by R. M. Olson
When she was finished, they sat in silence for a few minutes. His hand rested lightly on her shoulder, and the warmth of it was comforting.
“You know, Jez,” he said finally, “I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this. But not being ready for a relationship doesn’t make you a crap person.”
She pulled her face out of her arms and stared at him. “I—” she began dully, but couldn’t seem to find the words to continue.
Tae gave her a reluctant smile. “Jez. Look. You told Lev you didn’t want to be with him right now. Fine. That happens. And you walked in on him kissing someone else, which—OK, but—Look, Jez. It’s—it’s going to be alright.” He turned a little, so he was facing her. “I don’t know what we have to do to convince you of this, but you’re part of this damn crew. We’re not going to leave you, or kick you out, or take off without you, OK? One day you’re going to figure that out. And no one is going to suddenly hate you because you said you didn’t want to kiss them anymore. Not even Lev, and you know how much of an idiot he can be.”
She was still staring at him.
Because—well, because honestly, that had been the whole damn point of getting drunk. Because she’d screwed everything up with Lev, and everyone would hate her, and he’d hate her, and she couldn’t handle that, and—well, she just couldn’t, that was all. She couldn’t handle her damn life without Lev in it.
“Lev won’t—” she began at last. “I mean, he’s not going to—”
Tae gave a soft chuckle, shaking his head. “No, Jez. He won’t. He’ll get over himself, and he’s not going to hate you.” He smiled at her. “You should get some sleep. You look like you need it.”
“I—”
“Go on.” He stood. “Goodnight, Jez. See you in the morning.”
He left, closing the door behind him, and she collapsed back onto her mattress and stared up at the ceiling.
His words were spinning in her head.
And despite—well, despite everything—they kindled something warm and comfortable that spread from her stomach up through her chest and caught in her throat, and somehow—well, somehow, maybe he was right. Maybe things would be OK after all.
Masha sat up in bed, propping herself against the heavy headboard. After a moment she tapped her com, pulling up the holoscreen.
She’d been right—no matter how weary and battered her body was, her mind wasn’t going to let her sleep.
Besides, she had plenty of work to do still. What Lev and Jez had done, planting the explosive, was just the beginning, really. The pieces were falling into place, but she still had to play them.
And she intended to.
But somehow, as she tapped away on her holoscreen keyboard, she couldn’t stop seeing Tae’s face, hearing Jez’s last words to her before she slipped out the door.
Don’t screw this one up for me.
She set her jaw.
This was what she’d been preparing for her whole life, ever since she was seven years old.
And it wasn’t just her. It wasn’t just a personal grudge. The fate of millions, perhaps billions of people hinged on the decisions she would make in the next few weeks. She owed it to them to make those decisions as practically and logically as possible, weighing and measuring according to calculations that she’d learned to use over her seventeen years of working in the government, never once letting her revulsion, her fear, her disgust show through the pleasant expression on her face.
All for this.
All for this, and for what would come next. Because taking down Grigory? That was something that would rock this system to its foundations. And that was only the beginning. What she was planning would take this entire system apart.
And yet—
And yet, somehow, those seven people in the room next door. Her crew.
Lev was right, she’d known they wouldn’t agree to this, and so she’d forced their hands. Just like she’d planned to from the beginning.
But it wasn’t like it had been in the beginning, not anymore.
For some reason, their lives—their thoughts, their feelings, Tae’s look of betrayal and Jez’s look of grudging trust—put a heavy finger on a scale that was supposed to be—had to be—impartial.
And the cold irrefutability of that terrified her beyond what she’d dreamed possible.
THE END
The 6th book in The Ungovernable series, Trojan Horse, will be coming out on Amazon in November.
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