Chapter 49
The shock stays with me all the way back to the Dagger. Adrienne notices how distracted I am, but I hope she chalks it up to my reunion with Xavier. Either way, she doesn’t push me to talk.
A million questions run through my mind.
Why was she meeting with Travis Redden?
Is she colluding with the enemy, or is the enemy working with us?
Who else knows about it?
What the fuck is going on?
I don’t know who to ask. Does Gray know? Does the Authority? Am I the only one who’s not in the loop? And in the event that Gray doesn’t know, I don’t want to just blurt it out. This information is too delicate to reveal without thinking it through first.
Gray sends me a message, but I’m not ready to talk to him, so I don’t respond. I’m not ready to be inside my quarters, either, and although it’s the middle of the night, I go out to the Ledge, staring at the dark treetops and star-streaked sky.
I’m not certain how long I’m sitting there before I hear the sucking noise of the air lock sliding open.
“Wren?” It’s Gray, of course.
“How did you know I was out here?” I hope he doesn’t hear the dull note to my voice.
“When you were ignoring my comm, I checked the cameras.” He strides toward me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.” He remains standing, looking down at me. “Why are you out here? Adrienne says the op went smoothly.”
“Yeah, I think it did.”
If rendezvousing with the General of the Continent can be considered smooth.
“Then what happened?”
“Nothing,” I insist. “Just personal shit.”
That earns me an incredulous laugh. “All the more reason to tell me. Things with us are as personal as they get.”
He’s not wrong, but…
“Wren,” he says in frustration.
“Trust me, you don’t want to talk to me about this.”
“How about you let me decide that? You’re upset. I want to know why.”
I tip my head to meet his eyes. “Cross is with somebody else.”
He freezes.
Something passes through his expression. Something dark and unhappy.
“See?” I sigh, twisting my face back to the trees. “I told you. You don’t want to be the person I talk to about this.”
Gray is silent for a while, but he doesn’t move. When he speaks, his voice is strained.
“You loved him.”
It takes me a long time to answer. “Yes.”
“I thought it was just a physical thing. Sneaking in and out of your quarters when we were in Silver Elite. Casual screwing.”
I slowly shake my head. “No, it was deeper than that.”
He scoffs. “Right. Cross Redden is deep.”
“He’s not always a ruthless asshole.” I don’t want to discuss Cross, but Gray, out of anyone, should know that there’s more to people than meets the eye. “I got to know him well.” I’ve known him all my life. “He even introduced me to his mother.”
Gray’s eyes narrow. “You met Vinessa Redden?”
“Yes.” I swallow. “It was more than just physical.”
Another brief silence falls.
“You’re right,” he finally says. “I’m not the person to talk to about this.”
I nod weakly. “No, you’re not.”
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
Part of me knows I should go after him. Reassure him he’s the one I’m with now and that Cross means nothing to me. But I’m not a liar.
I can’t explain what I’m feeling anyway, because I have moved on. I love being with Gray. I really do. I think he’s good for me.
Yet the image of Cross with that woman is branded in my brain now, and every time I think about it, my heart feels like it’s been shredded to tattered ribbons.
The tears fall before I can blink them away.
“Babe?”
I jolt in surprise when Tana emerges from the air lock. Her eyes widen when she sees my face.
I discreetly wipe my tears. “What are you doing out here?”
“Gray just knocked on my door. He told me you needed me.”
That only makes me cry harder. Fuck. Even battling his own jealousy and whatever insecurities were stirred up from finding me upset over another man, he still cared enough to dispatch a friend to comfort me.
“Whoa,” Tana says. “You’re crying.”
I peer at her through a mist of tears. “So?”
“So I’ve never seen you cry before, not even when we were kids.”
She’s right. I’ve always been good at hiding my feelings. But this hurts too much to contain.
Tana sits beside me and wraps her arm around my shoulder. I slide closer and rest my head on her.
“I saw Jasper Reed and Xavier before our mission tonight, and they told me Cross has moved on.” I gulp through the pain. “He’s been with other women.”
“How would they even know that?”
“Jasper can past-project.”
She sucks in a breath. “Is that possible?”
“Apparently so. He showed me the memory. It flashed through my head like a movie scene. He was at a brothel in the Point and walked in on Cross in bed with another woman. I saw it.”
“Oh, babe, I’m sorry.”
My chest squeezes as another swell of emotion threatens to rise and spill over. “I’ve moved on. I shouldn’t care that he has, too.”
“Of course you care. Just because it’s over doesn’t mean you stop caring.”
“It’s not fair to Gray for me to be this upset.”
“Probably not,” she agrees.
“Thanks.”
Tana laughs. “The new man never wants to hear about the old man. But it’s okay to feel hurt and to mourn.”
God, this does feel like mourning. I gave Cross so many pieces of myself. I showed him the bloodmark I’d kept hidden my whole life. I bared myself to him and then refused to run away with him. I’m not allowed to be upset. I have to let him go for real.
I take a shaky breath, the tears drying up. “Thanks, Tan.”
“Always.”
I think we’re good now, she and I. I no longer feel the resentment and anger emanating from her very soul. I think she’s in a better place, and as a result, so are we.
I’m glad she’s here. With Uncle Jim gone and now Wolf lost to me, she’s my oldest friend. The only link to my old life, and the only tether in this damn world that stops me from feeling like I’m completely adrift.
Gray skips breakfast. I don’t see him at lunch, either. I quiz Saint and Henley, who tell me the Authority has been in the war room all day. I wonder if this is about Adrienne’s secret meeting last night.
With Travis Redden.
The Authority must know about it.
Right?
It’s nearly impossible to concentrate on the weapons class I’m teaching this afternoon, which probably isn’t conducive to gun safety.
Eventually I tell Zak I don’t feel well, and he waves me off, saying to get some rest. I return to my room and do my best not to dwell on what Jasper showed me last night.
I almost reached out to Cross this morning. The urge was so strong, I could taste it. But I resisted. If he’s sleeping with somebody else, then he’s clearly not locked on me anymore, which means I can’t be locked on him.
There’s only one man I care about seeing right now, and that’s Gray. I need to look into his eyes and make sure he’s all right. That he’s not mad or resentful of the knowledge that Cross and I were more serious than he’d thought.
But Gray is nowhere to be found, and my impatience has reached peak levels by the time he sends me a comm.
I want to take you somewhere tonight. Can you be ready after sunset?
I stare at the screen. That’s all he’s going to say to me? He caught me crying over another man last night, he avoided me all day, and now he wants to take me somewhere?
Still, I’m quick to respond.
Of course.
Meet me in the hangar.
I end up seeing him prior to sunset, as he joins us for dinner in the mess hall.
He rakes a hand through his hair and wearily sinks into a chair.
As he settles beside me, his hand brushes mine on the table, only a light caress, but his touch feels like an electric shock.
I welcome the contact, realizing just how much it upsets me, the notion that I’ve upset him.
I don’t want Gray to feel hurt, ever. I want him to be happy.
“Everything okay?” Henley asks in amusement.
Gray groans. “The war room is really living up to its name today.”
That gets a laugh from Evlynne. “How so?”
“Adrienne and Kallister are going at it.”
“Over what?” I ask, a frown pulling at my lips.
“She’s proposed a mission. A risky one,” Gray admits.
I stiffen. This can’t be a coincidence. She met with Travis last night, the leader of the Continent, and now she’s proposing a high-risk mission that has Kallister, one of the most levelheaded people I know, arguing against it?
“What’s the mission?” I push.
“You know I can’t disclose that yet. But Kallister’s not on board, and some things need to be unanimous. I think this is going to be one of them.”
I’m even more intrigued, but Gray doesn’t elaborate. He grabs a quick bite, and then he, Henley, and Evlynne head off to a pilots’ briefing.
I linger over my coffee, debating what to do next. Finally, I open a path to Kallister.
“Can we talk?”
“Of course. My quarters?”
“No.” I pause. “The white daggerstone cave on the bluff.”
“I see.” He immediately grasps the implication. The white daggerstone will ensure it’s a confidential meeting. “I can be there in fifteen minutes.”
I bid the others goodbye and leave the Dagger through the air lock.
Jogging to the bluff, I wonder how to approach this.
How much to share. I don’t want Adrienne getting mad at me for speaking out of turn, especially if the rest of the Authority is privy to her secret rendezvous with the General.
But I can’t just ignore what I saw at the railway station, and I don’t entirely trust that she’ll be honest with me if I confront her directly.
I’m reaching the cave when I suddenly hear a rustling behind me. I spin around, not sure if I’m expecting Kallister or my old ridgehowler pal, but I find neither. The woods are silent, the trail empty.
“If you’re out there, Prince, I hope you’re doing well,” I murmur to the trees, and I swear I feel eyes boring back at me.
I can’t see a thing through the brush, though. If he is there, he’s improved his stealth skills. And I don’t know if he’s stalking me or protecting me, but whichever it is, he’s staying well hidden this time around, and that brings a smile to my lips.
I step through the eerie gap in the wall and find myself surrounded by the shimmering white walls, the daggerstone winking like an explosion of stars all around me. Evlynne’s son would probably call this magic, too.
At the thought of Fisher, my stomach clenches in frustration, because every time I try to ask Evlynne about him, she brushes me off. I assume she hasn’t disclosed his abilities, because I haven’t heard a peep about it around base.
Granted, the Authority does like to keep everything close to their vests.
For all I know, they’re fully aware of Fisher’s bloodmark.
The fact that the boy is still in the valley at least tells me that if Evlynne did disclose, they’re not planning on training him right away.
Hopefully they allow him some time to grow up.
I hear the echo of footsteps. A shadow casts across the floor and is projected against the cave wall before Kallister appears.
“Something’s happened?” he says in lieu of a greeting.
“Maybe. I don’t know if I should even be here.
But I wasn’t sure who else to talk to. Everybody’s keeping different secrets, and the Authority knows some things but not other things, and Personnel know other things but not all things.
” I realize I’m babbling and force myself to stop.
“I want to ask Adrienne, but I worry she won’t be truthful. ”
His gaze sharpens. “Truthful about what, Wren?”
“Last night…The mission. My sniper duty.”
I hesitate, just for a beat, before deciding there’s no point. I already asked him to come. I might as well finish it.
“Did you know she was meeting Travis Redden?”
“Yes.” Kallister is quick to reply. Matter-of-fact.
I’m unable to mask either my disbelief or my revulsion. “The Uprising is working with the Company?”
“Not quite. We only worked with him once.”
“To do what?” I ask, but the answer hits me at the exact moment Kallister voices the alarming truth.
“We worked with Travis to take down his father.”