12. 12
Elias was on his third cup of coffee despite us only having been at the mess hall for fifteen minutes. “I need meat.” His plate was filled with eggs, buttered bread, yogurt, and berries. It was more my ideal breakfast than his. “And salt.”
I giggled, nursing my first cup of coffee.
He'd woken promptly when his alarm went off before excusing himself to the bathroom.
When he came back, his hair all wet from the shower, he explained in detail how he shoved his fingers down his throat in order to throw up, and was feeling slightly better having done so.
We both woke hungry and wasted no time in rushing to breakfast. Elias filled his plate, but was clearly dissatisfied with his options.
“Do you want to know what you did last night?” I asked. That was the problem with him being my best friend. He was the person I wanted to tell everything to, even if it was about him.
“Besides drink myself into a stupor? Probably not. I remember most of it, though, before you got back.” He had a fork full of egg. “But you're smiling so I feel like you really want to share.”
“You sent yourself a bunch of pictures of us from my phone.” I smiled, shoving a few berries into my mouth. They were still partially frozen.
“I remember that. Aren’t I precious? Drunk me has my priorities straight.”
“You also were incessant in discussing your sex life with Julia.”
His eyes wide, he choked on his food, his fist coming up to beat on his chest. After a sip of coffee, he could speak again. “Jesus Christ, I'm sorry.” He coughed a few more times. “Why would I do that? What did I say?”
“Oh, now you want to know?”
He glared at me. “Cassia.”
“Nothing bad. You just wanted to make sure I knew that you are far more generous in the bedroom with me than you were with her.”
He snorted, shaking his head. “I wasn’t lying, but I’m sure I didn’t say it that delicately.” He paused, like he was trying to remember. “Was that me coming on to you?”
I nodded. “You were polite about it.” It was good to know that while crass, drunk Elias was honest.
“Well, I woke up with my clothes still on, so I'm assuming you turned me down.”
“With Julia's boobs fresh on my mind, I wasn't really feeling it.”
“I don't blame you,” he said.
“You weren't too bad.” You confessed your love for me, told me you didn't care if I didn't love you back, and implied that your only value was sexual in nature. “You were sweet, much more sweet than I am.”
“I don't really know how to say this without sounding like I think I know what's going on in your head, but I don't want you to compare yourself to anyone. You are my type.”
“You’ve made that clear, so I’m not really worried about that. But, I definitely got the message when you said you'd buy me a ring for this hand.” I held up my left hand and wiggled my fingers. “If I want.”
He shrugged. “Probably a little soon for that, but you can't blame a man for thinking about the future, I guess. We can talk about that when we are stateside. . . if you want.” He smirked, taking a bite of bread. “Is that it?”
“Yep!” I said, a little too eager.
Elias narrowed his eyes. “I didn't say anything else worth noting?”
“Nope.”
He stared at me. “You're being a little weird.”
I played with my hair. “I'm not sure what you mean.” I glanced around the room, deciding that looking anywhere but at Elias was where I wanted to look. Dr. Novikov was nowhere to be seen in the mess hall for the first time since I’d arrived.
My eyes found their way back to Elias after I was done with my survey.
I watched him as the realization hit. He stiffened, his eyes locking on mine. “Oh, fuck.” He fell back in his seat, and his hand went to his jaw and rubbed the stubble there. “I didn't.”
I gritted my teeth, not sure if I should answer or not.
“Wow. Drunken confessions are so cliché,” he scoffed.
“I would've preferred that it all played out a little differently, I won't lie.” Preferred? More like expected.
He looked at me in a way that made me feel naked. “I'm sorry.”
“I wasn't going to say anything.”
He looked down at his hands. “I meant it.”
“I know.” My thumb rubbed the line on my styrofoam cup.
I knew he did, that was the problem. If he didn’t, I could just write it off.
Instead, my mind had to wander, had to figure out why he’d kept it to himself.
Either he thought I wouldn’t reciprocate, or our relationship wouldn’t survive that kind of vulnerability.
“Do you want me to say it now?”
“No, not really.”
“You deserve better.” He meant him, not just how the previous night went. With how he’d been acting the past few days, that much was clear.
“Our life is weird,” I offered.
“I'll try and redeem myself.” I opened my mouth to protest but he spoke again. “Don't argue.”
“Fine.” I sat up, adjusting myself in my seat. “Are we transitioning to business talk, now?”
“If you'd like.”
He listened intently as I described my conversation with Novikov.
I kept my voice reasonably low, and the other scientists seemed to be involved in their own conversations.
I summed it up as best I could, connecting the dots between Petrova, Novikov, and Taylor.
Elias remained stone-faced as I revealed Petrova’s sickness, her desperation for a cure, but I saw the fire behind his eyes when I mentioned that Taylor had been working on this virus, as well as all the others, for over a decade.
Dr. Taylor’s efforts were the reason for Elias’s pain, to put it simply.
Every difficult mission, every teammate or soldier that had died, had perished because of Taylor’s research.
Novikov confirmed what we had suspected, that he was involved with the experiments, and that eroded Elias’s trust completely in the man, in the entire outpost. A part of me was nervous that Elias would seek out his revenge as soon as we stood from the table.
It was unfortunate that we needed Novikov’s expertise because Elias shooting his wife was not going to be conducive to a working relationship.
It seemed we had help from Misha, but it was unclear how much he knew about Novikov’s past. It would be in the best interest of everyone here if they didn’t know what had been happening beyond that locked door, and it would be unsurprising if it had indeed been kept secret.
Elias pinched the bridge of his nose when I’d told him that I followed Dr. Novikov to visit Katya. I could tell that he was struggling not to interrupt my version of events as I described the interaction between the three of us, the way Petrova was clinging onto pieces of herself.
He waited until I was silent for a few seconds, ensuring I was finished, before he spoke. “Cassie, what the hell?”
“I need another cup of coffee.” I hoped that a minute of separation would halt the lecture I was about to receive.
I could handle a talking to from the Special Agent.
After all, I disobeyed direct orders not to put myself in danger.
What I didn’t want was an emotionally laden plea from my boyfriend who didn’t think I made the correct decision.
The lines between work and play were blurred so often, it made our time here more confusing than it needed to be.
Half the time I couldn’t tell who I was really talking to, and the other half I chose not to think about it.
He was right when he said that I wouldn’t trust anyone else to keep me alive more than him, and I didn’t hold it against him for pushing to travel with me.
I just wanted him to loosen his grip on the reins, to see me as his partner, rather than some object he needed to protect.
Elias’s hands lay flat on the table when I returned.
“Why did you follow him?” He asked.
“To understand.”
“I specifically told you not to do that.”
“Who told me?” I asked. “My boyfriend or my bodyguard? Because I don’t take orders from my boyfriend, and my bodyguard was busy getting piss drunk.”
Elias snapped his mouth shut, his lips pressing in a thin line.
“You don’t think I can handle myself,” I continued.
“This isn’t Baker and Pryor, Elias, I’m not going to blindly follow orders without a little pushback.
” He was great in the field, and the last time we had done something like this, I listened to him without question.
I was different this time, not as seasoned as him, but I was able to make decisions of my own accord.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know, what?”
“I’m not sure who was ordering you around,” he admitted. “And I can see the problem in that.”
I was dumbfounded. When it came to my safety, or his perception of what was safe, he was immovable. “I didn’t expect that answer from you.”
“I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you, but I’ve also seen what you can do. I do trust you, even if it seems like I don’t.”
“You’re not mad at me?”
Elias grabbed my hand, holding it across the table. “I don’t know what I feel, but it doesn’t seem fair to feel angry with you. You gathered valuable information and you weren’t hurt.”
I looked down at our hands, then up at Elias. Eyebrows tense and his gaze far off, he was deep in thought. I wanted to join him in his head, to find where he went when his eyes unfocused. He was probably torturing himself over something.
He hadn’t been himself, at least not the version of him I was used to.
“We’re holding hands in the mess hall now?”
His thumb moved slowly over my knuckles. “I don’t really care about professionalism anymore. Not here.”
The others in the room were minding their business, not sparing a glance in our direction.
What did it matter if we touched? Novikov and Petrova had made a home here, and it didn’t seem to affect the respect they received from the others.
Their work must have spoken for itself, though I wasn’t aware of what they’d accomplished other than the efforts with Taylor.
I didn’t care, either. Whatever good they did was outweighed by what was essentially terrorism.