Chapter 5 #2
“If I had known taking my shirt off would have this effect, I’d have done it a long time ago,” Tristian teased, his lips tugging up. It made him even more attractive. I had been able to deny it when I lived far away from here—from him. Now…
Anger overtook my mortification, yet I couldn’t find the right words to fire.
I lifted my chin and slammed the bathroom door behind me like a coward.
A chorus of chuckles followed me as I leaned against the door, attempting to shake off the humiliation.
I had seen naked men, plenty of them. Or I thought I had.
Tristian made the others look like boys.
I heard Levi say something I couldn’t make out. Damien’s loud laugh rang out, followed by, “I cannot wait to see how this plays out.”
“My money is on Death’s Angel,” Levi drawled.
Tristian rumbled something in return to more chuckles.
Assholes.
I ripped my clothes off and yanked the shower knob, welcoming the freezing water that pelted me.
I had no ax to swing at the wall. No forms to lie on.
No distraction from this. My heart hammered against its cage as I shivered against the cold.
The door remained closed, voices rumbling on the other side.
I didn’t want to be part of the Force, but I was showering alone.
The imbeciles on the other side were annoying, but they meant no one would barge in and attack me.
My shoulders relaxed in a foreign way. For the first time in years, I closed my eyes and let water wash over my face.
My face slammed into the mat, the wind leaving my lungs.
For what felt like the hundredth time, I peeled my body off the mat just in time to have my arm captured and pulled back.
The tendons in my arm strained to the point of pain. I tapped. Again.
“Go get a drink, Cadet,” I heard Tristian call as my arm was released. The cadet walked away. The first go on the mats was against a new cadet from the last sector change. I didn’t try, even as my body screamed at me.
When she captured my arm in seconds, I debated letting her snap it. Sure, it would hurt, but then I would be useless to the Force. Tristian had called the fight as if my thoughts were spoken out loud.
“I thought you said you took jiujitsu before.” He frowned, staring down at me. I ignored his extended hand and pushed myself up.
“I was fifteen. It’s been eight years,” I spat, touching my left cheekbone.
It ached wildly. My ribs hurt as well. Even if I wanted to fight back, I didn’t have the strength.
Eight years ago, I always had enough food to eat.
I had been safe. The mats had been a game to siphon off trivial anger—a hobby, nothing more.
Fighting hadn’t been a hobby for a long time. Every touch, every move made me reel at the hell of the past eight years. My abilities had become a necessity. I could have pivoted in her grasp, gotten the upper hand. It wasn’t about my abilities—it was a matter of trying, and I couldn’t.
I didn’t know how to just spar anymore, how to find the game in the fight. I didn’t want to.
“You took on three men the other day,” Tristian said, watching me.
“That wasn’t hand to hand.”
“It was still three men.” Several people on the mats shifted their attention our way.
“It was different,” I told him simply. It had been for survival.
“I wouldn’t have started you on the mats.”
“Does it even matter? There’s no enemy above, right? Why do I even need to do this?”
“After what Lyssa said, everyone not in our unit is your enemy,” Tristian informed me as a whistle filled the room.
Burdon had addressed the Force assembly that morning.
Her words still rang in my ears. “The vacant position in the coveted Unit Seven has been filled,” she’d said.
“Commander Hayes wasn’t satisfied with one of our own.
No, he insisted on someone from Expansion.
Every member of the Force is worth ten of those in other sectors.
Commander Hayes disagreed. He was unimpressed with you all seeking midyear petitions.
His new cadet will skip Auction completely.
Which seems unfair. Seeing as we are in another lockdown and we won’t have fresh cadets for another six moons, I would like you all to help oversee Death’s Angel’s welcome to Unit Seven. ”
Lyssa Burdon had come to a halt in front of me as whispers broke out. I had steeled my spine, rigid against the onslaught of attention. People shifted from Formation, craning to see Death’s Angel.
“Welcome to the Force, Cadet Cadell. You might have been the Ward’s unbreakable little Angel, but here”—Burdon sauntered closer until I could smell something sweet on her breath—“I will ensure you break. Maybe you’ll even wish for the death you seem intent on evading.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Doubtful.”
Someone groaned next to me as Burdon stared me down, then turned on her heel.
“Make the Angel fall,” she declared. “All of you. That’s a direct order. I don’t allow Angels in my ranks.” She leaned into Tristian, saying something saved only for him before storming out of the room.
Now, I rolled my eyes at Tristian. “No one has done anything.”
“That’s because I’m here,” he said with such confidence it grated on my nerves. “But you’d be foolish not to think they aren’t all looking for your weaknesses. You’re a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them.”
“Fine,” I said. I held out my hand. He looked between my waiting hand and my face. “My things?” Tristian had taken my pistol and knife prior to allowing me on the mats. It had left me feeling too exposed.
Tristian shook his head. “You won’t need them on the course,” he said simply and walked away.
I cursed under my breath, facing the death trap ahead of me.
The obstacle course was elaborate—ropes hung from the ceiling, several walls loomed, random bars and ladders scattered far above, and other parts that I didn’t even know how to describe.
The rest of the Force might never get their chance at me if I fell and broke my neck.
I wondered why Burdon would allow me into the Force at all if she intended to take me down.
Did she purposefully want to weaken Unit Seven?
What, exactly, was the nature of her relationship to Tristian?
I hadn’t missed the way her gaze had lingered on him yesterday.
“You might want to try on this one,” Levi said next to me, shrugging on his shirt.
His eyes met mine like he knew exactly what I had been doing on the mats.
Unlike Tristian, Levi had sparred the entire session, easily handling each opponent.
Levi was lean and wiry. His dark skin wrapped tightly around each defined muscle.
He had anticipated each move from his opponents, being a step ahead of them before they even moved. It was mesmerizing.
Damien came up on my other side. “He’s right, above is a lot like this. Unfortunately, we don’t wrestle up there. No matter how many times I ask,” he said, shooting a wink at Levi.
Levi chuckled as he walked off.
“Can’t fault a guy for trying,” Damien told me, Isla joining us. “He’s just such a sight on the mats.”
“Everyone is a sight to you, Damien,” Isla said, elbowing him.
He smirked. “It keeps things fun.”
“I’ve missed the obstacle course,” Isla said, excitement etching across her freckled face.
I turned away quickly, the scar I had left above her eyebrow leaving me uncomfortable.
I had been devastated when it had been Isla they brought in with a deep gash above her brow.
Anyone else I could have stitched up and made the scar minimal, but Isla had fair skin covered in freckles.
There had been no hope in matching up the small speckles as I closed the wound, leaving fractured mismatched splotches on both sides of the scar.
Isla had talked to me constantly in the closet, thanking me and asking questions, and I had repaid her with a scar.
“Yeah, well, you’re the only one, you masochist,” Damien claimed. I silently agreed with him.
Isla simply shrugged. “Call it what you want. I owe you, Cadell.”
“She doesn’t like being called Cadell. She flinched when Hayes said it,” Rumi’s voice spoke from behind us, causing me to jump.
“Really, why?” Isla asked, slowing.
“What do you want to be called?” Damien asked seriously, as we stopped at the edge of the obstacle course.
“Fuck, isn’t someone supposed to be on patrol?” I exclaimed, sick of being bombarded by all of them.
“Hayes pulled everyone from patrol today for your first day,” Rumi informed me. I glared at the man ahead of me who laughed at something Patrick said.
“Does it matter what she wants to be called?” Ingrid approached, wrapping her head with a makeshift headband from a piece of purple fabric, clearing her face for the task ahead. “She won’t last. She doesn’t have what it takes to be in the Force.”
Ingrid strutted away. Isla shot me an apologetic look. I ignored it as she jogged off after Ingrid, who stood with Tristian, Levi, and Patrick.
“Ignore Ingrid,” Damien told me, quietly. “She’s always pissed off these days. She can’t move on from losing Lily. They were more than partners.”
“I know,” I said stiffly.
“So what do you want to be called?” Damien asked, thankfully letting it go.
“Oy, hurry up,” Patrick shouted in our direction.
I pushed past Rumi and Damien, making my way toward the course.
“You need to think on it, I get that. New sector, new you, right?” Damien called out behind me, causing my shoulders to go tense.
“I don’t think that’s it,” Rumi said quietly from behind me.
I missed my silent wall of dirt.
An hour later, I found myself agreeing with Isla.
I might also be a masochist. It wasn’t a shocking revelation.
While challenging to the point of humbling, the obstacle course wasn’t as horrendous as I had initially thought.
There was little communication involved with the unit; it was me battling myself, a war I was well acquainted with.
The only time I was forced to rely on the others was to scale the tall walls. The unit formed a human ladder. The first time they did it, they moved so quickly, I almost missed it. The second time, I had been thrown in the mix as people braced and climbed over one another with complete trust.
The only obstacle I didn’t stand a chance at was climbing to the top of the rope like the rest of them.
Even Rumi’s petite form shimmied up the rope with ease.
She snaked her way through the rest of the course.
Her only issue seemed to be far distances, her height working against her.
Patrick was always there, bridging the distance.
Ingrid handled the course like she did everything, with brute force.
Levi seemed to take it on with complete seriousness, everything calculated and precise.
Damien bitched and laughed his way through it; once or twice I swore I caught him favoring the ankle he had held hours before, but a well-placed joke hid his movements.
Tristian made the course look like child’s play as he called out encouragement and praise to his unit, whether hanging by one hand or jumping through the air. Tristian somehow handled the task easily while being aware of the rest of us.
But it was Isla who kept catching my attention. She practically danced through every obstacle, a smile on her face, leaping off things, landing like a cat, and climbing the rope the fastest.
I watched her as I sat on my ass after tumbling down the same rope. Isla hung suspended fifteen feet from the ground. She smiled at me as she swung back and forth, gaining momentum before releasing with a laugh. She sailed through the air, grabbing another bar effortlessly.
“She used to be a gymnast,” Damien said, coming out of nowhere, extending a hand. I rolled to my knees and stood. Damien clapped his rejected hand with his other, shaking his own hand. “You know, it will be unbearable if Ingrid is right. And she will be right if you can’t accept help.”
“Good.”
“Cool, Cadell,” Damien shot back.
“Cadet, from the beginning,” Tristian yelled from somewhere overhead.
I made my way to the start, working through the obstacles as the choke hold I held on the thing beneath my skin gave way.
Those two years, in the closet, I had tried for them.
It only led to more pain—more loss. I knew their mission mattered.
I didn’t know what it was, but it meant a lot to them.
I saw in Tristian’s eyes every time he danced around what they had been tasked with.
They were all fighting for something. Something up there mattered to them.
But I couldn’t—I couldn’t carry any more.
I reached the end of the course. The rope swayed gently, waiting. The unit paused to watch me.
We had all acted like we were an evolved species before the war. We had been delusional. When the war tore the world apart and the trappings of polite society fell away, we were little better than beasts.
When Lily died, mine had roared within me, vicious and unyielding—an ugly, ruthless thing. I stopped trying to fight it.
I gripped the rope. Stares burned into me with each pull. Sweat poured down my spine. Midway, the beast raked its claws down my insides, and I tumbled to the ground, my back slamming hard to the mat.
Again. And again.