One day, my luck would run out.
I replaced the blade while he stared above my head, a faraway look in his eyes, and his distraction finally allowed me to study their color.
So manycolors. Brown at the center, blue at the outer, flecks of green and amber in between. They’d technically be termed hazel, but a flicker of irritation burned at the ocean of hues there.
Evil wasn’t supposed to be pretty.
Those faceted eyes locked on mine. “You have no survival instincts. You don’t know how to fight. You can barely keep quiet when you’re hiding from a group of men intent on killing you. What skills do you have? Why would they send me someone like you?”
I sucked in a fortifying breath. “They sent someone expendable. You know, just in case.”
His face drained of color. “Expendable?”
Yeah, probably shouldn’t have admitted that to him.
Hi, I’m the reject they didn’t care to lose. Want to trust me with your secrets?
He scratched his neck. “It didn’t occur to me to ask for someone competent. They were supposed to send a soldier.”
“Iwasa soldier. They made me stop.” I scrutinized the floor. “For obvious reasons.”
I thought of the scant questions I was asked before they allowed me into the Defiance army three years ago.
“Name?”
“Sophia Elena Reeves.”
“Age?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Do you have any military or combat experience?”
“No.”
“Do you have any trade skills?”
“Er… No.”
“Have you handled weapons before? Are you familiar with firearms?”
“Still no.”
“Do you have any medical illnesses?”
“No.”
“Are you pregnant?”
“Definitely no.”
And that was it. That night, I was a Defiance soldier with a gun and everything.
“So they…what?” Lucas demanded. “Sent you here to die?”
I rocked on my feet, unwilling to look him in the eye. “I don’t know. Maybe.” Time wobbled around me while those words settled into all the cracks between us, somehow both lightning fast and interminable. He didn’t speak, so I finally filled the silence. “What do you want to do? Do you want someone else?”
At first, he didn’t answer, but then his voice floated toward me, softer and closer than it had been before. “Is your name really Sophia?”
