Chapter 34 #2
Task’s heart pounds in his chest. Between refusing to break quarantine and now the Aquidium mission, his luck avoiding Draven’s wrath has run out.
He supposes its overdue, but Voss and Caelinus have never had to deal with it so directly, at least as far as he’s aware.
And Draven’s tool of choice is pain. A reminder to his men of who is in charge.
If he’s not there to dole it out, he’ll gladly designate it to a second.
Task should know; he’s usually the one doing it.
It's silent for a moment, the only sounds Caelinus’ thrashing and Voss’ labored breathing. Then, Draven explodes. “What the fuck were you thinking!?”
“They obviously weren’t,” Caelinus father chimes in, crossing his arms across his chest.
“I assume this is about Aquidium,” Task says, doing his best to keep his voice level. Revealing even a morsel of fear will only make this worse.
“Of course this is about Aquidium. What else would it be about? You absolute fucking idiots. You’ve threatened everything.”
“We didn’t think —” Task starts.
“That’s clear,” Draven snorts. “You visit Aquidium, lie to the Governor, misrepresent Nexarium’s intentions, and steal from them? You understand this is grounds for interplanetary war, do you not?”
“Yes, but —”
“I don’t want to hear it. Whatever your excuse, it doesn’t matter. You disobeyed me, went around me. These two, I could perhaps give them a pass. But you? You are my Hand. My blood. And you go behind my back, betray my trust, for what?”
Task wants to fight back, lay at Draven’s feet how he’s betrayed Task’s trust — the missions he’s been excluded from, the information Draven has withheld from him, what he now knows about Noemi. But he holds his tongue.
“Although the Governor of Aquidium is threatening interplanetary war, I’ve managed to hold her off. She doesn’t want a conflict with us. But perhaps you need a reminder of who is in charge here,” Draven says. “Perhaps you all need to be reminded of who you serve.”
“Uncle,” Task cuts in, stepping forward, his palms up trying to placate him. “We’re sorry. It was urgent. The illness has infected people on the ship, and we’d made a discovery —”
“He was trying to protect the people on the Polaris,” Caelinus cuts in, trying to take some of the heat off Task. “To uphold the treaty we’d signed —”
Draven shakes his head, dislodges the coronet that sits atop it. “Shut up.” His voice cuts through Task. Then more softly, “Perhaps I’ve put too much faith in you, Task.”
The words are worse than any physical pain he’s endured at the hands of Draven, make him feel small and useless. He doesn’t know what to say, knowing that he’s disappointed Draven so thoroughly, but also knowing that he did the right thing. Maybe in the wrong way, but it had been necessary.
There’s no real use trying to explain this to Draven. He’s irrational right now, isn’t capable of hearing reason, is seeing this only through the lens of betrayal.
“They’re all yours, Caden,” Draven says, flicking his hand. “Remind them that they serve me.” He gestures to someone outside the frame, then points at Caelinus’ father. “Take him too. This isn’t the first time he hasn’t been able to keep his son in line.”
Hours — days? — later, Task awakens from what feels like a never-ending sleep.
His lip throbs, his head pounds, and his mouth feels like cotton.
He’s on the hard, cold floor, naked except for a pair of loose trousers.
He tries to open one of his eyes, but it’s swollen shut.
He can make out a figure across the room from him and he pushes himself up to sitting, feels the fresh lashes across his arms.
“You good?” The figure across the room asks, his voice hoarse. Task tries to focus his eyes through the dim light. “That was more brutal than usual.” He sees the reddish hair, a beard. Voss. Voss leans against the wall. His face is bruised, cuts across his eyebrow, blood trickling from his nose.
“I’m fine,” Task says, though he doesn’t feel fine.
As he tries to get to his feet, dizziness courses through him.
He feels for the wall and manages to drag himself over to Voss, dropping down beside him.
He winces as he sinks back to the floor, his ribs tender.
“Are you alright? I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked this of you. ”
Voss doesn’t look at him, keeping his eyes fixed on the ceiling. “It was the right thing to do,” he replies. “We knew there was a risk when we agreed.”
“Wait, did you say more brutal than usual?” Task rewinds, remembering his friend’s words from a moment ago. “This has happened before?”
Voss snorts, a clump of blood flying from his nose. “You’re not special, Shadow. You couldn’t have thought you were the only one subject to Draven’s specific brand of education.”
“I just…when have you crossed him?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Voss says, his head dropping down between his shoulders.
“Do you know where Castor is?” Task whispers, bringing his hand to his ribs. The pain is overwhelming, and he worries that they’re broken.
“Think they took him somewhere where he could…watch his father.”
Task’s stomach lurches at that. Caelinus shouldn’t have been forced to see that; his father shouldn’t have been involved at all.
“I’m sorry,” Task says again, his eyes hot. He feels guilty that he dragged three people into this, all because he wanted to do something for Kit and Knox. He should have done it himself.
“I’m about to take your apology and shove it up your ass,” Voss says, turning his head to look at Task. “Stop it. It’s done. We’ll heal.”
“At least it wasn’t fingernails this time,” Task tries to joke, but his voice is flat.
“Amen to that,” Voss says.
They sit with their backs against the wall, silent, trying to exist through the pain, until Task feels his eyes grow heavy again.
He lies on the bed in his quarters, freshly showered and in clean clothes.
Two Guardians had come to release him and Voss earlier.
They’d been kept in the brig three days — no food, and only enough water to keep them alive.
Wynstann had been let in to mend his broken ribs and set Voss’ nose, but that was the extent of it.
The rest of the lashes, the cuts and bruises, were left to fester.
Caelinus looked similarly worse for the wear, though he’d grinned when he’d stumbled out his cell and saw Voss and Task, the little psycho.
Task shifts, letting out a muffled groan as he reaches for the bottle of amber liquid he keeps in the locker beside his bed, taking a large swig directly from the bottle.
For awhile, he’d been good about staying away from it, but lately, everything is unbearable.
The tangle of conflicting emotions in his chest is inescapable.
He’s let Draven down, potentially incited interplanetary war, and thus far, has refused to deliver Kit. Draven had pushed him again on it earlier, demanding that he bring her back now, as a means to remedy his monumental fuck-up.
He’s not good enough for Kit, who deserves someone whole, someone unburdened with the power of pain, who isn’t destined to inherit control of an entire planet and all that comes with it.
Someone like her idiotic ex-boyfriend Finn, who has a clear view of right and wrong, who can make her laugh with dumb jokes, who is normal.
Even if he has the most annoying laugh, which makes Task want to punch him every time he hears it in the lounge or reverberating throughout the mess hall.
Even more so when it is the source of Kit’s smile.
His defenses are failing. He hasn’t been able to keep himself separate from her, shut himself down enough to keep her out.
She’s like a laser carving through all his well-built and long-standing walls.
Breaking him down into the basest person he is.
It reminds him of who he was before the pain echo, and what that felt like. He loves it and hates it.
But she’ll never be able to know everything.
And that pains him, because if he is honest with himself, he can’t stop thinking about her.
Even now, freshly recovering from torture, he’s wondering what she’s doing, who she’s with.
He’s thinking of the ways he can make her laugh when he sees her again, is thinking of how he can get his hands on her, even if it hurts him.
Because the hurt is worth the flush that rises in her cheeks, the small smile she’ll throw in his direction.
And he’s a sucker for pain. In more ways than one.
He takes another swig from the bottle, collapsing backwards on to his bed. He clutches the bottle in his right hand, drinking until he doesn’t feel anything any longer.
Task spends the rest of the week leading the Phantom Wing through a series of brutal training exercises in the hangar of the Polaris, avoiding Caden and Kit like the Fever itself.
He’d had to push through the worst hangover he’d had in years, stepping into the hallway to vomit twice, and throwing up twice more once he’d returned to his quarters.
He promises himself he won’t drink again, even if it’s the only thing that seems remotely capable of diluting the pain that weaving won’t touch.
In spite of his disobedience, Draven drags him into strategy planning meetings via hologram to manage the Rev rebellion, apparently feeling the beating Task received was sufficient for the time being.
The Low rebellion has become far worse than anyone could have predicted.
Draven has decided to call in the Force to keep the peace, which was an action of last resort.
Draven had wanted to keep the insurrection quiet, under wraps for as long as possible.
But now, with the Force being deployed, it’s becoming more apparent that something is wrong on Nexarium.
Draven’s general has made it clear that the Wings need to be prepared to fight.
Draven hasn’t said it, but Task thinks this could be worse than the Avernian Uprising.
The rebels are more organized this time, seem to have access to more illicit weapons, have employed mercenaries to aid them in their endeavors.
Friday finally arrives, and Task is toying with the idea of going to the sundome, though he’s purposely avoided Kit all week.
He didn’t want to give Caden, and in turn, Draven, more ammunition, and given Draven’s increasing persistence, he doesn’t think being close to her is doing him any favors.
Still, he ventures there, reasoning that the chances of running into her are slim.
As he enters the room, he breathes in deeply, striding to the small river that flows through the dome, trying hard not to compare it to the Caliphrades.
He looks down at his reflection in the stream, wishing he could see bits of his mother and father, but instead only seeing a man who looks weary with the world, with his place in it.
He stoops down, scooping up a handful of the water and letting it trickle through his fingers before he spots the small red blooms bursting from the bank nearby.
He pulls one from the ground, tucking it into the pocket of his overcoat.
Even though he expressly told himself he didn’t want to see her, he lingers on the riverbank, hoping she’ll come through the doors.
Five minutes later, he’s rewarded with the sight of her walking into the dome, a small smile on her face. She crosses to where he sits on the bank, sitting down next to him.
“Where have you been all week? Are you alright?” She moves to touch his face, and he ducks out of her way, shaking his head.
“On duty,” Task says. It’s partially true. The other three days, he was unconscious in a cell, but Kit doesn’t need to know that. “And I’m fine. It’s just from training.”
She sits close enough to him that he can feel the heat radiating from her body, though he doesn’t touch her.
Every time he does, he’s sucked in further, and he’s trying to stop himself from the fall, even as he knows it’s a lost cause.
He thought of her even as he was being lashed and punched and beaten.
“It looks far worse than that,” Kit says, eyes traveling over his face again.
He wants her to stop looking at him like that, like she can see inside of him. “Here,” he says, mostly to stop her from continuing her unsettling examination of his features, pulling the little red flower from his pocket and holding it out to her.
She takes the stem in her fingers, twirling it, smiling up at him. “Are you getting soft on me?” she teases him, but her smile is infectious. Though his skin feels tight and his eye pulses, he can feel himself grinning back at her.
“Maybe a little,” he says, the back of his neck growing warm.
“Though I think assassinating four people the day before I got on this ship provides appropriate balance.” He says it nonchalantly, even though it’s horrific.
He wouldn’t have told her this two months ago, but he finds himself revealing more and more to her, in spite of himself.
“Task,” she says, suddenly serious, placing her hand on his shoulder. Her touch sends sparks through him. “You’re more than that. More than what he asks of you. You know that, right?”
Her words warm him from the inside out, even as he struggles to believe them. He wants to argue with her, explain all the ways she’s wrong, but he is quiet, trying to simply accept her words.
“I appreciate that,” he says, resting his forearms across his knees, fiddling with the ring on his pointer finger.
“I mean it,” she says. He won’t look at her, keeping his eyes focused on the grassy patch in front of him. She shifts so she’s in his line of vision, reaching for him, her fingers brushing against his chin. “Every time it’s counted, you’ve been there. You’ve made the right decision.”
Until I don’t, he thinks, but he keeps quiet. He’s not even sure what the right decision is anymore.