Chapter 19
I’d been on pins and needles all day waiting for the evening to come.
In such a short time, things had shifted so monumentally with Vaughn.
I spent the rest of the day continuing to run a deep dive on the diagnostics, which pulled up a few points of concern, which I would address with the dear captain at some point.
I also scoured the schematics he’d allowed me to borrow, with no luck. They didn’t appear to be any different than the digital versions, but my gut was telling me something was off, so I’d go sheet by sheet, quadrant by quadrant, line by line, until I was satisfied I had left no stone unturned.
I was doing anything and everything to distract myself from the reality that when I went back to the room, I wasn’t sure what version of Vaughn I would get: the brusque captain, the suspicious spy, or the tender lover.
I had to be prepared for all options, and I was determined not to get my hopes up about which Vaughn would be waiting for me.
It turned out, it was none of those. It was the wounded soldier who awaited me.
When I entered the captain’s quarters, Vaughn was sitting on the edge of the bed, clad only in his boxers, his elbows resting on his knees, his fingers digging into his temples.
I’d waited for him in the mess for a little while, but when he didn’t show up, I wondered if something was wrong. Just in case, I’d brought enough food for the two of us to eat in the room, knowing that we couldn’t talk about such sensitive topics in a public space.
He looked up when he heard the door close behind me. “Is everything okay?” I asked, setting the tray of food on the desk across from the bed.
“I—” Vaughn paused. His gaze seemed to ask if he could trust me. He must have decided it was worth a shot. “I have lingering injuries from the rebellion, and…PTSD,” he reluctantly admitted.
I sat down on the bed beside him. He let his head fall into his hands, again rubbing at his temples. “I get headaches.”
I watched the muscles in his arms ripple with the motion of his fingers.
This close to him, I finally realized that the dragon scale tattoo sleeve that started at his shoulder and went all the way down to his wrist was as I had theorized.
Each scale was a line of tight cursive text. Each scale was a name.
Unable to resist, I reached out, tracing the tip of my finger along one of the scales.
He looked up at me, then down to where my finger was touching him, and sighed. “The team I lost.” He frowned.
“I’m sorry,” was all I could manage to say.
When I’d lost my parents, there was such an outpouring of sympathy and compassion for their loss.
They were public figures and had been beloved for their efforts to hinder Meridian’s operations.
And I knew I loved them, but not in a way that I thought a child should love their parents, because they were strangers to me.
Xavier and I were raised by aides, nannies, and tutors, and frankly, each other.
We were carted around as accessories, unable to put down roots, and unable to live normal lives because of their station.
I felt numb when they were gone, but oddly, it was the same numbness I’d felt for them my entire life, because they had always been so far away.
But when I’d lost Xavier…there were few who mourned him, and no words of condolence made any kind of impact. It felt as though I had died.
So thinking about what Vaughn had gone through, losing the men and women that had become his family, after growing up in such difficult circumstances…it was unfathomable.
“I have nightmares,” I shared. “They start out nice, like a memory of me and my brother, and then it turns into me seeing him in a coffin.” I wiped away an errant tear that escaped. “I know it’s not the same—”
Vaughn reached out, placing his palm on my knee and gently squeezing, as if to say it didn’t matter that it wasn’t like for like—that he understood.
“It never goes away,” I said softly. “People said it would dull, but it’s been over three years, and it feels just as sharp to wake up every day and have to remember all over again that half of my soul is gone.”
“I hear them dying,” he whispered. “Over and over and over again.”
My heart hurt for him.
“It was my call.” He buried his face in his hands. “Every single life is on my head.”
“They could have disobeyed you. They made a choice too. They sacrificed their lives so those civilians could live,” I tried to reason, knowing it was pointless, knowing he’d likely heard all of this before. “Wouldn’t they want you to live? Wouldn’t they be proud of what you’ve accomplished?”
He scoffed. “You should take your own advice.”
I sighed, leaning back on my palms. “You’re right.”
Xavier would have dragged me out of Tharsis if he knew I’d holed up there for years after his death, living life in the shadows, on the fringes, barely scraping by, and thinking that maybe death would be easier than living in such a void, without him.
“If I take it, will you?” I challenged.
He turned to glance at me.
“We’re useless if we keep wallowing like this,” I pointed out. “Maybe if we actually completed this mission, it would be a big step toward some sort of redemption.”
He rolled his eyes, but I could see he was taking in my words.
“We could try, anyway,” I goaded him. I was sick of living like a zombie, one day blurring into the next, and feeling like nothing mattered.
I wanted my life to matter. I wanted Xavier to matter.
And if we could find the Phoenix and take Meridian down, that would matter.
It wouldn’t erase what happened to either of us, but it would matter.
“I want to try.” I glanced up at Vaughn as I made my declaration.
He kept my gaze for a moment, studying my conviction before he finally agreed. “Okay.”
I smiled, and he returned the gesture, albeit somewhat more imperceptibly, but I saw it nonetheless.
“I brought you dinner.” I motioned toward the food.
“Thank you.” He got up to start poking at his options.
“I’m going to clean up and get out of this uniform. Let’s talk through the mission progress when I’m done,” I told him on my way to the bathroom.
He nodded, his mouth already full of food.