Chase listened through the rising pound of her anxiety, her eyes dragging back to the spot where her father watched her. His clipped hair was thinning and his eyes were a fading color, but the scar along her arm still burned.
“All right. Let’s get to it,” Kale said, interrupting the last of Archmen’s words. The Streaker teams saluted, and Kale took Chase’s elbow and whispered, “Aim high. Fly, fight, win.”
She nodded, a tight feeling in her throat that was some amalgamation of pride and fear. The representatives followed Kale to the tower to watch the takeoffs and monitor the onboard cameras. The Streaker teams looked at one another, and Romeo’s wristwatch alarm sounded.
Sylph grabbed him, ripped off the watch, and stomped it into a pile of parts on the floor. When she looked up, a few blond hairs had broken loose from her braid. “I feel better.”
They shook hands and wished one another good luck. Chase saved Tristan’s hand for last, but he didn’t take it. He pinched her ear instead.
She couldn’t stop herself from giving him a hug. “Fly fast,” she whispered into his neck.
“I’ll try to beat you. Always works.” He sounded confident, but his arms tightened around her. The fact that this might be their last flight as wingmen made it impossible to let go.
The teams separated to perform preflight checks.
Sylph hung back. “Be careful, Nyx.”
“You be careful,” Chase replied. “I can fly these challenges with my eyes closed.”
“I was talking about that boy.” Sylph arched an eyebrow. “I’d keep both eyes open with him. Wouldn’t want to end up a mere mortal after all your faithful years of myth building, Goddess of Chaos.”
“That’s Daughter of Chaos, Sylph.”
Sylph glanced behind Chase. “Isn’t that the truth.”
It wasn’t until Sylph had stepped around to the other side of Pegasus that Chase heard the throat-clearing grunt. Tourn was standing right behind her.
“When the time comes, don’t flinch,” he said. It was a weird moment, and she thought he might say more. Something important. Nope. “Get to it, pilot.”
Chase felt herself against a wall again, but this one wasn’t of her own making. This was the barrier her father had constructed to keep her out. To make sure their relationship would always be on his terms. Chase had no idea what came over her, but it came on strong. “Kale told me you know how to help everyone under your command. You get everyone what he or she needs. That’s your superpower.”
“I’m a man. Not a superhero.”
She fought for more words, but they weren’t as certain as the first ones. “Even so, you couldn’t figure out what I needed. And it was so obvious.”
“I got you into the Star, didn’t I?” His tone leaked annoyance. “Isn’t that what you wanted? Didn’t you tell me that fifty times?”
“Want and need are different. And you shouldn’t have faked my aptitude tests. If anyone found out, I’d—”
“Faked?” He grunted. “You took those tests the summer you were with me. Don’t you remember?” Chase was stunned. She did remember working constantly. Studying and reciting information. Running drills and learning how to use the flight simulator.
Tourn hadn’t fabricated her application?
Chase was struck rigid. The whole time she’d been here, she’d thought she’d stolen someone’s spot. “But you…faked…”
“I did no such thing.”
The truth stung more than the lie she’d always believed. Without it, she had to accept that she deserved to be at the Star. That she was as smart as her peers. As driven and dedicated. No way. She was tantamount to a screwup, wasn’t she?
Her breath became uselessly fast. God, Tourn was so good at taking out her knees.
Chase touched the back of her arm. The long scar was raised even through the layers of her flight suit. She tasted the mud of the landmine obstacle course. “You…you left me beneath that wire for hours.”
“I wanted you to get yourself out.” He looked away first, and it surprised her.
“Christ,” they said at the same time.
“Understand, cadet, that I am no father figure. It’s not part of my mechanism. But I accept that, and I’ve made sure you were looked after at the academy.”
“Looked after?” Chase switched on, revving so fast that her chest felt tight. “Kale. You told him to treat me special, didn’t you?”
“I told him you were my offspring. That’s all I had to say.”
Chase was stunned, her shock bordering on panic. “Am I Kale’s assignment?”
“Don’t be such a woman,” he commanded. “He acts outside of my orders repeatedly, especially when it comes to you. I even heard he personally invited you to the Star.”
Chase fell into the memory. Kale in her apartment, with those shoulders that could hold up anything. Fourteen-year-old Chase had thought Kale was there to tell her that her father was dead, but then he sat down with Janice and showed them the acceptance letter. Kale had said that Chase’s tests showed she had real promise to be a pilot, and when Janice laughed, he’d shot the woman a look that should have killed her.
“So you gave me Kale.”
“I gave you a life here. Don’t blow it.” Tourn stalked off, and Chase was so disoriented that she couldn’t make it through her preflight routine.
“It’s cool. I took care of checks,” Pippin said, coming around the right wing. “Hey. You don’t look so great.”
“I’ll be fine,” she lied. She climbed the roll-away stairs, ducked into the cockpit, and fastened her harness.
“What did he say to you?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“But you survived, Chase,” her RIO said through the link in their helmets. “Now we have to fly. Harness up those feelings and whatnot.”
Chase couldn’t stop herself from watching Tourn walk through the hangar to rejoin the government board. The other higher-ups didn’t talk to him. Didn’t look at him. It had been that way at his own base, everyone giving her father a wide berth. “They hate him.”
“What?”
“They look at him and they see dead Filipinos. They see all those media images of the radiation poisoning.” She felt sick. “It doesn’t matter that he was ordered to do it.”