Chapter 33 #2
“Can’t we call on the radios?” Isla asked, Ingrid beside her, her mouth a thin line. I didn’t need Tristian to answer. We were on our own down here.
“They don’t work down here,” Tristian confirmed.
Isla blanched at the news, but she didn’t balk.
“Good luck,” Ingrid said, turning away.
“You too,” Tristian told them as we went our own way, splitting the unit apart even more.
Tristian and I walked in silence. The sounds of Isla’s and Ingrid’s footsteps disappeared, leaving us with only the sounds of our own breaths, stone on all sides the entire way.
It grew colder as we gradually descended.
The tunnel came to a fork.
“What do you think?” Tristian asked.
“Which way did you go last time?” I asked, staring at the path behind him.
Tristian didn’t meet my eyes as he said, “I didn’t go this way last time. I sent Medusa and Sunshine the way I went. It’s only empty rooms and tunnels and leads to the exit by the river.”
“So they won’t be in danger?”
“Unless they find something I missed in my hours down here,” Tristian confirmed, looking down the tunnel behind him.
“And the ones above, do you think Burdon will truly send someone?” I asked, watching the commander they all respected, who had considered everyone’s safety but his own. And now mine.
“If I still know Lyssa she won’t. She’ll keep this contained in the Force.
She will spin it to ensure her image remains intact.
She loves power but needs control. Misinformation and manipulation are her specialties.
Kaleo might convince her otherwise, but it’ll be a small unit that comes. Rumi and Levi alone can handle them.”
“Levi told me he was a bad shot.”
“He isn’t that bad, and he knows Kaleo’s style better than anyone. They served together for a long time.”
“What about you?” I asked.
“I don’t know what we’re walking into. I felt most comfortable taking on the risk myself,” Tristian said. I took the tunnel behind him. He kept up with me, and silence found us again.
We inspected several doors off the tunnel. They were all empty. Not a single sign of life. We were alone down here, but it felt too familiar. After the sixth door, Tristian broke the silence.
“Sasha, I’m sorry you’re the one down here, that I dragged you into this. I planned to take Levi down, but Rumi told us it was better this way. I think she knew the decisions I’d make, the risks I would take on myself, and pushing you to be here with me was her way of protecting me.”
I closed the door, continuing. “It’s not a big deal, Hayes.”
“It is to me.”
“And I’m telling you it isn’t.”
I opened another door.
“Do you mean that?”
“I have nothing left to lose.” I meant it. The others were safe, at least for now. Rumi placed me here to keep their commander safe. I could do that. I was unwilling to admit that there wasn’t another option for me.
The room was empty. I closed the door as we approached a fork in the road again. “I picked last time.”
Tristian took the tunnel behind me. I followed, the tunnel sloping down farther. My fingers grew cold as we kept going.
“How did this come about,” I asked the silence, “the mutiny?”
“How much do you want to know?”
I glanced around the tunnels, the imminent doom.
“All of it.”
Tristian kept walking as he began his story. “I had a unit before Seven.”
“The Angels. Levi told me. He told me about Burdon’s coup.”
“Right,” Tristian said, looking ahead. “After the Angels fell and Lyssa took the Force commander position, I realized I couldn’t trust Command.
There was evidence of Lyssa’s crimes, and they accepted her anyway.
When she gave me a new unit, I began to formulate a new plan.
This mutiny. Slowly I set my plan into motion, but I was limited to only the Force.
Lyssa controlled all communication with the other sectors. She was paranoid.”
“I’m sure she was,” I muttered as we turned left.
“I realized that if I wanted any chance of getting to the supplies sooner, I needed more information. Which meant I needed to be someone Lyssa trusted again, relied on. If I could run communications for her, talk with the other leaders and their subordinates, I could get more information. Understand the real situation we were in within Haven, and any information they might have about what was left for us.” Tristian stared straight ahead, his entire body stiff. “So I went back to her.”
My heart pounded painfully in my throat. I couldn’t imagine what that did to Tristian.
“I thought it would be difficult to convince her. I thought she’d be suspicious.
She wasn’t. She told me she knew I’d understand.
That I was always to be spared. That she was making a better world for us.
That the greater good came first. I said I did, that I had been wrong not to think of it first.”
“She believed you?” I asked incredulously.
“She lost everything in the war. She wasn’t like this when I met her, not completely. When her twin died, she became more desperate.”
“We all lost something in the war. Doesn’t give her a right to become the thing that took everything from her,” I said angrily.
“I’m not proud of what I did before or after her coup. But I wanted to complete this mission. I wanted to help people, so I kept her distracted while I planned.”
My spine went ramrod straight at the implications of that word. I had asked him to distract me, to be a distraction for me. Disgust lanced through me.
“I kept her attention away from Levi, who had a harder time going along with my plan. He just wanted to kill her and Kaleo. Lyssa created the Auction to build units based on my advice. I watched the cadets closely that first one, built a unit that appeared unassuming to others.”
“Why did you choose them?” I had always wondered. I knew the unit cared about one another despite their complicated history. They worked together in a way that I had never seen.
“I chose them all for different reasons—abilities, grit, willpower, humor, strength, stealth. But the one thing I watched for was that they had someone. That in the aftermath of the war, they still maintained their humanity—were fighting for someone, not just something. People fight differently when they still have someone to lose. I watched too many people lose that in the war.”
People like me.
Tristian continued. “From our very first mission above, we began pushing the limits quietly. The sector leaders trusted me by then. Lyssa didn’t notice as long I gave her what she wanted. Her biggest threat was in her bed…so she felt powerful.”
“How long did that last? How long did you two…” I couldn’t finish the question.
“A year,” Tristian said. Anger ran through my veins at what he had done to himself. “I told myself it was worth it, especially when I was unanimously assigned the mission for the Abyss. I thought we were on our way. Then I got sick.”
I found his deep green gaze on me as the floor leveled out. We walked under an archway. It was different from the other stone, but I didn’t take notice, too distracted by the man beside me.
“I thought I was dying. I went in and out a lot,” Tristian told me, glancing around the room. It was bigger than every other room, but it was empty. Several doors and tunnels lined the walls. Tristian stopped. “I heard you.”
I turned toward him. “What?”
“I heard you, your voice, when I was sick.”
“What did you hear?” I asked. Memories of sitting next to his cot found me. As I brushed his hair away, asking him to hang on. To stay. That he looked like someone people would miss. That I’d love to just once not sit by death.
Tristian turned toward me. “You asked me to stay. That you were tired of knowing death.”
My heart fluttered in my chest. “Then what happened?”
“I came back, expecting to be thrown out or demoted, but my health score didn’t drop that dramatically.
A night or two in the Ward was all that was marked,” Tristian said.
I refused to look his way, to discuss what I had done for him.
“So I kept my unit, but I couldn’t go back to Lyssa.
Things blew up between us. She got back at me by making the Abyss a competition.
Kaleo and Henderson were to look as well.
She acted like it was punishment. That I needed the glory of finding it, but I welcomed the help, well, from Henderson.
Kaleo had other plans, operating alone, finding his way into Lyssa’s bed. ”
We peered into the next room; a table and bench sat there. Nothing else.
“Since then, I’ve been solely focused on finding the supplies, following the rules.
Until the illness hit, and instead of doubling our efforts above, they faked a weather report and locked us below.
Like they wanted us all exposed to the threat.
Thin us out for the remaining supplies. Rumi got the reports from the sector meeting.
Command decided it was best to keep Haven together.
Only the Kitchens commander disagreed—opting for the mission to press on.
But Dr. Uri claimed if one of us became ill we wouldn’t make it back in time.
That Command had to protect the Exploratory Units at all costs, which negated him voting against medics for years, saying the sacrifice of one was worth saving many. ”
“He said that?”
“Yes. Dr. Kumar always said not to trust him,” Tristian said.
“He told me the same before he…” I couldn’t say it. Tristian’s arm brushed against mine. I didn’t think it was an accident.
“I realized we were running out of time. If we wanted a chance at finding the supplies, I had to create the opportunity to get us all out. Levi, Rumi, and I gathered information on the weather, monitoring patrol groups and the guard shack, finding the best time. Curfew was put into place, which was helpful. Rumi was able to alter the radiation read, while I kept the lookout.”
“And Wilma?”