Gemma’s eyes were glassy when she hugged him at the door. “It’s not goodbye,” she whispered. “Just ‘see you later.’ ”
His chest pinched. “I will definitely see you later.” Loosening his hold on her, he cupped her cheek in his hand and kissed her tenderly. “Call or message me whenever you want.”
“I will.”
He lingered. One more kiss. Then he exited their flat, backsack in tow, and prayed to Illari for the first time in over a decade.
“How’d Gemma take it?” Hawk asked, falling into step beside Christian as they descended the stairs.
He frowned. “She’s strong. She’ll be all right.”
The stairwell grew precarious near the third floor. It had been half-destroyed during the battle with the Dissent at Zion. Steep and uneven revarium steel slabs had temporarily replaced the old steps. They slowed their pace to keep sure footing.
Near the first floor, Imara clung to the remnants of a wall, testing each step with calculated pressure. Her prosthetic leg clicked, recalibrating as she shifted weight. Hawk rushed to her side, throwing an arm around her waist to steady her.
“I don’t need your help,” she snapped.
“I’ll let you tumble down the stairs, then. It will be hilarious.”
Imara growled but looped an arm around him and let him take most of her weight. “Oh, just shut up and keep going.”
At last, they reached the main level of Zion, and Imara wiggled out of Hawk’s hold. The three of them stepped through the large hold that used to be a doorway.
And froze.
It was a graveyard. The corpses had been removed from the wreckage days after the fighting had ended, but the walls were still scorched with plasma burns and riddled with bullet holes. The floor was stained with blood. Shattered glass and empty bullet casings lined the floors.
“Come on.” Hawk gently nudged Imara forward.
Christian followed closely behind, avoiding eye contact with the spot where Gemma had collapsed. The spot where he’d thought he was going to lose her.
A tight pain wrenched his chest.
Their paces slowed when they neared the corner where Imara and Hawk had been found. It was there that she’d lost half of her right leg, and Hawk had lost his left eye. Their dried blood still stained the wall.
Imara silently stared at it as Hawk’s jaw flexed. Christian hadn’t yet asked either of them what had happened during the battle; he wasn’t sure if he ever would.
At last, they exited through a jagged hole in the exterior wall. The rest of the Systems Anti-Rebellion Task Force huddled just outside the still-destroyed entrance, all dressed in regular clothes.
“It’s about fucking time,” one of the SARTF soldiers said. He stood like a boulder, taller even than Hawk, with a nose crooked from too many breaks—Broadman, solar shift’s team leader. “Two skimmers. Make it work. Sit on each other’s laps if you need to.”
Christian looked to his right where the vehicles hovered just above the surface. Their black bodies stood out starkly against the red dirt of Reva’s surface. At night, though, they were impossible to spot. They had a low, streamlined frame and were incredibly fast.
He would know. The leader of the Falaichte had one.
Christian squeezed into a skimmer with Hawk, Imara, and three other SARTF soldiers. Christian expected a retort from Imara—especially when she was forced to sit on Hawk’s lap—but she simply stared at the broken innards of Zion.
Christian frowned. Though they were all alive, none of them had made it unscathed.
As they drove the eleven kilometers from Zion to Perileos, the SARTF soldiers in their skimmer re-introduced themselves. One was Claude. Another was his husband, Yosef. And the third was Ahna, the grave shift team leader and the woman who would lead Christian, Imara, and Hawk into the field along with Claude and Yosef. Ahna had dark skin and short black hair braided tightly against her scalp. And she was built like she’d grown up in a gymnasium. She was definitely not someone to mess with.
Apparently, Claude, Yosef, and Ahna had been on the SARTF the longest—after Broadman—and they advised Christian, Hawk, and Imara to sleep whenever they could, drink whenever they could, and fuck as often as they could in order to “not blow your brains out.”
None of them replied, not even Imara.
“We’ll get them to loosen up eventually,” Ahna said.
“I give them three days,” Claude replied.
