Chapter 9 #2
When I reached the House, apprehension snaked down my spine.
It wasn’t only my experiences in the House that left me restless.
Tristian hadn’t looked my way in two weeks.
He hadn’t participated in his unit’s babysitting.
Didn’t acknowledge me at meals. It was almost as if I didn’t exist, like he was preparing for Unit Seven’s impending mission and had made up his mind it would be without me. I should have been relieved. I wasn’t.
Inside the entry room, Tristian sat on the bench, holding a tablet. He wore patrol uniform pants and a T-shirt, his hair half up, chestnut locks grazing his shoulders. A notepad rested on his knee and a coffee against his lips. He placed the cup on the bench when he noticed me.
“You need something?” he asked nonchalantly. He picked up a pen and wrote something down on the notepad, a curl falling into his face.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Paperwork. Evaluating all of our House exercises,” Tristian said, tapping his pen against the papers. “Did Levi need something? It’s his day, right?”
My skin crawled at his words, heating my blood. “The babysitting was your doing?”
Tristian wrote something down on his notepad. “I wouldn’t call it that. Burdon put a bounty on you. I took that personally.” Green eyes met mine. “They’re watching out for you on my orders as we wait for our assignment. What did Levi need?”
“He sent me to tell you to make the decision,” I said, ignoring the guilt pooling in the pit of my stomach.
“You didn’t try on the mats again,” Tristian stated. There wasn’t disappointment in his voice, only resolute acceptance. He tapped the screen once more as he grabbed his coffee, taking a long drink. Patrick’s voice from the device filled the room.
“I am done with this. You already forced the witching hour shift. I have a partner. She can’t do corners. She’s a liability. We are wasting our damn time. She doesn’t want to be here, Hayes.”
The helmet audio was crystal clear. Tristian hit the screen again, silencing it, but Patrick’s words thundered through me. I could feel the weight of the unit’s stares as their face shields went up, exasperated and done with me. It was as if I was back in the House.
Patrick wasn’t wrong. None of them were wrong. My throat suddenly felt too tight. Tristian’s cup hit the bench, and I snapped my head up to find his eyes on me, waiting.
I should apologize—say something, assure him it wasn’t them.
It was me. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be here.
I didn’t…I didn’t much care to be anywhere but back at that table in my kitchen, before the war, with a pink bow in my hair.
The part Tristian wanted—the part that cared for people, life—was trapped there.
“Would you like to see what Patrick’s talking about?” Tristian asked, hesitation heavy upon his words.
Still not willing to try, then? I didn’t know how to try anymore. How to exist the way the rest of them did.
Tristian wrote something down on his notepad, giving me time, or maybe he was carrying on because he knew the answer. That thing inside me snarled, my heart falling silent. My legs shook as I moved toward him and his offer. His pen froze against the page. Those depthless green irises locked on me.
“All right.” I didn’t know why I said it. I told myself it had nothing to do with the emptiness in his expression or the coldness leaching from the man who had once smiled freely at me.
Tristian placed his notepad down and stood slowly, his moves measured as if he knew one wrong move might spook his prey. He tapped the screen several times before he handed me the tablet. “Just watch this all the way through first.”
I held the edge of the device as Tristian moved in close to me.
I could smell his coffee. Onscreen, Tristian led the unit as the scout, Levi on his tail.
Entranced, I watched as Tristian and Levi moved—flawless and efficient.
I didn’t know if I could ever move like that.
The way Tristian pushed on and cleared a room without a backward glance, without a word, displayed complete trust in the man behind him.
He placed his safety—his life—in someone else’s hands. I couldn’t do that.
Patrick and I followed on the screen. There was no confidence to our movements—Patrick looking back at me multiple times as I hesitated, my movements uncertain. Damien nudged me on from behind. I had no foundation to my stance.
“See, right there,” Tristian said, his arm brushing against mine to tap the screen. I saw how my presence created discomfort—a trickle effect affecting everyone in his unit.
“See your front foot? It’s a bad placement—narrowing your stance—and your muzzle isn’t high ready or low ready.
You’ve got great gun awareness with your pistol, but this is different.
” Tristian leaned farther into me, his warmth engulfing my right side.
I fought the urge to sigh and lean into it.
“You’re in between, which isn’t an aggressive stance or a safe one. ”
I stared at the screen, unseeing, as it played again. Tristian leaned down, his breath brushing my ear. The tablet shook against my will. He was too close.
“Right here,” Tristian whispered.
Tristian took down three enemies on the screen, moving with dominating precision. Lethal power exuded from him. Shots rang out. I flinched, and Tristian shifted closer, his hip against my side.
Tristian stepped away, taking the tablet. I mourned the loss of his body against mine almost immediately as the cold air swarmed in, eating away all traces of his presence.
“I can show you,” Tristian offered, something like hope lacing his words. “We don’t have to do a full simulation.”
He didn’t resemble the man I had seen on the video. The fragility of his optimism was tangible. I thought about smashing it into a million unfixable pieces. How many times had I strangled his belief in me?
I want you to give a shit. About anything. About Haven. About them, about yourself.
I couldn’t care about all the things he wanted. I knew where caring got me. I was wasting his humanity.
“I’m not in my gear,” I said. A horrible excuse. He didn’t take it.
“We don’t need gear. It’ll just be footwork and gun placement. We can cover partner movements too. No one is using the House today.” Tristian moved toward the screen on the wall and hit buttons quickly, like if he moved fast enough, I couldn’t run off.
The door hissed open. He grabbed the rifles, cleared them safe, and held one out to me. His gaze met mine, knocking the air from my lungs. Undiluted vulnerability shimmered in the depths, his coldness lifting. I wished that he would ice me out completely, and I could be done with this—with him.
The weapon in his hand felt miles away. I reached out. His shoulders sagged, relief playing out across his face as I took the rifle. I followed him in against my better judgment.
I found myself at a corner as Tristian watched me. The room was fully lit, the sky closed, the observation deck out of sight. There was no projected hologram furniture or people. Just us. I took a step.
“Freeze, right there,” Tristian said seriously. I did, my balance off. He approached me; at some point he had tied up his hair into a low knot to devastating effect. “May I?” he asked me as he approached me from behind. My skin prickled at his approach.
I nodded. I tried not to tense as he lined up behind me, the heat of his body assaulting me. Neither one of us moved for a moment. He hadn’t approached since we entered. He’d kept his distance, coaching from the sidelines. That had been hard enough—his gaze burning through me, my skin ablaze.
“Okay, bring your foot back to where it was before you took the step,” he instructed, voice deeper as his chest brushed against my back.
I did as he said, my balance becoming unstable.
His hands quickly found my hips, steadying me as he guided me back.
They disappeared just as fast as I found my footing.
I attempted to breathe around his presence. My heart picked up its pace.
His right boot nudged against mine as he tapped my right leg lightly, forcing it farther out. “Move this up, toward the corner but not over it. That way you widen your view but don’t allow the enemy a way to get a shot on you.”
I shifted my foot forward, my gun shifting. “You can’t do that,” Tristian said. “I think it’s what upsets Patrick the most. He’s very adamant on firearm safety.”
“If he’s so adamant, you’d think he wouldn’t tense up when he pulled the trigger,” I retorted, viciously.
“Pulling the trigger is hard for him. He’s overcome a lot,” Tristian said plainly, a protectiveness in his tone.
“We’re talking about you. Fact is, you’re staying in your sights too much; it’s a black hole.
Your angle is wrong for low ready, and you don’t punch out enough for high ready.
You’re hesitating, and that indecision is affecting you. ”
You hesitated. In that single moment, you second-guess your gut, and people die. You die.
I shook my father’s advice away. “I haven’t trained like this.”
“But you’ve trained with a pistol?”
“What do I need to do?” I asked, diverting the conversation. I couldn’t discuss my father, his knowledge and all the damage it left me with.
“Can I?” Tristian asked, stepping into me.
“Yes.”
Tristian lined up our legs and wrapped his arms around mine. His body pressed against my back. My heart suddenly beat in my throat as his hands guided mine and the gun, angling the muzzle at a forty-five-degree angle. “Low ready, up, prep, press,” he said into my hair. “Got it?”
“Yes.” It was more breathless than I intended. I focused on the movements.
“Good, again,” he prompted, and I repeated the motion.
“High ready, out, prep, press,” Tristian explained, once again moving my arms. “Understood?”
I nodded, not trusting my voice. My pulse hammered against my skin. We ran through it several times.
“Which one do you want as we make the corner?” he asked, his voice even.
“High,” I murmured, suppressing a shiver. This was just basic instruction. Him helping me be a better unit member. That was it.
“All right.” His hands released mine, but he remained close. “Go ahead.”
I moved the rifle into position like he had just shown me.
“Good, that’s good,” he said behind me. “Now this one.” He tapped my outside leg with his boot, nudging it, as his hand grabbed my thigh.
I sucked in a shaky breath. “Move it all the way to here.” He guided my leg out, following behind me as we turned the corner.
“Feel how your foundation is more stable?”
No, I couldn’t feel anything but his body against mine again. My pulse rioted beneath my skin. “Let’s run it again,” he said, his warm breath brushing against my neck. “This time—”
A loud slam filled the room. His head snapped up to the observation deck. How long had someone been watching us?
“What was that?” I asked, scurrying away from his touch.
“Birds.”
“Do you know who?”
“Most likely Burdon or Kaleo,” he bit out, clearing his throat. “Where were we?”
His cheeks were flushed. Had he been just as distracted by his body against mine? I put space between us. “Thanks. I have it from here. I’ll figure it out. Sorry for wasting your time.”
A frown twisted his handsome features as he watched me. A distant detachment seeped into his features. Good, I thought. I raised my chin as I handed him the weapon.
“Sasha,” Tristian started, taking the rifle, his fingers brushing mine.
I held his gaze as his hope crumbled. Lily’s words blared like a siren.
“Tristian will carry it all for everyone, no matter what it does to him. He will protect them—regardless of the cost. If you ask something of him, he’ll go to any length to help you.
To be in his unit—it was the greatest honor of my life. We all stand a chance because of him.”
I couldn’t ask him to carry the things I harbored, the lengths he’d have to endure. There was no end to the horrors I hid.
“Patrick’s right,” I stated, yanking my hand away.
“About which part?”
“All of it.”
I left.