“Too much,” Lee said quietly, his shoulders loosening some as the door at the end of the hall opened and closed again, leaving just the two of them.
“They’re losing a good one,” Zane said, finally, meeting Lee’s gaze again. No hint of the seven-year long feud they’d suffered through. No shaming, either. This was one squadron lead to another.
“They’ll be okay. They’ve got you. I imagine your dad’s proud,” Lee offered.
“We’ll see if Dad is around for the ceremony.” Zane shrugged. A gesture that was anything but casual.
In a way, having this conversation with Zane felt almost like a warmup for the explanations he owed Kat. But for reasons he couldn’t explain, he also felt he owed it to Zane to know where he’d ended up. This was more than just posturing. Somehow they’d actually become friends—of a sort.
Lee had run out of energy as quickly as it’d come. He and Zane left the gym at the same time, parting ways when they reached the dorms, and Lee went back to dreading making it through one last raid tomorrow.
CHAPTER 35: KAT
BRIGHT AND early, Kat made her way down through the Heptagon, the still-quiet stirrings of cadets trailing after her. She’d been up with the lights this morning, but she couldn’t help it, the minute her hyperband displayed a reasonable hour, she’d been out that door.
She gripped her arms against the goosebumps pebbling under her suit as she cleared that final staircase, drawing in a tight breath, viscerally unsure what she would find awaiting her. Here goes.
And as she rounded the corner to the central skywalk, her shoulders relaxed. Her body resetting to a more natural rhythm.
He was here.
Silhouetted by the overheads, with a backdrop of stars, Lee stood, staring out at their galaxy. The muscles limning his back were drawn taut, the knuckles on his fingers white where they gripped the railing.
Lee didn’t look up until she was already on the skywalk.
“Kat.”
His brow furrowed. But preoccupied as he appeared to be, it didn’t stop the light that lit his eyes or the slow smile as she drew right up beside him. She braced a hand against the railing to steady her.
“Here we go again,” she said, pleased with how steady her voice had come out. Her heart had started pattering once more in her ears.
Lee sent a soft breath tumbling out of him. “Here we go again,” he echoed, slipping a hand into one of the pockets of his all-terrain suit, like he was toying with a loose bit of lint.
“Did you forget the drinks?” she asked, ready to push back off and head back down to the Canteen if she needed before it filled up—or her heart exploded from her anxiety—whichever came first.
“Oh, sorry, no.” He bent down, scooping up a couple of cans from the grated floor by his feet.
She accepted the one he handed her, but her eyes remained on him. On the conflicting emotions flickering behind his eyes. “I missed you last night,” she said, cataloguing the pain and shock and worry quicker than she could feel them.
“Yeah, sorry,” he said, too quickly to catch his mistake. But she was ready for him. She’d been preparing for this, even before she was fully aware where they were heading.
“And how is your application coming along?” she asked quietly.
His green eyes lifted glacially to meet hers. And even while her heart stuttered, while the oxygen moved in flurries in and out of her lungs, those fervent green eyes pinned her there, their pleading the only thing in the world that mattered right now.
“Kat. I’m not filling out that application.”
Her body released one more shudder, the air settling back in her lungs. “I know that. You’re going to go after them.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he watched her.
She gave him a little half smile.
“Kat, what are you—”
“I’m not filling mine out, either. I’m going with you.”
A pulse vibrated around her heart. If she had a medic’s stethoscope she might have equated it to the vibrations inside Segura the day the AMG attack ships breached their energy fields. Like that day, time seemed to stop, and then speed up again as Lee blinked back at her, the vibrations radiating like the sun blinding his eyes.
