Legacy (Alliance Book 3) (14 page)

“I’m sorry, Laurel.... Sorry for scaring you like that, for taking off. I needed to do it. I’m okay now, I promise, I really am,” and she was up and running to him, wrapping her soft hands around his neck, and then pulling his face to hers, kissing him, not saying anything, and he let her kiss him, and then let her walk him to her cot, and make him lie down on it. She curled up next to him, her head on his chest, eyes soft, watching him, and he knew she believed him, and that she didn’t think any less of him for any of it, and it felt good knowing that. And he hoped he could learn to let go of the guilt for his father and for what he did to Maxton, and Riley, and the guilt for making this girl cry. He loved this girl, as afraid as he was of saying it, even to himself, and suddenly he felt he owed it to her to tell her, that she needed to know.

“I don’t want to scare you or anything, but I need you to know something... I am pretty sure I love you,” he whispered quickly, in a rush. He felt her head lift, and closed his eyes, feeling afraid now, afraid of what she might say or the look on her face. “Please, don’t say anything,” he whispered, and her lips were on his, and after a while he looked at her again, and her eyes were full of water, making him ache.

He didn’t mean to make her sad by saying it, only somehow he did anyway. “I’m sorry, Laurel. Please don’t....”

She smiled at him, tears still in her eyes, and shook her head at him softly, stopping him. “You’re an idiot. You need to learn that not everything you do to people hurts them. I’m not sad, Brody. I’m the opposite of that... I think I’ve been waiting for you to say it for weeks, and then I didn’t think you ever would. I’m pretty sure I’ve loved you since I met you.”

She put her head back on his chest, and he hugged her to him with everything he had, not letting go even when he felt that she was asleep, breathing softly, not ever wanting to let go.

Drake, June 9, 2236, Reston.

“T
ake a walk with me, Lancer.”

The man got up without a word and followed him. He took him down to the street, and then towards the little houses with the pretty tiled roofs and all the window boxes, Lancer not rushing him, not saying anything. The man had the patience of a saint. They walked for a long time, long enough for him to think through what he needed to talk to him about. He spotted a bench he liked, old and wooden, something they’d have in Waller. It was the first thing he saw here that didn’t seem new in all the wrong ways. He sat, nodding to Lancer to join him.

“I know we haven’t talked much; at all really. I don’t tend to talk unless I have to. I need to ask something of you. I’ve been thinking of how to for days, and I just have to at this point. I don’t expect you to be okay with it either. I won’t hold it against you if you’re not, is what I’m saying.” Lancer nodded, not averting his eyes.

“Okay then. These kids.... If something happens to me, I need to know that they will be all right. That they’ll have somebody. I know you don’t owe them anything, but I don’t think you have any place to go either, and they trust you.”

Lancer stood up, looking at him strangely. “I’ll do everything I can to make sure you come back whole from this, for these kids, for Ella, I can promise you that. But I’m not having this conversation, I am sorry, but I just can’t,” and he turned away from him and started to walk back to the tower, head down.

He ran after him, grabbed him roughly by his arm and spun him around, “I didn’t ask you to do that, Lancer. I asked you to not abandon the kids, if I don’t make it. It’s a simple request. If you can’t or don’t want to, tell me. I don’t need to know why or anything. I just need to know,” and he let go of his arm.

“I’ll take care of them if I have to, Drake. If they let me. You have my word,” he said quietly, and stuck his hand out. He shook it, but Lancer kept holding on, not letting him go, his grip harder than he expected.

“It seems most everybody here has a death wish or something... I don’t know why that is. I need to know that you’ll do everything you can to come back whole, that you won’t risk yourself if you don’t have to.”

He smiled at him, couldn’t help it. “You don’t know me very well, Lancer. I’m not one of them soldier boys. I am basically a coward, and I have every intention of coming back. I don’t have any kind of a death wish, is what I’m saying.”

They walked back in silence, Lancer looking straight ahead. He stopped him a few blocks from the tower. “I have to know something, Lancer. Brody. It’s going to be the hardest on him. I know you know that. Riley told me what he did to you and that other kid, likely not all of it, but even from that.... I haven’t seen you even look at the kid with anger since. What I’m asking is... I need to know that the two of you are all right.”

Lancer looked at him strangely for a while, his face hard. “What are you really asking me? Are you asking if I’m still angry at the kid to where I’ll risk him somehow? If I’m just waiting until we get to Crylo to do that, to get back at him?” He turned away from him, hands in fists at his sides, angry, “We are done here, Drake. I’ll take care of the kids if I have to, this doesn’t change anything, but we’re done.”

He offended him somehow. He didn’t mean to, but it was obvious that he did anyway. He followed him to the building but Lancer wouldn’t look at him when they got there, just stared blankly in front of him. He stopped the elevator, keeping his hand on the door, not letting it close, forcing Lancer to look at him.

“I made you angry with me, Lancer, I’m sorry for that. I’ve known those two boys their whole lives; watched them grow up, so it’s different for me. I know how they are, no matter some of the things they do, but I don’t expect you to know that or to see it in them. What Brody did... I don’t know if I’d have gotten over it if he did that to someone I cared about the way you seem to, is all. I’m sorry I asked,” and he let him be after that.

Riley met them at the elevator, looking flushed. “Going somewhere, Riley?”

The kid nodded and got in as soon as he and Lancer stepped out, not saying a word. Something happened then. He held the door open, and slid inside just as it started to close, so there wasn’t a thing Riley could do about it. “Talk, Riley.” He leaned against the door, hand pressing the stop button.

“It’s personal, Drake. I can’t.”

He nodded to the kid. “All right. Ams personal or Brody personal?”

Riley glared at him. “What does it bloody matter? I am not talking about it to you. I need to go for a walk, and you need to let me.”

He let go of the button then, not saying anything more to him, letting him get out when the doors opened. He’ll know soon enough if it was something he needed to know.

Everyone was in the big room when he got up there, talking. All but Brody. The kid wasn’t looking at anybody or saying anything. Brody personal then. Ella was handing out sandwiches to all of them, Brody just shaking his head at her. He watched him for a while, and finally walked over to him and picked him up by his shirt, “We are going for a quick walk, Brody,” and the kid let him take him out of the room like that, not saying anything, not even looking at him.

He took him to the comm room and sat him down in the chair, waiting, but the kid wouldn’t talk.

“Riley went for a walk too, just now. He says it’s personal, wouldn’t talk to me about it. Something tells me you don’t want to talk about it either, but one of you is going to have to, or we can’t do what we need to do. Not with you two being like this. Spill it. It won’t go beyond this room.”

Brody just shook his head at him.

He pulled up a chair and sat across from him, watching him, waiting.

“I did something stupid, is all. I’ll make it right with him, as soon as he comes back, I promise, but I can’t talk to you about it. I’m sorry, but I just can’t.”

Everybody was falling apart on him. This place was getting to them. They needed to just get this over with, and maybe once they weren’t trapped here any more, these kids would laugh again, or at least not be so damn wound up. He could see it on all of them, even the girls, the tension. He walked around the table and put his hands on Brody’s shoulders for a beat and let him be after that. He needed a break from this, from constantly worrying about all these kids.

He made himself a small thermos of tea and went out to the woods, to a trail he liked with the young birches around it. The air here was more like it was in Waller, and everything was alive, rustling greenly all around him, the light throwing soft, warm streams through the branches on the path in front of him. Everything here was soft, hazy soft. He sat under one of the new birches, drinking his tea, thinking about all these kids, and how it would be for them with Lancer if it came to that. He trusted the man not to abandon them, but he didn’t know if the kids would let him get close. They didn’t seem to let anyone get close lately, and it worried him. All the silences in the big room, their serious faces....

He heard him before he saw him, heard a branch snap. He stood up, waiting for the man to approach.

“You can tell me to go away if I’m intruding. I won’t get offended.”

There was something disarming in his face, something innocent almost, which didn’t make any kind of sense with the life he’s had. “How old are you, Lancer?”

The man smiled. “Twenty-eight tomorrow, and feeling every shade of ancient for it.” Same age then. He’ll be twenty-six in a few months. They shouldn’t feel so old yet. None of them should.

He slid down the tree, Lancer settling in front of him, picked up his thermos, took a small sip and handed it to Lancer. The man nodded and took a long swallow, looking at him curiously.

“It’s just sage. I always add a bit to my tea. It relaxes me, or at least that’s what I tell myself.... I can’t figure you out, soldier. I don’t think I’ve met anyone like you before, and it makes it hard for me. I don’t know how to talk to you, is what I’m saying. I see how you are with everybody, and I trust that. It’s just....” He shook his head, not finding the words. The man was watching him, face serious.

“What do you want to know? I’ll tell you anything that I can.”

“Your parents, family?”

“Gone. A long time ago. I was twelve.”

“Gone how?”

“I was told Zoriners killed them. Downed the flier they were on and torched it, with everybody still in it. That’s all I know.”

“Where was home?”

“Stockton. Camp Copley after that.”

“Have you killed anyone, not counting this place?”

“Yes. Two rebel soldiers. I had to. They were young, Drake. Brody and Riley young, but I had to,” he said quietly and put his head down for a beat, but then looked up at him again, face calm, waiting.

“Do you have someone?”

The man shook his head at him, “That I can’t talk about, I am sorry.”

“At the lab when Brody went in, you played him. Why?”

“I am better trained than the rest of my men, and I could tell something was off. Brody would have tried to do the same thing. It’s just what you do when you are in charge.”

“Loren said you wouldn’t have talked, no matter what Brody did to you, not unless you wanted to. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

Lancer dropped his eyes, “I’d rather not, if it’s all right.” He nodded, the man looking at him again.

“Why did you stay in that lab for so long after what happened here, Lancer? I never quite got that, feeling the way you did about it?”

“I was trying to protect my men. They have a nasty habit of nuking places like that lab if things go wrong.”

“There were seven of you in that lab from the old scans. What happened to him?”

“Killed himself when he saw the footage of what we did. Couldn’t take it. We made it look like an accident afterwards.” He said it flatly, as if discussing the weather.

“You didn’t like him very much, I gather....”

Lancer winced. “No, Drake. I loved him. He was the only friend I had in that lab, the only friend I’ve had in years.”

He stood up, hoping he didn’t hurt this man by asking him any of this, and feeling that he had. Lancer got up too.

“I’m sorry, Lancer, I truly am.”

The man was watching him, a small smile on his face. “I know. It’s written all over you, but don’t be. You didn’t do any of it, and I don’t blame you for asking. You have the right to know whatever you need to know. For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t trust me either,” and he wasn’t smiling any more.

“That’s where you’re wrong. I trusted you since after the boys brought you back from that field. I just didn’t know what to make of you. I’m not sure I do now, but I know enough to not need to pry any more. Thank you, for telling me,” and he stuck out his hand. Lancer shook it and then turned away from him and walked back on the trail, not making any noise. So he broke that branch deliberately, not wanting to startle him.

“Hey, Lancer?”

The man turned, looking at him.

“I think I am ready to go back too, if you don’t mind my company. I won’t talk, as likely as not.”

Lancer smiled. “Promise me something, Drake. Don’t think better or worse of me than I deserve. Everything else I am okay with. I wouldn’t have told you anything I didn’t want to tell. I am very good at keeping secrets. Everybody in the S-Squads is. It’s our most valuable skill,” and there was no humor in his voice when he said it.

They walked in silence for a long while, lost in their own thoughts. Lancer stopped him right before the street the tower was on, looking uncomfortable. “What you asked me before, about Brody, I am sorry for snapping at you like that, it’s just... I’ve been trying to get through to the kid for days now, trying to get him to stop being so bloody embarrassed in front of me. Every time he sees me, it’s like he wants me to hit him or lash out at him in some way, and maybe it would make it easier for him if I did that, but I can’t. I know why he did what he did. I wasn’t even angry at him then. I like the kid, Drake, that’s honest, but I am worried about him, and with what he just learned about his father, I don’t know what he’ll do if he ends up in the same room with that man. We have to make sure it doesn’t happen, but looking at him, I think he is going to try something. Anyway, that’s everything,” and he walked on ahead of him, hands in his pockets, not looking back.