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As the hours ticked by, I thought of Sheridan. The dark pools of his eyes used to hold so many questions for me. I was afraid he was hiding some twisted secret, or that there was an unpredictable or threatening version of him I needed to uncover. That I needed to peel the truth out of him until I could trust who he really was.
I know now. The truth came out in the belly of that plane.
Those black moments I glimpse are holes he’s punched in his soul. Deaths he’s dealt. Horror he’s seen. His usual smiles hide Stygian crypts where terrible history haunts him no matter how he tries to move on. I thought once that he reminded me of a younger version of Brennan. I had no idea how right I was.
Now he’s punched a new hole in his soul. He put a bullet through Henry’s skull to save me and Brennan.
We’re both going to need to find a way to move past Henry’s betrayal.
Some days, I think what Henry did to Sheridan is worse than what he did to me. He betrayed me and the long years of our friendship, threatened my career and my life and—most unforgivable of all—Brennan’s life. But he isolated Sheridan, made the world and everyone Sheridan loved turn against him. He turned me against Sheridan.
I’ve told him I’m sorry so many times that he’s asked me to stop.
But he’s still been avoiding me. There’s an empty space in my days where I used to see his smile. The basketball court is quiet. No one is playing pickup games.
Sheridan takes another long drag of his cigarette. Embers flare. Ash falls between his knees. “There’s something I need to tell you,” he says. Smoke wraps around each of his words. “I need you to listen, okay? Really listen.”
I nod.
“I need you to know—know—that I’ll never betray you like Henry did. I could never do something like that. I’ll never go against you, Reese. No matter what.”
“I do know that, Sheridan.”
“Do you?” His cheeks hollow as he pulls in another lungful of smoke. “I mean it. I’d die for you. I’d—”
“I know.” I stop him before he says it. I’d kill for you. He already has.
And he loves me, in a to-the-end-of-time kind of way.
We walked through hell together. Every minute of those endless hours was our own inferno, from the first to the last. From him waking me up until he fired that fatal, final bullet. We were bound through it, pulled together and ripped apart and turned against one another, only to end up right back where we started: at each other’s side.
“Sheridan, there’s no one I trust more than you, and that’s why you are now my second-in-command.”
He twists and stares, midpull on his cigarette.
“You’ve earned it.” I pluck the cigarette from his lips, then flick it away. “But you need to quit smoking. That’s not allowed on my command team.”
He chuckles. It’s a sad sound. He scrubs his hands over his face, and his hair sticks up in a dozen different directions.
“Will you have dinner with us?” I nod toward the Residence. “I miss you. So does Brennan.”
“Me?”
“You.”
Sheridan is important to us both. He’s been with us through the wondrous, the secretive, the horrific. He saved our lives, and the sight of him raising his weapon in that cargo hold and pulling the trigger behind me has permanently burned itself into Brennan’s psyche.
Sheridan is a part of us, and he always will be.
“Brennan is still healing, so I’m in charge of cooking, which means you’ll probably end up eating macaroni and cheese. But I’ll throw some Chachere’s on it and season it up.”
This time, he really laughs, tipping his head back and letting the sun fall on his face. I wait as he takes a deep breath, holds it, lets it out.
He turns to me with a smile, that Sheridan smile that’s been missing from my life. “Yes, sir.”
* * *
I joke,but I can’t betray my blood. There’s a Cajun way to spice up mac and cheese, and I gather the holy trinity, shredded pork, and extra cheese, and get to work.
