Chapter 21
It’s hard not to think of Lucy as our train zooms and bumps us down the coast. It’s hard not to think of her generally, but after months of solitude and stagnation, my brain whirs to life with memories of us traveling together.
The drive to the lake from HQ where she talked to Mason about his childhood in Philadelphia.
He conveniently left out the parts where her father had worked his parents to death and his little sister died in his arms from a wasting disease, because he has more tact than me.
Later, she explained to me that he told her the rest when we recuperated in Lansing, and while the horrors bothered her deeply, I could tell she was also pleased he trusted her enough to tell her.
She wanted to be let in, and I spent most of our time together keeping her out.
“What happened after Lucy was killed?”
Cassie startles at the sound of my voice and Mason snorts a ridiculous snore that both wakes him and nearly shoots Cassie out of her seat.
“Sorry. My memory is pretty fuzzy until I woke up in the mansion. I am trying to put the pieces together.”
“Oh. Um, everyone flew back to HQ.”
“What about”—I gulp—“the bodies?”
“Theia said to leave them.” My heart sinks.
Leader Piccolo was a bastard of a man, but both he and Lucy should be entombed with Mrs. Piccolo, not rotting on a tarmac.
I try not to think about Lucy as a bloated, rain-soaked corpse.
I’ve had enough of those nightmares to last a lifetime.
“She had you carried to one of the cells beneath headquarters and locked up. Then, uh, Hunter and Mason…uh…”
“We got in a big fight with Theia,” Mason cuts in.
Anger is not an emotion I’ve often seen on Mason, and it makes him look as intimidating as people think he is.
The lines and curves of his face get hard and immobile.
“Hunter was pissed that Theia made her kill Lucy, and I was pissed off they left without me. Nobody told me shit. We were about to party when Hunter got orders to get on a copter and leave. Orders that specifically told me to stay back. I should’ve gone anyway.
Maybe I could’ve done something. Helped. Stopped Theia, I don’t know.”
“There’s nothing you could’ve done.” Mason doesn’t believe me, based on the shameful ducking of his head.
The guilt weighs on him, but it’s a guilt he doesn’t deserve to bear.
“Mason. Everything that happened on that tarmac was my fault. I arranged the transport for Lucy and Leader Piccolo. I made the decision not to tell anyone.”
“I’m supposed to protect you,” he replies, his gravelly bass trembling.
“I lost one little sister, and I swore I’d do anything not to lose another.
Then when you guys got back and I saw what she did to you, I got real pissed.
And we didn’t do it in private. Hunter and I got up in Theia’s face right in the lobby in front of everyone. I’ve never seen Theia so mad.”
“It was pretty scary.” Cassie nods along with the story. “I was supposed to be guarding your cell, but I heard the screaming match and came up. And then I…joined in.”
“Hunter was yelling about how Theia lied to her about Lucy. She knew they went there to stop you from letting them leave, but Theia never said anything about killing her. So, we were yelling at each other, then Theia told us she was gonna execute you and Hunter pulled a gun on her.”
It’s been a long time since I’ve been truly shocked. Since Theia told me my parents were the traitors who nearly brought down the Order. “I cannot imagine that went over well.”
“People didn’t know what to do,” Cassie interjects. “Nobody wants to try and arrest Theia’s freaking daughter. Hunter’s off the rails, threatening to kill Theia if she killed you.”
“I had her back on that. Nobody ever been more loyal to the Order than us, but if she’d tried to kill you, I would’ve shot her where she stood.”
Embarrassingly, I’m nearly moved to tears. Mason reaches across and pats me on the knee, his deep brown eyes watery as well. We’ve never discussed it, but I hope he knows that I would do the same for him. “What happened then?”
“Cass had the smart idea to get Claire and Jav and Alisa. They helped defuse the whole thing. Jav talked Hunter down and Alisa took Theia aside. Claire cried and called Theia names I never heard before. She had to be escorted out.” Mason chuckles.
“They argued that since you’re the highest-ranking soldier in the army, you deserved at least a vote, if not a trial.
Theia agreed to a vote. Next day, the new leaders voted that Theia had to spare you.
We didn’t know what would happen after that.
Couple days later, Theia moved you in the middle of the night and didn’t tell anyone where she put you. ”
“Theia gave me the orders to guard you outside Lucy’s room. Master Sergeant and Sergeant Perez were transferred to New York and, as you know, given orders to be on call for when Theia came to… to…”
“Torture me,” I fill in for her. “It’s okay.”
“No, it sure as fuck isn’t.” Again, the anger in Mason’s face gives him an even more grizzled appearance. “I only found out because Jav managed to send me an encrypted message. I told Hunter and, well, neither of us spoke to Theia after that. Nothing outside of getting orders, anyway.”
“Things are tense everywhere,” Cassie says.
“The rebels in the Southeast undermine Theia’s authority, and she’s clearly suspicious of her new council.
She almost never sees them in person, instead doing holo-calls where her location is masked.
A rotation of about three guards escort her everywhere.
It’s like this new power has made her super paranoid. ”
That doesn’t surprise me, and by the knowing look on Mason’s face, it doesn’t surprise him, either. Our train car fills with silence, other than the rhythmic chug of the train against the tracks.
“I want you both to know I appreciate what you did. Putting yourselves on the line for me…I will do my best to prove worthy of that risk.”
Cassie giggles under her breath, tiny snorts pushing air through her nose.
As far as I know I did not make a joke, but she stifles laughter like she’s heard the funniest thing in the world.
“I’m sorry, it’s—I’m thinking about when I sparred with Lucy and she said, ‘God, she’s so serious.
You know she probably rolled out of the womb with a disapproving frown and rolled her eyes at the midwife when she didn’t deliver her fast enough.
’ Even Bernard laughed. You really are so serious. ”
While Mason and Cassie share a laugh at my expense, I huff and give her a, well, disapproving frown. “I think Lucy would be the first to tell you that I can be fun.”
“You can?” Cassie asks rhetorically. Her descent from hero worship to friendly bullying was quite swift. “What kind of ‘fun’ things would she have told me you two got up to?”
Mason shifts in his seat to lie across the bench, whistling suggestively. “Cass is gonna get the hot gossip.”
“There is no gossip,” I insist over Cassie’s laughter as I not-so-gently kick Mason in the side. “I did not mean that kind of fun and I think you know that.”
“Do I? Is there some kind of wild side to the Great and Broody Eos that we’re unaware of?” Cassie turns to me and sits cross-legged, her knees digging into my thighs. “You might as well spill the beans. We’re stuck on this train chugging to our doom.”
“I’ll say this,” Mason begins through his chuckles.
“She don’t back down from a dare. Taylor hasn’t lied but maybe a handful of times in her life, so asking her a truth is real boring.
We dared her a lot and she’d do it every time.
Dare her to steal something from Theia’s office?
Done. Dare her to jump out of a helicopter into water?
Done. She didn’t wanna do hijinks, Hunter was into that, but man, Lil’ T would do any dare. That was always fun.”
Most of my childhood memories are colored by my desire for Hunter’s approval, but they are some of my fonder ones. “Hunter once dared me to jump down a waterfall. Once I confirmed the plunge pool would not kill me, I did it.”
Cassie gasps. “Oh my God, was it cool?”
“The water was freezing, yes.”
“No, silly, was it fun?”
“It hurt. And, well, I would never admit this to Hunter, but…yes. It was fun.”
As if she’s privy to some big secret, Cassie grins and settles, self-satisfied, into her seat.
It’s strange to have a friend. I am not an easy friend to have.
I’m hard to get to know. And, as I’ve learned over twenty years of being off-putting, I’m terrifically bad at understanding emotion.
As a child I excelled at academics and calisthenics but was socially inept.
Too honest, too reserved, too tactless. Hunter did her best to socialize me, but it’s like everyone is speaking a language adjacent to mine.
I catch cognates and phrases, but ultimately I am not as fluent as I should be.
Despite this, a few have entrusted me with their friendship.
Faith, in Delilah’s library years ago, struggling to get through a rudimentary book on butterflies.
Faith understood me in a way others didn’t.
She explained herself fully, never speaking in half-truths and passive-aggressions.
Faith was open and honest about her emotions, never making me guess her intentions.
In turn, I practiced being more intuitive.
Thinking about how my words may affect her, lest I hurt her feelings. We were a good match.
Here, with Cassie, I see the same plainness of spirit.
Someone who sees my faults and quirks and does not try to fix me, but rather works to understand me.
I’m better at friendship for knowing Faith as long as I did, and the crash course with Lucy over our months together.
Sometimes, though, I pretend to be obtuse so people will leave me alone.