Page 288 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

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Under the safety of Zaitsev’s wraparound, Lachlan and Blaire talk that same night while she works on the schedule and he drinks black coffee.

Danya is guarding Mimi.

Lachlan can’t look him in the eyes.

‘We need to bring Vasily,’ Lachlan says quietly.

Blaire doesn’t look up from her work. ‘I know.’

‘If anything happens to me—’

‘Don’t start that.’

‘You need to take care of him too, all right?’

Her pen stops.

When Blaire finally looks up, her green eyes simmer with barely restrained irritation. Sometimes Lachlan wonders if this is genuinely what it’s like to have a sister. She seems pissed off at him by default most times.

‘Very well,’ she says. ‘Let us discuss what you must do should I die.’

‘What?’

‘You’re so eager to organise the rest of us around your absence. It seems only fair that we plan for mine.’

‘Blaire—’

‘When I die, you must take care of the children for me. Show them a photograph and tell them how good I was, how deeply I loved them and how desperately I wish I could have stayed to watch them grow.’ She leans back, arms crossed. ‘Make a martyr of me that haunts them, won’t you?’

‘That’s low.’

‘What’s low is the expectation you place upon me while absolving yourself of any future effort. Danya is right.’

‘I’m not absolving myself of anything, and fuck Danya Yashin. I’m preparing for all outcomes. Any good soldier would.’

‘Need I remind you a good soldier is often a terrible man.’

‘Don’t give me this shit right now. We both know it has to be this coming year, and we both need to be pragmatic.’

‘Pragmatism would be constructing a plan in which its architect remains alive.’

‘I’m trying.’

‘You are preparing to fail.’

‘I’m preparing you in case I do.’

She makes a sound of mild disgust. ‘How fast men run towards unlikely death, emerging as heroes.’

There’s no lasting honour once the body cools.

Lachlan looks away. ‘Heroes don’t have kill counts.’

‘Your suicidal ideations are of no interest to me, Lachlan. I cannot state clearly enough that without you, Mimi will not—’

‘I can’t do this right now, OK?’ He gets up, head spinning, heart a wreck. ‘I just can’t. We’ll talk later. I’m sorry.’