Chosen Soldiers

by R. H. Scott

  But she could.

  “It would be easier if I told you I hated you . . . If I said I had fallen in love with him. If I told you that you were now the monster I had always feared you would become . . .” Her voice was clear in the chilly air, each word crystallizing cold between them. He kept his gaze down as she shifted her body, kneeling before him.

  “It would be easier too if I told you that what you did—­the ways you have hurt me—­truly destroyed every feeling I ever had for you.” She watched his slow rising shoulder, his twitching hands.

  “It would be easier for me to hate you, and I know it would be easier for you . . . but the truth isn’t easy. It’s not easy for me to admit that I still love you, that I love you despite what you did to us. And it’s not easy for you to know that you have someone’s unconditional love—­mine—­because as entitled as you are you’ve never thought you were truly worth loving.

  “None of this is easy . . . there are things that have happened, things I could never imagine, and the truth is, I’m broken. I’m grasping at straws of my former self and I keep looking to you to remind me of who I am, but the fact is I never should have let myself be defined by you . . . But I did—­and so did you—­and no, maybe we aren’t our old selves anymore. Maybe, we are our own ­people . . .”

  His shoulders heaved; his breaths were heavy, his fingers now balancing him against the ground.

  “But you aren’t alone, Jare . . . I can give you what I will never be able to get—­and it’s the last thing you’ll want to hear.

  “Look at me,” she ordered. He didn’t move; his strong body shuddered but he willed himself still.

  “Look at me,” she commanded again, inching bravely towards him. Slowly, he raised his face, and at first, she thought the hood of his sweater cast too many shadows across him. After a second, though, she saw the dark marks for what they were—­bruises. She couldn’t help but contemplate the state of them both. They had been the best—­they had been what the Order made them to be. Look at us now. . .

  She reached out, knocking his hood back, and cupped his mangled face in her hand. It was more than second nature, more than a reflex. Reaching for him to soothe his pain was the same response to the way she pulled her hand out of a hot flame—­it was an ingrained action. Loving him was her basic instinct, protecting him, helping him.

  His bruised eyes closed tightly as she slowly ran a thumb over his marks. He had healing cuts over his cheekbone and jaw. Under his eye, he had fresh welts, angry scratches, inflamed grazes. In every injury she saw his penance, his retribution for his mistakes. He brushed his swollen lips across her palm, and the mere feeling of his breath against her skin brought tears to her eyes.

  “Please leave me alone,” he whispered, his voice cracking. She shook her head, shuffling closer to him on her knees.

  “Look at me,” she urged a third time. Slowly, he blinked his eyes open and with tense apprehension, he managed to look at her. His cobalt stare bored into her; his eyes filled with fear and shame. She blinked away her own tears.

  “Jared, I forgive you.”

  At her words he shook his head back and forth, tears now trailing down his face, sliding over her fingers. “No . . . you can’t say that. Don’t say that.”

  She brought her other hand up and held his face still before hers. “I forgive you. I forgive you for Fight Night, I forgive you for the lies . . . I forgive you.”

  He continued to shake under her touch, his tears falling freely, his mouth ajar as he fought for breath under his mounting sobs. As she watched her forgiveness overwhelm him she longed to feel that too, that sense of being forgiven, that chance to heal.

  He buckled forward, his head falling against her shoulder, his face burrowing into her neck. His strong arms locked into an embrace and they cried.

  “Please don’t forgive me . . . please, please, please . . .” he cried over and over into her hair. She ran her hands over his back, she cupped his neck, and she held him tight, just whispering the same thing again and again.

  “I forgive you.”

  He turned his face, his cheek damp against hers, his breath catching in her own. She stroked his neck and held him close, and as his lips found hers, they finally stopped crying.

  “Don’t go,” he urged, watching her tuck her shirt into her waistband. She glanced to where he still lay, on the bed. She needed to go—­she needed to get to Stone.

  “I have to,” she answered, searching for her shoes. He sat up, grabbing her hand. He looked her over with such contentment because now he knew—­he knew she was still his; he knew that she hadn’t shared with Elijah what she had only ever shared with him.

  “Sloan, I can try to do something—­I can try to get you back?” he offered. She pulled her hand away from him.

  “More than anything, I wish things could be different . . . but no—­you shouldn’t try to get me back.”

  She found her shoes and sat down, quickly pulling them on. He moved beside her, brushing her hair out of her face. “Why?”

  “It’s too difficult to explain . . .” She sighed, and decided to give him the only truth she could. “I can’t be with anyone who views me as property.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t view you as property,” he protested. “I just know you belong to me.” At his words she almost laughed. Does he even hear the ­hypocrisy?

  “I don’t belong to anyone.”

  He took a deep breath. “You can say that all you want, but you know the truth. I belong to you and I always will. My heart is yours and I know you’re the same—­your heart will always just belong to me.”

  She stood, ready to leave. “Jared—­I am betrothed to Elijah now, I don’t even know what the punishment is for what we have done—­I don’t want to know—­but there is a lot more going on here than . . .” She let her voice trail off. She couldn’t explain; she couldn’t be candid with him. And for the first time in their shared life—­Sloan was the one keeping secrets.

  “You have to know I won’t let anything happen to you. I tried and I just can’t live without you. I won’t give up.”

  She walked away from him, into their old living area, and dialed a pod. She took a last lingering look at him. She didn’t know how to deal with this—­how to love him and keep secrets from him, how to know what she now knew and not blurt it out. “You need to try to let me go, Jare.”

  As the doors framed his perfect marred face, she could just make out the trace of the word, dancing on his lips.

  “Never.”

  Sloan knocked heavily on Stone’s door and as soon as she heard him begin to answer, she stepped inside. He looked at her with confusion, obviously not expecting her.

  “I need your help,” she admitted, crossing the small room. He eyed her up, still obviously confused.

  He’s going to kill me, she thought, afraid to admit what had just happened.

  “Can we speak here?” she asked, looking around, referring to whether he had a signal jammer on.

  He stood, coming around his desk. “Yes.”

  She took a deep breath and forced herself to look into his grey eyes. “I made a mistake and I need you to get rid of recordings—­or footage—­or whatever it is, before someone else finds out.”

  His look of concern grew. “What did you do?”

  She swallowed heavily . . . “I . . . I was with Jared.”

  His eyes widened and he leaned back against his desk. He was mad. Of course he’s mad—­you defied his direct orders.

  “Where were you?” he asked, his voice low.

  She wrapped her arms around herself. “We were running, and then we took a pod back . . . back to our old living quarters. And then I came straight here.” She felt humiliated telling him this—­so much of her private life had already been put on display for the Academy but it still cut deeply into her.

&nbs
p; He nodded slowly. “I will fix it.”

  Her heart lifted and she returned her gaze to him. “Really?”

  He stared at her with judgment. “I said I would.”

  She didn’t know how to respond . . . she let her arms fall to her side. She was thankful for his help—­for not dragging this out with questions and ridicule—­but she was also frustrated. He had banned her from seeing Jared, the Order had separated them, Elijah had forced her into a union with him . . . and all along, she had said she still loved Jared. And now, when her mistakes could confirm just that, she had to ask for help.

  “Um . . . thank you,” she managed, unsure of what else to say or do.

  He nodded, returning to his desk and reaching for his telephone. Her cue to leave. She turned and made her way for the door.

  “Radcliffe,” Stone called and she pivoted around quickly.

  He looked her over with seriousness, and shook his head slowly. “Do not tell him.”

  She nodded slowly and turned away from him. She knew what he meant.

  CHAPTER 11

  Three weeks had passed and while Sloan dreamed less of her fallen friends, sleep was still mostly unattainable. She had kept her promise to Stone and remained silent about what had transpired between her and Jared. She had stopped going for early-­morning runs and she hadn’t spoken to him since that morning, but she couldn’t avoid him in the hall; she couldn’t ignore his longing glances. And it killed her as Elijah waited devotedly at her side.

  He didn’t ask about anything. He didn’t try to initiate any contact with her. He just stayed with her, seemingly waiting for the day she could fall in love with him. She had tried talking to him, tried pointing out that he couldn’t handle her basic nature, but he ignored her concerns, insisting what had happened with Young had been a mistake, that it didn’t define her. His renewed sense of persistence, however docile it might have seemed, didn’t help her feel any better about the secret she was keeping from him. She had become the one thing she had ridiculed all the men in her life for being—­a liar.

  She had slept with Jared and still not told him the truth about his family or their role in this place, the truth about their existence here. And every night, despite never having a physical relationship, she slept next to Elijah, and kept from him the fact that she had not only disregarded all of his pursuits but had broken every rule in her one moment of weakness.

  She walked with him now, navigating the corridor to the training hall. Stone had asked to speak to them, the first time since she had begged him for his help removing any evidence of her indiscretion. Despite Stone’s insistence on keeping her behavior a secret from Elijah, some irrational part of her feared him saying something that would give the secret away. She was afraid of hurting him, and if anything, that was a testament to having some semblance of feelings for him.

  Elijah opened the doors to the hall and she immediately spotted 27 training with another table. Her gaze fell on Jared, who was training with Devon. He looked better—­his face had healed quickly and now there were only small glossy scars where the deepest of his wounds had been. Elijah pushed her on—­“Come on”—­a hand on the small of her back. She carried on quickly but not before Jared had spotted her—­his azure gaze holding her. He definitely seemed revitalized, having found renewed purpose: winning her back.

  She dropped her gaze. It was too complicated—­she wasn’t allowed to be with him, and even if she were, she couldn’t abandon Elijah now, not when they needed her for their mission. She also knew that she couldn’t just forget everything from before, everything that had helped lead to their breakup. Yet his words still rested with her, the truth evident in the fact that in a room of chaos, her eyes found him immediately—­because her heart was his and it probably always would be.

  Elijah had her presence, Jared kept her heart, but neither boy could understand that she didn’t belong to either of them.

  Sloan moved on quickly. She knocked on Stone’s office door and with a raspy bark from the general she let herself in, Elijah following. She had half expected to meet a ridiculing glare, but instead, Stone was staring out the window, his hands held tightly behind his back. He turned slowly and the look in his eyes froze Sloan. His tight mouth twitched over whatever words he was about to say. His grey eyes narrowed in on her, a small shake of his head.

  “We can’t speak long,” he finally said, gesturing for them to sit. Elijah slumped down in a chair but Sloan remained standing. He seemed nervous and it made her uneasy.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Romani has one of us.”

  Sloan backed away from the general as Elijah leaned forward. “What do you know, sir?”

  Stone ran a hand over his tired face. “He announced it this morning in a meeting. He believes he’s found a traitor. There will be an execution.”

  “Who? Who does he think it is?” Sloan asked, surprised at the calmness in her own voice.

  “He didn’t say. It could be any of us. It could be me, it could be you . . .”

  At his words, Sloan felt her muscles tighten, a rush of adrenaline coursing through her veins. She didn’t fear for her own life, but she wouldn’t lose Elijah or Stone. They had a mission to achieve—­a true purpose. They needed to survive this.

  “Has this happened before?” she asked.

  “Yes. Students he has suspected have been Dismissed, while members of staff are always taken care of in quiet,” Stone explained.

  Sloan thought of Tandy. “Wait—­does that mean—­”

  Reading her thoughts, he cut her off. “No. Most of the Dismissed really were just failing to excel . . . but there have been some executed under the same guise.”

  She didn’t know if that made her feel better.

  “But Sloan ensured there would be no more Dismissed students?” Elijah reminded them.

  “Unfortunately, it’s not going to be like that this time.”

  Sloan took a step towards them. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s talking about making a spectacle. He says the Academy needs to eradicate this issue once and for all.”

  Elijah leaned forward in his chair. “What sort of spectacle?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything!” Stone said with an angry smack to his desk.

  Sloan and Elijah waited in silence. He was their general; he took the lead on everything. He needed to tell them what to do.

  “Have you spoken to the Others yet?” Elijah finally asked.

  Stone shook his head solemnly. “Not yet. Hell, I don’t even know where to begin . . .”

  Sloan felt anxious. She had never seen Stone nervous, never seen him without an answer. When he spoke again, there was a distinct lack of conviction in his words.

  “Just get ready for the Ranking Ceremony. If I find out more I will make contact.” It wasn’t a solution, but it came in the form of an order.

  If only it felt like an order.

  With no ideas herself, Sloan nodded to him, and Elijah stood. Abruptly, an overwhelming nausea seized her—­nearly doubling her over. She grabbed the wall to steady herself and took slow breaths, steadying her stomach. Elijah was at her side in an instant.

  “Sloan?” Stone asked, concerned.

  She shook her head. “I’m fine . . .” She waved Elijah off. It was nerves. It was hearing this news.

  “If it’s you, we will run. I know the passcode to the armory—­we could stock up on weapons and head out on a Skyshell . . .” His whispers stumbled out as he formed an uneasy plan. She looked up into his green eyes as they stood adjacent their shower.

  “How much thought have you put into this?” she queried, impressed with learning what he knew.

  “I told you—­I can’t let anything happen to you.”

  It didn’t help her sense of guilt to hear him speak like this. She wanted to love him for thinki
ng of her safety first and foremost—­but she couldn’t say what first came to her mind when she contemplated escaping; she didn’t want to leave Jared here.

  She sighed. “If we go now, we declare our guilt before it’s necessarily ascertained. And if we stay—­if it’s not one of us—­we might be able to help that person.”

  He shook his head at her. “Your safety is more important than whoever else it might be.”

  I don’t deserve someone like you.

  “Elijah—­we can’t run. We need to wait this one out,” she affirmed. He nodded slowly and then pulled her into a hug, vining his strong arms around her. He kissed her temple and she closed her eyes, squeezing him tightly. She did love him in a way—­but not the way he wanted her to. And she knew he loved her in a way—­just not the way she needed him to.

  Sloan dressed in formal white uniform, similar to Elijah’s, and pulled her blond hair back in a bun. This was it. She met Elijah at the pod and they traveled in silence towards the great hall. The Ranking Ceremony would see all of the Academy dressed in their formal whites, a stage would be erected, and Jared would be honored as the first student to ever achieve the rank of major. But Sloan could barely summon feelings for that at the moment—­her stomach was twisting in knots, worrying not just for the life of whomever Romani had caught but also for whatever he had planned for them.

  What had Stone meant by spectacle?

  Stepping into the corridor, Elijah herded her through the crowd of identically dressed students. She winked at Jack, who was filing into the room with his own age group. He waved at her, smiling wildly, and for a brief moment, she had a little joy in her life. She quickly came back to reality, though—­especially when she thought about what Jack might hear or see tonight.

  As she sat inside and watched the room fill, she saw Stone enter, immediately making his way onto the stage. He wore his formal whites and he no longer seemed nervous, but that was because he seemed so sickly. He kept his head bowed low, his hand resting on the back of his neck, his skin sallow and his face gaunt. On his hip was his ser­vice pistol, which took Sloan by surprise—­she could not recall the last time she had seen him don the weapon.