The girl shuts her eyes tight, trying to block out the voices. The boy reaches out and grabs her hand, making the girl stare at him in confusion.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she whispers. “You were never in November.”
“I’m not your enemy,” the boy whispers back. “And you don’t have to do this alone.”
THE PRIVATE ON PATROL WHO finds me a few klicks out from the base isn’t one of mine, and I don’t know his name. With soldiers coming and going every few weeks, there’s no way to know them all. We try to study photo rosters, to keep rebels from taking advantage of the base’s high turnover rate, but we still can’t really keep up.
I’m bustled onto the base, greeted by a blur of shocked and relieved faces, shoved into the hospital. I hear words like exposure and fractures and signs of internal bleeding. I’m surrounded by concern over my ribs, the gash in my side dressed with mud, the knot on the back of my head. I want to protest that if I wasn’t dead after spending the better part of a day struggling through those damn swamps, a few more minutes probably isn’t going to kill me. But I’m too tired.
I get about five minutes of silence when the medics retreat before a horde of my soldiers come through, all shouting and saluting and reaching for my hand. They don’t know whether to be relieved I’m alive or furious that I’m so damaged. If I had the energy, I’d tear them a new one for letting their commanding officer get abducted right under their noses, but I can barely even follow the conversation going on around me.
You get to know one another pretty quickly out here on the edge. As my old captain used to tell me, “Learn fast, or don’t.” For a moment I miss him, his practicality; I miss having someone I trust blindly to tell me what to do. As officers, we’re tasked with tracking our soldiers—with monitoring them psychologically as well as physically, to make sure we catch them before the Fury kicks in. It’s only our vigilance that keeps this base operational.
But as well as I know my guys, it goes both ways. They know me too, and they can tell that I’m not okay. They can tell I’m barely staying afloat.
It’s Mori who realizes I’m falling apart, and she starts pulling the others out of my room. A few seconds later Alexi comes through, his shock of neon hair jerking me from my daze. He finishes clearing the room and then shuts the door on the crowd outside.
“Thanks, Lieutenant.” My voice sounds weak, and I’m relieved it’s only Alexi there to hear it.
“No problem, sir. Commander’s orders, though. You’re not to be disturbed until she can debrief.”
That makes me pause—Alexi’s rarely so formal. Avon’s particular corner of the military has an odd assortment of rules, and one is that not all the same formalities observed in the populated planets apply. Another has to do with the dress code, though even Alexi strains the boundaries of that one. His hair—hot pink this week—would be enough to make even the laxest commander look twice.
So if Alexi’s talking like a desk colonel—with me of all people—something’s up.
“Should I have stayed lost?” I try to make it sound like a joke, but there’s a ripple of fear through my gut that I hope doesn’t come out in my voice. Could Commander Towers somehow have found out I had Orla Cormac’s brother in my grasp and let him slip?
But Alexi just grins at me. “You know the commander. Wants to make sure no one messes up your memories, that we get an official story first.”
“Someone’s been giving her psych textbooks again.” I swallow. “Where are the shrinks, then?”
Alexi shrugs. “She’s insisted on doing it herself. I guess it’s a delicate situation.”
I try not to show my sudden stab of anxiety; I hadn’t anticipated being interrogated by the commander herself. That’s not standard procedure by any stretch, and Towers is not one to break protocol.
Alexi drops into the rickety folding chair beside my cot with a groan, leaning back enough to make the plastene composite creak ominously. “You had us pretty spooked, Captain. You all right?” Alexi was one of the soldiers who saw me leave with Cormac from Molly’s bar. His face is quiet, his gaze frank. I know what he’s asking.
“I’m fine,” I reply, meeting that gaze. “A few scrapes and bruises, nothing more.”
He presses his lips together, frustrated. “I should’ve seen it. I just thought you liked the guy…but I should’ve realized he was one of the swamp rats.”
From Alexi, the slur’s half a joke. Even so, I find myself looking away, smoothing down a wrinkle in the blanket covering my lap. “You didn’t know. Neither did I.”
“I see him again, I’m not waiting to hear his side of things.” Alexi’s eyes are on the X-rays of my ribs hanging next to my bed.
I have to bite back the desire to correct him, to tell him that the guy in the bar isn’t the one who beat me. But what difference does it make? If Cormac’s smart, he won’t show his face here again.
Alexi leans closer. “You look…unsettled. You’re sure you’re fine? No blackouts, no…dreams?” His voice drops for that, as though he doesn’t dare come too near that idea. Doesn’t dare imagine this ordeal will be the one that finally turns the unbreakable Captain Lee Chase into a blank-eyed, violent madwoman.
“None.” I reach for a smile with dubious success. “You know I never get the dreams, Alexi.” I never get any dreams. I haven’t since I was eight years old. Since Verona.