Chapter 15
As I walk into the cafeteria for lunch, I'm nearly trampled by a steady stream of cadets scrambling in the opposite direction. Everyone looks rushed, people abandoning their trays and heading towards the hall.
I pass a friendly face, a girl I chatted with briefly during training.
"What's going on?" I ask.
"No idea. Kethler came in screaming, and we were told to get our asses to the courtyard. You must have just missed him." She doesn't wait to see if I’m following her as she hurries past me.
I follow the crowd, looking for my crewmates in the packed hall. I see a familiar mop of hair, so I push past a few people, earning myself a several glares.
"What happened?" I ask Leo.
He gives me a worried look. "No idea, but it can't be good."
As we come out into the courtyard, I see three people being secured roughly to a metal arbour tucked neatly between the men's building and the concrete wall.
Their hands are tied and lifted above their heads at an uncomfortable angle.
The officers tighten the rope until their feet struggle to stay on the ground, their bodies stretched.
"Late last night, these three were caught having some fun in the engineering lab," a deep voice booms across the crowd.
Fallon, another one of the legionaries, stands in front, a determined gleam in his eyes as he addresses us.
I've only caught glimpses of him around the compound.
He always seems to be too busy to train us, and I assume he goes out in the field more than others in the legion.
Fallon could be considered traditionally handsome.
His rich brown hair lightly curled, and his jaw sharp.
However, I doubt when people look at him, they see anything other than a predator.
He circles the detained cadets; when he gets to the girl at the end, she lets out a whimper as he roughly jerks the rope pulley, testing its tightness and wrenching her arms in the process.
"I think, five lashings each and three days on display should be enough penance to have them rethink their behaviour, don't you agree?" His eyes scan the crowd. The yard is deathly quiet. He scoffs. "Stand at attention, will you? You all look pathetic."
There's some shuffling, everyone finding their units and standing together silently. Farra steps beside me, shooting me a worried glance as we get into position. Once my crewmates are around me I feel less exposed until the first crack cuts through the air, followed by a devastating scream.
My eyes widen as I watch Fallon, gripping a metal handle attached to a long, sleek silver cord, whip the first cadet. His head rips back, body arching, as tears and sweat mix together down his face. My body tenses. Fallon, though? He smiles.
"What were you guys doing in there, anyhow?
Building yourselves a little something?" Another strike, another desperate wail. I hold my breath as I see a small pool of blood drip between the cadet’s feet, pieces of his jump suit now hanging off his back.
A chuckle rumbles out towards us. "You lot are lucky we didn't hand you to the Overseer. "
At the mention of the Overseer, I grimace.
The leader of the church is notorious for a reason.
Said to be as ruthless and demanding as any soldier.
He chooses each new clergyman, training them to within an inch of their humanity, so there's no doubt of their devotion to our new world.
I'd heard enough whispers about him back in Strayton to know that I never want to cross paths with the man.
Fallon spits on the ground, stepping towards his next victim.
This time, the screams curdle in the man's throat.
Fallon's chest heaves with exertion as he takes a moment to clean the blood off his weapon.
When he steps behind the last person, the girl, something in me breaks.
I can't watch this anymore. This is barbaric.
As my feet inch forward, I feel a hand grip my wrist. Berkley is beside me suddenly, a deadly look in his eyes.
"It won't help. You'll just be strung up there beside them. Maybe us too." His words are just above a whisper.
My nostrils flare as my eyes search his, and I know he's right. He squeezes my wrist, in silent demand, or apology, I don't know which.
The first crack rips through the air, and the girl’s sob twists and hollows out something inside me.
Fallon clears his throat, looking us over with cold indifference etched into his features. Daring one of us to question his methods.
"These three were caught in the engineering room, unauthorized, playing with equipment. Ruining precious material. Like children. Let this be a lesson to all of you. We are one here: against our enemies, and against this type of disloyalty. Follow the rules or suffer the consequences."
Giving everyone one last look, he nods to the officers and saunters away.
Leaving field-stripping class the next day, I look over at Farra as she finds something on the floor overly interesting.
"Hey, I'll grab food and bring it up to the room," I offer. She peeks up at me, giving me a quick nod before scooting down the hall.
Kethler was leading the class again. The shouting was awful, but it was especially awful for Farra.
I wanted to stab Kethler with the dull end of my rifle, but Farra did well.
She held her own and stayed calm. She may not see it, but it was a win.
I wondered briefly why the captain seemed to have it out for her.
At first, I thought he just appreciated how she responded to his specific form of cruelty.
Pitiful men always love pulling apart strong women.
But today I caught him; one glance that was a little too long.
Lingering somewhere it shouldn't have. And now I know it's more than that.
Farra is beautiful, and he's punishing her because he's noticed.
He is vile.
Heading to the mess hall for food, I feel a familiar shadow step up beside me.
"Hello, did you hear about that crew?" Tarius asks in a hushed voice.
One of the other cadets knocks into him purposefully as we walk past, and I glare.
There's been no shortage of cadet rivalry, and although no one's succeeded with the tower, a few have tried and either been injured or died. The points system the Legion's created has kept things... tense.
Our crew has been hovering around the top five with most of our assignments.
Other cadets feel we have an unfair advantage with Berkley, but ironically, it isn't just him that makes our team strong.
Apart from tactical and engineering, Farra is at the top for everything.
She is highly competitive, and even during combat rotation, she hands men twice her size their asses.
Leo is also oddly talented, though maybe not to the same degree as Farra.
They seem to thrive in opposing areas, he falls behind a little in combat, yet he's faster than most of our cohort, so he makes up for his lack of viciousness with speed.
Tarius skates by with most things; we have found he's a steady well of information, and he's the sneakiest person I've ever met.
He often knows about assignments before they happen, which I will be forever grateful for because I get Farra to prep me the day before.
They've even helped me come up with a bit of a studying system that helps me feel less panic in the classroom.
Despite Tarius' oddities, we've all started relying on his eager intel and off-handed comments.
I quickly stop walking, suspecting he won't want to chat in a busy mess hall.
"What about a crew?"
Tarius rubs the dark patchy scruff that's started to grow on his face before he says, "An entire unit crew went missing the other day."
I side-eye him, wondering if maybe this is his poor attempt at a joke, but he looks strained.
"Did you hear how?" I ask softly, trying to keep my posture casual. He shakes his head.
"No, but apparently this isn't the first one, either. And they haven't sent out a recovery unit."
My eyebrows shoot up. No recovery? That means they assume the crew is already deceased. I mull it over.
"That is really weird. Thanks for letting me know. Let me know if you hear anything else, ok, T?"
He beams at his nickname. It takes almost nothing to send him into a full blush, and I feel kinda bad. Clearly, people haven't been kind to him throughout his life. We say goodbye; I grab food from the hall and head to our room.
Leo's waiting at the entrance of the building. "What's up?"
He shrugs. "I wanted to come hang, check on Ms. Perfect and see how she is after getting ragged on in class today."
I smile up at him. Leo pretends to be a clown, the one in our group we can rely on for levity, but he's also the most thoughtful and observant. I smile and grab my keys, opening the door for him.
We walk into the dorm, and Farra has her nose in one of the books I've managed to snag from the library.
"Stealing" isn't really the word I'd use––it's borrowing without permission.
Something my rule following roomie nearly passed out about when I'd come home with them the other day.
I had won the argument with logic. We wanted answers, and we weren't going to get them by following the rules.
Farra doesn't look up at either of us, continuing to read.
"Farra, you dazzling dewdrop. We brought you food." I throw down the things I snagged from the cafeteria, and Leo plops onto her bed sloppily. She gives me a look, and I smirk.
"And offer hugs," he says, shoving her shoulder with a foot. She smacks it away.
"Stop, I'm fine. Was it embarrassing to be ripped apart by Captain Dickbag in front of the entire cohort again? Absolutely. Should I know how to do this considering I’m a third-generation soldier? Probably. Do I care? Who's to say!" She rolls over now, covering her face, muffling her groaning.
I kneel at the foot of her bed, grabbing her hands and forcing them off her face.