9. Addie
ADDIE
BEETHOVEN – MOONLIGHT SONATA
I was no stranger to death—no stranger to dying—but it was something entirely different when someone died for you.
In place of you.
Through no fault of their own.
I knew Blackwing was deadly—everyone did.
I’d known it since the moment that white van pulled into its fluorescent-lit basement.
But this was another, crueler layer I should have seen coming.
It’s why I was so reluctant to have allies, much less friends, within these walls.
It’s why I had so convincingly constructed walls around my own heart. To keep them out. To keep grief out.
At least, I thought I had.
But Fleur—gods. Fleur had seen right through it. She catwalked right through my flimsy cardboard barricade parading as a fortress and lodged herself so deeply within my soul that I didn’t know who I was within these walls without her.
Somehow, I had to learn how to be Addie again.
Not Addie-and-Fleur.
Not Addie-and-Fleur-and-Ethan.
Just Addie.
And because something as mundane as choosing a different place to sleep had gotten her killed, I was now stuck here without her—at her fucking funeral, of all places.
Where she’d be laughing at every crying fuck who thought they knew her well enough to warrant tears.
Where she’d be cracking jokes to make me laugh, and trying her damndest to hold in her sniggers as the Commander read her copy-paste eulogy he probably got off Google.
I wanted to rage at the injustice of it all; wanted to tear this place apart brick by fucking brick.
But it wouldn’t do any good. Not really.
It wouldn’t bring her back, wouldn’t let her go on to travel the world, inherit that company, change the world she’d just experienced, then have those three perfect babies.
“Ads?” Ethan whispered, bending down to reach my ear. His stubbled cheek pressed against the side of my head, disguising his whisper as a gesture of comfort. “The Commander asked if you wanted to say a few words.”
I flinched, blinking up at the severe-faced man, with his midnight regalia and slicked-back flaxen hair. Just like the son barred from attending today’s pointless ceremony.
My gaze flicked to the couple standing beside him. To the polished blonde with swollen, red eyes—the one sliver of imperfection on display, and only because she couldn’t cover it with makeup. One arm was threaded through the Commander’s elbow, the other clasped her husband’s hand.
Nadine and Antoine Deveaux were perhaps the only other people in this place who felt Fleur’s loss as deeply as I did.
But then again, perhaps not.
Perhaps it was only Eth and me—the family Fleur chose, not the one she was born into, the one she never quite fit. Perhaps it was us bearing the brunt of her senseless murder.
Us who deserved to avenge her.
Nadine glared at me through frosty, tear-filled eyes. Antoine refused to meet my gaze.
I shook my head in answer to the Commander’s offer, knowing they’d have objected to me speaking, considering they’d vehemently argued against me even attending today. Nadine hurled the fault at my feet because they couldn’t very well blame the Commander’s son, now could they?
I declined, knowing Fleur wouldn’t want some sorrowful speech from me—she’d want a sermon filled with tales of her antics, of how she climbed the flagpole naked because of a lost bet, of how she pilfered alcohol from the instructor’s desks without them ever being aware of it, of how she needed stitches in her ass cheek and the painkillers made her so gassy and high as a kite that she farted in the doctor’s face, snorted after the fact, then farted again, with her ass echoing the vibrato of her laughter.
I couldn’t say any of that here. I couldn’t speak even if I wanted to. To speak those words was to admit that she was really gone. And I couldn’t admit that. Not aloud. Not yet.
The Commander nodded sharply, then continued praising a woman he never knew.
Eventually, the funeral ended, and the crowd dispersed, and still, I was stuck here. Rooted in place, staring at the rose-covered, dark mahogany coffin housing my best friend’s body.
Some part of me still expected her to fling back the lid and yell “Gotcha!”
But that part died more and more with every passing second.
“Come on, Ads. Let’s go inside,” Ethan murmured, wrapping an arm around my frozen form, shepherding me indoors and out of the coming snowstorm. He led me around to the left and bade me sit just inside the doorway, in the seldom-used window seat tucked neatly in the corner. “Stay here.”
I don’t want to move anyway.
“I’ll be right back.”
Will you, though?
Ethan disappeared down a hallway.
Or will you die because of me, too?
Time passed—slowly, quickly, I had no idea. I didn’t care.
I shucked my boots and tucked my feet up beneath me on the chair. With nothing else to do, I stared at the opposite wall, watching portraits gather dust and paint flake in real-time.
The Commander stomped into the foyer some indiscernible time later, phone held up to his ear and unbridled fury scrawled across his weathered features. “I don’t care what they want,” he yelled into the receiver. “They will do as they’re ordered.”
He paused as someone answered on the other end.
“Beckett’s team will handle the top candidate. They will remain on campus until such time as their asset is deemed field-ready, and then they will do the job they are employed to do,” he growled, then promptly hit the end-call button and shoved it back in his coat pocket.
Ethan appeared back in the hall doorway then, stopping dead—nope, too soon—stopping cold at the sight of the Commander. The pair of mugs in his hands sloshed audibly, but he managed not to spill a drop.
“Sir,” he said, grimacing when he realised he was unable to salute adequately with occupied hands.
“Taylor,” Commander Varco responded brusquely, then promptly spun on his heel. His gaze landed on me with pinpoint accuracy, his glare venomous and yet somehow ineffective. When I remained non-reactive, his brows drew lower—suspicion practically wafting off of him.
Didn’t he know there was nothing that could hurt me worse than I already was?
“Sinclair. Almost time for class, isn’t it?”
Because only the Academy would hold a funeral in the morning and expect things to continue on as per usual after lunch.
“Yes, Sir,” Eth answered for me. “We’re on our way over now.”
The Commander’s phone ringing again prevented any further conversation, and I used his momentary distraction to re-lace my boots, lest he realise my uniform was not up to code and sanction me for it.
“What is it?” he spat at whoever had the misfortune of calling him.
“Let’s go,” Ethan whispered, balancing both mugs in his left hand and hoisting me up with his right.
“I don’t need you to babysit me,” I snarled, stalking down the hallway. “I don’t need you to help me up or cover for me or bring me hot chocolate out of pity.”
Ethan let the venom of my words wash over him like a languid wave. Instead of biting back, his lip twisted into a devious smirk. “That, my dear girl, is where you’re mistaken.”
“What?”
He swirled the mugs beneath my nose, and I inhaled the scent of something decidedly not hot or chocolatey.
“I didn’t bring you the drink version of a warm hug—I brought you the drink version of bad decisions and slutty vices.”
“Is that—”
“Tequila.” He winked, offering me a mug.
“I love you,” I breathed, snatching it out of his hand and downing the sharp, pungent liquid in one effort.
The alcohol burned all the way down to my stomach, igniting a series of minute bodily reactions from pins and needles in my fingertips to a buzzing behind my eyeballs.
Warmth bloomed outwards from my belly, staving off the winter chill.
“I know.” He grinned, plucking the empty mug from my hands and depositing both on the nearest windowsill. He offered his elbow in a mockingly chivalrous manner, and I looped my arm through, equally unserious.
Together, we exited through the closest doorway, trekked through four inches of fresh snow, and made our way over to the training centre. Unfortunately, we had a date with three hot instructors who gave no fucks about where we’d all collectively spent our morning.
The show must go on.