Page 40 of Aviatrix

I stare at the rim of his coffee cup. Not because I care. Because if I look him in the eye, I’ll crack.

“Did you love her?” The question throbs in my throat like a bruise I didn’t know I had.

Lark sets his coffee down slowly. His blue eyes meet mine, an unflinching storm. “No.”

“You had an affair with her for three months,” I press. “You didn’t feel anything?”

“I never said that,” he replies quietly.

My arms cross in front of me. A reflex. A shield. “Did you love me?”

His gaze doesn’t waver. “Yes. I still do, Kin.”

I swallow hard, a lump rising in my throat. “Why’d you do it?”

Lark stands. “A year ago,” he begins, walking closer, “I was on a mission.”

“I remember.” I nod. He lost his best friend during that fated operation. James. They went through the Academy together. Did everything together. He disappeared for days after he got back.

“I made a mistake,” he says quietly. “A small one. The kind that still kills.”

I freeze. I knew he and James were deployed on the mission together, but I never knew James died because of Lark.

“What kind of mistake?” I ask, softer now.

He exhales and rubs the back of his neck. “It was during a nighttime strike. I marked coordinates for a missile raid and relayed them to James’s unit.”

My heart is pounding so hard I can barely hear him. “And?”

“One digit,” he confesses. “I got one digit wrong.”

My stomach drops and I inhale sharply.

“He flew right into the strike zone,” he continues. “I watched it happen.”

“Oh, Lark…” I whisper.

His eyes are rimmed with exhaustion. “I never told anyone it was my fuck up. I let everyone think he messed up. When we buried him, I….”

I want to comfort him, but part of me aches with betrayal. Why didn’t he tell me? Why didn’t he trust me with this?

“What does that have to do with her?” I ask carefully. “With Gina?”

“I spiraled,” he admits, voice flat. “All that guilt... I didn’t know how to carry it. I couldn’t tell you, so maybe I self-sabotaged. Maybe I wanted to ruin everything before I let you down.”

“You could’ve just been honest,” I say, trying to remain even-keeled.

“I know.”

“BREAKING NEWS!” the TV blares behind him, the sudden burst of sound slicing through the tension like a siren through fog. My breath catches. I know, somehow, it’s about to get worse.

“The White House has been attacked by alien fire,” the anchor reports over images of flames and chaos.

My mouth drops open. Onscreen, the first blast turns the South Lawn into a furnace. Trees snap like matchsticks. Windows explode outward in a hail of glass. I clutch the edge of the table as the second missile launches, a silver streak slicing through the screen like an executioner’s blade.

Lark stiffens beside me, staring.

“Amber?” I choke out. His daughter. “Lark, where is Amber?”