Lee could feel the eyes of the adoring younger cadets on his body. The eyes of his friends on his face. The pride of the Commander for her top cadets for their accomplishments, and their position, and the glory they stood to gain with this next step. His name was still there at the top should he finally decide to seal his place and accept that identity.
But Lee had never cared much for glory.
He dodged a loose throw, stepping back from thehissas another cadet met the steamtrap below. His toes bit turf as he hurtled to the next island, rolling to catch the next holodisk. The violent violet gleamed against the edge of the couple meters-wide island.
And although months had passed, he was right back where he’d been the day they returned to the ship after Segura. Right back where he never should have left.
Lee barely registered the dwindling numbers. The match now clustering as he claimed yet another island, parrying the holo-disks flying around him. But still he didn’t strike back. He merely resisted, holding back. Drawing things out. Until thecadet next to him with her vanilla-blonde ponytail directed three consecutive disks his way.
“What’s got you?” Kat hollered.
“Everything.”
His eyes darted again over to the willowy figure of his Commander and her secretary, imagining the third figure that had twice now graced these stands.
The General had chosen his side. The Commander was holding down a side. Levy had drawn a line on the ship when she’d quit the program, choosing yet another side.
And here he was, still walking that line.
Who was he kidding? He was the real disappointment in all of this.
Lee waited the appropriate span of time for the premature shots to hang wide, and for the last of the mediocre players to get taken out of the game. Waiting, until only the top contenders remained. Until “Gamma Squadron Lead, Lee Waters”could be expected to fall. And when the first strategized holodisk whipped his way, Lee flipped into the shot and took it down to the steamtrap.
“What invoid’s name?” Kat berated him the moment they were out of range of the other cadets. He’d made a breakaway for the showers after the match ended, but she’d still caught up with him.
It was deja vu.
“Today was a rough one,” Lee said, tapering his pace enough for her to keep up, if not suitable for proper conversation. But that was all for the better too. He hoped to minimize the casualties.
“You took yourself out,” she accused.
“I took out Sean first,” he grinned, an emotionless, dead thing. Or, rather, Sean had taken himself out. But Lee had been there.
She stepped into his path as they reached the showers, leveling him a stare so that he was forced to regurgitate yet another noncommittal comment, knowing full well he’d have bedlam to answer for after this. “I must have misjudged the timing.”
With a frustrated sigh, Kat pivoted on a heel, vanilla ponytail whipping behind her. Lee didn’t bother to duck, feeling the sting for the whiplash it was.
Yep, he’d be answering for this later, and he welcomed the reckoning.
Loosing a breath, Lee strode into the showers. He let the hot water pound into his face and down over his shoulders in bulleted rivulets while the steam frenzied and raged around him.
He wasn’t quite ready to ante up. Not to himself, and definitely not yet to Kat. He wasn’t quite sure how he was going to spin this one. If he was even capable this time.
More cadets flooded the other shower units, and still Lee stayed under the hot water, as it cycled down and around the tiles.
The first heat of cadets had mostly funneled back out by the time Lee finally turned off the water, toweling off his face as he pulled his all-terrain suit from the refresher pod. His skin was raw and flushed. His mind reeling.
Kat was waiting for him when he got to his dorm, hair still damp where it sprawled down her back. But rather thanaggravating him, something loosened at her presence, his lungs expanding.
She didn’t speak to him. She just stood there tapping a foot, the muscles in her body drawn and tight while he scanned his hyperband, taking a step back to let her in.
But Kat didn’t sit down. She wasn’t looking at him either. She merely crossed her arms tightly over her chest as she glared into the smooth panels of the floor.
“I’m sorry,” he began. He’d said that way too much lately. And he feared he wasn’t quite done.
But she ignored it. “What’s really eating at you?” Her pale grey eyes flashed as she dared him to try to evade her questions again. “And don’t try that ‘I wasn’t in the mood’ jargon again, I know you, Lee Waters.”
And it was his name on her lips that reconfigured the response in his brain. This wasn’t just some girl in his life. This was Kat-fucking-Hanneman, hisco-squadron leadand partner. She was stubborn and wild, and avoid’s-damnedforce that was going to shake his world and demand he meet her halfway regardless if he was ready for it or not.
