Page 260 of Every Almost

She showed up even when Reyna never once had to ask.

Reyna held onto the doorframe for another second before letting go and walking in.

"Hey," Charlie said carefully as she rose to her feet.

"Hey," Reyna said.

Her own voice sounded as though it belonged to somebody in another room.

Hold it.She had made herself a promise in a corridor sixty seconds ago, and she intended to keep it. Charlie was going to get a captain who was fine. All Reyna had to do was stand in this room and hold her face still for the length of one conversation.

"Captain." Charlie took a step. "What's wrong?"

One question. That was all it took.

Reyna felt it happen. That was the worst, to feel everything crumble, everything she'd sworn she'd hold together. She turned away from Charlie so fast that her hair fell free from the style from the party.

And then she started pacing.

"I can't let this happen," she muttered.

She had not meant to say it out loud.

"Can't letwhathappen?" Charlie asked.

"There has to be a way." Reyna pushed her hair back off her face with both hands, and it fell forward again immediately. "The Kaelari delegation has rank, and I have never once asked to use it. If I can get a formal objection filed before the cycle turns?—"

"Reyna—"

"—and the field reports. The last three missions specifically." She reached the viewport, turned around, and started back. "The data is right there. It'sright there.Nobody in that room has probably read a single word of it. I doubt they've even read a form."

"Reyna, please?—"

"I just needtime.That's all I need. If they gave me time, I could take it apart properly. Find a way through. There'salwaysa way through. There is always something somebody hasn't even looked at?—"

Her voice cracked in the middle of it.

She heard it but kept pacing anyway. Stopping wasn't an option, because the second she stopped talking she was going to have to look at Charlie, and she knew she wouldn't survive that.

"I can fix this," Reyna whispered. "I have to fix this."

"Fixwhat?" Charlie's voice, behind her, following her across the room. "Reyna. Talk to me."

But Reyna couldn't.

There was a hand in her path. Charlie's hand, out in the air where Reyna would pass it, open, palm up, held within Reyna's orbit as she went by, so that Reyna would know it was there.

Reyna didn't take it, didn't say another word.

She knew what she should say, she had the sentence. It was fully assembled and had been ready since the doorway.

They are taking you away from me.

All she had to do was turn around and say it, and Charlie would know.

No. Not tonight.

Tomorrow.