Chapter 36 #2
Kaleo grabbed a flashlight, feeling along the wall of dirt. He grabbed something on the wall and yanked several times. The tinkling of bells ran along the wall. “We wait for someone to come during the shift change. Then we get in front of the other sector leaders before Burdon finds out.”
“Sounds simple,” Tristian retorted as he helped me out of my suit, the others doing the same.
“I suggest we rest now. Shit’s going to get worse before it gets better,” Kaleo said.
Suit parts lay around us as people slept or rested in various positions.
Soft whispers floated in the air. Lawrence and Patrick sat on crates, their weapons out, quietly talking to each other.
No one agreed to rest until one member from each group took watch.
The trust between the two groups was fickle.
Isla and Damien lay side by side like they usually did on missions, gems spilling from their pockets. Levi leaned against a crate, facing the group. Ingrid curled up near him. Abbott and Peterson sat together a ways from Rumi and Kaleo—they didn’t sleep.
Sleep hadn’t found me even as my exhausted body begged for it, my mind too full sorting through what I had learned, what I had done, and what lay before us.
My eyes snagged on Rumi and Kaleo. The vicious cycle kept bringing me back to them.
Kaleo sat, his back against the dirt wall.
Rumi lay with her head in his lap. His left arm slung over her body, the other hand lost in her dark hair.
I had heard him mutter to her, as everyone grew quiet, some hours ago. “Sleep, Ku’uipo. I’m here.” Rumi had closed her eyes and slept.
I shifted. Tristian tensed around me. His legs bracketed my body as I sat between them, my back against his chest as he leaned against a wall. The beat of his heart against my back was soothing.
“What is it?” Tristian asked, his arms tightening around me.
“I can’t sleep,” I told him. His lips pressed into the top of my head. Somehow, it didn’t feel real.
“You should try,” Tristian urged, his hand finding mine. I sucked in a quick breath as he squeezed. The cut from the chip stung. “What is it?”
“Nothing. I have a cut on my hand from the chip,” I told him.
Tristian flattened out my hand with his own, his thumb finding the wound in the dark.
“It’s not bad; I gripped it too tight when…
” Those gray eyes in that pod found me. A shiver worked through me.
I hadn’t told anyone. Too much had happened.
A part of me didn’t even know how to voice it.
Tristian again brushed his lips against my hair. “What happened?”
“Do you remember those pods?” I asked, barely audible. Tristian nodded against me. “When I went back in, I looked into them.” I swallowed, fear finding me again. “Tristian, I think I woke something up in there, something not right.”
“What do you mean?” Tristian asked tensely.
“I think there are people in those pods.”
“What?” Tristian went unnaturally still.
“When I went to look at them again, I saw something in the smoke. I saw a hand. A woman with gray eyes was inside. I think the chip activated more than the lights. I don’t know how to explain it, but it didn’t feel right.
I went back to check after Kaleo showed up and the thing was empty. The woman was gone.”
Tristian tugged my head back, his lips landing on mine, throwing me off balance.
Confusion swarmed in, but it became an afterthought as my body ached immediately.
He kissed me deeply, his hand wrapping around my neck.
He tugged on the leather as his tongue ran across my bottom lip.
I opened at the same time the string gave way.
The metal slid between my breasts and landed in the folds of my sweater.
Strong hands found my hips, turning me until I straddled Tristian, facing him.
His green gaze searched mine as his lips kissed along my jaw.
Even in the dirt tunnel, my body responded to him—a want taking hold.
His mouth left my jaw, finding my neck. I squashed a moan.
We were surrounded by people, some wide awake.
Tristian slid under my sweater, searching. His hand stilled, closing against my skin. Tristian’s warm breath brushed the shell of my ear. “Did you tell anyone else?” he whispered as he pressed more kisses into my skin.
I shivered against the feel of his lips on my skin, but I shook my head. “What do you think this means? Do you think there was a reason this key was so hard to find?”
“I don’t know anymore.” He pressed several more kisses into my neck before finding my ear again. “This stays between us. Tell no one what you saw. Tell no one I took this,” Tristian urged, withdrawing his hand.
The chip fell between us. Tristian took my face in both hands, holding me. There was a hunger there that answered my own. Fear sat beside it, heavy. Something else sat there too.
I suggest confessing your love to him now.
“Tristian, I—” I couldn’t say it. The three words got caught in my throat as my heart fluttered helplessly against my ribs. I couldn’t. All the people I had loved died. What if I lost him? Terror twisted around my heart, suffocating it.
I might be a dead man if we make it back.
“—won’t tell anyone.” The wrong three words.
Tristian held my gaze, nodding. He pressed his lips into mine gently several times—an acceptance, meeting me where I was. He always had.
“You should sleep,” he told me. He released me as he shifted and stretched out, creating a small space for me between the dirt wall and his body.
He tapped his chest, waiting. The chip was gone as I shifted.
I tucked myself into the space, my head finding his chest. Tristian’s fingertips brushed along my arm.
I stared across the tunnel, the dirt wall cool against my back.
I swore Kaleo watched me across the way. Maybe I was wrong.
I drifted toward sleep slowly, Tristian’s arms wrapped around me.
In the dark, I heard the words I couldn’t say.
“I love you, Sasha Cadell.”
He had always been braver than me.
Movement sounded in the dark tunnel at some point, shaking me awake. A small light flared to life, slowly growing bigger as it approached us.
“Incoming,” Lawrence and Patrick called out at the same time.
By the time we could make out a man dressed the same color as the earth approaching us, the group was fully suited. Peterson and Patrick held between them the crate we had decided to bring with us. The rest, a small mound, we had decided to leave behind.
“Follow me,” the man said in a gruff voice, his face fully covered.
We walked in silence toward whatever was waiting in Haven.
“How are things here?” Tristian asked the man.
“I wouldn’t know. I’m to get you out, not give you information,” the man grunted.
“What’s your name?” Tristian asked.
The man didn’t look back. “I don’t have one.”
Kaleo shrugged as he followed him. We walked for hours. The crate passed around as it grew heavy. Apprehension coiled around my gut. What if this didn’t work?
You have to survive now, little flower.
I would, but what of Unit Seven? My survival wasn’t enough. It never had been. I needed those around me to survive too. We stopped as the tunnel dipped down, the sides changing to stone, lights running along the sides in the distance.
“You’re on your own now,” the man told us as we approached the end of the tunnel. He ducked out of sight into one of the half tunnels Expansion was known for. Small, hidden connecting tunnels allowed the Expansion Sector members to move from zone to zone quickly.
“Ditch the suits, you two,” Kaleo told Tristian and me. “They’ll stick out. We need to move fast.”
Tristian undid my suit before I started on his. Rumi removed Kaleo’s.
“If you betray us, I will not rest until you’re dead,” Tristian warned viciously as more light met us. Abbott and Peterson took the crate between them as Lawrence pulled out cuffs, placing the first pair on Rumi as the next stage of Kaleo’s plan took shape.
“I’m aware, Hades,” Kaleo retorted.
“Who’s next?” Lawrence asked us as Tristian approached Kaleo.
“I’ll go,” Patrick volunteered.
Lawrence placed another pair of cuffs on Damien. “Try not to get kicked out of the Force. I’m looking forward to a game of cards.”
Isla’s mouth hung open as Lawrence approached her. “You’re next.”
Everyone in Unit Seven besides Tristian and me stood in cuffs.
“You ready?” Kaleo asked, shaking out his fists.
Tristian simply nodded.
“Omen,” Levi called out, intercepting them. Kaleo froze at the use of his call sign. “Do me instead. It’ll make her happier that it’s me and not Hayes’s pretty face.”
Kaleo blew out a breath, his hand frozen.
“Levi,” Tristian started, but Levi didn’t back down.
“Go on, hit me,” Levi urged.
“I still think this is a really dumb part of the plan,” Damien muttered.
“Same,” Ingrid chimed in.
“Ikaika needs to maintain his position with Burdon. If we all walk in unscathed, it won’t be believable,” Rumi said quietly. Kaleo didn’t move, his chest heaving as he clenched and unclenched his fist. I glanced around us all; no one looked unscathed. The journey back had left marks on everyone.
Kaleo hesitated.
Levi’s eyes landed on Rumi. He smiled, the smile he gave before he countered a move on the mats. “I’m the one who suggested Rumi be taken off the witching hour shift. That Ingrid should take it. I’m why you didn’t see Rumi as much those seven moons. I kept her from you.”
That worked. The sound of fist meeting flesh rang out.
“Shit,” Peterson muttered in the back.
“Fuck, Levi. Are you okay?” I rushed forward as Levi spit blood.
“Lead the way out, before I ruin everything and kill you,” Tristian ground out.
We made our way through the Expansion Sector. It was quiet as the shift change took place, but no one stopped us.
“When we reach the main tunnel, take Unit Seven to the holding cells, Lawrence. Get them checked in, document it, and then have them released on my orders. They’re at capacity anyway.
Say we used the eastern entrance. Peterson, Abbott, get those supplies secured and go make sure it’s noted in the logbook.
Note that we were uncertain about the main entrance repairs,” Kaleo commanded.
“No one is to touch them.” His eyes snagged on Rumi.
“I’ll see you all soon,” Tristian said to our unit.
The group all started on separate paths. This wasn’t right. We needed a different plan. My stomach twisted.
“We need to hurry to the Command Center in the Kitchens. It’s the safest one. Their leader was for our mission continuing. Burdon doesn’t go there,” Kaleo said, picking up his pace.
“Rumi got the meeting notes from you,” Tristian pieced together.
“Maybe we should do something else,” I uttered.
Tristian grabbed my hand, squeezing. “I’m here, no matter the ending.”
“She did. We talk to Reyes first, she’s the Kitchens commander, then get someone in Expansion to confirm the items. The Mole will be reporting to Terral now,” Kaleo continued.
“Can’t the guy who met us just come with us?” I asked desperately. This was a bad plan.
“No.”
“Why not?” Tristian asked.
“He’s dead.”
That note had said to let the dead rest, but Kumar had said to protect the dead. I glanced back the way we came. We should go back. “Tristian—”
Hurried footsteps moved toward us. My heart slammed into my throat, chasing away my thoughts. Kaleo glanced at Tristian before whirling on me.
Searing pain erupted.
Kaleo’s knee slammed into my stomach. I doubled over as all the air left my lungs. Kaleo’s hands grabbed at my neck as someone grew closer. “Where is it?” he demanded, panic in his voice, his hands groping me. “Where is it?”
Kaleo’s hands released me as he was hurled away from me. I coughed, attempting to suck in oxygen.
“I told you if you touched her, I would kill you.”
I gasped for air, my lungs burning.
A click pierced the air, the sound of a safety. “I suggest you release him, Hayes,” Burdon warned.
I raised my head in time to see Kaleo against the tunnel wall, Tristian’s hands around his throat.
“Now.”
Tristian released Kaleo, raising his hands as Burdon held her pistol out at the ready.
I stared at the end of the barrel.