Was he okay? He had to be.
They had to fly together again.
She came out of her thoughts slowly. “What?”
Tanner was eyeing her as though he had asked something important. “I said, why Riot?”
“Are you serious? After what we just saw…that stuff doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.” Tanner’s expression pegged her, and he leaned a little closer, reminding her of his pressing, small kisses. “I might not be on a Streaker team, but I’m better than Riot. Riot blabs to the whole academy every time you hook up. I actually like you.”
“But you don’t know…” Chase’s voice trailed off as she remembered Pippin’s ribbing—that this had become more of a standard answer than a real response. “Why?” she asked instead. “Why do you think you like me?”
He stood a little taller. “It’s a gut reaction. I look forward to seeing you.”
“But that’s just you. It has nothing to do with me, you know? And seriously, Tanner, I’ve been terrible to you.” She stopped herself from adding, on purpose. Tanner was smart and sweet, a pilot with extracurricular talents. He was ten times the boy Riot was, and as soon as Chase realized that, she’d cut him off. He didn’t deserve to get tangled up with the Nyx.
“Find someone else.” Her words ended up sounding so much harsher than she intended, but it was too late. Tanner left.
Chase stood in the glass tunnel that connected the hangar to the Green. Outside, a snowstorm pressed on the navy sky. She wondered if Phoenix was up there somewhere. If Canada had been attacked too. Dragon would be fixed soon, she hoped. And then she’d look for Arrow—catch him in the sky where no satellite could hang onto their signal for long. She had to make sure he’d made it through.
Arrow didn’t deserve the hazardous wake of her bad decisions either.
12
ZERO DARK THIRTY
After Midnight, Before Sunrise
The night had gone past that zone of sleeplessness and into vulgar awake. Chase flipped in bed so often that Pippin put his headphones on to drown out the creaks of the bunk frame. The tramping bass of some classical tune trickled up through the silence.
She closed her eyes, only to remember the hangar and Captain Erricks’s mangled leg. Guilt seized her and threw a bag over her head.
“Pippin!”
He shot up. “I’m—what?” He yawned lionlike. “Did I miss something?”
“Was the attack on the Eagle my fault?” she asked.
Pippin didn’t say anything. Maybe he shrugged. Or nodded. She couldn’t see him. She hung her head over the bar to look down on him. “Was it retaliation for landing in Canada?”
He took his headphones off. “I don’t know, Chase.”
Coming from a bona fide genius, this answer felt stark.
“Guess then.”
“No.”
“Please, Pip.”
“I meant, no, it’s not your fault. Probably not. There are many cogs turning. You’re only one of them—not a small one, but only one. Make sense?” When she didn’t answer, he added, “We’re under enough pressure. Guilt is overkill at this point. Trust me.”
Chase did. That trust was one of the best things in her life, and she held on to it as she buried the scene in the hangar and begged sleep. Her nightmare was waiting.
Chase crawled on her belly through a black night. The mud sucked her hands past the wrists with each move. She stifled grunts—her father was watching from the tower with his men, and she didn’t want him to hear.
One more hill, topped with a barbed-wire net, remained between her and the finish line. The recruits were supposed to jump it; she’d watched many times. They were supposed to expose themselves to rubber bullets, duck and dive. But she was smaller, no real muscles yet, and definitely no boobs. She scurried under the wire and crested the hill. Panic made her careless.
The barbed teeth bit into her shirt.
Explosions. They were only flash burns, but she still screamed. Her right shoulder caught, ripping a stinging line down her arm. Another blast. Another. She knew this part; the longer she took to get to the finish, the closer the explosions would get.
Mud rained and detonations illuminated the red gush from her arm…
A pounding through her room slashed her nightmare.
Pippin sprang to answer the door. A technical sergeant thrust a note in his hand and ran down the hallway.
Chase leaped from the top bunk. “A drill?” Her heart was beating to the tune of her nightmare, adrenaline kicking through her veins.
Pippin watched the sergeant sprint. “They don’t run that fast for a drill.” He unfolded the paper. “Emergency. We’ve got to get in the air.” He dropped the note and stepped into his G-suit.
Chase pulled on her own zoom bag while she tried to read the note, but it was in code followed by a set of coordinates. RIO speak. “An attack?”
“Yes.”
Her pulse was a mess as she zipped up and dug her helmet out of a pile of laundry. Within moments, they were jogging down the hall, meeting Riot and Sylph along the way.
“Drill?” Riot asked hopefully.
“Don’t think so. Those tend to feel—”
“Smoother.” Sylph cut Chase off. She was tying her hair back in a braid.
“No hard feelings,” Chase said to Sylph, startling the whole group into slowing down. “Well, we might have to fight together up there. We’re on the same side, right?”
Sylph sneered. “I won’t punch you out of the sky, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Leah…” Riot warned, but she shot him a look that silenced him. They crossed the Green at a jog but began to run when they hit the buzz of the hangar. Airmen sprinted in every direction, and several of the old jets rolled out the door and into the black sky.
“Definitely not a drill,” Pippin murmured as Kale met them by the Streakers.