Chapter 19 #2
I push at his hard chest, but he doesn’t budge. Not even an inch. ‘I’m not asking for everything.’
‘You don’t understand, Ellie.’ He lays his hands on my waist, pushing me slightly back, so he can rise to his feet. He’s still keeping me close, though. ‘This is why I’ve been keeping away. After we danced, I realised that I can’t do this to you.’
‘Why?’ I ask.
‘Because…’ His fingers clench around my waist, as if he’s desperate to hold on tight, but then he does let go. ‘I’m falling in love with you, Ellie. This isn’t something I’ll be able to get over when we get back to The Citadel. You know how it is. It’s forbidden.’
Because I’m not a Warrior. Because I don’t have the right magic. Because, as we found out, nearly two hundred years ago some arseholes decided it should be so, and no one challenged them on it.
It’s pretty much what Xandra told me when I confronted her. Mace and I are an impossibility.
And yet.
‘I don’t care,’ I say. ‘Did you already give up? How about the Warrior mentality? How about fighting?’
‘There isn’t any point, Ellie,’ he says. ‘Where would it lead, in the end?’
Probably nowhere, but that isn’t an excuse to stay away from the things and the people we love. Where would we be, if it weren’t for everything that fills us with joy?
‘There is happiness,’ I say, willing myself to believe it. ‘Even if it’s short and fleeting.’
‘What does a single moment matter?’ He sounds almost angry.
‘A moment might not matter to you,’ I say. ‘But to me, it does.’
‘I don’t want to have an expiration date for whatever is between us. I won’t be able to let go. So I can’t give you anything. Not now. We need—’ He begins darting his eyes to the sides, and I understand what he means. That this conversation might be listened to.
‘Wait,’ I say. I crawl to the floor, pushing so much magic into the sensors that there’s no way anyone could be listening in on us.
He closes his eyes. ‘Soon, I’ll probably be forced to enter some kind of partnership with someone Central Command has chosen, whether I want it or not. And that’s my worst nightmare.’
‘And you’ll just accept that?’
‘Do you think I could refuse, Ellie? Because I don’t.
No matter what that first information block showed us.
I don’t see a way out. Unless I become a Commander myself.
And when the time comes, I’ll try to challenge that.
You have no idea what a nightmare a forced pairing like that would be for me.
My mother and father… They were a pairing like that.
A forced partnership. They were so ill-suited to each other.
It was misery. Especially for my father. ’
He shakes his head and takes a step back.
I can’t even. I can’t even keep listening to him. ‘It’s fine,’ I say. ‘You can always take one of those emotion-supressing pills that you’re so fond of. That should tide you over for a couple of years.’
I’m so angry. At the Commanders, at myself, at him. I can’t look at him, not when faced with a possible future where he’s with someone else, just because The Citadel orders him to.
And it’s not even anger, but that powerlessness that’s been following me around for years. The one feeling that I can never escape.
Not good enough, a little voice whispers in my head.
I was never good enough for him, and his mother said as much nine years ago, and that’s the truth, no matter how many times I find my way back to Mace.
In the eyes of The Citadel, I’m someone he needs to discard.
And yet. There is no knowing what the future holds. And we have now. This moment.
Fight.
I’ll hold on to this, to him, with all I have.
I’ll fight. I’ll fight like he taught me to. I’ll fight even him.
‘This is bullshit, Mace,’ I say.
I see the prickly perfectionism that Mace has raised to an artform.
I want to give him a good shake and remind him that not everything is perfect.
Nothing I ever achieved was perfection, and still there were so many beautiful moments in my life.
Like the way the wind whipped in my hair when we were drawing infinity loops with the flyboards on the surface of the lake. That kiss from a few moments ago.
Like that joyous moment in the forest, when we danced to that song.
What is the alternative? Not having experienced that, because I was too afraid of the future?
Whatever happens next, I’ll remember those moments and I’ll hold them close to my heart.
‘Life is messy, Mace. Nothing is ever perfect, as much as we want it to be. It’s messy and it hurts, but there’s so much light in that darkness. If you can just reach out and grab it for yourself.’
Mace’s jaw ticks. ‘And sometimes, Ellie, we just have to get through the shit so we can get to the really bright things in life. Sometimes, we just need to look away from all the distractions.’
‘So I’m a distraction? Nothing more than something that keeps getting in the way of your perfection?’
‘You know that isn’t how it is.’ He draws his knuckles across my cheek, and I could cry.
Because I feel that he’s letting me go. ‘But I can’t do things by halves.
That’s not how I’m built.’ He catches himself and pulls away from me.
‘And I’d never do anything by halves with you.
I couldn’t bear to be parted from you again.
I couldn’t bear it. All the emotion-supressing pills in the world couldn’t make me stop feeling the pain of that. ’
I don’t even know what to say. It’s true and it’s painful and I want to make him see that if he only focuses on tomorrow, he’ll never learn to live in the moment. That life will just pass him by. And that all he’ll be left with will be regrets.
But he doesn’t give me a chance to fight back.
He’s already standing at the door to the bathroom. ‘I think I’m going to have a shower, to wash this blood off me. I’ll catch you later, Ellie.’
Since there’s no room for discussion – not now, at least – I decide to regroup and take a shower, too. I’m still reeling a bit after what he confessed. Am I truly surprised that he feels things so deeply?
Honestly, Mace shouldn’t be my problem now. There’s Central Command, hiding so much from us. And there’s that festering wound, the matter of my trust in Stella, and maybe it’s time to stop avoiding a conversation that I really need to have.
After I dry off my hair, I steal a T-shirt from Mace and sit on the side of the pool.
I can hear the sound of the water running from the bathroom attached to Mace’s bedroom, but no one can possibly take such a long shower. He’s either jerking one off after the moment we just had, or avoiding me, or both.
I sigh.
The silence presses from all sides, the feeling enhanced by the soft sounds of water splashing in the pool. This entire luxury bunker is a slap in my face, a symbol of the dealings of Central Command. They’re unreachable, unmovable, and their will is absolute.
And they can do whatever the fuck they want, Stella this or Stella that. Regardless of the fact that Franka, for one, seemed a decent person, I don’t think any of the values promoted by The Citadel reflects that.
How did we come to this point?
I realise that there’s only one entity who could have those answers – as much as I’ve been trying to avoid her in the past week.
In my heart, I know it’s stupid to have been disappointed in an AI for betraying me.
Stella is just a tool, who foremost serves The Citadel and Central Command, and it’s plain foolish to think we have a special connection.
But throughout the years of moving from Quarter to Quarter, as I was shoved from one Apprenticeship to another, torn from place to place, Stella has been the only constant in my life.
And she is supportive, even if obviously bits of her are missing, even if, ultimately, she bows to the will of Central Command.
I bring my hands to the tiles on the edge of the pool and send out a signal with my magic. ‘Stella, are you there?’
A shimmering reflection appears above the water, in the middle of the pool. Stella seems almost sad. ‘Of course, Ellie.’
I hold on to my connection to her, while blocking the sound sensors, so our conversation can’t be heard. It takes a bit of shuffling, but I’m getting better at separating what each kind of sensor does. ‘We found out some interesting things today,’ I say.
‘I’ve noticed. I seem to have access to a block of information in a certain hangar,’ Stella says.
I freeze for a moment. Mace must have updated the info without meaning to. If Central Command finds out it was us, it won’t end well.
‘There must have been a glitch,’ Stella drawls. ‘If anyone asks, you were just exploring and simply stumbled upon the hangar.’
‘Right,’ I say, my heart settling. ‘That’s exactly how it was.’