“We’ll—we’ll rebuild it. Better than it was.”
He rolled his eyes.
I found his body among the dead brought back from a mission two weeks later. I lifted his dog tag.
MORIN
CARTER P.
739 80 2831
B NEG
PROTESTANT
Hands shaking, I dropped it back onto his chest. The sight of him motionless sent me into a tailspin. The panic attack slammed into me like a sheet of glass, shattering everywhere as I fell through it. I collapsed in my bedroom, praying for air.
Tall trees.
Warm rain.
Scent of cypress.
It didn’t help.
I curled in on myself on the floor and bawled.
That place inside my heart where sadness resided had expanded to touch every nerve, every cell, squeezing the life out of me. The pain of being the one left behind ached like a deep bruise. Why was I special? Why hadn’t I been the one to die? When would it be my turn?
Lucas went easy on me that night, but distracted and upset, I still lost. Afterward, as I reached for the door to leave, he grabbed my wrist. “You okay, Sophia?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re notfine. But are you okay to ride home?”
“It’s only a five-minute ride.”
His voice grew terse. “A lot can happen in five minutes.”
I stared at his throat, afraid I’d cry again if I said anything.
He didn’t let me go. His focus drilled into my face for a long, silent moment. “I need you alive.”
I couldn’t help my gaze as it strayed to his eyes. Heat from the long fingers around my wrist spread up my arm. He didn’t care about anyone else’s life, not even his own, but he cared about mine. I opened my mouth, but words stuck in my aching throat. When it finally escaped, it was barely more than a whisper, a hope that he would give me the truth. “Why?”
A flare of warmth appeared in those ocean eyes before he dropped my wrist and my gaze. “It’s just…something I need.”
“Butwhy?” I pushed, wondering whether he’d admit it.
I couldn’t save my sister, but I can save you.
He shrugged. “Willful stupidity.”
Sighing, I left.
With Lucas’s information,the Defiance had gained a distinct advantage in the war. The rapid-fire wins meant things hadbegun to snowball in our favor, and the NAO’s response escalated the violence. The air thickened with the aura of an impending battle. A big one.
Perhaps it was finally ending. What would I even do if the end came? I couldn’t go back to a normal life after this. The scars ran too deep. If this war ever finished, I feared it would live on forever inside me, a mushroom cloud where my heart should be.
