by R. H. Scott
“Edward! Just stop.”
At her fury he was quiet. And he knew. She could see it in his eyes as he put the pieces together—he knew what she had done. He looked downward and back up to her. “Oh.”
Sloan sat on the edge of the sofa, watching Elijah make himself lunch in the cabin kitchen. She had begun to view every object in the room as a tool he could use to kill her with if she told him the truth. She wasn’t stupid—she knew she couldn’t hide this forever, but she also knew she couldn’t fight without risking serious damage to herself. She envisioned scenario after scenario; she contemplated telling him in front of Edward. Sure, she thought, add insult to injury by humiliating him in front of someone. She thought about talking to Stone, but she could picture his face, she could imagine the look of disappointment in his eyes. He had gone out of his way to ensure her indiscretion had been kept a secret and now it turned out she would be the reason that secret came to light.
“What?” Elijah’s voice startled her—he was watching her watch him.
“Nothing,” she answered quickly, forcing herself to look away from him. She thought about the truth coming out, how it would prove she had been dishonorable in her union, and what punishment would be exacted for that. She knew she wasn’t the only one—Edward and Jo were betrothed to other people—but that didn’t really matter now. They weren’t in a situation where the Order could prove their infidelity.
She grew frustrated with her thoughts. She hadn’t ever had that kind of relationship with Elijah! She had only ever been with Jared and she had told everyone to not try to separate them. She had told everyone that she loved him still, that they were meant to stay together . . . despite all their issues. She sat back on the sofa. This was a mess—her life was a mess. She had already imagined telling Jared and while she knew he would be happy, he would also probably do something crazy. Something to ensure the Order reinstated their relationship—what, though? Would he challenge Elijah to another Fight Night, would he try to kill him, get rid of him somehow?
She couldn’t let that happen.
What if Jared tried to keep her at the Academy? She couldn’t abandon the Others now—even if she wanted to, which she didn’t, she was certain they wouldn’t allow it. She knew too much and would be too great a threat to their mission. And yet, they insisted Jared couldn’t come into the fold, that in ways he didn’t even know, he was too ingrained in the Academy regime.
A knock on their door pulled her from her thoughts. It swung open, revealing Joss. He peeked his head in. “Stone wants us out there in five.”
“None of you will make it to Departing Ceremonies.” Stone’s words fell over the group heavily. What? Sloan looked around, wondering if anyone had any insight into what their general had just announced, but the group was stirring with whispers, looking entirely perplexed.
“Romani wants the senior class to deploy in several weeks,” he continued, looking over them with somber eyes. What—why? Sloan’s mind raced. Deploy? She couldn’t deploy—she couldn’t even fight. Suddenly, Elijah was holding her hand. She wanted to pull away but then she heard someone crying, people behind her arguing—friends comforting one another. They were all afraid.
Stone raised his hands, willing them to settle down. “This obviously brings forward our timeline drastically—once you’re gone there’s no getting back to the Academy. We have one chance to make our move. Monday.”
Another flurry of noise—of tears and whispers, of terror and excitement. This would be their last weekend here.
“Skyshell Aviation—that’s you, Daniels, even if you’re a bit out of practice. Hook, Hart, Stevenson, Lane, Strong, Burke and Birch—you’re our pilots. We will need you to man eight Odyssey Skyshells. You’ll only have a few days to get comfortable with the logistics of our largest fleet.
“Kane, where are you? Oh, there. Edward, Louis, Thorpe and Ramsey, you’re our medical team. You’ll need to spread out amongst the Skyshells—we cannot risk losing you in case any who board are wounded. Pick a pilot and team up.
“Radcliffe.” Stone said her name, jolting her eyes up to him. “You, Chase and Joss are our best shots. We need you to get to the armory, load up and take sniper positions. Corbin and Banks—you watch their backs while they keep the sentries at bay when the kids arebeing loaded up.”
Sloan nodded—happy to know she would be manning rifles on the day, but angered to hear Chase would be at her side. Will you even be involved in this? she thought, having temporarily forgotten that she didn’t actually have a plan to address her situation.
“The rest of you,” Stone carried on. “There are 204 children, eight pilots, three snipers, two watch-guards and thirty of you soldiers. You will each need to get six or seven kids into the hangars. You will meet heavy fire and strong resistance. Your main priority is boarding the children—trust the snipers to keep the sentries off you.”
Elijah cleared his throat, taking the floor. “What about the gate and our chips? It will incapacitate all of us, even from within a Skyshell.”
Stone nodded, rubbing his own forearm. “Donny helped me with something—before . . . It’s his way of still being with us. I can bring down the power for ten, maybe fifteen minutes.”
Fifteen minutes? To get in position, grab and board 204 screaming children, and get out of here? Sloan didn’t need to voice what they were all thinking—the odds were not in their favor.
Sava stood, crossing her arms. “Sir, where will you be?”
Stone tilted his head up, and, with a small shrug of his shoulder, answered, “I already told you—someone has to provide the distraction.”
They spent the rest of the excursion coordinating, hashing out the details of their plan. Sloan was thankful for the distraction that planning gave her, but couldn’t keep her mind from wandering back to its true concern every so often. If everything did go according to Stone’s plan—she would be out of here soon. What about this situation you have landed yourself in? She knew that whether she was here or on the mainland—it wouldn’t change her situation. She couldn’t abandon the Others now—she had to be there when it all went down.
What about Jared? Would she abandon him—leave him in this place, with the enemy? Would he be safe here—as Romani’s nephew, with his supposedly influential family? Would those factors protect him from being drilled by the Order due to his love for Sloan? Was it better if he didn’t know about her news?
She needed answers—and she knew only one person whom she could speak to. She knocked on Stone’s door, waiting for a response. It was late and the majority of the students were getting into bed, knowing they had an early start back to the Academy in the morning.
With a noisy creak, the door opened. Stone had reading glasses on and a book in one hand—she didn’t think she had ever seen him look so normal . . .
“Sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to interrupt your—er—downtime.”
He took his glasses off, smiling softly. “No, it’s fine, come in.” He stepped aside, allowing her entrance. He closed the door and gestured to a chair by the fire. She took a seat and watched as he dragged another chair over from his dining table. He sat in front of her—watching her expectantly.
“I need to speak to you about something . . .” she began tentatively.
He half-smiled. “I figured as much.” She tried to smile back but couldn’t. This was going to be the most disappointed he had ever been in her. She had messed up—she had put her role in his mission at risk. She had hurt Elijah—whom Stone doted on—and all over her failure to follow his direct orders in the first place. She took a slow breath.
“I messed up, sir,” she whispered, forcing herself to look into his grey eyes. He waited, a look of concern growing in his face.
“I . . .” She didn’t know how to say it—how to admit it. She had never said the t
ruth aloud, never uttered that word that described the state she was now in. She took a deep breath. Her hands were shaking.
“I’m pregnant.”
The silence seemed to last a lifetime. He kept his eyes on her, his face giving nothing away. She knew it—she had ruined his image of her. She had disappointed him. Finally, he leaned forward in his seat. “Does Jared know?”
Of course he knows it’s Jared’s.
She shook her head. “No.” Her voice sounded so small, barely reaching across the small space between them.
And then he stood, grabbing her hand and pulling her to her feet. And before she could understand why, his arms were around her, embracing her in a strong hug. He held her for the longest time and she felt, momentarily, as if everything was better. When he finally let her go, he squeezed her hand.
“What are you going to do?”
At his words, she fell back into her seat. “I don’t know . . . I can’t tell Elijah, I can’t tell Jared and then just leave, and I can’t not tell him either. I’m so—” She hesitated, for her sentiment was so foreign to her.
“I’m so afraid,” she finally admitted.
He nodded. “Sloan, you can’t stay here—your life would be in danger. Because even if I told you to back out of the mission, you know Elijah won’t, and when they see he’s a defector—they will come for you. In the same breath, I cannot risk having Jared know the truth and ruin everything.”
She nodded, chewing her lip. What were her options then? Everything seemed utterly hopeless.
Stone ran a hand over the back of his neck, taking a deep breath. “If you can find him tomorrow, when everything happens, you have fifteen minutes to get him on board. Whether you spend those fifteen minutes helping us fight the sentries off or spend them finding him—that’s up to you.”
CHAPTER 14
Everything was about to go down, and yet Sloan felt oddly relaxed. She hadn’t figured out how she was going to spend her fifteen minutes. She hadn’t told Elijah. She hadn’t even seen Jared. Yet, somehow, she felt very unexplainably calm. Maybe it was because, as they all readied to get to the hall, she knew what Romani was going to announce. Maybe not. She supposed it was acceptance or just the inevitable state of becoming resigned to one’s fate. She felt that once it all began, she would just know what to do. She had been trained for war—this was the first battle.
Elijah held her hand as they traveled in the pod—and she let him. Who knew when that would ever happen again; who knew when he would discover her secret and let all his love transform into hate? The pod doors opened up to the corridor outside the training hall. Pools of seniors were slowly trudging into the room, some excitedly talking amongst friends, some apprehensive of the suddenness of this conference—all oblivious to what was about to be said, to what was about to happen.
Sloan easily spotted the Others and pulled Elijah through the throngs of people to where Edward, Jo, Sava and Wesley stood. Michael and Banks were roughhousing. Chase, Joss and Corbin were talking in low voices. It seemed that no one knew how to feel—despite all their elaborate planning, no one knew what to anticipate. But they were ready. They were Stone’s chosen soldiers for a reason.
The remaining students in the corridor slowly made their way in and soon, all that was left was their small group. Edward sighed heavily and pulled a tire iron out from underneath the back of his shirt, tossing it behind the door—for later. “It’s go time,” he said with a smile. They hugged. They patted shoulders. They promised to find one another after. And then slowly, they all began to make their way in. As she began to follow, Elijah pulled her back, wanting a minute alone.
She looked up into his brilliant green eyes, wishing things had been different for them. Wishing he hadn’t loved her the way he did, or that she had been able to love him the way he wanted her to. She wished a lot of things could be different. He squeezed her hand tightly.
“I just wanted to tell you—in case I can’t again—I love you, Sloan.” He stared down at her with longing, with a thousand more thoughts that he didn’t have the time to verbalize. Quickly, though, he added, “And I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry for dragging you from the life you loved to this one.”
She nodded up at him, realizing he had never apologized to her for all of this. She appreciated it—more than she had thought she would. She squeezed his hand back. “I’m sorry too. For . . . everything,” she whispered. It was all she had to offer him now, with so little time to spare. He nodded and turned to enter.
“Elijah,” she called to him. He looked over his shoulder to her.
She gave him a half smile. “I do love you too, you know. I love you in the way I know how to,” she explained.
She hoped he understood. Whether he did or not, she was unsure, but he smiled back at her and led the way into the hall—the room where, once again, her life would be changed forever.
Sloan was wedged between Elijah and Chase, on a stand nearest the exit. As expected, the Order was sitting at their usual panel desk atop a stage. She locked eyes briefly with Stone, but he turned his gaze from her, engaging with Colonel Luke. To Sloan’s interest, the room wasn’t just filled with seniors—lining the perimeter of the room were rows of Academy sentries. She wondered if that was Romani’s call, to ensure order upon making his announcement about early deployment, or Stone’s, who knew that having a good majority of them in one spot would assist with their plans.
Finally, her eyes fell onto Romani, and slowly he stood, drawing out his long stare until the room was perfectly silent. As they stilled beneath his gaze, he smiled. “My senior students, I have called upon you this day to discuss a serious matter. A matter perhaps more serious than any we have previously addressed.”
He walked out from behind the panel desk, nearing the edge of the stage. “Today, we—the Order—call upon you to fulfill your duty. We call upon you to leave behind the classrooms of youth and enter the battlefields of men and women.”
We plan to do just that, Sloan thought wryly. She could feel the students around her begin to shift in their seats, uncertain what their leader was inferring.
“Never before have I seen such a capable group and I cannot ignore the crying pleas from Dei Terra any longer. I will not drag this out in colorful words and anecdotes—for you are not children, but soldiers. It is as simple as this,” he continued, slowly raising his white-gloved hand to his chin.
“Your country needs you.”
The room came alive with whispering speculations and Romani simply smiled on. He had an undeniable gift for riling up them up; his oratory skills made him a master manipulator, as Sloan had learned.
He nodded slowly, his chin bobbing against the back of his hand. “I would never send you to your deaths—I am only content with such plans because I have unwavering faith in each and every one of you, as soldiers . . . as leaders.”
Sloan narrowed her gaze on the man. She imagined strangling him . . . shooting him so he could die like Donny or Kenny. Injecting him, so he could go slowly, like Tandy. Or snapping his neck—so that he could know the horror he had trained her to be capable of.
“The time is now. Everything you have trained for, everything your parents sent you here to achieve—it lies before you, ready for the taking,” he pressed, stirring up the room with delusions of glory.
“Are you ready for deployment? Are you ready to serve?” he asked, his voice rising. Students began to clap, excited, cheering at the false hopes he provided. Sloan could see so clearly how he had once had such a tight hold on her as well. He smiled at them, allowing them to bask in their excitement. And once they quieted, he carried on. “A word from your general, my students.” He quickly stepped aside, allowing Stone to take center stage.
Stone slowly walked out from behind the desk, crossing over the stage to where Romani had just stood. Sloan sat up straighter, certain if
he were going to cue them to make their move, it would happen soon. And then, uncharacteristically, Stone clapped Romani on the back. “Well said, Marshal,” he laughed. No one ever touched Romani. The marshal shied away from Stone.
Slowly, the general turned his attention to the room. “Your marshal is right . . . of all whom I have trained, you seniors have been my finest. You all have a unique determination, a fierce loyalty, an independence and a courage . . . a courage I didn’t—couldn’t—have taught you. A courage that grows from within. A courage that is born in the heart.”
His quiet voice and beautiful words carried over them all, and even those who weren’t Others felt humbled—silenced—by the magnitude of his compliment.
“You are indeed ready for war . . .” He began to pace. A man of few words, his drawn-out speech was beginning to markedly irritate Romani.
“Some of you are prepared for more than war. You’re prepared for life, prepared to raise families, to love and truly live . . .” He stopped, glancing into the stands, finding Sloan. She held his familiar gaze.
“You are all prepared to have that which this Academy seeks to take away from you.” At Stone’s words, Romani spun, glaring at his general, sending him a warning stare. And in that moment—Sloan finally understood.
She knew what he was doing and she had no way of stopping it. If she moved, it would spark the movement.
“I’ve watched you all grow up and my only regret is that I couldn’t have been honest with you sooner. I wish I could have done something to save you from this place, to save you from becoming the sort of soldiers they would have us make you,” he continued, his cracking voice drawing on them all.
If there was ever a man who had earned the loyalty of every student in this room, it was General Walt Stone. He had trained them—he had raised them.
Romani stormed over. “I think that is quite enough!”
