Chapter 8
Voices filled the helmet as my heart hammered against the plates until the voices blended together. I had hesitated. No, I had more than hesitated. I froze. My breaths sawed out of me even as I stood rooted to the spot. I had failed.
“Abort the mission.”
More voices mixed.
“End the fucking mission.”
My face shield lifted, and green eyes filled my vision. I felt my weapon leave my grip.
“Sasha, are you okay?”
I couldn’t get words out. All I saw was my brother’s panicked look as the man drove a knife into his side. The intruder hadn’t needed to. I told him he could take whatever he wanted.
“Sasha,” Hayes said again, devastation etched across his face. “You’re safe. It wasn’t real.”
“Hayes, Birds—” Levi said into the helmet; I jumped at the sound. Tristian hit another button on the helmet, and the sound went quiet.
Tristian turned, looking toward the observation deck, and a pair of boots moved above.
“Fuck,” Tristian muttered, turning back to me. “I’m going to have to go handle that. Are you okay?”
No. I wasn’t okay. Nothing would ever be okay again. Everything had been taken from me. Why couldn’t he understand that? Far away, my head nodded, but I wasn’t in my body. I was in the pantry of our house as blood covered the floor, clutching Eli to my chest.
“Stay with the unit. I’ll be back shortly. We’ll figure out a different approach,” Tristian told me, his concern potent.
I watched him leave, but not really. The rest of the unit shifted around me as the lights came on, and we stood in an empty room.
The furniture, the hostages, the art, everything besides the walls had been holograms, lifelike, high-quality, like from before the war.
The Force had technology from before the war.
That should have been interesting to me, but as I closed my eyes, all I saw was crimson red, soaking into my pants until they became wet before reaching our food, spoiling the bottom layers.
I didn’t realize a body held so much blood, especially one that small.
There was a clicking noise. I startled.
“Hey, I’m just taking off the helmet,” Levi said softly, so at odds with his normal dry tone. He pulled my helmet off and the suffocating feeling with it. I started gulping oxygen. “Someone get her some water.”
I heard movement.
“Is she okay?”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. Something triggered her,” Levi informed them.
“Was that Burdon?”
“No, Kaleo.”
“Burdon’s fucking lap dog.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, shit.”
Footsteps sounded. Ingrid stood holding water, but for a second I saw my little sister nervously peeking around the corner.
Don’t, don’t come in here, Lara. Don’t come in here.
A sob threatened to work its way up my throat.
I grabbed my neck. Not a sob. I was going to vomit.
I turned, wide-eyed, and fled. Through the steel door, past the entrance to the briefing room.
Through the Gym, the other soldiers a blur of blue.
I ran into the lockers and through a door in the back I had seen Wilma go through, praying it was the bathroom.
I had guessed right. I slammed into one of the stalls and retched violently.
Again and again, my hands held the toilet in a death grip. Only when I was sure every ounce of food I had eaten in years was gone did I crumple to the floor. Tears dripped down my face.
“Sasha?” Rumi’s quiet voice came from the other side of the stall.
“Go away.”
“I’ll help you remove your gear and put it away. When you’re ready.”
I sat in the hell that was my mind as time became irrelevant. Freezing as it had in the House. Like it had frozen each time someone I loved died. Each time I took a life. The agony ate me alive until the thing that dwelled in me returned, feasting on all of it.
Rumi didn’t say a word when I finally left the stall. She didn’t rush or try to console me. She just walked me to the end of the room where a large group shower sat. Without a word, she took off the plates, the belt, and the pants, stripping me until I stood in just my bra and underwear.
“Soap’s in there. I’ll put your stuff away. I’ll be back with a towel and clothes. Isla is at the bathroom entrance.” Rumi walked away.
I showered, only partially aware of the lukewarm water and the soap, going through the motions as I attempted to piece myself back together, shoving my skeletons into the cramped closet and locking them away. I shut the water off and walked naked to the edge of the shower.
Rumi waited, handing me a towel and my blue uniform before she bent down and grabbed my undergarments. She stood quietly as I toweled off and put my uniform back on. For once, I was thankful for her perpetual silence. I didn’t have to explain or be told it would be okay.
“Ready?” she asked when I was fully dressed. I nodded, and she led the way.
Ten minutes later, I sat down with a plate of food. I pushed it around the plate. My appetite was nowhere to be found. Patrick, Rumi, Isla, and Ingrid were across from me. Damien and Levi sat to my left, the seat to my right open. Tristian hadn’t returned.
The group was subdued compared to lunch. Eyes flickered my way before returning to their plates.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Damien asked. The rest of them all rounded on him.
“Dame, seriously?”
“What? We’re all going to pretend she didn’t fall apart?”
“Shut up, Damien.”
“You were the one who said you wouldn’t let her guard your back.”
“Tact, Dame.”
“If she wanted to talk, she would.”
“Would she?”
“Jaxon is looking at you,” Rumi said, nodding behind me. I twisted to see him nudge toward the lockers again.
I pushed myself up, too tired to stay with them. Rumi had given me an out. Maybe she hadn’t intended to; perhaps she had. Regardless, I latched on gratefully.
“Hayes said you should stay with us until he returns,” Levi said.
Something in me snapped. “I might be in his unit, but he doesn’t control my fucking life.”
I stormed from the table, beelining for the locker room.
“Let her go,” Levi said behind me.
I charged into the locker room, headfirst into Jaxon, who stood with his arms crossed. Clearly, my shot earlier had struck a nerve.
“Any quicker?” Jaxon sneered.
I rolled my eyes, trying to find something to fire back. I had nothing, my arsenal as empty as my chest.
“Trying to impress your unit?” Jaxon asked.
“If I was, wouldn’t that make us the same?” I asked, but there was no bite to it.
Jaxon laughed. “Are you coming over for a ride? I’ll make it quick.”
I sighed. “It’s over, Jaxon. I should have ended it a long time ago.”
“Sure. I’ll meet you at my place.” Jaxon smirked. “Keep the uniform on.”
I watched him walk away, disgusted by his cockiness. I went to my locker, where Rumi had replaced my above uniform haphazardly, ruining the pristine neatness. I dug under everything until I found my father’s pistol and knife. I strapped them on and darted into the tunnels.
“Cadell, wait up,” Tristian’s voice rang out from behind.
“Go away, Hayes,” I shot back—exhausted, tired of the company, the prying, all the attention. I was just tired. I had been for years. I had held it at bay, hid it behind walls, handled it alone. Now, I was drowning. Every defense I had crafted threatened to crumble. My brother’s memory clung to me.
“Cadell—”
“Stop calling me that,” I snarled, whirling around. Tristian stopped just out of reach, his face tight. He was still in his gear. A few curls fell into his face like he had run his hands through it. His face was heavy with concern I didn’t deserve.
“The Force uses surnames,” Tristian said. “You’re going to hear it a lot. You have to get used to it, Cadet.”
The anger, always one breath away, rattled within me. I welcomed it, anything to keep away what had started to fester within me.
“So I’m Cadet again?”
Tristian sighed like he might be tired too. “Yes, you are a cadet in the Force. You have to get used to being called ‘Cadet’ and ‘Cadell.’ ”
“Great. Anything else I need to get used to since you’ve hijacked my life?”
“What were you doing with your life?” Tristian demanded, stepping closer. “Swinging an ax at dirt every day for a damn sham of a sector? Punishing yourself because Lily died? Was I supposed to just watch you throw your life away?”
“No one asked you to watch!”
“But I did,” Tristian gritted out, bearing down on me. “I watched you throw away your talents in the Ward, watched you pick up that stupid ax instead of coming here, watched you…” He bit back his next words, but I knew what he had been on the verge of saying.
“Watched me what?” I pushed, needing to hear it.
Tristian shook his head, his mouth a tight thin line.
“Watched me what, Hayes?” I repeated, slowly, holding his stare. “Say it.”
I needed him to say it. I needed him to reveal that he saw who I really was.
To completely destroy the man who had stayed with me instead of following death three years ago.
The man who had given me an afternoon of something good in a world I had convinced myself was bad.
The man who had eased something he didn’t cause.
To draw a line between us, one I had forgotten about the moment he smiled.
“I watched you try to throw away your worth on someone who doesn’t deserve you.”
I felt his confession like a physical blow, hollowing my lungs.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I fumed, trembling against the force that dwelled within me.
“I don’t? He’s a fucking buffer, so you can avoid what made you freeze in the House,” Tristian said.
“So what, I used him as a distraction. I didn’t ask for your opinion. I don’t need the judgment from someone doing the same damn thing.”
His warm breath hit my face as he forced a laugh. “I’m doing the same thing as you? How, Sasha?”
“You’re using me, Hayes.”
His brows raised. “What are you talking about?”
“The Force got rid of medics, correct?”
“Yes.” A muscle in his jaw flexing brutally.
“But you couldn’t accept that. So here I am.”