Hail looked up at him. “You look happy.”
“I’m about as happy as you seem to be.” He looked around at all the other people in the cafeteria. “How can they all be so satisfied with where they are? There’s a whole world out there.”
“All most of us know is that at least we’re not still a part of the last one. We’re happy here. Safe. Free,” Hail said.
“True.”
She took a minute to really look him up and down. “So what has you in such a funk?”
“I’m going back,” he blurted out.
Hail stopped chewing and looked up at him again. “Do they know that?”
“Nobody does yet, here or there. But they will.”
“What if he won’t let you stay?”
“Who? Jack? I asked for permission to stay the first day we got there and I realized how much better I felt just being there.”
“What’d he say?” Hail asked, pushing her plate away and focusing on Feral.
“He said he’d be glad to have me. I’d be welcomed there.”
“What about me?”
“I didn’t ask about you. I didn’t know it had occurred to you.”
“It didn’t. Not exactly. But I have to admit I’ve been rethinking every minute I was there. I haven’t been that happy since… well, ever as far as I know. Here, I’m just doing what’s expected of me, you know?”
“Only too well.”
They sat quietly for a few seconds.
“I wanted to stay when Frenzy did,” Hail said.
“So, did I.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Feral huffed a laugh. “My fucked up sense of duty. After everything that happened with Lethal’s team, I feel like everybody is expecting me to fuck up. I had to prove them wrong.”
“That’s on you, dude. I don’t think most people care. But I get feeling like eyes are on you because of the way they treated you. It was fucked up.”
“Yeah. Anyway, I had to make sure I got the three males back and gave my debriefing.”
“Officially brought your last mission to a close,” she said.
“Exactly. And now I have. And I miss Alison. I miss everyone we met there. I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“You think Alison will accept you?”
“Do you think Alison will accept me? She’s your friend,” he countered.
Hail smiled. “Yeah, she is. I never had a friend that just liked me for me and not because I was part of a team. Alison is a sweet, trusting, very unassuming female. I don’t think she’s ever had a male. And she probably thinks that you aren’t any more interested in her than anyone else has ever been. But if you go back, let her know that you care. That you’re interested in a relationship with her, I think she’d like that, if you remembershe’s a Lion and won’t take kindly to somebody lording it over her.”
Feral nodded, as he sat there thinking over his options. “I did tell her that. But she didn’t seem convinced. I plan to convince her, though. What about you and your boy? Titus?”
Hail deflated again. “Titus isn’t my boy. He wanted me to stay with him, and I didn’t stay. The moment I said I was going, he clammed up and backed off. I’m pretty sure he hates me now.”
