The Girl Who Dared to Think 6: The Girl Who Dared to Endure

by Bella Forrest

  It took him a few moments to get it, but when it finally sank in, his response was what I’d expected. “Liana, she gave her life saving Dad, and you and I both know that he didn’t believe you. Her death was stupid. It didn’t achieve anything monumental, and running around the Tower trying to avenge her isn’t going to solve anything.”

  “You’re one to talk,” I snapped back, rankled by the way he could just dismiss her death like that. “You went insane where Baldy was concerned. You beat him, for crying out loud. Don’t tell me you were unaffected by her death when you were clearly looking for someone to punish.”

  Silence again, followed by, “You’re right. I was. Which was why I needed to get out of the Tower. Don’t you see that living like that is poisoning us? I killed him, Liana, and I was happy he was dead. If that’s not sick, I don’t know what is. And yeah, maybe I don’t want to fight for the Tower, but for good reason. It’s impossible! The legacies are everywhere and can literally change their faces! They’ve been attacking Scipio for years! Do you think you’re the only one who has ever gotten this close to the truth? Do you think they would hesitate to kill you and everyone with you the instant they learned that you were drawing close? Dammit, Liana, there is no one there who can protect you! Scipio is damaged beyond belief and can’t be fixed!”

  “You don’t know that,” I retorted hotly. “And by digging, I’ve managed to find some of his missing pieces.” I paused and realized that we were talking about Scipio on the open airwaves, and that the Patrians could be monitoring his call. “We shouldn’t be talking about this. I’ve made my decision, but I want you to keep working on getting the others over there. They want to leave.”

  “You’re really serious,” he said. “Liana, don’t throw your life away on that place. You don’t have to! We have another choice.”

  I smiled bitterly and looked at the stars. “I realize that. And this is what I’ve chosen.”

  “So basically, you’re saying that if I negotiate this deal to include you, it won’t matter because we won’t ever see each other again, save for when Thomas and Melissa bring me back to rescue everyone else, but you?”

  I hesitated. “You don’t know that. I might be able to get the Tower back on track and Scipio restored. We can bring the matter to the new council, and who knows, maybe start diplomatic relationships. If there’s a war to the south, now is a time for making allies.”

  “Or you could die, which would mean I won’t ever see you again,” he said hotly. “Dammit, can’t you just stop being brave for once in your life? Can’t you put yourself before complete and total strangers? I don’t want to be here alone.”

  His anger had evaporated in the middle of his line of questioning, turning into a desolate sadness. My heart ached, and I knew he was coming from a place of love. But that didn’t mean a damn thing if I couldn’t love myself—and if I abandoned the Tower, I would absolutely loathe myself. “I’m sorry, Alex,” I said, trying not to cry. “But I can’t do it. I wish I could. I wish I was a different person. But I’m not. I have to stay and fight—it’s who I am.”

  I waited for his response for what felt like eternity, holding back my tears. I wasn’t sure what I expected from him, but I knew what I feared the most: his anger and hatred. I didn’t want to lose my brother. If anything, I wanted him to get his head right and come back to help. But I had just told him I prioritized other people over him, and there was no predicting how he would react.

  “I see.” A pause, just long enough for me to perceive absolutely nothing about his emotional state from his tone, followed by, “I should go. I have an early start in the morning.”

  “Alex…” I trailed off, searching for something to say, but I wasn’t even sure what I could say. He didn’t sound angry, or sad, or upset, or… like anything at all. Just very matter-of-fact. After several long seconds, I whispered, “You know I love you, right?”

  “I know. But I need time to think about this. I mean, you should’ve told me you didn’t plan to leave. I might’ve changed my mind about coming here! And now I have to come back and help you!”

  I gaped at the box in my hand, and then frowned. He had a point, but that last part caught me off guard, and I needed a moment to think. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But there wasn’t exactly time. And…” I sighed, trying to formulate my feelings about him coming back, but could only conjure up uncertainty. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea that you come back here. Alex, I don’t know why your rank dropped like that after Baldy, but I do know something inside of you broke. The instant I mentioned leaving, you wanted to go! I think… I think that’s because you can’t handle it here, and that’s okay.”

  “Are you saying you don’t want me to come back and help you?” he practically snarled, and I sighed. That wasn’t at all what I meant.

  “No,” I replied carefully. “I’m saying that I don’t think you want to.”

  “You’re my sister! I want to be with you.”

  “You can want to be with me and still want to be away from the Tower,” I told him. “Those two things can both be true, Alex. But I also can’t handle the idea of you coming back to fight for something that you hate, just for me. If you died or something happened to you, I would never forgive myself.”

  “That’s not fair. Just because I don’t think it can be saved doesn’t mean…” He trailed off from his biting comment, and then gave a heaving sigh. “I’m sorry. Like I said, I should go. I have to think about this.”

  I hesitated. My instinct was to press on, to insist that I was right and he needed to stay there. But I had to respect his desire for time. Hell, I wanted time. It was best to just let it go. For now.

  “Okay, Alex,” I finally said. “I’ll contact you tomorrow night, okay?”

  “Okay. Talk to you later. Be careful, Liana.”

  “You too.”

  The line went dead, and I clicked the device off and sighed. That had gone about as well as I could’ve hoped. Still, I couldn’t help but feel guilty about telling him. Because of me, he was now considering returning to the Tower to help fight. I remembered how broken he had seemed when he talked about our lives here, and I wasn’t sure I could let him do that. Coming back here would kill him on the inside, if not get him dead from a legacy attack. Besides, Sadie was undoubtedly aware of his transfer, and was likely wondering what was going on. If she tried to spy on him only to find out he was missing—and then only to have him return—it would raise a lot of questions.

  I’d have to talk him out of it if he decided to come back. It was the only way to keep him safe. And if that didn’t work, and he did arrive on my doorstep, I’d have to knock him unconscious and send him back with the others. He might spend the rest of his life in Patrus hating me, but at least he would have a life.

  Decision made, I turned to go back inside, pointedly ignoring the lone voice inside of me that told me the path I was taking was a very lonely one indeed.

  It was right, so why argue?

  33

  We arrived back at my quarters to find Leo/Grey sitting on one of the sofas. I slowed at the top of the stairs as he looked up at us and rose slowly to his feet, studying him to see who I was dealing with.

  “Liana,” he said a moment later, and I could tell from the way he said it that I was talking to Leo.

  “Leo,” I replied, stopping at the first step and looking over at Maddox for help. She blinked at both of us and then pointed a thumb at the hallway.

  “You know what, I haven’t eaten all day,” she said carefully. “I am going to raid the fridge. Excuse me.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her as she went down the stairs and muttered a soft “Traitor” under my breath. She snorted softly but didn’t rise to the bait as she made a hasty exit, leaving Leo and me alone.

  I watched her go, and then sighed heavily. After the conversation I had just had with my brother, I wasn’t sure I was ready for this. But since he was clearly sitting here waiting for me, I didn’t exactly see a way ou
t.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked.

  His cheeks flushed red. “Stupid,” he said. “And still a little tired. I’m going to sit back down, if that’s okay.”

  I nodded, and slowly made my way down the stairs. I didn’t sit next to him, but instead leaned against the wall the screen hung on, putting several feet of floor between us. I was still mad at him, in spite of Grey’s request for me not to be.

  Leo stared at me for several seconds and then sighed. “Liana, I owe you an apology,” he finally started, and I crossed my arms, trying not to snort derisively. I was pretty sure that it went without saying, but Leo, being Leo, felt the need to say it anyway. “I shouldn’t have put Grey at risk like that. It was foolish, shortsighted, and dangerous. I made you a promise to keep him safe, and I failed you. As soon as his memories are fully restored, I will find a way to move myself from the net into the terminal, and that will be—”

  “Stop,” I said, having decided I had heard enough. He had apologized for one of the things that he needed to, and I accepted that. But there were other things that we had to discuss before he went making any decisions.

  Leo blinked at me in surprise, and then turned wary.

  “Before you go any further with your request to be downloaded into the terminal, we need to discuss a few things. Like how you told Grey about our relationship before I got the chance to. Or how you were acting when I was fighting to help you. Did you forget that I promised I would stay and fight with you? Or did you think that my promise was only contingent on us having a relationship? Because let me tell you something, I didn’t make it for you. I made it for the people in the Tower, and I still stand by it. I may have just damaged my relationship with my brother permanently over it, dammit! And the way you acted this morning… It hurt worse than anything you could’ve said last night.”

  Leo’s jaw dropped, and he stared at me for several seconds—long enough for me to realize that I had started walking toward him during my impassioned speech, and that I desperately needed air, as I had expended it all in my rant. I couldn’t help it. The anger I had buried deep had erupted, and I finally had a target—a justifiable one—that I could use it on.

  “You’re still planning to stay?” he asked, cocking his head at me. “After everything you’ve been through?”

  “Yes! I swear to Scipio… Why is that so hard for everyone to understand? Everyone wants to go, to run away from our problems and start a new life, but I can’t! It’s not who I am! I see a problem, and I fix it. It’s all I’ve been doing since this started, and I can’t stop now, or nothing any of us has done or sacrificed will have been worth it. Everything you’ve told me about Lionel’s vision of the Tower sounded beautiful, Leo, and I want to see our world become that. I want to make it better. I want to make us hope and dream again. And maybe I’ll die in the process, but at least I’ll die believing in a future that’s better than our reality.”

  Leo stared at me for several seconds. I could see him struggling, trying to come up with some sort of response to what I’d just said, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it. “Grey says he wants to stay and help, too,” he announced, and my skin prickled at the oddity of it.

  “He heard all of that?” I asked, unable to help myself.

  “He did,” Leo said. “He mentioned that both of us being here is very invasive, right?”

  “Yes,” I replied, tension radiating through me. Leo hadn’t said anything about his feelings yet, and to be honest, I wanted to know what he was thinking. “So…” I said, trailing off and giving him a little head roll that indicated I was waiting for him to say something.

  He leaned back in the sofa, and then reached out to touch the spot next to him. “Would you?” he asked.

  I hesitated, and then went around the low table to sit opposite him on the couch. I told myself it was because my legs hurt, and not because I was hoping for him to confess a reversal of his feelings, because I still hadn’t had a chance to process what Grey had suggested earlier.

  “Thank you,” he said, shifting on the couch some so he could face me. “My neck was beginning to hurt.”

  I stared at him, determined not to make any more small talk until he offered something of substance.

  He sighed and looked away. “You’re right. I behaved poorly from start to finish. I’m not good at this, Liana. Every time I feel something new, it’s so intense that I… I am not sure what to make of it. When it was just me, when I was just code, I never had to question how I felt. But then again, I’ve never felt anything quite as complex as I have in the past few days. Doubt—not in someone else, but in myself—and fear of losing someone that I… that I care for. I failed you. I didn’t get the information we needed from Baldy, and I couldn’t control anything he did.”

  “That wasn’t your fault,” I said. His words had moved me, but not a lot. I was still angry. “And if you had just talked to me about it…”

  “I know,” he whispered. “Like I said, I’m stupid.”

  I considered him for a second, and then sighed, about to ask the one question I was afraid to hear the answer to—though it was the one I desperately needed to hear. “Leo, do you care about me, or don’t you? Was last night an act? Something to push me away to make things between Grey and me less messy? Or did you really decide that because you couldn’t control Baldy, it meant you didn’t care about me? Because if it’s the last one, I really don’t get it. How does his level of control over you equate to you not caring about me? Were you scared when he pointed the gun at me?”

  “Terrified,” he replied without hesitation, his brown eyes holding mine and letting me see the bleak darkness in them. “I could feel his finger on the trigger, and all I could think was that I was going to lose you. That I couldn’t imagine any moment without you. But it wasn’t strong enough.”

  “Or it didn’t matter how strong your feelings were to him. He just had that level of control! That’s not your fault!”

  Leo frowned. “I know what Grey told you. I know about his offer to…”

  “Okay, I am not there yet,” I told him, holding up a hand. “Right now, this isn’t about Grey. It’s about you, and your feelings. He seems to think you do care about me, but I want to hear it from you.”

  “This is all new to me,” he admitted softly. “I’m scared.”

  “Of what?” I asked, curious about what could be so terrifying that he couldn’t tell me how he felt.

  “Of losing you. Even before Baldy, even when you didn’t want to talk about it, I knew that whatever I felt for you was doomed from the start, because of Grey. Then he woke up and wanted to be aware, and I realized… I was never going to have you. That, plus what happened with Baldy…” He shrugged and looked away. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”

  I stared at him. “You’re right, you are stupid.” His head whipped back at me, his mouth dropping open, but I didn’t feel sorry for him. “Instead of just owning up to what you felt and what we did, you added to an already emotionally charged situation and made it that much more unbearable for the group. And you jeopardized the health of one of us in the process.”

  He shut his mouth and cringed. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  I stared at him for a moment or two longer, and then sighed heavily. “But speaking as regular Liana, instead of leader Liana, I am really happy that it was just you trying to push me away. That I can understand. If you’d told me that you never felt anything for me in the first place, that would’ve broken my heart.”

  It hurt to admit it, but I had just finished chastising him about being honest regarding his feelings, and it was time for me to be honest about mine. I stared at him for several seconds, heart in my throat, but he didn’t leave me hanging long.

  “Come here,” he said roughly, holding his arms out to me, and I practically threw myself at him, needing his arms around me more than ever. It had been a long, trying couple of days, and it promised to get harder, but in that moment, for the first time sinc
e yesterday, I felt safe.

  Even if I was still a little sore with him. “I’m still a little mad at you,” I told him.

  “Yeah, that’s fair. I was a really big jerk.”

  I laughed against his chest, and then paused, suddenly uncomfortable, knowing the moment was being witnessed by Grey. I sobered, and asked, “How’s… Grey handling all this?”

  Leo was silent for a second, and then let out a sharp laugh. “Um… I’m not sure you want to hear it. It’s not exactly… polite.”

  I pulled away from him so I could peer into his eyes, instantly suspicious. “How do you mean?” I asked, drawing the question out.

  Leo was already blushing, but his smile was broad. “He’s dutifully reminding me that it’s his hand and insisting that it should be placed lower.”

  I stared at him for a second, feeling where his hand was still resting against my back, only a few scant inches from my butt, and then laughed. “He really is okay with this?” I asked.

  “I think he’s going to want some time with you, too,” Leo said carefully. “But yes, he is surprisingly accepting. I quite like him, actually. I didn’t think I did, when we first met, but I really do now that I understand him a bit more. Now that he understands himself and me a bit more as well. His change is unexpected, and yet he seems satisfied with it. He likes the person he is becoming, more than he liked who he was before. I feel guilty, and yet… not. Is that wrong?”

  I bit my lip. Grey’s personality shift was a bit alarming, but he didn’t seem upset about it. If anything, he somehow felt older and wiser, even if he still wasn’t fully restored. I could still sense him, the loving, playful man who had made me feel safe enough around him to share my innermost thoughts and secrets. I trusted him with my heart like no other, in a way that Leo couldn’t quite fill. But then again, I trusted Leo with my life in a way that I couldn’t quite trust Grey. His calm and patient way had also made me feel safe around him, but in a completely different way. Both men had definitely changed. Leo was growing emotionally, while Grew was more mature, and yet somehow, it only made them more attractive to me.