Breaking Sky

by Cori McCarthy

  “Any more former suitors to worry about?” Sylph asked. “We could put up a sign.”

  “There were others, but most of them have graduated,” Chase admitted. “There were a lot of them at one point.”

  “The Star’s dirty little sexpot pilot,” Sylph mocked. “I always wondered where you found the energy.”

  “Hey. I don’t sleep with them. And I’m not the one who was dry humping a staff sergeant in the hangar.”

  “Not dry humping, Chase. We go all the way.”

  “Ew. Too much intel, Sylph.”

  “You really don’t sleep with those boys who drool after you? Why not?”

  Chase climbed onto the top bunk. “Because I don’t love them, and they don’t know me.” It was simple. It was true.

  “Virgin.” Sylph chuckled, and it was as unusual as her smile. “That makes all my prior comments about you being STD-riddled rather hilarious.”

  “Oh, yes. Look at me. I can’t stop laughing.”

  “What about Arrow? You’d sleep with him. I’ve seen the way you two hug on each other. It’s all hips and arms.”

  “He knows me,” Chase admitted. “And somehow he still likes me. It’s weird.”

  Sylph kicked the bottom of the bunk, making Chase bounce. “He’s a bit of a mess right now. He wants to comfort you. You should let him.”

  “I don’t want… How do you know that?”

  “Because he told me. Not everyone is a secret wrapped in a lockbox, Nyx. Some of us vent to each other. I’m going to tell him to head over here after he lands. Let him in the room, all right? And now sleep, Nyx, or I will put you to sleep.”

  Chase’s heart pounded at the idea of being alone with Tristan. He did know her, and although it had felt good to speak openly with Sylph, Riot, and Tanner, Tristan was different. She covered her eyes, wondering how she could be brave enough to face a red drone but not strong enough to let one boy in.

  38

  INDIAN NIGHT NOISES

  High-Altitude Moans

  Another knock. Chase had been wrestling a black sleep, and it didn’t let go easily. She heard someone come in, followed by the low murmur of voices.

  When she felt a hand on her shoulder, she rolled on her side to look over the edge of the bunk, finding herself entirely too close to Sylph’s beautiful face. “I’ve got to go relieve Arrow and Romeo on the d-line. Don’t do anything crazy while I’m gone. Remember the plan.”

  “Your plan,” Chase muttered.

  “Arrow will come here after he lands. Play nice,” Sylph said. Chase growled something, and Sylph flicked her in the forehead. Hard. “Let go, Nyx. Fall in love. It’s fucking fantastic.”

  Chase heard Sylph leave. She wanted to roll back to sleep, but instead she slipped down from the bunk and peered out the door. Riot met Sylph in the hall. He was nervous, banging his fist against his thigh. Sylph ordered him to quit it in a way that proved she was nervous too.

  Whatever was amassing just west of the d-line had the whole country scared out of their minds. Congress was set to declare war at any moment—waiting for the strike that felt so imminent that no one was catching a full breath.

  Sylph and Riot might never come back from this hop. That was the naked truth. And all of a sudden, Chase was stricken by the idea of losing them. She had to get her wings back.

  • • •

  When Tristan came in, he found her staring at him from the top bunk. He tried to smile and failed. “I thought you’d be asleep.”

  Chase looked over every inch of him. He was in his flight suit, sweat sticking it to him in places and his hair frayed. Half-asleep Pippin had called him manly gorgeous. Yeah, that was right. The almost-dark played with Tristan’s profile, and she felt a hint of his magnetism.

  She wanted to reach out, but she’d been right to worry about seeing him. He made everything heavy. He made the gravity crank up and her heart bear down.

  Tristan kissed the back of her wrist. “I’m not here to seduce you, so stay up there.” It was a good attempt at a tease. She could give him that much.

  “You look beat.”

  “The sky was a traffic jam.” He didn’t have to say anything about drones. She could see it all over his face.

  “I need to get back in the air,” she said.

  “You will. Give it a few weeks.” He touched her cheek, his hand warm.

  “But this standoff will be over in days or hours.” Chase sat up, fired. “You’re exhausted. Sylph is terrified. You need another pilot in the rotation. Now.”

  Tristan was going to say something, but he shook his head. “Patience, Chase.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s never been a talent of mine.” She jumped down from the bunk and glared at Tristan’s vivid exhaustion. She knew she should be careful with him. But she couldn’t; her own pain was too close to cresting. “You got right back up there after JAFA.”

  “I did, but it didn’t feel right. I was on the edge. I could have killed myself.” Now he was riled. “If I didn’t have you, I wouldn’t have been able to do it at all.” He tossed his helmet at her. Hard. She caught it and almost threw it right back—but he was unzipping his flight suit. All the way.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I need a shower.” Tristan pulled off his undershirt and let the top half of his uniform hang low on his hips. Chase’s whole body went loose as he went into the bathroom and turned on the water. She dropped onto Pippin’s bed, watching the edge of him through the cracked open door. He stepped out of his flight suit and pulled the curtain around him.

  Tristan Router was in her shower.

  “Christ.”

  She cradled his red helmet. Traced each letter of his stenciled call sign. Unbelievable. Tristan was in her shower, and she was feeling the lowest she’d ever been, and yet she didn’t want to barge in and distract herself.

  What happened to the girl who used skin to escape?

  The water shut off, and she couldn’t keep herself from watching through the crack as he dried off. Hints of pink-pale skin all over the place. He secured a towel around his waist. His hair dripped down his shoulders, seeming longer and blacker than usual. He sat on the bed. “I’ll fight with you if it’ll help, but I’d rather you trust me. I know this ache, Chase,” he said. “Let me help like you helped me.”

  It took her forever, and it revved up her nerves in a way that ached, but she nodded.

  He kissed her softly, and she pulled him, still a little wet, alongside her. When they lined up like that, it felt like nothing short of flying. His fingers wove with hers. “How do you feel?”

  “Angry. Empty sometimes,” she admitted. “Scared. That’s the worst part.”

  His mouth pressed a kiss to her shoulder that made the whole room settle.

  “What do you think about when you remember JAFA?” she asked.

  “A leg.” He leaned back and put a hand over his eyes. “When we heard the blasts, Romeo and I were asleep. By the time we made it out of our room, part of the building had collapsed. We found someone pinned under a bit of ceiling. One leg sticking out. I don’t know who that was. It was just a leg, but whoever it was, I knew them. I knew everyone at JAFA.”

  He held her tighter, and she spilled her heaviest ache into the twisting silence.

  “He didn’t make sense,” she said so quietly that she almost didn’t hear herself. “Well, he told me he was confused. He was trying to diagnose himself. To joke even.”

  “That sounds like Pippin,” Tristan said gently.

  “He knew exactly what was happening, which was kind of annoying, and then his words got all mangled. That freaked out both of us.”

  Up…and down. Fools fly. No.

  Listen, Chase.

  The tears came. Heavy and ugly and unstoppable. It felt like drowning, and Tristan made her sit up and drink water. He
shook her by the shoulders but nothing stemmed. Chase remembered the trials on repeat. No rewind this time. She saw the terrible, straightforward truth. The drone. The tight spin of the cockpit.

  The sand and lake and that curse-blue sky.

  She said Pippin’s name, and it made her feel like she’d been set on fire.

  When her heartbeat became a dragging limp, Chase felt his lips on hers. She pushed back with a mouth desperate for anything else. He pulled himself on top of her, and his weight held everything still.

  He was real. The thought was a sole star in her gone-black sky.

  And he was right there. Her hands found every inch of him. His back, arms, and neck—his long fingers and wide palms that opened like an invitation when she reached into them.

  She didn’t remember the breath when her lips finally left his or the moment she fell asleep. She didn’t remember anything except his skin. His weight. The link of their bodies and the emotional back and forth that let her overflow.

  39

  BORESIGHT

  Eye on Target

  Romeo woke them far before she was willing to get up. He was in his flight suit, hair ruffled, with a crescent shading beneath each eye. He didn’t seem at all surprised to find Chase and Tristan together in a semi-naked sort of way. He merely mumbled something about getting food before the hop and shut the door behind himself.

  Chase saw the same shape of exhaustion in Tristan’s face, only it was worse. How much sleep had he lost in the hours of comforting her? “You can’t fly again. Not right now.”

  “Have to relieve Sylph.” He stood, and his body popped at the joints.

  “I could fly for you. Romeo’s not as beat. Let me go.” Chase watched him get dressed.

  “You’re on the Down List, Chase.”

  Every piece of her wanted to be Nyx. To take his comment as insult. To be hard and uncaring. But she stopped herself. She stood. “I’m going to get my wings back today.”

  He smiled. “Don’t be impatient. Go to your appointments with the psychiatrist. Talk to Kale. Beat the simulator,” he said. “Let Riot help you.”

  “Sounds like a lot of work.” She tried a small smile, and although it felt stiff, it was real.

  He wove his fingers through hers, and they left together.

  In the hangar, Tristan met with the deck officer while Chase watched the state of high alert in action. The frigid concrete palace was half empty with so many jets out patrolling. Airmen hustled nonstop. The energy was shrill, taxing.

  Romeo sidled up, gnawing on a banana with inhuman-sized bites. He looked like he had been beaten up, but his flirting skills were as intact as ever. “Hello, pretty lady. How’s our boy holding up?”

  “Is he ours?”

  “Oui. You’re the only girl I’d share him with.”

  “I suppose I can live with that.” She didn’t know what came over her, but she leaned into Romeo and hugged him.

  “I knew it,” he said when she let go. “You’re totally into me. Am I right?”

  “Not even a little.” Chase watched Tristan from the other side of Phoenix. He flipped through a file and pointed something out to the deck officer.

  “What’s the chatter?” she asked Romeo.

  “Base side says we’re all about to die from Ri Xiong Di bombs. Academy side has been talking about Tourn being your dad. They’ve been saying he got you into the Star and you didn’t earn your wings and that’s why you crashed. I think Riot the weasel let the cat out of the carton.”

  Her body turned as cold as the concrete floor.

  “No one believes either side though,” Romeo said. “Talk is just talk. Nerves and all.”

  She looked at him for a long moment. Pippin had loved him. It made Romeo seem more real all of a sudden. Someone who mattered. “I’ve been worried about people finding out about Tourn my whole time here, and now, well, it sucks.” She paused. “It should be worse than that, right? But it’s not. It just sucks.”

  “People will move on to other gossip. They always do.”

  “Pippin was afraid too,” she started to admit. “He thought that if he was out, people would treat him differently. He was so afraid that he couldn’t even tell you he had a crush on you.”

  “Really?” Romeo grinned.

  She was shocked by his rather blissful reaction. “You liked him?”

  “Nah. I like women, but it never feels bad to hear someone likes you.” Romeo’s face turned serious. A little sad. “Doesn’t happen to me all that often to be perfectly honest.” Chase needed a solid minute to do the math: although she’d seen Romeo flirt with practically every girl at the Star, Chase had never witnessed him having any success.

  “I’m not that ugly, am I?” he asked.

  Chase looked him over, boots to brow ridge. “You’re not. But you should try not seeming so horny all the time. You don’t send the right impression with your eyes on every girl in the room.”

  He smirked. “It’s not that obvious.”

  “Oh, it is.”

  “Sérieusement?” He paled. “I mean, seriously?”

  “And lose the call sign. It’s not doing what you think it’s doing. What’s your real name?”

  “Adam.”

  “Nice to meet you, Adam.” She took his hand. It was weird, and she didn’t care. “I’m Chase.”

  “In my hometown, we would say, ‘Enchanté.’” The moment stilled as Romeo gave her a long, sorrowful look that prepared her for his next words. “I’m sorry about the crash, Chase. I miss Henri already. He was my first friend at the Star.” Romeo added something she didn’t understand. It sounded mournful yet nice.

  “Pippin told me you are sweeter in French. He was right.”

  Romeo looked at his boots. “Did he…what did he say when it happened? Did he suffer?”

  “It wasn’t long,” she said. Her heart began to pound as she made herself remember. “His last words were…strange. I mean, he’d messed up his head, but I think it was more than that. I think he was telling me I shouldn’t fly.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Fools fly.” Those words struck at her like something clawed, but Romeo started to laugh, and she stared at him with her mouth falling open. “You think that’s funny?”

  “Oui. I think he was having a little fun with you. Being too clever as always.”

  “How so?”

  “It sounds like Gandalf’s famous death line from The Lord of the Rings. He says—”

  “Fly, you fools,” Chase finished. Pippin had made her watch that old movie a dozen times. She shook her head. “There’s no way that’s what he meant.”

  Fools fly. No. Listen, Chase.

  He had been trying so hard to, what? Make a joke?

  Romeo put a hand on her shoulder. “It means, escape. Be free. Survive.”

  She ran her hands through her hair. “That does sound a little more like Pippin.”

  “Doesn’t it?” Romeo’s smile was kind, and it gave her the smallest lift. Small but necessary.

  Tristan approached, and the solemn look on his face brought her back down. “Is it bad?”

  “Yes,” he said. “They haven’t had any communication from Sylph. The radio, network—everything is jammed. No doubt she’s too scared to open her signal and sneak a message through. They’re pretty sure she’s still in the sky and that the drones haven’t crossed the d-line yet, but the satellite could be wrong. I’ll be able to switch on the shortwave when I’m close enough and get her report on what’s happening.”

  “The Streakers shouldn’t be used as messenger pigeons,” Chase said. “There’s got to be more we can do.”

  “What I can do is blast back here in time to give everyone enough warning to seal themselves in the bunkers.”

  Romeo headed to the cockpit. “Come on, Arrow,” he called b
ack.

  Tristan pinched her ear before pulling his helmet on. “This might seem superstitious, but I don’t want to say good-bye.”

  “Deal,” she said, forcing her chin up.

  Chase watched Phoenix leave the hangar and sweep into the dark sky. She wrapped her arms around her chest and started back to the Green, but she could go no farther than a large tarp spread across the floor. It was covered in bits of wreckage.

  Dragon.

  The charred, smashed remains of her beloved bird. The emptiness that Tristan and her friends had helped hold back sprung forward, and she felt Pippin’s absence all over again.

  • • •

  Adrien was swearing in French, digging through a pile of Dragon’s smoke-stained parts. Her head was half inside a dismantled engine. “Socket wrench,” she called out to no one.

  Chase handed the wrench over. “Here it is.”

  “Merci.” Adrien glanced out at her.

  “What are you doing with my baby?” Chase asked.

  Adrien chuckled. “She was my baby first, Ms. Harcourt.”

  Chase put some ideas together that she hadn’t bothered to before. “You built the Streakers in Canada and then shipped two of them here. And you worked with the Canadian Streaker team, but you never came here to see us. Why?”

  “We weren’t supposed to be working together, were we?” She tightened a bolt, huffing. “But now we’re together for good and ill. What’s left of us anyway.”

  The engineer seemed to be hinting at the larger picture. Pippin wasn’t the only one who had been lost. JAFA was gone, its cadets and servicemen scattered or dead, and all because people like Tourn thought we could beat Ri Xiong Di at its own game.

  “We can’t win,” Chase said.

  Adrien looked at her. Grease had smeared along her face, and the red alarm light tinted her white hair to a soft pink. “We cannot. Not as we currently stand.”

  “How do we do it then?”

  Adrien dipped back into her work. “You already know that answer. More Streakers means more strength. You have done your part on that front. Well, you did your best.”