Heart of Annihilation

by C. R. Asay

  They stared at each other, a cold surge of energy passing between them as intense as the quiet zapping of the web. What had Vin said about Caz that would make this girl hate her already?

  “Ms. Fisk, actually.” Caz repressed the wholesome urge to rip this pretty girl’s skin from her face. Instead she smiled sweetly. “But, yes, Vin’s wife. Had to keep our dear councilor’s name separate from that of the mutineers didn’t we?”

  The girl gave a tiny squeak at the shameful slur, her eyes widening. Caz sat down on the corner of the desk, leaving the girl with a choice: stay awkwardly near the door, or sit back at her desk with Caz uncomfortably close.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Caz stood and giggled apologetically into her hand. “This is your desk. Please, please. Sit. I’ll take that chair.”

  The girl frowned, keeping her eyes on Caz but not moving.

  “Do you know how long Vin’s going to be?” Caz settled in a chair across the room.

  She’d met the girl, sized her up, and discovered why Vin would risk her displeasure—again. She tried to feel grateful that he’d chosen to put his efforts into infidelity, rather than the dangerous track he’d been heading down with the Liberated Rage Movement. Of course he’d no longer have his prestigious job if he got too deeply involved, especially now that the idiotic faction had staged a riot that had destroyed a RAGE portal, just so they could “rescue” a few condemned Rethans. That a marshal had lost his life during the incident destroyed any hope of the movement ever gaining the support of the common citizen.

  But apparently in Vin’s eyes it was better to destroy your spouse than your career.

  She glared at the web covering the entrance to his office. She could deal with his perky little mistress later.

  “He won’t be long.” Zell reclaimed her desk. “He’s in with his esteemed father, the commandant, but the commandant has a meeting in a few minutes. They’ll be out soon.”

  “Thank you.” Caz placed her hands in her lap. She curled her fingers together, forcing them into stillness. A young male marshal entered the office. He placed papers in front of Zell and they chatted pleasantly while Caz stared at the web covering the door, straining to make out the argument. Nothing. Time ticked by. The crackling voices from the other room intensified, and Caz was able to pick out the word “annihilation.” Or maybe that was just the word she heard everywhere. She absently drew a half circle on her knee with her finger and then tapped the spot where the center should be. The Rethan symbol for annihilation.

  “Mrs. Pa—I mean Ms. Fisk?” Zell startled her.

  The marshal had left, and they were alone again.

  Caz turned to the girl, her eyebrows high. A smile played on her lips. “Please, call me Caz.”

  “Caz. Um, right.” Zell pushed some hair out of her eyes. “Councilor Paliyo needs to leave shortly after this meeting. I can only give you a few minutes with him.”

  “Give me a few minutes?” Caz smirked.

  “Well, a meeting concerning munitions is not on the schedule—”

  Caz stood abruptly, causing Zell to lean back in her seat. Her eyes widened in alarm.

  “I understand. Believe me. There’s such a stigma attached to being a mutineer. But you know, people aren’t always what they seem.” She arched an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Zell opened her mouth, but before she could respond the net of voltage covering the doorway brightened, and Commandant Paliyo stepped through. He brushed shivering strands of electricity from his shoulders before catching sight of Caz. He halted.

  “Cazandra.” Deep-seated hatred lay in the cold acknowledgement.

  Caz returned the gaze. The feeling was mutual. “Looks like you could use a charge of serenity, Commandant.”

  Zell leapt from her seat and rushed over to close the door’s circuit. The web vanished. Vin stood in the doorway, a younger, thinner, and more handsome version of his father. Beside him another figure slunk out. Vin’s younger brother, Ricks, clutched a pile of devices most likely belonging to his esteemed father. The commandant wrenched his gaze away from Caz to glare at his son.

  “This is nonnegotiable, Vincent. Do it!” Commandant Paliyo turned and exited the outer office, trailing crackling threads of electricity from his robes.

  Vin watched his father leave. Ricks went to follow, his shoulders hunched. He was usually hunched for some reason that no amount of serenity could penetrate. Poor lad had fallen through the utopian cracks.

  “Hey, Ricks,” Caz said cheerily.

  He jumped, as though a million amps had shot up his spine. The load in his arms fell to the floor and clattered in every direction. Caz gave him a wide smile, loathing him with the same amount of passion that she loved Vin.

  He didn’t answer but knelt to gather his scattered items. Caz folded her arms, preparared to goad him a few more times. Vin stepped through the door, inadvertently saving his anode-kissing brother.

  “Caz, what in Gauss’s law are you doing here?” Vin looked flustered and aggravated. Not himself.

  “Can we talk?” Caz kept her voice neutral.

  Vin harrumphed noncommittally and turned to Zell. “I have to leave in ten minutes. I’m sending the information to your monitor. Get the specs in order.” Vin kicked an IFOD closer to his brother. “Get it together, Ricks.” He turned without another word and disappeared into his office.

  Zell smiled at Vin’s back, glanced at Caz, and then dropped to her knees to help Ricks. Caz followed Vin into his office and set a charge to the door. The web brightened the room. Vin hunched over his desk, meticulously packing a silver case.

  “Where’s his honor, Esteemed-Unto-Himself, sending you this time?” Caz asked.

  “Ather.”

  She grabbed Vin’s arm and yanked him around. Zell, the new deputy. Their romantic dinners on the shore. The sweet way they’d leaned together. The complete disregard for Caz and her claim on her husband. All of that was forgotten.

  “The hell he is,” Caz snarled.

  They glared into each other’s eyes with an intensity only possible those who have shared a life.

  “I don’t have time for this.” Vin pried her fingers from his arm and turned back to his case.

  “Make time.”

  Vin answered into his desk. “There’s been some damage to the dimensional fabric. That’s all. Ather’s as safe as any lower dimension.”

  “Are you serious?” Caz wanted to shout, but the last thing they needed were the marshals in here. She lowered her voice. “They’re already under level thirteen surveillance and now you’re telling me they have dimensional tears? They’re as good as dead.”

  “My father feels there’s a diplomatic solution.”

  “Diplomatic solution my ass!”

  Vin slammed the case shut with a growl. He pressed his palms to his desk, shoulders high.

  In an angry sweep he cleared the top of his desk. Com drives, INFODs decorative dishes, lamps, lighters, and even his silver case clinked, clattered, and crackled against the walls and floor. He turned on her, his eyes sparking.

  “This is my job, Caz! The commandant orders me to save a dimension and that’s what I do! And guess what, sweetheart, I’m damn good at it!”

  “Damn good at abandoning your family every chance you get!” Caz fed off of his anger, turning it back on him. “And for what? For some scrawny quean with lips like a coaxial cable?”

  Shock jolted through his face. This wasn’t the first time one of Vin’s indiscretions was discovered. Just the first time Vin had gone to extreme lengths to hide it, or reacted badly when faced with the accusation. Caz narrowed her eyes. This wasn’t the way they played the game. There was something more to his deception this time.

  “Don’t talk to me about abandonment.” Vin jabbed his finger at her. “What do you do every single day? Abandon Manny? Hide out in your lab?”

  “You want me in the lab! You told me so yourself. ‘Get the weapon done.’ ‘Is it done yet, Caz?’ ‘When will that wea
pon be done?’” Caz felt as if her heart were going to burst from her chest. It was usually about this point their personal silentiary marshal was called in to pry them apart and dose them with serenity.

  “I can’t do this right now.” Vin turned away from her and knelt. He brushed aside the scattered debris to retrieve the case he’d packed. He set it back on his desk, opened it, and checked the tossed contents.

  He was really leaving again. Caz could deal with the infidelity. She could deal with the lies and even the distance growing between them every day. What she couldn’t deal with was losing the other player in the game. She exhaled her animosity and softened her voice.

  “Don’t go, Vin,” Caz said. He turned and leaned against his desk. “What makes you think Ather isn’t going to end up like the other six?”

  Vin scrubbed his hands across his face in uncharacteristic indecision. Then he looked Caz in the eyes.

  “If there’s a diplomatic solution, I’ll find it.”

  Of course he would. He was Vin. Nothing was impossible to him. He was so assured, so confident. So perfect. And yet she could feel the tension in him, telling her that something was wrong. This was something bigger than an affair. Something that would keep them apart. She raised her hand, hesitated, and then brushed a lock of his hair back into place.

  With a half sigh, half growl, Vin rolled his eyes, grabbed her shoulders, and pressed his lips roughly to hers. She wrapped her arms around him and set her teeth to his bottom lip, tasting the metal of his mouth. Caz pulled away first.

  “Caz.” He rested his forehead against hers, caressing the lobe of her ear between his finger and thumb. “I’m asking you, no, pleading with you. Finish that weapon, whatever it takes.”

  He released her, slammed the case shut, and locked it with a charge. In one movement he swung the case from his desk and disappeared through the crackling web.

  Finish the weapon? Caz pressed her hands against her head until an ache started in her temples. No, “take care of our son?” No, “I’ll be back before you know it?” Not even an, “I love you.” It was, “finish that weapon whatever it takes.”

  Caz slapped her hand to the doorframe, absorbing the energy of the web. She paused in the doorway. Vin’s shoe vanished around the corner. Only then did she realize she wasn’t alone with Zell.

  Xander stooped in the center of the room, holding Manny’s hand. The five-year-old’s fingers were dwarfed in his uncle’s hand. Zell crouched before them, her uniform pulled tight against her scrawny ass, an adoring smile stretched across her insipid face. As she spoke to the boy in sticky tones, Xander reached up and touched Zell’s face.

  Caz’s stomach dropped, adding weight to the load already there. How could she have missed this? They were too familiar with each other. Not familiar—familial.

  She felt apart. Already abandoned by Vin, and now by the one person she never thought possible.

  Only Manny saw her standing there. Did she still have the dregs of anger on her face? It didn’t seem to matter to her son, because he pushed past his uncle and raced to her. She caught him under his arms and squeezed him to her. He giggled in her ear, rubbing his chubby cheek against hers.

  She didn’t deserve his love, and her guilt nearly overpowered her affection for this little creature. She squeezed him tighter. It would be all right. He would never abandon her. Not like Vin. Not like Xander. The liars.

  CHAPTER 14

  Rose

  “Rose!”

  The word drew me away from the darkness. Light and heat scorched my eyelids. Dad?

  “Rose! Dammit, where are you?”

  The voice raced across the unknown, responding to my silent question. No, not Dad. Dad wouldn’t call me Rose. Or swear. There was quiet again.

  “Rose!”

  “Thurmond.” My voice croaked. I pried my eyes open and found myself staring into a bush, body leaning against a large boulder.

  My limbs were rigid and achy. My cheeks felt wet. I brushed a hand across the moisture on my face. My other hand hung limp and numb beside me.

  “Rose!” Thurmond finally came into sight. I rolled my eyes upward to see him better, blinking rapidly to clear my vision. Dust covered one side of his uniform, clinging to what looked like a lot of blood. He held a rifle in his hands. My rifle? I dropped my eyes to my empty hands.

  “I’m so sorry. The wind caught the chute and dragged me way in the other direction, and when I got back to the place where I dropped you . . . I’ve been tracking you for hours. Where the hell did you think you were going?” He fell to his knees beside me. Thurmond lightly touched the blood-saturated handkerchief.

  “Ah—” I exhaled in anticipation of his touch.

  “Dammit, Rose, you’re bleeding all over the place.” He retracted his hand, his eyes wide. Then his brows descended and his voice changed to deep anger. “What’d you let that little ass shoot you for?”

  “What?”

  “You couldn’t have shot him first or something?” He pulled off his camouflage jacket with angry yanks, balled it up, and pushed it none too gently against my shoulder.

  “H-hold on—” I gasped, clenching my eyes shut.

  “That’s what rifles are for, you know.”

  I wanted to cry, but I could barely swallow.

  “And here we are, out in the desert without so much as a field bandage.” He took a deep breath and released it noisily. When he spoke again, it was with the cool calm I associated with Thurmond’s military efficiency. “Let’s get this bleeding stopped.”

  I peeked from under teary lids to see Thurmond pulling his t-shirt over his head. He pressed it flat across his lap, folding it over several times.

  Some distant, semi-conscious part of me wanted to admire his flat stomach, with its hint of a six-pack and well-defined chest, sun glistening in the beads of sweat nestled among the trivial amount of chest hair. It was nice here in semi-consciousness. Nice and toned.

  Thurmond removed the wadded jacket from my shoulder and pressed the neatly-folded, brown t-shirt on top of my saturated handkerchief. Fiery shards of pain brought my fingers to life, burning up across my chest, returning me to full consciousness.

  “Ow! Thurmond. Ow. Ouch,” I whimpered my way into a pained silence.

  “Hold this here.”

  My hand was shaking but I managed to locate the folded shirt and hold it in place. Thurmond pulled a knife off his belt. He cut and tore the sleeves off of his camouflage jacket and then ripped them into long strips.

  I was aware, in an abstract way, of Thurmond tying the shirt to my shoulder with the strips of fabric he’d cut from the camouflage.

  “Th-thanks.” I rubbed my eyes with a finger and thumb. “You know, for the bandage, and the lecture.”

  “After following your trail for damn near eternity, I figured it couldn’t be so bad . . . even after all the blood you left. I mean, you made it this far.” That sounded suspiciously respectful. His tone softened. “Sorry I yelled.”

  “S’okay.”

  Thurmond sat back on his heels, an uncertain twitch at the corner of his mouth. His hands were covered in blood and lay palm up on his knees, as though he didn’t know what to do with them. After a moment he rubbed his palms on his pants and then rose to his feet. He slid his arms through the gaping holes of his sleeveless camouflage jacket and fastened it with unhurried, meticulous fingers. I blinked away the haze and started to push myself to my feet.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Getting up.”

  The world fuzzed and darkened. Thurmond called my name from somewhere at the end of a long tunnel, his voice growing louder and louder. The earth under my feet became concrete, the sun hot atop my head, and the arms around my back more than an ethereal presence. My face was pressed against a solid, warm body. I opened my eyes to find myself leaning against Thurmond’s chest, one of his arms tight around my back and his voice loud in my ears. I breathed in his scent of soap and sweat.

  “S�
�all good. S’okay.” I pushed away from his chest, and he released me with the greatest reluctance. One of his hands remained tight on my arm. I held my other close to my body. “Where’re we?”

  “Sonoran desert. Somewhere in the vicinity of Fort Huachuca, if I were to guess.” Thurmond sounded worried. “We fell out of the plane. Don’t you remember?”

  “Of course I remember.” The words came out clearer now. “I was just wondering how close we are to the tower?”

  “Oh. Yeah, it’s right there.” He rubbed his hand across his scalp, turning his eyes to the left. I followed his gaze. Storm clouds behind the tower swathed the tops of the mountains, roiling deep and close. “Once I figured out that’s where you were heading, you were easier to track. I’m gonna go see what I can find.”

  You want answers? You’ll find them there, said the voice.

  “Okay, then. Let’s go. Just, you know, don’t let me fall and bash my head open or anything.” I made to move, but Thurmond held me back.

  “You’re not going anywhere, Rose.”

  “I’m fine. It’ll be fine.” I blinked away the fog. “I’ll just walk with you ’til the ambulance arrives.”

  “I’ll be much faster if I don’t have to drag you along.” He wasn’t looking at me anymore but studying the landscape, his mind making the heroic trek for help.

  “I told you, I can walk.”

  “We’re wasting time.”

  “I just—”

  “What?” He finally looked at me. Irritation and worry tightened his mouth.

  I felt about ten years old, pestering Dad to get him to take me with him on his business trip to California, rather than having to stay with a sitter. “No, Krissy, the DLA’s not a place for little girls. Too scary,” he’d said, his expression stern, his eyes distant. “I’ll only be a few days.” The few days turned into an unprecedented few weeks, and my grudge lasted a few months beyond that. His face was haunted every time I’d brought it up, and he’d never left me that long again.