Chapter 4 #2
“God,” Damien said from the door. “At least we’ll have entertainment this lockdown.”
“You will stay,” Tristian told me, his body stiff.
“You can’t—”
“Actually, Cadet Cadell, I can,” Tristian said.
I flinched against the name as he stepped closer until I had to tip my head back to see his face, the force of his presence enveloping me.
“I am your unit commander, and you are a cadet. My cadet,” Tristian declared with a quiet control that slithered up my spine, making me too aware of the inches between us.
“And if I don’t?” I challenged as my breath hitched, betraying me.
“Okay, let’s go,” Isla urged, pulling Ingrid to the door. I glanced to find Ingrid smirking, enjoying Tristian’s reprimanding of me. She made me want to fight harder—to siphon off the pain that had awoken at the sound of my family’s name.
Levi opened the door, waving them out. Damien cranked his neck back, but Levi pushed him after Isla and Ingrid.
Patrick returned in full patrol uniform, buttoning his shirt as he walked past us. The fabric clung to his damp skin. Rumi leaned into Patrick’s sulking frame. “Come on, Patty, food always helps.”
“I just wanted to sit on the couch until patrol,” he grumbled. Rumi leaned her head against his side, patting his chest as he slung an arm over her shoulders.
“Was the witching hour bad?” Rumi asked as they crossed the threshold.
“It’s all bad without you, Rums.” They left.
Levi stood in the doorway, staring at the two of us. “Hayes?”
“We will be there shortly,” Tristian said. Levi didn’t say another word; the sound of the door shutting was his only goodbye.
Tristian walked away from me and perched on the arm of the couch. “Give them a minute, and we will join them. Do you need help getting your other things from Expansion?”
“I have everything,” I told him.
“That’s all you have?” Tristian gestured toward my dirty backpack.
I nodded.
He blew out a breath. “Look, I’m sorry. If I had known she was going to finally approve this move, I would have found you and told you face-to-face.”
“You didn’t know?” I asked incredulously. “Hard to believe.”
Tristian crossed his arms. “Lyssa didn’t tell me she approved until I was in that room with you.”
“But you requested me?” My anger pressed against my skin.
“Yes.”
“Right. I don’t need to go to the mess hall.” I wouldn’t force myself on their unit.
“Sasha, you’ve lost weight since leaving the Ward.”
“So?”
“You’ll need the calories for the training tomorrow. You need to gain weight before we go above.”
“I have no desire to go be with your unit.”
“Our unit,” he corrected. “Look, Ingrid is struggling. She shouldn’t have said those things.”
“She didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Which part? I am fucking Jaxon. I did all the other things.” Tristian stilled, but I pressed on. “I am not one of you, and I don’t want to be here.”
“Sasha, your skills will help us above. I have been petitioning for a medic for years now. They send us out with an aid bag and minimal knowledge. I need a real medic. You were the best option for us. I know this will take some adjusting, but it’s what’s best for everyone.”
“Why, because you decided it was?” I shot back, anger burning in my chest.
“Because we need to complete this mission,” Tristian said heavily.
“I don’t care about your mission,” I snapped. “I liked what I was doing.”
“Hitting dirt walls? Your skills were wasted in Expansion.” Tristian stood.
“That wasn’t your call to make.”
“I was trying to help you, help them, help Haven.”
My fury burst through. “You can say you were helping them, but don’t lie and claim you were helping me by going behind my back and forcing me into something I have never wanted.
I didn’t want to help your unit before and I don’t want to now.
I have never wanted any of this. You seem incapable of respecting that. ”
“You might not have wanted to, but you did.”
“Because you gave me no option.”
“I stand by my decision,” Tristian said, unflinching. “You’re medically competent, you have some training, and you’re willing to bend the rules. Not to mention you can shoot. I know you’re angry with me—”
“I am furious,” I hissed. I stormed over to my boots, shoving my feet into them. I needed to be away from this, from him.
“Fine, be furious. That doesn’t change the truth.”
I whirled around. “You want the truth, Hayes?”
Tristian crossed his arms. “Always.”
Some distant part of myself screamed at me to just walk away.
Instead, I said, “When I helped you in the Ward, I was doing my job. This—you helping me—that’s not your fucking job.
Quit trying to save me.” Stop. Stop. Stop.
The desperate chant beat in time with my heart.
“You’re just delusional enough to think this will change something between us. It won’t. Fucking give it up.”
Many times, he had lingered in that closet after I had patched up his unit and sent them on their way.
He had made a litany of attempts to knock down my walls—“Want to go to the bars?” “I can’t thank you enough.
” “You doing okay?” “You look tired.” “I was thinking about the first time I saw you”—and I built the walls higher, making my soul impenetrable.
“I am doing my job,” Tristian retorted, hurt swimming in his eyes. “Trust me, if there was someone else they would be here.”
“Find someone else.”
“What of Haven’s future? Don’t you want to help those left?”
I thought of the health score system, the doors they had locked sentencing everyone above to their doom, those three men in the tunnels, all the death I had seen. Help Haven what? Haven was well on its way to finishing what the war had started. I grabbed the door handle. “No.”
“Where are you going?” Tristian asked, but he didn’t move.
“Jaxon’s,” I shot over my shoulder, because I knew it would hurt him. Let him see exactly what dwelled beneath.
“Sasha,” Tristian called.
I stopped. He’d fight me—make me stay.
“What?” It came out more defeated than I intended.
But all he said was, “Here’s your new ID band. Your cot is the last one in the girls’ room, door on the left.”
I snatched the blue band, tossing my gray one to the floor.
I ripped the door open. Tristian didn’t stop me as I left.
I turned toward Jaxon’s room, but I didn’t enter.
That distraction felt tainted now. I walked past, my feet hitting the ground rapidly but not fast enough as my thoughts caught me, sending me in an all too familiar spiral, tunneling down and down into every horrible thing that I had become—until the beast within won.
I didn’t recognize the person pretending to be Sasha Cadell.
She wasn’t here anymore.