Page 61 of Aviatrix

“She’ll have apple,” Walker decides, barely loud enough for all of us to hear.

Eli exhales. “I’ll take pecan.”

The man, Walker, raises an unruly eyebrow. “Good choice.”

“You’re a retired aviator,” Eli makes small talk.

“Maybe.” Walker narrows his gold eyes. “What are you?”

“Me?” Eli shrugs. “Just a guy looking for some answers.”

“You think you’ve come to the right place?” Walker chuckles harshly.

“Not sure yet,” he responds with the same blasé attitude.

We’re seriously going to be here all day.

“We ordered pie,” I cut in, irritation flaring. “We heard you might know something about the Legion.”

Walker exhales heavily. “She your little thing?” he directs to Eli.

I bark out a laugh before I can stop myself, half-shock, half-disbelief.

Eli says, “She was once,” at the same time I say, “I’m no one’s little thing.”

“Feisty,” Walker notes, dragging on his cigarette. “I had a feisty little thing once.”

“Yeah?” Eli says as I let out an exaggerated groan.

“Thought maybe I should settle down with someone a little less… vocal. But she was boring. They’re so boring when they’re not feisty.”

I don’t know who—or what—this is, but if Walker knew something once upon a time, it’s clear he’s gone off the deep end now. Maybe he’s a quack. He’s no use to us. Not anymore.

“We should—” I say, but Eli reaches over and covers my hand with his, giving my fingers a tight squeeze.

“Were you stationed in Kyrgyzstan with the Colonel?” Eli asks him.

Walker snuffs out his cigarette, then leans back in the booth. “Who do you work for? Do you work them?”

Eli shakes his head, just barely, and I catch it out of the corner of my eye. “I would never work for those bastards.”

Walker smiles. “They did things to me,” he begins in a voice too calm for what he says next.

Eli’s fingers tangle with mine, his arm resting across my chest still, like a shield. What does he know that I don’t?

“Experiments,” Walker continues. “Crazy things. They kidnapped me. For two whole years, I was up there.” He points to the ceiling, his yellow fingers twitching as he does. “I thought they were going to kill me. They didn’t. They should have. No one believes me. And the ones who do, they forced me out. They made me nothing. They left me here to rot.”

My heart pounds in my ears. Is he talking about the aliens? About leadership?

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” I say to Walker. “I believe you.”

He blinks rapidly. “The Colonel believed me.”

The silence that follows his story is thick. Smoke coils through the booth like a ghost refusing to leave. I don’t dare look at Eli. I don’t dare look away from Walker.

The pie arrives, interrupting our exchange.

The waitress slides the plate toward Walker like she’s done it a hundred times. He picks up his fork but doesn’t eat. Just stares at me with those gold eyes like he’s waiting for me to ask the real question.