Aidan
“This is…bad,” I muttered as I looked out the window and watched the disaster unfolding in front of me.
The trees thrashed and twisted in the wind that had already blown everything that was too light and not held down away.
Branches and pieces of wood from a tree struck by lightning littered the ground, tumbling with each horrendous gust of wind.
I winced when I heard a sharp crack, signaling another tree fighting for its life to stay upright.
It was a fight I was sure several trees were going to lose, and probably several buildings if it kept up.
“We’re reaching the peak,” Mika said from behind me. “It’s about to be worse.”
“And how long until we’re clear?” I wondered.
“A few hours probably,” he said, and I glanced over my shoulder to see him looking at his computer screen and not at me or the weather.
I wanted to attribute it to being focused on doing what he could while the others were out in the weather.
Mav and Carter had gone to secure their outpost building, while Colin and Trevor were making sure the ‘Exile House’ was secure.
Reno was at the science building with Jake, and I wondered how they were handling being by themselves.
The tension between them was almost as thick as the danger in the air outside, but I thought if any two people were capable of working on what was wrong, it was them.
Even knowing Mika had a reason for being distant, there was still a nagging unease running through me.
It didn’t help that the storm already had me on edge.
I tried to tell myself it was just that: the worry and anxiety about the storm and the rest of the guys making me paranoid.
And yet the same voice in my head accused of paranoia refuted it by saying no, something was definitely wrong, but when asked what… it grew silent.
“I hope no one is outside in this,” I said as I turned to the window and looked at the chaotic, whirling shadows that made up the forest on that dark and stormy night.
“If they are, they’d better hope they’re not too far out,” Mika said. “There’s no way anyone is going to get air support out there in weather like this. And we’d take forever on foot or even the quads in this weather. If they could even get out a call for help.”
“Right,” I said, not relishing the idea of driving in that weather anyway.
“As you’ve been told, the best thing we can do is keep an eye on things around here and hunker down,” Mika said, and his phrasing made me turn around and stare at him. “Try to minimize damage and hope we don’t have to go out.”
“As I’ve been told?” I repeated in a low voice. We were in the dining hall, but Cait wasn’t far away; a constant stream of communication between her and the team, and her and who knew who else out there, was coming through in her calm, operator voice.
“You were told that,” he said simply, and I frowned, recognizing the tone.
That was his “I’m being mature and controlled and a little smug about it because someone needs to,” voice.
“You know, I understand everyone is under a lot of stress right now, but if we could spare each other the patronizing tone, that would be appreciated,” I said calmly, even as I felt my irritation scratch at my inner walls.
It would be a little too easy to lose my temper when I was already on edge from the weather and danger.
Mika looked up, scowling. “Now isn’t the time for sensitivity.”
“Alright,” I said, walking closer to him so I could speak without being overheard. “If we’re going to be buddied up for the rest of this storm, I’m really going to need you to tone the attitude down. We can’t get through this if you’re going to be antagonistic.”
“We,” he scoffed quietly, but I’d heard him.
“Yeah, we,” I said, frowning. “What the hell is going on?”
His head snapped up, and I could see the barely contained anger in his eyes. “I don’t know, Aidan, why don’t you tell me?”
Unease grew into worry. “What do you mean? You’re the one with an attitude.”
“And are you the one with secrets?” he hissed, his expression collapsing as he sucked in a controlled breath. “Shit.”
“Shit,” I said slowly, my heart pounding in my chest. “Mika—”
“It’s funny,” he said in a quiet, controlled voice.
“I thought I’d spend some time while I waited, to read through the stuff you’ve been writing.
Didn’t think twice about unlocking your laptop to read your work.
I mean, you gave me the password after all.
What was the problem? And you had been writing, you’d been doing a lot of writing in fact.
Little did I realize that at least half your writing was telling someone else all about us here. ”
My heart plummeted, rooting me in place. “Mika—”
“Is that all you’ve got?” he demanded. “Just my name in that sad voice?”
“I wanted to tell you,” I said, desperation creeping up to wrap its hands around my throat. “I wanted to talk to you about it, and I wanted to quit. I’ve been trying to…I don’t know, soft-launch stopping, but if I stopped, where the fuck would I be? Not here, that’s for sure.”
“Should you have even been here in the first place if all you were going to do was air our laundry to someone, dirty or clean?” he asked hotly, and my stomach squirmed at the disgust on his face.
“Christ, Aidan, we trusted you. We treated you like one of ours from the start. And you’ve been playing TMZ with our personal and professional lives? ”
“Not personal,” I refuted immediately, and then grimaced. “Not…really personal.”
“No, just enough that if someone wanted to, they could make connections. Or at the very least, they could wonder how personal all of us are getting, at the expense of job performance,” he snapped.
“Do you really think someone wants that kind of information because they like workplace gossip? That information might be uncomfortable for you to tell, but in the hands of someone who wants to start shit, they could, a lot of it.”
“I wanted to stop.”
“And you haven’t.”
“And I wanted to talk to you about it.”
“And you didn’t, not until I brought it up.”
True on both counts, but I was finding my anger. “I’m trying to explain.”
“Don’t,” he said, turning his head away and closing his eyes. “I won’t tell the others, not right now. But if you don’t fucking do it, I will. I thought I could trust you, Aidan. I really did.”
“I…you can,” I said, but even to my ears it sounded weak and pitiful.
“I’m not unaware of how fucked up the whole thing was, and I’ve been trying to make it right, okay?
I just…I didn’t know how. It was stupid to agree to it in the first place, I get that, I really fucking do and if you read as much as you make it sound like you did, then you know I didn’t like it and I’ve been giving less and less, and you know I wanted to own up to it. ”
“Then why haven’t you?” he asked through clenched jaws.
“Because…” I said, then stopped, the words freezing in my throat because why would I say the truth when the truth wouldn’t matter?
When it would fall on ears deafened by betrayal and anger, ears I would have had for him once upon a time.
Why be vulnerable, say the full truth when it would simply be ignored or thrown back in my face and used against me?
And I had barely asked myself that when, for the first time, the answer came clear as day.
Because it didn’t matter what he did with the truth, because it was the truth, and it was better to live in truth where it hurt than to feel safe in a lie.
“Because of you, all of you,” I said simply.
“You…spied on us and kept that from us because…of us? Make that make sense.”
“No, I kept tabs and made reports on all of you because I knew it was the only way to have and keep this job,” I corrected immediately. “I kept it a secret because of all of you…but I guess, mostly because of you.”
He hesitated, looking wary. “Elaborate.”
I bit back the urge to reiterate that it was stupid and fucked up to have agreed to the stipulations of the job and did as he asked.
“Because as much as I wanted to tell all of you…especially you, and as much as I wanted to say, fuck it and just…stop. I knew that if I said I wasn’t going to do it anymore, my position would be yanked out.
And I knew the chances of me being welcome here if I told the truth were next to zero, and I—”
I couldn’t look at him, not when he was as disappointed, angry, and disgusted with me as I was with myself.
I turned and walked back toward the window, finding the sight of the unnerving storm more comfortable than Mika’s face.
“I can’t remember the last time I felt this at home.
It’s like,” I cleared my throat against the choke, but I couldn’t fight the sting in my eyes.
“It’s like being home; I don’t know how else to put it.
Like there’s somewhere I could actually be…
me, all of me. Where I have people I can rely on and who rely on me, where it’s give and take equally, and where I just…
like I saw a whole future here, with all of you… with you.”
I blinked rapidly, trying to get through without losing my shit.
“I knew I couldn’t do it without telling the truth, but the truth wasn’t going to free me or make it better.
It just meant losing my job or an incredibly high chance of it.
I didn’t know what to do, so I did…nothing.
” I bowed my head and shook it. “I guess it’s like you said, we keep finding ways to go back to our old selves even when we try to leave them behind.
Because I…apparently learned nothing. All that change, all that effort, all that attempt to grow, and I…
didn’t. I trapped myself, and I should have done the right thing a long time ago, but I guess…
I just wanted to be happy for a little longer. ”