"Eleanor," she warned. "If you can't behave, we'll have no choice but to--"
"To what?" I spat. I shoved her hand away and looked around the room. "Grey my name out? Not give me any missions to do? Keep me in waiting for another month? I don't want to do this anymore. If I'm not useful to the program anymore, reject me and send me back down to the general population. I don't want to be somewhere I'm useless." Tears stung my eyes as I turned and stormed out of the cafeteria. No one followed me, which only confirmed my thoughts. I was unimportant now. I spent the last 10 years training for nothing.
Would they even care if I just... left?
Chapter 12 - Callahan
Karma can be a bitch.
“Soldiers, we've made a decision." The warden stormed into the rec hall carrying his clipboard. This was the first time in weeks we'd had a moment to relax. "We are officially ceasing all missions for Milton. We need to resume collecting. However, if upon your regular training missions, you come upon any hint or clue of Milton's whereabouts, dead or alive, you are fully expected to report your findings directly to me."
We exchanged silent looks. It was a fine line. On one hand, we were relieved to be done running twelve-hour missions up above, knowing we weren't going to find anything. On the other, Milton was Cecil's bloodline, and acting too excited to stop looking for him would get us beaten.
It felt like all of my secrets were catching up to me. Would I finally be caught?
"You will resume your training tomorrow. Well, all but one of you."
Confused murmurs flooded the room, and Cecil cleared his throat.
"The decision has been made that one of you will be moved up, replacing Dale as Eleanor's Daddy."
The room erupted into mixed comments.
"Sir, this has never been done before."
"Whoever gets paired with her is not going to have that parental-like bond with her."
"She's a bitch." The room stopped abruptly, my comment echoing throughout the room. I shrugged innocently. It was true. Ever since Eleanor's Daddy died, she'd been insufferable. Cutting the line at mealtimes, bawling loudly in the halls. She'd been using the excuse that she was grieving over the loss of her Daddy as a reason to be an absolute... cunt.
If only she knew it was me that had orphaned her. She'd be even worse. But that was a secret I'd take to my grave.It was one thing to watch her yell at everyone else. I couldn’t stand to have her look at me like she did the others. She wouldn’t understand.
I hadn’t done it to hurt her. I’d saved her.
"Bro," Russell scolded. "You can't say that."
"Why not?" I stood up. "She is. She's always been this way, and now, it's just gotten worse. Whoever gets assigned to her is going to be fucking miserable."
"Oh, how ironic," Cecil said with a disgusting grin. He raised his clipboard and tugged a manila folder from the clip. "Congratulations, Callahan, you're a Daddy."
"This is absolute bullshit!" I shouted at Cecil and Dorothy when his office door was slammed shut. "Why me?"
This couldn’t be real. Me, of all the men in our unit. The one that had left her boyfriend for dead and killed her Daddy? I had to get out of this.
Dorothy took the folder from Cecil and began flipping through the large stack of papers.
"You're top of your class. Your marks were all better than Milton's." She gave a side glance to Cecil. "Your trainers all list you as the best marksman with both a gun and a knife. You have the highest kill count of all the DITs. Frankly, you're the only one we can trust to handle Eleanor."
"There's no handling that girl." I shook my head. "She may be a Young Lady, legally an adult, but she's got the personality of a spoiled eight year old." I doubled down. If they thought I hated her with all my soul, they’d realize this was a bad idea.
Even if it wasn’t exactly true.
Cecil sat behind his desk, facing me. We stared at each other a moment before he burst into laughter.
"What?" I demanded.
"Do you think your attitude is much better? Son, I have watched you grow up here in the bunker, and you are just as bad as her. I tried to persuade Ms. Dorothy not to pick you because of how you two fight, but she insisted the paperwork doesn't lie."
"It doesn't. You're the best for this job," she insisted.
