Chapter 5
“Morning, Sasha. Or do you prefer Death’s Angel?” Rumi said, yanking me awake. I bolted upright, knife in hand.
“You’re in the Force now, remember?” Rumi said. I lowered my knife. She was fully dressed, her raven hair slicked back in a long ponytail.
“What bell is it?” I croaked. I wasn’t sure at which bell my feet had dragged me back here.
Most had been asleep, though three sets of boots had been missing.
I hadn’t bothered deciphering whose boot owners might have been walking the tunnels like me.
I had fallen asleep so deeply, I was still in the same position and dressed in the same clothes as yesterday.
“A little past the fourth bell. I’ll take you to the mess hall and give you a tour before Formation. Here’s your uniform.” Rumi gestured to the pile on my bed. “There are new boots that actually fit you by the door outside. Your old ones went to Recycling, as did your Expansion clothing.”
Recycling, the term used for gear that was no longer required, whether from a sector change or the one I was most used to—items not needed after the wearer had passed.
At the end of every shift in the Ward, I had taken piles of clothes to Recycling to be sanitized and redistributed, the wearers forgotten.
“I’m going to shower,” I grunted. Personal items were strewn throughout the room, a trust thick upon every object left out in the open—something I thought we’d lost in the war. Even in the Ward I had never been able to leave my items around so carelessly.
“Those clothes should all be sent to Recycling too,” Rumi called as I walked out with my bag. I hoped she would be gone when I returned. There was too much life in these living quarters. It chafed against my skin.
I left the room only to find Damien sitting alone on the couch.
I almost darted into the bathroom, but the ankle captured in his hands halted me.
I knew his left ankle plagued him. He had wrecked it during the war.
He had confessed as much to me in the closet, doubled over in pain, rambling about the marks he already had on his health score. He had barely qualified for the Force.
Damien had asked me to keep his ankle between us. He didn’t want anyone to worry about the pain he still suffered. I agreed before showing him how to wrap it, providing it more support when he went above. We never exchanged another word on the subject.
I almost asked if he needed it wrapped—almost. The words formed in my throat before dying. No one wanted to discuss their weaknesses, not when their system had turned them into weapons. It was another thing that had chased me from the Ward.
We were all evaluated when we entered Haven.
Given a colored band, an ID number, and a chart.
Anyone who carried anything contagious was isolated immediately.
Doctors performed physicals and obtained a medical history on the others, while monitoring signs of radiation illness.
Many made it to Haven only to die from the radiation exposure.
It was a risk every person took to get here.
In the fallout we lost all technology—phones, televisions, cars—everything completely wiped out.
The only option had been to make the trek on foot, exposing ourselves.
I didn’t know the long-term effects of my desperate race.
I’d have to live long enough to find out.
Those first years in the Ward I became convinced the health score was really a way to weed out those with too much exposure to make it—preserving our supplies, casting anyone too contaminated and defective into their own sectors, away from those who stood a chance.
I had seen death, plenty of it. I had also seen all the injuries the body carried while still trying to live, how the health score caused people to hide everything that had gotten them here: the demons, physical and mental, that tormented everyone.
I carried their secrets, tried to ease their pain and preserve their scores.
The only benefit to losing technology was that all of the Ward’s charts were documented on paper forms. Accurate documentation relied on a person’s honor, something I had long forgone.
Damien caught my stare, determination blazing. Sometimes it was easier to pretend the demons didn’t exist. I had been right to stay quiet. The door opened, and Damien quickly released his leg as Levi entered, carrying three steaming cups.
“Morning, Cadell,” Damien drawled like I had just entered the room.
“She doesn’t like being called Cadell,” Rumi said. I turned to find her staring at me unabashedly. “She flinched when Hayes said it yesterday.”
I stiffened. Rumi noted that too, like a snake in the grass, quiet, calm, analyzing everything and everyone.
She had only said a handful of words when she was brought to the closet for a couple of injuries and illnesses.
She’d bluntly tell me what was wrong, sit quietly as I helped her, and then she’d leave.
Patrick filled the empty space. She had never come to me without him.
“That’s not for you,” Levi scolded, swatting Damien’s hand from the two drinks on the table, the third clutched in his left hand.
“Why not? Who are you out fetching this shit excuse coffee for?” Damien asked skeptically. I couldn’t remember the last time I had tasted coffee. “Did our second somehow become the errand bitch?”
“No,” Levi stated before taking a long sip. “They’re for Sasha and Hayes.”
Calling it coffee seemed like a stretch.
All of our food was a terrible excuse for what food used to be.
Some days, a glutinous nutrient shake that tasted horrible was all they could even offer.
I had heard rumors of a greenhouse-like lab set up before the war, but no one from the Kitchens talked about it.
They dried everything, extending the shelf life while robbing the consumer of taste and texture.
What I would give to eat a real vegetable or piece of fruit.
Levi’s blue eyes flickered between me and the drink.
His face yielded nothing as he watched me.
I couldn’t tell if it was a peace offering, a challenge, or just a drink.
Levi had never returned to the Ward or the closet after I had stitched him up.
He seemed to be a relatively healthy person.
I had also never glimpsed the man who had joked with Hayes in the Ward the first time I met him.
Perhaps he only used humor when in pain.
Everyone handled pain differently. There were criers: Some wailed loudly; others silently bawled, endless tears flowing down their faces.
There were yellers who fought every step, then the unflinching silent kind, as if in shock the entire time.
Rarely did a patient attempt humor or laugh instead of cry, like they couldn’t sit in their pain, let alone let others.
So their pain became distant while they joked. I was convinced Levi was one.
“Can Hayes not get his own drinks now?” Damien asked incredulously.
“Hayes never came back to the room last night,” Rumi said. “He stayed out all night.” She sat on the mat, rolling her neck.
“Why? He wasn’t on patrol. Have him and—” Damien stopped, glancing at me. I wondered who Hayes might have stayed out all night for.
“He doesn’t have to tell us what he does with his free time,” Levi said. I clamped down on my curiosity, slamming a wall down. I enjoyed being anonymous among the masses. Here, they cared about one another’s comings and goings.
“I’m going to shower,” I said. I didn’t want to know why Tristian had stayed out all night. I didn’t want coffee. I didn’t want any of this.
“Death’s Angel, do you want the drink or not?” Damien asked.
I looked over my shoulder, the coffee steaming and enticing. I couldn’t meet Levi’s gaze as I turned away from it. “No.”
“Dibs,” Damien exclaimed to a rustle of movement. “I can’t believe you thought that would work.”
Desperate to shut them out, I grabbed the bathroom handle, but it twisted beneath my grip and pulled open. I stumbled forward, colliding into a very solid body, a very hard, warm body.
Reality ground to a halt. The skin beneath my hands was still damp, tattoos sprawled across the rippling muscles.
I hadn’t checked if the bathroom was in use. I had been too distracted by Damien’s ankle. I looked up and instantly regretted it as our gazes collided. Tristian smirked down at me.
“Cadet.”
Cadet.
“I got you a coffee,” Levi said. “It’s still hot.”
“Technically, you got them a coffee, but Death’s Angel denied you,” Damien chimed in.
“Looking for something?” Tristian asked, arching a brow at me.
I snapped out of my daze, snatching my hands away and stumbling back. Embarrassment flooded me, my body burning. Damien and Levi had just seen me act like a complete idiot on my first day. At least Rumi was meditating.
I could feel Tristian watching me as I stared at the hole in my left sock. I had been so angry and off-kilter that I hadn’t considered what living here would mean. Suddenly the proximity felt crushing. I felt cornered. Discomfort flipped my stomach. Tristian strolled past me as if unconcerned.
My traitorous eyes followed him as he stalked toward the table, his towel wrapped low around his waist. I drank in every ounce of bare skin until I found Levi shooting me a knowing look.
Damien clutched the coffee that should have been mine. Tristian lifted the cup to his lips, taking a sip as he groaned appreciatively. I hated what that sound did to me.
“Thank you,” he told Levi, who saluted him silently with his own cup. Turning to me, Tristian said, “I suggest you get moving, Cadet. I don’t tolerate lateness for any reason.”
I kept my mouth shut as Tristian leaned against the side of the couch, causing his towel to pull to the side, exposing his strong thigh. He took a long sip of coffee, his gaze never leaving me.
Damien snorted. “I think she’s actually speechless. Congratulations, Hayes.”