Flynn’s breath catches as I betray his true identity. But his reaction is nothing to Merendsen’s, whose dubious half smile vanishes as his expression goes cold. There’s not a soldier on Avon, past or present, who doesn’t know that name.
The air is thick with tension. Merendsen doesn’t lift his gun, but I can tell by the way he steps back on the balls of his feet that he’s poised to fight if necessary. I can’t help but wonder what happened to him while he was marooned, that his instincts are as finely honed as when he was on active duty.
“Okay, Lee. Tell me what’s going on. I assume we’re not all here to kill each other.”
Flynn’s watching me too, his eyes narrowed, his own muscles tense.
You’re not handling this awesomely, Lee.
I brace myself. “Flynn, this is Tarver Merendsen, my former captain when he was posted here. I called him to come help us.” I can tell from the blank look on Flynn’s face that he doesn’t recognize the name. And how could he? They don’t have HV news coverage out in the swamps. They aren’t going to know about the crash of the spaceliner Icarus. So I add, “Lilac LaRoux’s fiancé.”
Flynn’s gaze swings from Merendsen’s face to mine, accusing, horrified. Underneath his fake tan, his face has gone pale. “What the—” He jerks back, smacking into the stacks and making the bottles rattle. The noise makes Merendsen tense further, ready to act, his eyes not leaving Flynn’s face.
“Both of you, stop.” I snap the words, my voice cutting. “The last thing I need is you two trying to ice each other. Just—just listen to me, okay? Flynn, I trust him. I’d trust him with my life. We served together here, he knows Avon. He’s a good man, and even if he’s marrying Lilac LaRoux, that doesn’t change who he is. He’s our way in—he can help us.”
God, I hope I’m right about that.
“And sir.” I turn to face Merendsen. “He’s—Flynn isn’t…” I struggle, searching for some way to explain my connection to Flynn in a way that makes sense. That doesn’t sound like I’ve completely lost my mind.
Who says you haven’t?
“He’s not what you would think,” I say lamely. Next to my testimonial to Merendsen’s worth as an ally, it’s a sad, sorry statement. But how can I begin to describe what Flynn’s come to mean to me? My mind shies away from that thought, that truth it’s been avoiding for days. For once, I’m glad I don’t dream, for fear of what my dreams would say of Flynn. I shiver. “Will you guys promise not to kill each other long enough for me to explain what’s been happening here?”
Merendsen’s the first to answer, straightening a little and leaning back against the wall. The pose looks nonchalant, but my trained eye can still pick out signs that he’s alert, still ready for action. “Of course,” he says.
Flynn’s attention jerks back from Merendesen to me. I can see the hurt in his gaze, the anger there at being left out of my plans. Even though both of us know we were supposed to never see each other again.
“Fine,” he mutters.
I take a deep breath. “Okay. Sir, you might want to sit down. I’m pretty sure you’re going to think I’ve lost my mind, but I promise you I haven’t. Well. Not in the last day or so, anyway.”
I start with the night I met Flynn, and I stabbed him in the leg with a cocktail skewer, and we went in search of a secret facility that doesn’t exist.
The girl stands in front of the classroom, and all eyes are on her. The students sit in rows, and the walls are decorated with posters colored by hand. This week it’s the girl’s turn to talk about her family. Her mother gave her a silk jacket, but she hid it in the bottom of her bag and has a holo-picture instead. It shows the three of them, the girl standing between her mother and father, smiling and waving as the picture loops over and over.
“But who is that?” the teacher asks, pointing at the photo, and when the girl looks at it again, there are four figures. A boy has appeared, dark-haired and handsome, with dog tags gleaming around his neck.
“Who is that?” the teacher repeats, and the girl stares at him, willing the answer to come, wanting to be sure she gets a good mark. It’s not the green-eyed boy. This boy has brown eyes.
The boy stands between the girl’s mother and father, and suddenly she remembers.
“He’s my big brother,” she tells the class.
“I’m not her brother.”
She looks up, and the boy is sitting in the front row of the class.
He shakes his head. “I’m not her brother. Don’t you know what she did?”
She casts her gaze down, burning with embarrassment, and finds the photo in her hands is bleeding, the red trickling down her fingers to her knuckles.
I CAN’T STOP WATCHING HER body language as she talks to him, leaning in to drink in his every reaction, eyes locked on his. I don’t want to see it, but I can’t look away. Watching them, watching her, is a torture as unbearable as listening to my people fighting without me. She’s not alone anymore, surrounded by her platoon, her commander, her old captain. She’s found her way out.