“Have you moved at all today?” His weary voice startles me, and I choke on my seven hundredth cup of coffee. “I didn’t think so.Comeon.”
As I get to my feet, the bruise from last night’s fall sends an intense wave of pain down my leg. Royce stops a few steps away, concern furrowing his brow until I wave him off. “I’m fine. Wherearewe—?”
With a quick flash of his palm, he shows me the pack of cigarettes, then leads me out into the alley. There’s nowhere to sit here, so I lean against the brick wall of the building while he lights up. The rich scent of cloves and tobacco stirs the memory of my grandfather’s favorite brand. Not exactly the same, but closeenough.
When he offers me a puff, I can’t help myself. I haven’t smoked since I got out of the army, and I take a long, slow pull, rolling the smoke around on my tongue. Out here in the fresh air, I can pretend no time has passed, and we’re at the PX stocking up on gum and caffeinepills.
Wispy clouds paint the sky with practiced strokes, and when I glance back to find him watching me, I’m surprised at the sorrow I find inhiseyes.
“Aboutearlier…”
“Oversight is stable. Orion’s hanging out at Coana for the next few hours to keep an eye on the performance monitors. We’llbefine.”
“I didn’t doubt you.” He takes a drag on his cigarette and then exhales with a heavy sigh. “What happenedbetweenus?”
The question throws me, and I stammer a few unintelligible half-words before I manage to put a coherent thought together. “I got blown up, and youdisappeared.”
He frowns and starts to reply, but this might be my only chance to say all the things I’ve wanted to say for tenyears.
“I needed you, Royce. Do you have any idea what it was like to wake up in a hospital bed alone with three broken ribs, a punctured lung, nine shattered bones in my hip, leg, and arm, burns, a concussion, and internal bleeding?” As he hangs his head, I continue. “You were the first person I asked for. I could barely speak after having a tube down my throat for two days. After a week, the nurses were sick of me. They’d bring me a meal, and they’d say, ‘No, Camilla, no one’s heard from him.’ Everyone else visited. Bonzo and Yankov took shifts by my bedside when the doctors had to put me in a medically-induced coma for a week. Bucky let me cry all over him when they warned me I might lose my leg. Wherewereyou?”
He drops the cigarette on the pavement and grinds the ball of his foot against the smoldering stub. “I took anothercommission.”
“No shit. Why? The army wouldn’t have forced that on you. Not right away. You could have come. Even once.” My voice cracks, and I clench my free hand, digging my nails into my palm as hard as I can. “I didn’t hear from you for almost five years. Five years! And then you show up and offer me a job? I was so fucking pissed at you, I almost slammed the door in your face. But I hoped working for you would give us a chance to rebuild our friendship. I should have knownbetter.”
His fingers shake as he withdraws another cigarette, and after the fourth failed attempt at working the lighter, I hold out my hand. We’re so close I can smell his aftershave, but the second I squelch the flame, he starts to pace. “I failed you, Cam. Hell, I failed the whole team. I didn’t see the debris around you. Yankov tried to warn me. He’d seen a similar setup with his last team. I ignored him. If I hadn’t, if we hadn’t all gone out drinking the night before, if Bravo team’s disposal specialist hadn’t come down with food poisoning, you’d be able to walk without thatdamncane.”
“Playing ‘what if’ won’t get you anywhere.” I pause until he meets my gaze. “I never blamed you. I chose this life, Royce. I could have gone into cyber ops, but diffusing bombs was challenging and dangerous and thrilling. I knew the risks. Eighty-six times I cheated death. Eighty-six times I had your voice in my ear keeping me calm. How could you just abandon me when I needed you most?” The dam I built over the past ten years crumbles, and the full torrent of my emotions washes over me. “You were my brother, and when you disappeared, you took away the only family Ihadleft.”
The crash as he kicks a dumpster sends my heart rate soaring, and I must make some sound because he whirls around. Remorse presses down on hisshoulders.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” His chest stutters as he draws in a breath. “I couldn’t bear to see you broken by my mistakes. I didn’t know staying away would make thingsworse.”
Blinking up at the sky to try to stop my tears from spilling over, I choose my next words carefully. “I survived,Royce.”
“Did you?” He takes my hand, his fingers warm and rough. “I’ve never seen you lose control. Ever. Not in the worst firefight. Not when we lost Tommy. The pastfewdays…”
Now I’m the one pulling back. “I can’t.Not…yet.”
“Cam.”
His “big brother” tone grates, even though it’s one of the things I’ve missed most about him. “A lot’s happened in ten years. This week—the past couple of days—life has seemed determined to kick me in the ass every chance it gets. Can we leave it at thatfornow?”
I ache all over, but in my heart most of all. I want to run, but I force myself to meet his gaze. My friend, my only family, shakes his headslowly.
“I wish we could. But Cam…I’msick.”
The world falls away from underneath me, but before I hit the ground, his arm wraps around my waist, and he steadies me until I find my footingagain.
His thin frame—so obvious as I lean against him—should have clued me in, but I’ve been wrapped up in my own shit for so long, I couldn’t see past the chasm between us. “Explain,” I manage as I brace hand against hischest.
“My second commission.” He stares up at the sky, as if he’s trying to decide how much to tell me. I extricate myself from his grip, trying to give him space to tell me what he needs. He starts to pace slowly. “I refused to command another ordinance crew, and I hated myself so much, I went to my CO and demanded he find the riskiest missions he could—the ones no one else wanted.” Royce’s voice falters. “I wanted to die serving my country, not live out my days knowing I’d failedmyteam.”
My cheeks are wet again, and I swipe at the offending tears. “Youdidn’t—“
“Let me finish. Please.” His third cigarette seems to calm him, though he only takes three puffs before he tosses it away. “There’s no proof. But, I spent months disposing of sarin gas and depleted uranium. We took precautions—shit, more precautions than you could everimagine.But…”
“Royce.”
