When the time comes, I don’t go to meet Ari. I don’t invent an excuse, send a message, or suddenly develop a sense of duty so powerful it overrides everything else. I stay where I am and let the hour slide past while I lie backon the bunk fully dressed, staring at the ceiling as if it might have the decency to crack open and drop the solution to all of my problems on my head.
I tell myself I’m tired — which I guess is actually true. Tomorrow will be better if I let this day end here.
That’s probably a lie.
I tell myself Ari will understand, which is the worst one, because I know he will.
Eventually, exhaustion wins by default, as it usually does when I’ve run out of other options. Sleep comes badly and shallow, the anger still humming underneath it, unresolved and contained only because there’s nowhere else for it to go.
The last thing I think before it drags me under is Ari in that corridor, telling me he’d be there if I changed my mind.
THIRTY
ARSENY
I knew that Caiden wouldn’t come, but still, I wait longer than is wise. Some stupid part of me keeps thinking I’ll hear his steps at the last second, or see him crossing the yard with that particular scowl he gets when he’s angry.
By the time I stop pretending I’m still waiting by choice, the place is dead silent. Caiden is precise when he’s angry. If he says he isn’t coming, he means it. But that doesn’t make it easier to swallow.
I stand there for another minute with my hands in my pockets and my jaw clenched hard enough to hurt, then turn back toward the barracks.
There’s no point waiting any longer.
Back in my quarters, I take my coat off, hang it up, and sit at the desk by the window. The lamp throws a small circle of light over the reports stacked there. For a while, I sit there looking at nothing. Then, because doing nothing tends to make everything worse, I pull a report towards me and start reading.
At first, the words go in. Names, numbers, times, distances and small failures with clear causes. It helps a little at first. The further I go down the page, the memories from earlier creep in. The corridor outside admin, the voices, Caiden’s face when I told him to back off and the way he agreed because he had no real choice, not because he wanted to.
He hates stepping back, I know that. It’s not because he enjoys defiance for its own sake — though, since he met me, I think he does enjoy that a little more than is healthy — but because stepping back looks too much like surrender and he’s had enough of surrender dressed up as policy to last him the rest of his life.
For me, helplessness has always been worse than anger. For him, maybe it is the other way around.
That means he will do what I asked and hate me for a while in the privacy of his own head, which is somehow more difficult than if he had just snapped at me properly and got it over with.
I get it. He’s angry because he cares. He cares about Niko and the baby, and he cares about me enough to keep putting himself last. And yes, he’s also angry because I stepped in and made the decision for both of us.
I accept that part.
The alarm on my watch goes off, pulling me from my thoughts. I grab my jacket and head out of my room. By the time I go to Niko’s flat, it is later than usual. The lights are still on, which, it’s hard to tell these days, is either a good or bad thing.
He opens the door before I’ve finished knocking the second time, and one look at him tells me he hasn’t slept properly again.
“You’re here late,” he says.
“I had something to deal with.” He steps aside and lets me in without another word, but I can feel himthinking anyway. Niko sits down at the little table in the kitchen, and I take the chair opposite him.
“Where’s Caiden? He hasn’t been by.” For a second, I consider leaving it alone until morning. Then I look at him properly and decide that it would be better to get it over with.
“I asked him to step back,” I say. “From being here so much.”
His head snaps up fast from looking down at his mug. “What?”
“People are gossiping.”
He stares at me. “About what?”
“About him being here too often.” I keep my voice level because I don’t want him to panic. “It is not a problem yet. And I want to keep it that way.”
Niko’s shoulders fold inward a fraction. The reaction is so fast and so instinctive, it makes my chest hurt. “This is my fault,” he says, looking at the table instead of me now. “I didn’t mean for any of this. He was helping and I let him, and now you’re both having to…” He cuts himself off and rubs a hand hard over his face. “Fuck. I— I should have got back on my feet before it got to this point. Before either of you had to get involved.”
