Legacy (Alliance Book 3) (15 page)

He believed him, everything that he told him adding up to a more complete picture of this stranger, enough to know how he was. Enough to know he would do right by these kids. That he’d do right by all of them.

Riley, June 10, 2236, Reston.

H
e thought it was somebody else; a stranger, when he saw it, but then the towel fell away from the man’s face, and Lancer’s gray eyes stared at him, angry. “Don’t you ever bloody knock?” He could still see his back in the mirror, and he couldn’t talk, couldn’t think of anything at all to say. He ran out the door, Lancer calling after him, but he ignored him. He had to tell Brody and Drake.

He took them out of the big room into the hallway, Loren following them. “I don’t even know how to say it. Lancer... I walked in on him after his shower, and... I think he was tortured by somebody, tortured like I never imagined anybody could be. I don’t know how anyone could have survived it either,” he whispered, not wanting the girls to hear him.

Loren put a hand on his shoulder, “It wasn’t torture, Riley. It was training, and you need to let it go,” and he turned to walk away, but Brody stopped him.

“Spill it, Loren. Whatever it is you know that you are not telling.” Loren just shook his head, his face flushed. “Loren, I mean it. Talk,” Brody snapped and gripped Loren by the arm, not letting him leave. Loren shook his head again, looking at Brody, not talking. He could see anger on Brody’s face. “I need you to tell me what you know, soldier. That’s an order.”

“It isn’t mine to tell, Brody. I can’t.”

“Put your hands behind your back.” He did, and Brody snapped a tie around his wrists, shoved him into the comm room, and pushed him roughly into a chair. “We’re supposed to go to Crylo tomorrow and my own crew is keeping secrets from me. What are you protecting? Bloody answer me!” Brody screamed into Loren’s face, holding him by the neck.

“You need to let him go,” Lancer’s quiet voice from the door. He didn’t even hear him come in. He had a black thermal on and jeans, but his weapons belt was missing, and his hair still wet.

“I can’t do that, Lancer. He is my crew and he is keeping secrets from me. Secrets about you, and being that you’re one of us now, whatever it is he isn’t telling me, whatever it is that’s important enough for him to hide, makes me uncomfortable with both of you, which means one of you is going to tell me what it is, so I know what I am dealing with.”

At least he wasn’t holding Loren by the neck anymore.

Lancer took the few steps to Brody, looking at him. “All right, Brody. I’ll tell you,” voice strained. Loren was shaking his head, telling him not to do it, to please not do it, and he had a feeling Loren had a good reason for it, that he was protecting Lancer from something he really needed to be protected from.

“Brody, let it go, please. It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry I told you. Please, just let it go,” he said, glancing over at Drake, hoping for a bit of help from him, but the giant was leaning on the wall, keeping his head down.

“Shut up, Riley,” Brody’s angry voice. He didn’t even look at him, still watching Lancer.

Loren put his head down, not saying anything anymore. Lancer walked over to him and lifted him up from the chair, “Riley, free his hands for me, please, so he can leave.”

“You don’t get to do that, Maxton. He is my crew, and he is not yet free to go,” Brody hissed. Loren slumped back in the chair, looking very much afraid.

“I’m really sorry for this, Loren,” Lancer said softly and then walked over to the door and locked it. He watched him slowly walk to the window, and he could see the tension on him and felt every kind of guilty for all of this. Lancer took a deep, loud breath and faced them. “All right. But it doesn’t leave this room. Ever.”

Brody nodded. Lancer cursed under his breath, turned around and pulled his shirt off, flinging it on the windowsill, and stood unmoving, hands in fists at his sides. He looked away. “What exactly do you need to know, Brody?” Lancer’s voice, taut as a wire, reached him and he looked at Brody then. Brody was staring at the man’s back, looking every shade of embarrassed, not saying anything. Lancer waited, not moving. He looked eerily calm, except he was breathing much too fast for that.

“Who did this?” Brody, finally, in a shaky whisper.

“Alliance. Next.”

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. They needed to know that I could keep their secrets if I had to,” and he turned around, hands behind his back, eyes on Brody’s.

“It doesn’t make any sense, Lancer. Zoriners don’t torture people like that. Who would you have to keep their secrets from?”

“I can’t tell you that. I wasn’t given that information.”

“How did you stand it? I don’t see how anyone could....” Brody’s hands were shaking, his eyes down. He looked angry and ashamed, and was likely regretting every moment of this.

“I couldn’t afford not to.”

“You could have died... looking at it, you should have,” Brody whispered, shaking his head, his jaw clenched, and breathing like there was something wrong with his heart again.

Lancer walked over to the table, everyone looking at him, and took a screen from his pocket, flicking it on. He looked at whatever was on it for a few seconds, his face hard, and threw it on the table. An image of a little Zoriner kid with strange gray eyes was looking back at them, his face serious, and looking very much like Lancer’s, if it weren’t for him being so much darker. Lancer was watching them, waiting, but nobody said anything. “His name is Telan. He is seven now, but a bit younger when this was taken. He is my son. A few years ago the HQ seniors decided they needed leverage over those of us who’d be in charge of the S-Squads, something that went well beyond fear of any kind of pain or death. He was mine.”

He leaned over and picked up the screen and put it back in his pocket, walked to the window and pulled his shirt back on, and finally faced them again. “I know what you are thinking, Brody, but you’re wrong. I don’t exist. Not an ounce of my DNA or any other record. That was the trade off. So even if I am captured, all of you are safe. They don’t have anything on me any more. Not anything that would get me to talk. Are we done here?”

Brody just nodded, not looking at Lancer. Lancer walked over to Loren, picked him up by his arm without asking, and walked out of the room with him, not saying anything to anybody, Drake following after them.

“I am sorry, Riley... I truly am.” Brody was pacing, hands running through his hair, putting him on edge. “I tortured that bloody kid in front of him. I can’t imagine what he was feeling.” He didn’t know what to say. He just wished he bloody knocked.

“I need to get some air, Brody,” he whispered and he left him, needing to get away from his pacing, from the ashamed look on his face.

He walked into the woods not thinking of any specific place, walking straight ahead on the closest trail, trying to get his mind to stop racing, trying to un-see what he saw. It was breezy out, and the noise all the trees were making helped get his mind off Lancer for a while, until he ran right into him at the first clearing he turned into. “I swear I wasn’t following you, Lancer. I just needed some air,” and he turned away from him, embarrassed.

He felt Lancer’s hand on his shoulder. “I am not angry at you, Riley. I just wish you knocked, is all.”

“That makes two of us.”

He followed him into the clearing and saw Loren sitting by the fledgling fire, looking at the flames. He didn’t look up at him, didn’t say anything either. He sat next to him and after a while, couldn’t help but ask, “You knew about this, didn’t you?”

A nod. “About the kid, too?” Another nod.

“You think Brody would have used a little kid against him? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Loren shook his head and looked at him, “I didn’t know it was a kid. I just knew they had somebody over him to do what they did. But no, I didn’t think Brody would have done that. I just didn’t want Lancer to have to go through what he just went through in the comm room. Nobody should have to, is all,” and he put his head down again.

Lancer stood on the other side of the fire, hands behind his back. “What Loren isn’t telling you, because in a way, he is right, is that he went through what I went through, so it’s personal for him.... Tell me if I am wrong, Loren,” his voice soft. Loren shook his head. Not wrong then. But it didn’t make any sense. Loren has been with Brody for two years, and he was still a kid.

Lancer must have read it in his face. “A soldier is an adult at fourteen, Riley. They can execute you at that age, so they can do everything else too.”

Loren put his head in his hands, not looking at anything now, and he didn’t know what to say to him, except he knew that he couldn’t tell Brody about this, couldn’t tell anybody, so he told him that and got up.

Lancer was still standing in the same spot, watching him. “I am really sorry about this, Lancer, I truly am,” and he turned away from him to the trail to Reston. Lancer grabbed his shoulders, stopping him. He didn’t even hear him move.

“You need to find a way of making Brody okay with it.... This really hurt him. I could see it all over him, and if we are to have any chance of making it, I need him to be okay with me, and I don’t know what the hell to say to him now.” He faced him, looking up at the serious gray eyes, not knowing what to say, so he just nodded and ran back, ran as fast as he could, his lungs hurting from all the air by the time he got to the tower.

Brody was still in the comm room, staring out the window. “Can I come in, Brody?”

A nod. He pulled the door closed behind him and waited silently until Brody finally turned around and looked at him, and he could tell from the way his face was that he really was hurting. “You didn’t know. You didn’t know anything about him back then, you know that. This doesn’t change anything.” He could see the strain around his eyes, and his face was flushed.

“I need to ask you something, and you have to promise me that you’ll be honest with me.” He nodded, fear making his stomach clench.

“Am I like them? Like your father... like Hassinger?” He stared at him silently, surprised.

“Bloody answer me!”

He took a step towards him, but Brody moved away, hands out in front of him, warding him off, eyes burning wetly into his. “No, Brody, you’re not. But it doesn’t matter what I think. I can see that you think you are, and I can’t change that. I wish I could,” and he turned away, heading for the door.

Brody’s voice caught him at the door. “You said I reminded you of him, back on the roof.... Were you lying then or are you lying now?” He faced him, feeling angry at him, angry for bringing it up and for always thinking the worst of himself.

“I was pissed off at you then. I said it to hurt you. You embarrassed me, and I hated you for it. I’m sorry for that, Brody, but no, you’re not like them,” and he walked out of the room, closing the door behind him harder than he meant to.

He needed to talk to Drake or at least steal a hug from him. He found him after a while in the little kitchen hovering over something round on a big plate, something he couldn’t immediately place, but then he had it—a cake. Somehow Drake made a bloody cake. He hadn’t seen one of these since he was a little kid, back when they could still trade for enough sugar and flour for his mom to make it on his birthdays. Drake smiled at him, “It’s Lancer’s birthday today, only nobody but me knows about it. I had Stan find me all the stuff I needed to make this. I don’t think that man has had a birthday in too many years, and it seemed right to do this, you know? A little something for all of us to maybe not feel so damn broken.”

He wrapped his arms around the giant, burying his head in the sage smell, Drake’s hands pressing him in close. “It’s all right, kid.... We’re going to have us a nice supper, and this gloriously smelling birthday cake, and we’re going to make that big oaf of a man smile again, I promise you. Because this we can do. So how about you snap out of it and help me carry the plates and my best ever stew to that damn room with all them sad people in it, and then I’m going to have you run back here when we’re done with the stew and grab the cake for us, all right?” He nodded, hoping Lancer and Loren were back by now.

Everybody was in the big room when they got there, Lancer looking calm, as if whatever happened earlier was already forgotten. He was listening to something Laurel was telling him, tilting his head to one side, a small smile on his face. Loren was tapping his fingers on the table, not looking at anyone. Ella helped serve the stew and they ate amidst the usual chatter. He ate quickly, watching Drake’s face for a signal. Ella was just starting to put the plates away when Drake winked at him, and he excused himself and ran off to get the cake and the small plates and forks for everybody. He hoped it would be okay by Lancer that they did this. Drake met him at the door, blocking him and the cake from everyone’s view.

“I am a little rusty at this, but here goes. Lancer, will you please stand up,” Drake said. He did, but he looked tense, face worried.

“Somebody hand Lancer a long knife, please. It seems he’s forgotten his somewhere today.” He watched Loren slide his knife over to Lancer on the table, Lancer looking even more worried. “I haven’t done this in too many years to count, so forgive me in advance if this isn’t any good,” and Drake nodded to him to bring the cake out. He felt himself blush, all eyes on him, surprise all over their faces.

Drake’s voice behind him, full of smiles. “Lancer Maxton is twenty-eight today, which to you kids likely seems old as dirt, but be that as it may, I think we owe this man a song.” And he heard Drake start the song he hadn’t heard since the surprise party Trina and Brody threw him years ago, and not for many years before then, but they all sang, and Lancer was blushing every shade of red, keeping his head down, embarrassed.

He set the cake down right in front of him, and lunged at him, hugging him hard, and then picked up the knife and handed it to him. “You have to cut it, Lancer. It’s how this works,” and he beamed at him, everybody in the room smiling now. Ams and Laurel walked over to Lancer, hugging him, making him blush, and Ella, too, and finally Brody got up, and walked over to Lancer, head down. He was whispering something to him for a while, something intended for him alone, Lancer shaking his head at him, making him stop talking, and then he reached over and hugged him, and he knew that he was okay with the cake, and with what happened before, that he truly didn’t blame anybody for anything. Only Loren still seemed out of sorts.