Chapter 17 #3
“Nope. You’re standing at the front door, wearing a thin, white summer dress that could’ve doubled as gauze. You looked great, don’t get me wrong, but it left little to the imagination.”
I remember that dress, and the way the flimsy cotton slid between my fingers. The way it infuriated Papa when I wore it. “I’m sure she was embarrassed.”
Hunter smiles. “Oh, I don’t think embarrassed is the word. I think smitten is more accurate.”
My face grows hot. “Smitten? Taylor?”
“I was as surprised as you are,” she says with a gentle laugh. “It was so cute. We never spoke about it, but she did take a particular interest in you after that. She snapped up any mission to do recon in New York before Theia could even finish a sentence.”
“That’s how she got information on me,” I reply. “She really did stalk me.”
“Maybe, but it looks like it was worthwhile for you. I mean, here you are, alive and well. She must’ve seen something worth saving during those months.”
“Saving? I was not some daring rescue. I was a last-minute smash-and-grab job when my—when the COs noticed her.”
Hunter stops and faces me. “Taylor botched a mission with an easy target and was somehow close enough to you to remove you from your own home without intervention? That doesn’t seem suspicious to you?”
Sure, when she phrases it like that, it sounds intentional. But Theia’s daughter would be well versed in spin. “They almost caught her. She could’ve died.”
“Right,” she says in obvious disbelief.
“So, what? She risked her entire life, this whole rebellion, because she found me attractive? Doesn’t sound like you know her as well as you think you do.”
Hunter laughs, but this time it’s predatory. “Oh, but I do. I know she is a paragon of logic and reason until her passion is ignited. If someone has gotten under her skin, there is no getting them out.”
I recall Thorne, Faith and the shooter, the militia.
Where the Taylor I’d come to know was replaced by a vicious, driven version of herself otherwise kept hidden.
“She is too devoted to the cause to jeopardize it for anyone, let alone me. She told me herself, nothing matters to her more than this rebellion.”
“People change.” Hunter lifts a bracelet from her bedside table and slides it on her wrist. “Love changes people.”
That is a truth I find too prickly to consider. “She doesn’t love me.”
“Are you sure? Besides, who the hell knows anymore? Everything is changing. I mean, look at us. The heir to the Northeast Region is in the Southwest Leader’s dormitory, retrieving the daughter of the leader of the resistance. Life’s funny.”
I pace the room, using Hunter’s words as a brush to color in the black ink outline of my and Taylor’s interactions.
Every movement Taylor’s made since we met must be pored over again, motivations altered.
The feelings for me Taylor couldn’t make sense of in the cabin, could she have possibly held them this whole time?
Aimlessly rummaging around in her bag, she plants her piercing eyes on me. “You…you do care about her, right?”
I roll my eyes. “Isn’t a little late for the big sister act?”
“Indulge me,” she says. “You’ve met my mother. She is not exactly an overflowing fountain of maternal affection. Mason, Taylor, and I had to make our own family. We protect each other. That never goes away, no matter how long we’re apart.”
Protected. Are any of us protected? The armor we wear and the walls we build, and yet we stand, penetrable, vulnerable, finding life has uncovered our fissures and seeped into them. “And what do you think you’re protecting her from? Me?”
“From having her heart broken.”
With a sardonic chuckle, I shake my head. “Heartbreak is a matter of when, not if. Besides, if anything, it’s me who needs protection from her.”
Her eyes blink wide. “Oh. You love her.”
It’s like I’m being accused of a crime. “Yes.” Saying it aloud, even to this stranger, is a form of release. Like rubbing aloe on sunburn, the heat remains trapped beneath the skin despite the relief.
“I don’t blame you. She’s got a classic hero complex a mile wide and people go nuts for that brave and guileless routine. Except it’s earnest and she’s completely unaware of how attractive it is. And, as it turns out, she’s got thighs that could crack a watermelon.”
“Yeah, she’s… she’s incredible.” I speak plainly, and truthfully. “She’s the most extraordinary person I’ve ever known.”
“And you fell in love with her.” Her lips twist into a sad smile. “‘From ancient grudge break to new mutiny.’”
“For never was a story of more woe.”
Emotions simmer in my stomach, not quite at a boil.
Hunter watches as I circle the room, seemingly quite pleased with having upturned the soil I’ve built the last few months.
Paper crinkles under my boot as I pace and I lift my foot, exposing a familiar, square foil wrapper with the letters “XL” printed on it.
Plucking it from the ground, I cock an eyebrow.
“Looks like you and Ahote got a lot further than I did.”
“What?” Hunter has some humility, and snatches the condom wrapper from me to toss it into the nearby wastebasket. “How did you know?”
“I may not be a killer assassin like you guys, but I do have a few skills. I know sexual tension when I see it.”
“You know when people are boning.” Despite her disparagement, it is a skill, whether she wants to see it or not. And it’s served me well in this instance, finally finding my way under her skin as she’s found her way under mine. “How often has that come in handy?”
“In my circles? A lot. Sex is blackmail. Blackmail is power. Power is…well, everything.”
“Damn, Piccolo. You can take the girl out of the region but you can’t take the region out of the girl.” She smiles, and shows off some unfairly dazzling white teeth. “Well, anyway, it passed the time. He’s Wolfshield’s son. It gets lonely, you know?”
I don’t know if she means being kidnapped or, you know, life, but either way she’s right. “I do know. I was lonely too. And angry. But mostly scared.”
“Me too.”
“You were scared? The great, dead-shot assassin Selene?”
“I’m not much of a sharpshooter without a weapon.” She holds up her hands as if to say she’s unarmed. “All those years of training couldn’t prepare me for what this’d be like. The loneliness, homesickness, the long stretches of time with nothing to do. Ahote made it easier. He was nice to me.”
“I understand.” Suddenly beleaguered, I sit down on her bed. “I can’t believe Wolfshield has a son.”
“Yeah. It’s less a big secret than it is Wolfshield ensuring he doesn’t receive special treatment,” she replies. “Taylor’s not going to like it, though I guess she shouldn’t be throwing stones about us hitting out of our league with region royalty.”
“Chances are she already knows, judging by that pissing contest back there.”
“Despite what that condom wrapper implies, Taylor’s dick is three times his size,” Hunter jokes with a sigh. “I don’t give a fuck how it looks, but I don’t want to disappoint Taylor. She’s always had a very lofty image of me.”
“I’ll say. The tattoo is quite the dedication.”
Hunter squints in confusion, but then her eyes widen. “Oh, right. We all have them. I mean, I have Helios on me, he’s got Eos on him.”
“Oh.”
“Is that why you marched in here ready to eat me?” In lieu of responding, I duck my gaze. Hunter nudges me as if we’re old pals. “Trust me, it’s not like that. I know Taylor had some kind of confusing crush on me for a while, but that’s not her fault. I am criminally charming.”
I gesture around. “Is this the punishment for that offense?”
“Funny, Piccolo.” Hunter grins. “I couldn’t reciprocate how she felt about me. I wish I could. We would have been unstoppable. Not that Theia would’ve ever allowed it.”
“Allowed? You don’t need permission to love someone.”
“No, this star-crossed lovers bullshit you have going on is evidence of that. But, you needn’t worry about me. I’m as tragically heterosexual as Taylor is magnificently gay.” She pats my leg again. “Does she know? About how you feel?”
“I think so. We…yeah, she knows.”
“What was her reaction?”
“Does it matter? There’s not a lot of time for…frivolity.”
“Oh, Lucy, you sound like my mother.” Hunter winces. “Your mother wasn’t like that, right?”
“Wasn’t like what? A bitchy headmistress with a Machiavellian streak?
No. She was—” I stop. Because really, what was she?
A mother, my mother, and certainly a good one.
A leader’s wife, no power of her own but to temper the impulsive desires of a despotic spouse.
But she was far from perfect. As the memories of her fade, so too does the rose-colored filter I placed on them.
“I don’t know. Is anyone how we remember them?
Whatever it’s—” I wave my hand around. “She told me she can’t and I respect her decision.
She’s saving the world. How I feel about her isn’t important. ”
Hunter peers up at me and searches my eyes. “It is important. Win or lose, this rebellion is only worth fighting if the life we build after is worth living.”
“Now you don’t sound like your mother.”
“I am a product of the efforts of many women,” she says, leading me out of the dorm and back toward the main building. “Not just her.”
“I’m going to tell your mom what you said.”
“I will deny it until dying breath.” She stops me before we reach the doors of the building.
“Listen, I think it’s more than probable Taylor botched the Target Two mission on purpose.
And if I suspect that’s true, you can be certain Theia suspects it as well.
So, you know… be careful who you trust.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Are you saying I shouldn’t trust your mother has my best interests at heart?”