26. Sebastion #2
“I eat in the chow hall.” I turn and pretend I’m working. Walking around my soldiers. Correcting poor technique. It’s my job. But of course, she catches up. “I was in the chow hall a couple of hours ago. And last night.”
“You must’ve been fast.” She wraps her arm around mine and cuddles into my side.
I unravel them and walk just a little faster.
I’m working!
“I texted and suggested we could meet in the chow hall the night before last.” She scurries after me, but at least she keeps her hands to herself. “You didn’t reply.”
“I’ve been away for months while my family picked up the slack and carried my load. I owe them time and effort now that I’m home.” I take out my binos and bring them to my eyes. “Being here is rarely a social event, Serena. It’s always been about work.”
“But I heard about that woman you brought back.” She grabs my forearm and drags me to a stop seventy feet from Scarlett’s window. Still, I ignore her touch and find Scarlett sitting exactly how she sat last time I checked.
Almost exactly.
Except this time, she stares straight back at me, bright blue eyes piercing my soul until I’m not sure I remember how it feels not to bleed anymore, and a couple of deep dimples I wish would flash more often because she’s happy, and not only because she’s sad.
“Tank?” Impatient, Serena tugs on my arm and tempts me to flick her off completely.
Gritting my teeth, I lower my binoculars, farewell my view of the woman who deserves better than terror and the fear of suffocation because I used my strength against someone incapable of meeting me pound for pound, and instead, I bring my focus back down.
What?
“I’m just not sure what’s going on between us,” she groans. “We agreed to hang out some more, but now you have a… a…” She gestures back toward the house. “That person. She’s not staying in the cells, which is where captives are generally kept, and—”
“That’s because she’s not a captive.” I shake her hand off and take a step away. “She’s not our enemy, Serena.”
“Well, according to Arabella, she is.”
“I didn’t realize you and my mother discussed private family business,” I snarl, my temper flaring hot enough to melt the snow beneath our feet. “Should I save you a seat at our next meeting, or…?”
Her cheeks glow bright with chagrin. “No, I—”
“I’m working right now. I have a guest, not a captive, and when I’m not dealing with either of those, I’m visiting with my uncle. That’s it. That’s all of my time accounted for.”
“I just thought—”
“I’m not trying to be a dick. I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, either. But whatever we may or may not have planned back in September is no longer something I’m interested in. I have too much else to focus on, so I suggest you look elsewhere.”
I don’t give her time to argue or, worse, attempt to persuade me otherwise. I catch Mav’s eyes as he steps out of the central family building, so I start in his direction and leave her behind. Bringing my binoculars up and searching Scarlett’s window while I walk, I frown and pull them away again.
Where is she?
Blinking, blinking, blinking, I swing them up and try again.
“Where’d she go?” When only twenty feet separate us, I drop the binoculars into my leg pocket and meet Mav’s stare. “Where’s Scarlett?”
“Uh…” Confused, he glances around the yard. “I don’t know.” He narrows his eyes. “Should I know? I’m not assigned to her door, so…”
“She was in the window a minute ago.” I look past him, like she might’ve lost her damn mind and decided to tour a yard bursting with a hundred men. Not fuckin’ likely. “Take over for me. They’re running drills.”
“Or we could leave it to Dad, and I’ll help you search for her?”
It’s almost tempting to accept his offer, to recruit an extra set of eyes and a man I trust with my life, but his goofy grin tells me this is just a game to him, like finding her has nothing to do with her safety and everything to do with what he thinks is going through my head.
He’s wrong. Dead wrong.
“You go left, I’ll go right,” he teases with a snicker. “First to find her gets to bring her a tray for lunch. She wouldn’t be mad if I sat with her, right?”
“Don’t follow me.” I push past him and stride along the snow-covered pathway that cuts between the main building and the one beside it.
Scarlett hasn’t explored this place yet, which means she doesn’t realize this property is basically a massive main dwelling with wings, one for me, one for Mav, one that’ll eventually be for Koda, and one where my parents sleep.
Each of these wings are joined by a centralized kitchen and dining room only the family uses, then those wings extend with long, narrow hallways that lead us to the next buildings.
The chow hall. The chow kitchen. Rec rooms. Medical. Munitions.
If a person didn’t know better, they’d have no clue the hallways are bridges to the next building, each new entryway sealed with a guard and, sometimes, a security panel accessible only to those of us with clearance.
On the south side of the main building is the training field my men hate to use, while on the north side, a pool sits front and center, and beside that, a full-sized tennis court. Basketball courts. More rec rooms. Pool houses. Bathrooms.
These places aren’t only for family use. Any person with a permanent contract and an assigned bunk in the barracks can use the facilities at any time they’re not scheduled to work.
Though, on the off chance my mother decides to don a bathing suit and take a dip in the pool, there seems to be a silent agreement amongst all: stay the fuck away.
I charge between buildings now and press my palm to the control panel guarding my family’s home. I wait for the scan to complete and a noisy ding to grant me access, then I swing the door open and stalk along the warm hall.
“Scarlett?” I shove Mav’s bedroom door open, though fuck knows I wouldn’t expect her to come in here. Slamming it shut again, I jog along the hall and swing Koda’s future bedroom door open. “Scarlett? Where are you?”
A loud, piercing scream reverberates from the other side of the house. Not even Scarlett’s scream. Koda’s. With my heart pounding a painful tattoo against my chest and my head buzzing with an ache only adrenaline gives me, I drop my shoulders and run.
My footsteps thunder against the floor, and a battle-like tunnel vision narrows what I see. Red tinges my peripherals, and worry for my baby brother, for Scarlett, makes sweat trickle along my spine.
“Koda!”
“No!” Scarlett yelps. “Don’t do that!”
I crash against my bedroom door just three feet before my mother, then shoving it open and catching the heavy wood when it bounces back again, I lock eyes with a horrified Scarlett who stands by my bed, her arms stretched wide and her cheeks deathly pale.
Koda hangs from the light fixture twelve feet above my bed, a wild grin smeared across his face and his arms and legs clinging to the ceiling like he’s Spiderman.
“What the hell are you doing?” My mom barges past me and sends Scarlett skittering backwards in fear. “Koda! Get down!”
“I-I told him not to climb up,” Scarlett whimpers. “I swear, I—”
“Why are you alone in a room with my son?” Mom’s words bite like vicious lashes of a whip. “He is a child, and you have no business spending time with him unless he’s with one of us.”
“I sneaked in.” Cackling, Koda swings from the light like he’s not afraid of breaking his neck. “She was in the bathroom, so I climbed up and was gonna surprise her.”
“Get. Down.” Arabella Aster: warrior. Arabella Jameson: mother. The second has always scared me far more than the first. “Now.”
“C-Carefully!” Scarlett squeaks out as Koda releases the light and belly flops unceremoniously to the middle of my bed.
Pens go flying into the air, raining back to the floor with noisy clatters. Drowning in blankets and pillows, he pops his head back up again and shows off a wild, Jameson-patented ‘I’m a prick and I know it’ grin. “That was fun!” He scrambles to his feet. “I’m gonna do it again.”
Mom and Scarlett charge forward to grab him at the same time, but Mom’s feral snarl has Scarlett bouncing back again.
She scoops Koda off my bed and sets him on his feet with a heavy thud of his dirty shoes on the carpet, then she snatches his hand in a vise-like grip I remember from my youth.
“You needn’t speak to my son,” she seethes.
“My oldest may have decided you’re worth his time and trouble, but my youngest is still a minor, which means I get to decide who he interacts with. ”
“Mom…” I grumble as tears soak Scarlett’s eyes. “Chill.”
“Shut up, Sebastion!” She whips Koda around and faces me.
“Don’t act like women haven’t always made you stupid.
It clearly runs in the family.” Shaking her head, she stalks across the room and drags my baby brother in her wake.
“First your father. Then your brothers. I expect better from you, Koda.”
Scarlett’s breath comes out on a choked sob, her chest bouncing with her efforts to keep the sound in. But when our eyes meet, she loses her battle with herself and spins on her heels.
My mother stomps through my bedroom door and slams it shut.
Scarlett stomps into my bathroom and wishes she could slam something.
“Fuck’s sake.” I charge across my room and into the hall, and zeroing in on my mother a single second before she tugs Koda into the kitchen, I stride their way and surprise the woman who is so rarely surprised.
“He’s five years old!” I snarl loud enough to make her jump.
“He’s a kid, and he was having fun with the new person inside his home. ”