’t want it to come to this, you shouldn’t have chased all the other cadets away with your stellar attitude.
” Damien shook out his wavy black hair as he rested his head against the back of the sofa, exposing the light brown skin of his neck.
Levi and Tristian remained by the front door, conversing under their breath. Patrick shook his head as he entered the middle door, clearly wanting none of this. The door shut and water started. They had their own shower.
“They were incompetent, and she won’t be any better,” Ingrid said, glaring, but I matched it, more than ready for a fight, to release the things that were destroying me.
“I didn’t ask to be here. This is your commander’s doing,” I fired back, ignoring the pain in my chest. Fury flashed across Ingrid’s face like the night I had told them about Lily’s death, as if no time had passed.
“Bullshit. You sure you didn’t join the Force to get closer to Jaxhole?” Ingrid sneered. “He brags about it at the Gym.”
The room fell silent.
“That’s none of your damn business,” I snapped, cheeks burning. I couldn’t look Tristian’s way.
“That’s how you operate, right?” Ingrid spat.
“Bretta’s friend from the Ward told her all about Death’s Angel sneaking off with another Ward assistant.
And then a guy from Expansion. Is that why you went there?
Just chasing the latest guy? What’s next, the Kitchens?
Sanitation? It’s the place everyone’s trash goes. You’d be at home.”
Ingrid’s sister, Bretta, worked in the Kitchens.
Ingrid was the only one among them who still had living family.
I didn’t like how much she knew. The guy from Expansion had been a one-night distraction.
It had been fast and forgettable, just something to chase away the death.
I hadn’t realized anyone knew. I didn’t like how bare that left me feeling.
Yet I recognized the hurt in Ingrid’s eyes.
I knew exactly what she was doing. If I were a better person, I’d have told her I understood, but I wasn’t.
I stepped closer to Ingrid, dwarfed by her.
“You could give it a try instead of living vicariously through my sex life. Maybe then you won’t be such a hateful bitch. ”
“Oh shit,” Damien chirped from the couch, where his elbows now rested on his knees, his hazel eyes volleying between us.
“I’d rather be a hateful bitch than the things they call you,” Ingrid snarled. I widened my stance. Ingrid marked it. A part of me hoped she’d close the distance and finally land the punch she had attempted to throw six months ago.
“Sorenson, enough,” Tristian said, positioning himself between us. “She didn’t take Lily’s spot. No one can take her spot. Sasha is a part of our unit now. She’s one of us.”
Ingrid whirled on him, radiating anger. “She will never be one of us. She doesn’t deserve to be in our unit. Haven’s future is on the line, and you force this on us.”
“She’s a competent medic. She can help us,” Tristian countered.
“She doesn’t even want to be here, Hayes. The rest of us can see it. You’re the only one unable to see her for what she is.”
Tristian went rigid.
“You are out of line, Sorenson,” Tristian said with lethal quiet. I had never heard him speak like that.
Tristian filled the entire room, ultimate authority leaking from him. Everyone in the room tensed; even Rumi opened her eyes.
“Go to the mess hall for evening meal,” Tristian ordered. At the door, Isla held out Levi’s boots from the neat line she had just formed. Rumi joined them to lace up.
“Hayes—” Ingrid began.
“That was a direct order, Sorenson. Everyone out,” Tristian commanded.
Damien rolled his eyes, stretching. Still, he slipped his feet into his boots, not bothering to lace them, as the door to the bathroom opened.
Patrick walked out humming, a towel wrapped around his waist, his cross resting in the middle of his bare chest. He stopped humming abruptly, taking in the scene.
An exasperated sigh left him. “Who pissed off Hayes?”
Damien raised his brows, pointing at Ingrid.
“Ingrid is mad that Sasha is a part of our unit. Claims Sasha doesn’t want to be here,” Rumi said, unfazed. Apparently, she had been listening the entire time.
Patrick threw his free hand up. “Obviously.” Tristian turned his attention to Patrick.
“Calm down, Hayes. You know what it’s like for us above.
If she doesn’t want to be here, how the hell is she going to be there for any of us?
No offense, Sasha. I’m grateful for your help in the Ward, but I wouldn’t trust you to guard my back for a second above when you don’t even have your own. ”
“Bingo,” Damien muttered.
His statement hollowed me out more than anything Ingrid had thrown at me.
“Get out,” Tristian told him.
“Can I put my clothes on, or would you like me to go to the mess hall like this?” Patrick shot back.
“Team No Clothes,” Damien quipped.
Tristian didn’t say anything as Patrick entered their sleeping quarters.
“I’ll go,” I said, moving toward my shoes. Patrick’s comment ate at my already ravaged insides. Someone sighed heavily by the door, but I couldn’t see; my path was blocked by Tristian.
“You’ll stay,” Tristian instructed, halting me.
“No, I think I’ll go.”