The room was silent except for the sound of my breathing, harsh and uneven in the suddenly stifling air. Outside, I could hear the wind battering against the academy’s walls, the storm that had been building all evening finally unleashing its fury.
Sasha had been right. Someone in Earth’s military hierarchy had abandoned her. The rage that thought triggered was so pure, so immediate, that for a moment I couldn’t see straight.
“Who?” The word came out like a growl.
“I don’t know,” Tivek admitted. “The order came through layers of officials.”
I finally turned around, meeting my brother’s gaze. His expression was sympathetic but firm, the look of someone about to deliver news he knew I didn’t want to hear.
“If you’re thinking about helping her investigate this, you need to understand what you’re getting into. This goes high up the chain of command. High enough to be career-ending—or worse.”
The ice in my veins turned to fire. The thought of Sasha walking into that kind of danger, of powerful people deciding she knewtoo much and needed to be silenced, made every protective instinct I’d ever developed roar to life.
“She won’t let this go,” I said, more to myself than to them.
“No,” Morgan agreed quietly. “She’s won’t.”
I closed my eyes, turning and bracing one hand against the door as the weight of the situation settled over me. Sasha was right. Someone had betrayed her, had left her to rot in a Kronock prison while they played political games with her life. And now she wanted justice.
The problem was, justice had a way of getting people killed. Especially when it involved questioning the decisions of people powerful enough to make warriors and pilots disappear.
I thought about the way she’d looked standing in that shipyard, her hair dancing around her face like dark fire, her eyes blazing with determination. Beautiful and fierce and absolutely hell-bent on a course that could destroy her.
I couldn’t let that happen. Not if I could stop it. But how did you protect someone who didn’t want to be protected? How did you keep safe someone whose very nature rebelled against relying on others?
“Dek?” Tivek’s voice was careful. “What are you going to do?”
I opened my eyes, straightening away from the door with a new sense of purpose. “I’m going to help her, but I’m going to makegrekkingsure that anyone who wants to hurt her has to go through me first.”
“Be careful,” Tivek said with a release of breath.
I turned to him. “Thanks for the intel. Even if it’s not what I wanted to hear.”
His expression was solemn as he gave me a curt nod. I pressed my hand to the side panel and left them to their interrupted evening, stepping back into the corridor.
The storm outside had intensified, rain hurling itself against the exterior of the academy with renewed furor. It seemed fitting somehow, a reflection of the chaos building inside my chest. I’d told myself I could walk away from this. That I could convince her she was wrong and then disappear back to the uncomplicated world of Inferno Force missions and clear-cut objectives. But that had been before I’d known the truth.
Now there was no walking away. Not from her, not from this. I just had to figure out how to keep us both alive long enough to see it through.
The thought should have terrified me. Instead, as I wandered through the academy’s maze of corridors, I felt purpose. Sasha wanted revenge. Fine. I’d help her get it, but she was going to do it my way, whether she liked it or not. And my way meant keeping her safe, even if I had to protect her from herself.
Let her rage at me later. As long as she was alive to do it, I could live with her anger. What I couldn’t live with was losing her.
Chapter
Three
Sasha
Iwas halfway up the wide stone staircase in the cavernous main hall when I heard my name called behind me.
“Sasha, wait!”
I turned to see Ariana jogging up the stairs after me.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” she said breathlessly as she caught up to me, her hand nervously flicking through her short side-swept bangs. “Where have you been?”
Guilt gnawed at me, sharp and unexpected. The eager hope in her voice and the way her eyes lit up when she saw me were painful reminders of how little time I’d spent with her since our rescue. How wrapped up I’d been in my own anger and need for answers that I’d neglected the one person who mattered most.
