Relinquish: Book II of the Rising Trilogy (11 page)

“Of course I knew, but I never dreamed he would take his anger out of you!” His cheeks redden with anger. His eyes widen, slightly glossed as he leans back.

“He didn’t—” I start but cut off at his livid gaze. I take a deep breath and hold it for several seconds before releasing it. “Eamon was upset. So were you. He didn’t mean anything by it.”

“You know, that’s what my mom used to say when Dad had a bit too much to drink.”

I raise my eyebrows in shock. I always assumed Bastien’s parents had loved each other. He never mentioned problems. Bastien runs his hands through his hair absently, almost as if he still thought it was longer. “It only happened a couple of times, not long after the Caldonians moved in. Mom never knew he had a stash of alcohol. Dad claimed it was for emergencies.”

He turns away, but not before I catch the distant look in his gaze. “The first time he hit her, I was seven. Took nearly a week for that bruise to disappear. Mom made excuses for him, especially after he assured her that he’d tossed out all of the alcohol, but there was more. There always was.”

I draw my knees back up to my chest. I heard our parents talk about alcohol when I was younger. Several of them would express a longing for it just before they went on a raid, said it would calm their nerves. Mom said she caught a couple of the men dipping into our medical supplies once, said it made them act weird.

“What happened?” I whisper.

There is a bitter chill in his gaze when he looks back at me. “I stopped him.”

He doesn’t say anything more than that. A simple statement that seems to be weighted with a lifetime of anger. Bastien loved his parents; that much was obvious from the first time he spoke of them. They had died when he was younger, during a Caldonian raid that sent Bastien fleeing to the abandoned subway tunnels to survive. His mother was brutalized before his own eyes, his father gunned down. A terrible way to see your parents die.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He rolls his head from one side to the other, as if needing to release tension that has settled firmly on his shoulders. “Just don’t make excuses for him.”

That’s not what I’m doing
, I think as I lower my chin onto my hands, rocking slightly.
Is it?

How many times have I excused away Eamon’s neglect? Days, sometimes even weeks would go by before he would come visit me, and then it was always that widening hole between us that kept me from ever feeling truly loved. I knew it was there, maddeningly out of reach but still within sight. Eamon wanted to love me, needed to, but was too afraid to accept that he would someday lose it.

“Things change.” I roll my head to the side and press my cheek against my hands. My skin feels flushed and clammy. “People change.”

I can feel him watching me. I hate it when he does this. He always sees exactly what I don’t want him to see, which is usually everything. “You’re miserable,” he whispers. His tone, although soft, is layered with disbelief.

I shrug, putting forth a brave face despite knowing it won’t work. It’s a reflex I’ve grown accustom to over the past few months. Especially any time Aminah was around. “It’s not a big deal.”

Bastien shakes his head as if he is disgusted by how blasé I am about it. “If I’d known—”

“You’d have what?” I cut him off, raising my head to look at him. “Come back for me?”

He flinches back from the venom in my voice. I grimace internally, knowing it’s not fair to take out my bitterness on him.

When he finally turns to look at me, my breath catches at the sight of raw pain within his eyes. “I’d have wanted to.”

As the sun is swallowed up in cloud, the frosty winds return, blustery and merciless. The forest changes around us, the shadows lengthening until they stretch into a wall of darkness. Bastien charges up his laser gun to light the way.

“How much farther?”

His hesitation surprises me. I pick up my pace to catch up with him, only to find him staring intently at the cluster of stars still visible overhead, almost like fireflies appearing for the first time on a warm summer’s night. The clouds will arrive sometime during the night. I shiver, rubbing my hands upon my arm.

From here I can still see the North Star, shining brightest in the sky. I follow Bastien’s gaze as he lowers his head and peers into the woods. “You’re lost.”

“No.” He holds up his hand and turns in a slow circle. “I am temporarily misplaced. That’s all.”

I lower myself to the ground, brushing aside a bed of needles to make sure this time I sit on soft ground. My tailbone has yet to forgive me for my earlier abuse. “You won’t be able to find anything in the dark. Might as well bed down for the night and search in the morning.”

Bastien’s nostrils flare and he looks startled when I laugh. He looks down at me and I grin. “Must be hard for you.”

“What?”

“To admit you’re not perfect.”

His lip curls into a smirk as he shrugs out of my pack. “Just don’t tell anyone. I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

My smile wanes as I look away, realizing just how easy our banter came, like before. My lips turn downward into a frown as I lean my head back against a tree, closing my eyes.

“Do you have a tent in here?” I can hear him open my zipper, the clanging of pots, and the rustle of clothes as he searches. To be honest, I could sleep right here propped up against this tree, but I nod and point to the small pouch rolled and tucked into the bottom of the pack. Bastien insists on setting up the tent while I rise to hunt for firewood.

It is harder to find than I would’ve thought. The ample amounts of pine needles will work great as kindling, but the lack of dried twigs and broken off branches will make keeping a fire going a near impossibility.

I manage to scrounge a few small bits of limbs, but they are too pliable, still moist. Heading back to camp, I try not to wonder about the sleeping arrangements. I breathe a huge sigh of relief when I see he has set up a bedroll a little way from my tent. Although I hate to know he will be without shelter, I really couldn’t imagine sleeping near him.

“There wasn’t much to choose from,” I say as I drop my pathetic load before him. Bastien turns to look at the small pile and nods.

“I can work with that.” I nibble on my lower lip as he grabs his laser gun, drawing it near to see in the fading light. I hear a knob shift and the laser thrum to life. Squinting against the vivid crimson glow, I watch as Bastien runs the laser over the woodpile. It fans over the sticks in a long, narrow line. Steam begins to rise from the wood.

I kneel down beside him, mesmerized. “You’re drying the wood?”

“Yes.” He powers down the laser until it is nothing more than a dim glow to see by. He holds out a stick to me. “Break it.”

It snaps between my fingers with hardly any pressure. “Amazing.”

“Don’t they teach you that stuff in the city?” He questions as he begins to stand the sticks in a pyramid, placing ample amounts of pine needles beneath for kindling.

“No need. We have electricity.” His eyebrow rises at the sound of bitterness in my voice. “I prefer the old ways.”

“I agree.” With another knob adjustment a thin beam of light traces a circle around the small pile, igniting the kindling. The small burst of heat brings a smile to my face. No amount of flickering fluorescent lights or rattling overhead vents can replace the appeal of a real campfire. “Although these lasers do come in handy.”

“You look like you’ve done that a time or two,” I comment as he sets the gun aside and begins unpacking my bag. He sets out the cooking supplies and the meager rations we have left to make a meal.

I blush as he removes my clothes. I spy my
camo pants and familiar black top within the folds of clothes and smile. It’s been too long since I was allowed to be comfortable.

Within twenty minutes, Bastien manages to concoct a rather impressive-smelling stew out of the leftover venison, some wrinkled root vegetables he found partially rotting at the bottom of my pack, and water from a nearby stream. He tips out some of the soup into a silver bowl and passes it to me while he dips his own portion into a drinking cup.

The first taste is bland but warm. It slides down my throat with ease. It doesn't take long for my stomach to gurgle in response. As I take another sip, pausing to grind a torn chunk of meat with my back teeth, I realize Bastien is watching me again. I’m tempted to keep my cup tilted so I don’t have to look at him, but I know I can’t hide all night.

“What?” I ask as I wipe the broth from my lips with my sleeve. Not the most ladylike thing to do, but we are roughing it.

“Nothing.” He turns away, running his finger along the rim of his mug. I realize with a start that he hasn’t taken a single sip yet. Something is on his mind.

I close my eyes for a moment, knowing I’m going
to regret this. Setting aside my bowl, I rub my hands on my pants and turn to fully face him. “I have no intention of spending the next two days having you stare at me like that. You might as well spill it.”

Bastien frowns, appearing to weigh out his words before he too sets aside his mug. He crosses his arms over his chest. “I want to know what happened between you and Eamon. I know I have no right to ask. Let’s just chalk it up to wild curiosity.”

I brush stray hairs back from my eyes. While Bastien chopped his long hair off, I let mine grow. It now drapes nearly to my waist. On most days, I wear it up in a messy bun or a ponytail when I’m in a hurry. I hardly ever let it fall free, but tonight I just don’t care.

“It’s really not about what Eamon did to me… It’s more what he didn’t that’s the problem.”

He doesn’t move. In the flickering of the firelight, he almost looks like a statue, darkly beautiful. The light plays tricks in his eyes, dancing in the hollow of his neck. “Eamon’s had a hard time accepting my future. After you left, he became obsessed with perfecting his control over seeing the future. He worked relentlessly with Kyan. At first we thought he was just trying to improve himself for the sake of aiding the rebellion, but we quickly realized he wasn’t moving in that direction.”

Bastien leans forward but says nothing. He doesn’t pry or press me as I clear my throat. He waits patiently. “It didn’t take long for him to begin to withdraw. At first it was small things. A wistful look, a missed sentence here or there. He hid it pretty well at first, but then he slipped.”

“How?”

“He let me touch him.” I stare into the flickering blues in the heart of the fire. It dances about, twining with the vivid oranges, spiraling and writhing in time together. “We were prepping for a battle in the fifth quadrant. The snow was falling in visible sheets, a freak late spring storm. The sleet pounding against the tent roof so hard I was sure it would pierce through it. The winds were howling so loudly I began to wonder if there was a pack of wolves just outside our door. Kyan was giving us our final instructions.”

I look down at my fingers, realizing they have begun to tremble slightly, the tips red from the cold. “I was scared. I’ll admit that. I knew it was going to be a hard fought battle. The intel was spotty and the storm came upon us so suddenly that I feared we would lose before the battle even began. That’s why I touched him. I needed reassurance, but when our hands met, I was sucked into his vision.”

“It was disconcerting at first. I’d only ever done that once or twice before and that was when I was expecting it. Everything was a swirl of gray, cold and confusing. I could hear voices, as if they were calling from a distance. I could hear my voice and…” I pause and dart a glance over at Bastien but quickly look away. “And yours.”

“Mine?”

I continue on without stopping. “I could feel him searching, like he was wading through the ocean during a hurricane. I was tossed about, barely hanging on, but there was nothing tangible to grasp. That’s when I heard the screaming.”

Bastien’s gaze is darkly intense. He looks as if he is holding his breath.

“I woke up on the floor with Kyan hovering over me. He was furious, not at me, but at Eamon. I realized as I looked up at him that there was snow in his hair, blotting his eyelashes. I remember looking past him to see that the tent had been torn away, the table and all of our maps lost to the winds. That is what I had tried to hold on to and when I lost my grasp, everything was gone except me.”

I reaffirm my grasp about my legs, feeling a chill settle over me that I know has little to do with the night air. The fire rustles before me, warm and inviting. “I knew immediately what had happened. Kyan was furious with Eamon, not only for endangering my life, but for being so distracted before a battle. He made Eamon remain behind, trudging through the snows in search of our maps instead of leading the battle.”

A hint of a smile crosses Bastien’s lips. “That was your first mission.”

I nod. “There was no one else to lead. Kyan gave me command and we sacked the base with only five men lost. It was a great victory.”

“I know,” he says. “The information you recovered in that base helped my men take out the base in the southern lands.”

“That was you?” I whisper.

“Of course.” he laughs. His smile slowly fades. “You didn’t know?”

“No.” I shake my head. “No one told me anything about you.”