by Tarah Benner
As I round the bend, I keep my eyes fixed on the entrance. I don’t want to admit it, but I’m waiting for Eli to walk through those doors. Even though he didn’t come back to my room, he’s the only one who was out there with me and the only one who knows what I’m feeling.
A few minutes before oh-eight hundred, the doors fly open. Lenny, Kindra, Bear, and Blaze shuffle in laughing and joking, oblivious to the fact that drifters are encroaching on the compound.
When they spot me, they grin and wave me down. I take the stairs two at a time, and they meet me at the bottom with a flurry of cheers and questions.
“Hey, you!” Lenny shouts. “Good to see they let you out of the looney bin.”
I cringe and throw an arm around her small frame. She squeezes me even tighter, and Kindra envelops the both of us with her thin arms.
I can’t believe how good it feels or how fast the five of us have become friends. I’ve been hanging out with Sawyer and Celdon for years, but I guess the prospect of certain death speeds up the bonding process.
“Oh my god!” Lenny moans, pulling out of the embrace. “I heard Eli got shot!”
“Yeah.”
Kindra, Bear, and Blaze make some odd noises of disbelief, and Lenny’s eyes grow huge.
“What happened out there?”
“I can’t really talk about it.”
Lenny and Bear exchange a glance, but Lenny covers her surprise with a grin. Kindra is eyeing me as though I could have a psychotic break at any moment, which is funny, considering how coo-coo she is sometimes.
Blaze is the only one who looks the way I feel: sick with dread at the prospect of deployment.
I’m dying to tell them what’s really going on out there, but I know they’ll never understand until they experience it themselves. Scaring them won’t do any good.
“Hey!” belts a voice from the door. “Nobody told me it was caring and sharing time!”
My stomach does a weird flip, and I turn toward the familiar voice.
Eli is standing in the doorway, propping himself up on a single crutch. Even though I was waiting for him, seeing him in training again after our deployment is a little strange.
He meets my gaze for a long second, and I try to suppress the fluttering feeling in my stomach.
“On the line, guys. Come on.”
The others scramble back to our usual spot, and I can see Lenny fighting a grin. Even Bear seems good-natured about it. It’s amazing how Eli’s near-death experience has boosted their affection for him.
The other cadets are starting to shuffle into the training center, and I line up between Lenny and Bear, trying not to stare at Eli.
His face is slightly ashen, but apart from the obvious exhaustion and pain, he looks pretty much like his strong, angry self.
“Five laps around the track,” he barks. “Go! Last one back does twenty extra push-ups.”
I take off for the stairs at a sprint, glancing at him once over my shoulder. He returns my gaze with a steady, unreadable expression, but I notice he isn’t regarding me with the contempt he used to.
My laps are a complete blur, and I pass the others easily. It feels good to challenge my body after a week of inactivity. My legs feel warm and alive, and my lungs are getting that wide-open feeling that only comes from running.
When I finish, I take the stairs two at a time and huff across the room. Eli is standing right where we left him, arguing with Jayden. Seamus, who took over our training during Eli’s last deployment, is hovering right behind her like an overeager puppy.
“These are my cadets, Commander,” Eli says in his most deadly voice. “I’ll train them the way I’ve always trained them.”
Jayden sneers. “Your training methods don’t seem to be working, Parker. From now on, Lieutenant Duffy will oversee your cadets.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do?” Eli growls, glancing over at me.
I instantly wish I could be anywhere else but here.
“This is my assignment.”
Jayden stares at Eli’s leg with a condescending sneer playing on her lips. “You’re not much use to me right now, Parker. Rest that leg. Gathering intel on the Fringe is about the only thing you’re good for.”
Eli drags in a burst of air, his blue eyes burning with fury. For a second, I think he might combust and lay into Jayden for real, but he just glances at me and pivots on his crutch with a jerky motion that’s hard to watch.
Jayden follows his gaze, and her eyes snap onto me. “Oh, Riley. Good to see you’re back with us.” She’s faking a smile, but her tone says she wishes I’d gotten a staph infection and died in the medical ward.
As she whips her head around, I see an idea take hold in her mind.
“Riley, since you’re so advanced, why don’t you work with Lieutenant Parker one on one after lunch? I’ve got a special assignment in mind for you.”
At her mention of a “special assignment,” a tremor of fear shoots up my spine, melding with my hatred and causing my hands to ball into fists. The only thing Jayden considers “special” is something that’s likely to kill me.
“Yes, Commander,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Hey! Pay attention!” belts Jayden, turning to the four cadets gathered behind me. “Things have changed out on the Fringe. We face a greater threat than ever before. I don’t need soldiers anymore. I need exterminators. If you don’t have the stomach for it, I suggest you start getting used to the color orange, because I have no patience for weakness.
“Lieutenant Duffy will be overseeing your work until you master the basics of combat. I suggest you work hard. Otherwise, you aren’t going to last long.”
Jayden lets her withering gaze settle over the red-faced cadets behind me and stalks out of the training center.
Eli stares at us for a long second and then tightens his grip on his crutch and limps out behind her.
“All right,” snaps Seamus, clapping his hands together to get our attention. “Hit the bags. I want to see where we’re at with strikes.”
Lenny, Bear, and I glance back and forth at each other and then turn toward the line of punching bags along the far wall.
“Not you, Riley,” says Seamus.
I stop, and Bear hesitates at my side.
“Did I say ‘Kelso’?” Seamus snaps.
Bear gives him a blank look and shuffles over to join the others.
Seamus clears his throat and rubs the back of his neck, obviously uncomfortable cracking the whip. Being a hard-ass just isn’t his style.
“What is it, sir?”
“Since you’ve already passed your tests, Commander Pierce wants you training with 2B.”
“What?”
“Squad 2B,” he says again, pointing over at a cluster of privates working out across the training center.
“But this is my squad,” I say dumbly, struggling to process the fact that he’s kicking me out of the group.
“Not anymore.” His face is set, but I can tell he’s uncomfortable. I can only imagine the browbeating he must have gotten from Jayden.
I nod, trying not to appear upset. Eli mentioned Jayden would have a hand in my training once I advanced to the next level, but I never anticipated being separated from my squad.
Glancing once more at my friends going at the heavy bags, I turn and walk over to the cluster of first-year privates.
They’re all paired off sparring, and I have the sudden urge to run away. They’re clearly more advanced than I am and using moves I’ve never even seen.
I search their faces for someone I know, and my gaze lands on Miles. He’s standing apart from the others, watching one guy take down his partner. I cringe as the other man’s back slams into the mat with a resounding thwop!
I’m so not ready for this.
“Riley?”
“Yeah?”
Miles’s eyes narrow. Then I remember that Miles outranks me, and “yeah” is not the greeting he’s used to getting from cadets. He doesn’t
look angry at my lazy response, though. He’s just confused.
Then I realize he’s the one leading the group. He’s a private, too, but he’s Eli’s age and has more experience than the others.
I clear my throat. “Sorry, sir. I didn’t realize.”
“It’s okay.”
“Commander Pierce and Seamus . . . er, Lieutenant Duffy . . . want me to train with your squad. But I don’t think I’m quite ready to —”
He waves off my explanation, as though Jayden’s name explains everything.
“It’s all right. We’ll find something for you to do.” Miles looks me up and down, searching for weaknesses. “Hit the weights first. Your arms look like toothpicks. If you’re going to fight, I need some meat I can work with.”
My mouth falls open, but I recover quickly. I drag my feet over to the weights and sit down at one of the benches.
As I heave the bar over my head, I’m overcome by sudden loneliness. Normally, I’d spend the entire day working out with Bear, Blaze, Lenny, and Kindra, but Jayden has managed to isolate me from nearly everyone.
My pity party is short-lived. Ten minutes into my workout, Miles saunters over and raises an eyebrow. He seems skeptical that the cadet who raises so much hell can lift so little weight.
Without a word, he adds plates to the bar I’m lifting and nods approvingly at the pained expression on my face.
After one set, my arms are starting to give out, and I let out an animalistic grunt to force the weight over my head.
At first I think Miles is just going to watch me in total silence, but then he clears his throat. “Man, that’s cold.”
“Huh?”
He glances over at the other privates and lowers his voice. “What Jayden did to Eli.”
“Oh. Yeah,” I moan, hatred flashing through my chest at the mention of Jayden.
“You know training you guys is his life, right?”
“I know.”
Miles raises an eyebrow but doesn’t respond.
“Eli’s all about the job,” I groan, blinking the sweat out of my eyes. “Looks like that’s doing a whole lot of good.”
I’m shocked by the bitterness in my own voice but not as surprised as I am when Miles breaks into a disarming grin. He looks much less intimidating with a smile stretching from ear to ear, which is probably why I’ve never seen it.
He lets out a low chuckle and starts to walk away. “Oh, man, Riley. I can already tell it’s gonna be fun working with you.”
Miles is no Eli, but he doesn’t take it easy on me, either. He keeps me on the weights for an hour and then runs me through some high-intensity interval training to build power and speed.
Several times, I catch the other privates watching me out of the corner of their eyes, but they never say a word.
I’m sure they know I just returned from my first deployment, but they aren’t looking at me with pity. They understand. They know what it’s like out there, but I still feel like an outcast. I don’t belong in their squad, and Seamus kicked me out of mine.
I’m relieved when the lunch bell rings, and I waste no time bounding out of the training center to catch up with Lenny and the others.
“Hey!” I gasp, fighting through the crowd to reach them.
“Hey,” says Lenny, an angry edge to her voice.
“What’s up?”
“Seamus,” Bear growls.
“What happened?”
“He said I have a month,” Lenny snaps. “I have a month, and then they’re going to deploy me.”
“Blaze, too,” Bear adds.
“What about you and Kindra?”
Bear shrugs his enormous shoulders. “He didn’t say.”
That isn’t good. I knew Jayden would be pressuring Seamus to pass the others on to the next level quickly, but a month seems like a very short amount of time.
“I don’t want to go out there,” says Blaze. He glances at me. “I can’t do it. I couldn’t do what you and Parker did.”
I don’t even bother asking what he thinks Eli and I did. Rumors have been swirling through Recon about the great Eli Parker and his injured leg, but since we can’t share what actually happened, no version even comes close to the truth.
When we reach the canteen, the first person I see is Celdon. He’s arguing with the Operations worker in the food line again, but at least he seems to be in his right mind this time.
“. . . All I’m saying is that you guys shouldn’t put it on the menu if you’re going to run out within the first five minutes.”
I can’t hear the woman’s reply, but Celdon tips his head back in exasperation. “Kale? Fucking kale?”
I grin despite myself, and when Celdon finally takes his tray and turns, his face fills with relief.
“Holy Christ!” he says, sagging his shoulders.
Before I can react, Celdon abandons his tray completely and crosses to where I’m standing. I half expect some sort of snarky comment — maybe even a sloppy left hook — but he just throws his arms around my shoulders and crushes me to his skinny chest.
I let out the breath I was holding and let myself relax against his rib cage. I sniff, and it smells as though he’s showered and done his laundry since our last encounter.
“I didn’t think you were going to make it back!” he says, lifting me off my feet.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I mutter into his shirt.
“I was so scared, Riles.”
“Me, too.”
His arms tighten around me, and a shudder rolls through him. “No, really. If I’d known . . . I’m sorry.” He puts me down. “I was so out of it. And when I came down from . . . you know . . . Sawyer told me they’d sent you out there. Then you were in the medical ward, and she said you weren’t allowed visitors . . .”
When he pulls away, I’m startled to see his eyes are glistening with tears. Everyone is watching us, and he wipes them hurriedly on his sleeve. I suppose it’s not every day that a Systems worker hugs a sweaty Recon girl in the middle of the canteen.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry about everything.”
“It’s okay,” I say, squeezing his wiry arm. “I have to talk to you.”
He nods and returns to the food line, where he argues with the Operations woman for another two minutes until she produces a tray of food for me. I throw the line I just cut an apologetic grimace and follow Celdon to a table in the corner.
“How are you?” he asks, regarding me with uncharacteristic concern.
“I’m fine,” I lie. “I’m . . . I’m all right.”
Celdon’s eyes bug out in disbelief. “Riles. Come on. Lieutenant Sexy got shot. You can’t tell me everything’s fine.”
“How do you know about that?” I hiss.
“I’m not a moron! The guy’s hobbling around on crutches.”
I narrow my eyes at him.
“And also Sawyer told me.”
I groan. “She shouldn’t have told you that. You’re not supposed to know any of this.”
If this gets out, I’m going to be in so much trouble.
“Well, I do. So spill.”
“I can’t,” I say, staring pointedly at his interface. Just talking to him when he’s wearing it is giving me the uncomfortable feeling we’re being watched.
“Oh, this?” he says, tapping the device with a knowing grin. “Don’t worry. No malware. And I installed some new security software. Those noobs in Constance aren’t getting anything past me now.”
I still don’t trust the interface, but if anyone has the skills to keep Constance out, it’s Celdon.
Reluctantly, I launch into the story of what happened on the mission. I tell him about the drifters hijacking the land mine and shutting down our checkpoint and how Eli got shot.
I leave out the part about me shooting a man, which turns out to be a good choice. By the time I get to the part about the drifter in the cleared zone, Celdon’s eyes look as if they might fall out of his head.
&nb
sp; “I can’t go out there again,” I finish. “I can’t do it.”
“So don’t.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
He glances around. “So what are you going to do?”
I swallow and lower my voice so no one nearby can hear. “We’re getting out of here.”
“How?”
“Eli said he would help us,” I whisper. “He’s going to fight.”
“Fight? Like fight, fight?” He fakes a few punches, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah.”
“He loves you!” Celdon declares with a smirk.
“Stop saying that! You and Sawyer don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know Lieutenant Sexy loves you. He’s got it bad, Riles.”
“Whatever. Now we have a plan. So do you think you can stay out of trouble until we get the money?”
He rolls his eyes. “Riles . . . I’ve been a fucking saint ever since that day before you left.”
I meet him with a look of disbelief.
“I’m serious. I report to Systems, I do what they tell me, and —”
“And you’re staying away from the hard stuff?” I cut in. “I can’t have you losing your shit when we’re trying to make a break for it.”
“I know. No more surge. I’m getting my act together. I promise.”
Deep down, I’m not sure I believe him. Celdon has been a loose cannon since we were teenagers, but it has to be the truth. I have enough to worry about as it is.
eleven
Eli
Waiting for Harper in the empty simulation course, I pace back and forth like a caged animal that’s about to be another animal’s lunch. The mechanized drifters are perfectly still behind the rock- and car-shaped obstacles, but their empty eyes seem to follow me around the room.
I’ve gotten better on the crutch, but I’m still slow and weak. Every time I move, I have to fight the impulse to chuck the thing at the wall and tough it out. My leg is still too messed up to support my full weight on its own.
I don’t want to see Harper. I don’t think I can look her in the eye after the little display in the training center. There’s no one in this compound who can humiliate me the way Jayden can. She gets you right where it hurts every time and digs her heel into the wound.
