by Lyn Gala
“I should have known.” Looking back, Tank could see all the signs. Roger had flinched away from him in public, but then they would sneak out at night and much touching would be had.
Lev sighed. “I assume you know about my whole unrequited thing for Clyde.”
“You called out his name during sex that first time. It was a little hard to miss,” Tank admitted.
“And thank you for not taking the first opportunity to kick me to the curb after that.” The color started to rise in Lev’s face, and Tank rested his palm on Lev’s hand. He understood embarrassment. There were few things in the world he comprehended better.
“You can’t control who you want.”
“Actually, research suggests that….” Lev let his words trail off before he sighed. “And even after all this time, I’m still avoiding the emotions and getting clinical.” He shook his head. “When we were on the ship, we were always together. We slept pressed up against each other, and we both sought a little comfort. But my point is that Clyde wasn’t a jerk about it. When I told him how I felt, he was very honest about the fact that he loved me as a friend and respected me as an engineer and trusted me as a teammate, but that he wasn’t built to want me as a lover. I know Roger was a kid, but if he was old enough to engage in human sacrifice, he was old enough to have that conversation, either with you or with Ellie.”
“Did we leave the point somewhere?” Tank asked.
Lev got up and reached for his pants. “Nope. You’re feeling guilty about hurting Ellie and nervous about facing Marie. I’m pointing out that Roger gets to carry all the blame. Even if Marie wants to blame you, her desire is completely illogical and unfair to you.”
Tank was pretty sure Marie thought that on her better days, but Marie and Ellie had been best friends just like Roger and Tank had been best friends before the whole pants-groping and then human-sacrifice parts of the relationship. “Can you give that speech to Marie?” Tank asked with a weak laugh as he looked at her terse text message.
Lev turned and rested his hands on Tank’s shoulders. “I’ll give you that speech as many times as needed for you to believe it. That way, no matter what she says, you’ll still hold on to the truth.”
Tank nodded. It was funny, but fighting aliens or demons scared him way less than facing his friends. However, he still grabbed his phone and texted her. “She wants to meet near Hester and Mulberry, at a coffeehouse. Is that near here?” Last night Tank had been so worn out that he hadn’t even paid attention to what part of town they were in. If he was honest with himself, he had to admit that he hadn’t been too upset at the thought of jail.
“Not far,” Lev said. “Let me call and see if we can get some backup.”
“It’s just to talk. I don’t think we need backup against Marie.” Tank knew she could sometimes get a little cranky, but he wasn’t physically afraid of her. Any damage she did would be of the emotional kind. She could throw an insult like a dagger to the stomach. He would say heart, only Marie’s insults tended to gut a person and leave them psychologically bleeding for long periods of time. There was no quick death from her tongue. Then again, Zhu was the same in a quieter sort of way, where you’d realize you’d been insulted a day later. Maybe the aliens were breeding a new species of insult warriors who could win space battles by driving the enemy home to cry on their commanding officers.
“Tank, we’re in the middle of a major incursion. We need backup. I’ll see if Clyde can send one of the team. I’m sure he kept everyone on scene.”
Tank thought it was a waste of time, but since Lev wasn’t asking his opinion, he got dressed, retrieved his knife, and tried to make himself look presentable. Thank God for the military-short hair. In high school, his mop of curls had taken a good half hour to tame down with water and spray conditioners. Now he got in and out of the bathroom in ten minutes.
Lev was already off the phone. “Washington is coming with us.”
“Washington?”
“Lieutenant Gavin Washington—black man, tall, obsessed with the Atlanta Falcons. He’ll stay in the background and tail us to avoid being identified as our backup, but he’ll report to Clyde if anything suspicious happens.”
“Like an alien abducting us in the middle of Manhattan?”
Lev narrowed his eyes. “Hey, I got kidnapped at a fairly obscure airport in Canada. Don’t underestimate the enemy.”
Tank didn’t. Sorta. He’d fought demons, and he’d seen fighting so ugly it made him want to hide under his covers and never come out again. But when he tried to make that mental jump to aliens, it just seemed more… not that scary. And that was definitely something he planned to never tell Lev, not with Lev’s history on the slave ship. Hordes of attacking spiders versus gladiator fights on slave ships. Tank had gotten the sweet end of that deal, and he’d never thought he’d say that about demonic spiders.
“Are we ready?” Tank asked. “I don’t have a change of clothes, so this is as fresh as I’m getting.”
“I’ll have someone bring you civvies, but since your uniform is wrinkled enough to pass for a hipster special from a thrift store, I think we’re good.”
“Are you complimenting my wrinkles?” Tank tried to smooth his shirt down. It was sort of a disaster. In basic they would have read him the riot act.
“Yes.” Lev sounded amused.
“Okay, just checking. Since I don’t know where we are, I’ll let you lead the way.”
Lev pulled on a baseball cap and headed for the door. “Follow me.”
It was surreal being back in New York. The smells of cars and hot asphalt and street food were the same. The rush of people, the deeply shaded streets and endless construction barriers on the sidewalks were all the same. And yet everything was different. They were almost to the coffee shop when Marie stepped out and gestured for them to follow her into an alley that led to the service lane for a hotel.
“Seriously?” Lev asked as he stood in the middle of the sidewalk and pointedly didn’t follow.
Tank passed Lev in order to follow her. “It’s fine. It means she doesn’t want an audience.”
“Great,” Lev said in a toneless voice, but he followed.
Marie stood in the shadows next to a Dumpster with her hands in her jeans pockets. She had her red curls slicked back into a ponytail, and she was wearing a crop top and heavy boots. In other words she had on her ass-kicking clothes. Tank felt a little frisson of fear as he wondered if she knew about some danger that the rest of them hadn’t noticed.
“Tank,” she said. After that, they all fell into a weird, awkward silence that made Tank feel like he was back in high school. Lev broke the spell.
“Hi, I’m Lev Underwood. I work with Colonel Aldrich and Tank.” Lev gave her a charming smile,
She ignored him and focused on Tank. “Have you told them everything?”
“Um… no?” Tank said.
From the way Marie’s eyes narrowed, she didn’t believe him, but Tank was being almost honest. He hadn’t given them everything—the military had known more everything than Marie and the gang had from the start.
Lev took a step forward, and Marie immediately focused on him. “Colonel Aldrich gets it, you know? He understands that Tank couldn’t tell us about your war, and he didn’t. Colonel Aldrich also knows you aren’t the bad guys here.”
“Then leave, so Zhu and I can deal with this shit without worrying about you getting underfoot,” Marie said with characteristic bluntness.
“Ah, we can’t. This is actually our job—but we can work together. After all, the unit brings a lot of resources that could help, especially with Zhu’s father making a more complex threat.” Lev gave her a boyish smile that belied his age.
“You don’t understand what’s going on. Zhu and I can handle his father,” Marie snapped. Marie tended to assume she could handle whatever the demon world threw at her, but Tank wasn’t as sure she was ready to battle aliens. She turned to Tank. “We don’t need you in this fight.”
/> The bitterness in those words cut Tank, and Ellie’s ghost stood there between the Dumpster and the loading dock for the hotel.
“Tank is not going to be in this fight. He needs time off to recover from the trauma all of you have suffered,” Lev said after another awkward silence. Tank felt guilty about making Lev carry the conversation, but he couldn’t think of one thing to say to Marie, and they couldn’t exactly commiserate about Ms. Young and her stupid culinary-arts homework anymore.
“Hey, don’t make me sound like an invalid,” Tank tried joking. Immediately he wished he had just kept his mouth shut.
Lev looked at Tank, and the worry made Lev’s eyes squinch up at the edges. “Tank, I love the hell out of you, but you know you’re not ready for the battlefield—and if you even think of getting involved, I’m sitting on you and tattling to Clyde. Worse, I’m tattling to John. You know he respects you, but he is not going to let a warrior go into a battle too fatigued to give his best. If you even try, John is going to make you train until you’re one giant bruise.”
Tank opened his mouth to argue, but honestly he couldn’t say much because it was all kinda true. Now that Tank thought about it, John had spent quite a lot of time during training talking about mental preparedness. And Tank had laughed most of it off, pointing out that the mental part wasn’t really for him.
Marie bristled. “Who do you think you are, talking to Tank that way?” And here came the dysfunctional love. Marie might have an issue with him, but she wasn’t going to let anyone else get cranky.
“The man who loves him and shares his bed,” Lev shot right back. “And the man who realizes that human beings need a break. He’s gone from one fight to another. That is not allowed in a military command, and if Clyde had any idea that Tank was coming out of a serious battle zone, he would have mandated some R and R, because even the strongest soldiers develop PTSD and need time to recover from a fight.”
Tank cringed.
Marie drew herself up straighter. “Maybe you care, but don’t pretend the government cares. They don’t. And don’t act like they have all this demon-fighting shit figured out. How many projects has the government fucked up? Do you really think you can handle this?”
Lev crossed his arms. “The government put a man on the moon, created a nationwide infrastructure of roads and bridges, fought and won wars, and has kept the lights on and the country running for centuries. Do you really think you’re more qualified than men and women who have been at this for fifty years?”
Marie cringed. Tank knew her. She was pushy and loud and demanded respect, in part because way too many people refused to give it, but she wasn’t heartless or stupid. “Okay, maybe you have some advantages,” she admitted. “So what exactly do you do in this secret program?”
“It’s classified.”
“Classified?” Marie looked ready to drop-kick Lev through a wall. Then she turned that glare on Tank.
He held up his hands in surrender, which was the only logical response when Marie got pissed. “Don’t look at me. I’m the official potato peeler and dishwasher.”
“Are you a cook like Steven Seagal was a cook when he had to save the ship from terrorists? Because if that’s anywhere close to the kind of stuff you’re talking about, I am going to kick someone’s ass for putting you in the middle of a really bad B movie.”
“Seriously? Are you seriously asking if I went Steven Seagal on someone?” Tank gave Marie his most incredulous look. “I’m more the kind to go Barney Fife on someone. And yeah, there were one or two Fife moments that led me to landing in the middle of all these secrets, but I’m not going to tell you their secrets any more than I would tell them yours.” By the end, Tank was way louder than he’d intended, and anger stained his voice.
“Tank.” She said his name in such a soft, wounded tone that Tank immediately felt two inches tall.
Lev jumped into the awkward void that followed. “We all want to do the right thing here, but unfortunately, Tank and I don’t have the authority to tell you about the program. That’s something you need to talk to Colonel Aldrich about. After all, Tank and I are together. Biblically. Enthusiastically. And when I asked him point-blank what was going on, he evaded the question and made jokes to avoid betraying you. I didn’t push it. I would think you would show him the same courtesy by not putting him in the middle.” Lev pressed his lips together in a stubborn line, and Tank held his breath as the immovable object met the irresistible force. Marie seemed frozen. The moment drew out, and Lev grew tenser. Then irresistible won.
Marie sighed dramatically and drooped. “So you’re saying I should torture the information out of the colonel.” She looked a little enthusiastic about that.
“Given that Clyde was a POW, you might want to avoid the word ‘torture,’” Lev advised, and Marie flinched. Yeah, jokes were less joke-like when actual torture entered the picture.
“Point taken,” Marie said, wrinkling her nose. “I just don’t like the idea of the government being in our business. Me and schools, me and police, me and any governmental agency are destined to hate each other. It’s a rule. And as much as I’m not into rules, that’s one that has always stood the test of time.”
“Hatred of rules must be contagious. Private Tankersley has the same virus.”
Tank whirled around to find Colonel Aldrich coming down the far end of the alley. “I heard you guys were having a fun meeting without me.”
“You know us,” Lev said in a tone that suggested all was well and he didn’t have a care in the world. Tank was pretty sure that was totally faked. “We weren’t going to get the real party started until you came.”
Colonel Aldrich spread his hands. “Well, I’m here. Lev, head over to the BoO and take the private with you.”
“You got it,” Lev said.
“But—” Tank started to say; however, Lev physically yanked him toward the street. Rather than fight Lev, Tank walked. “We aren’t going to leave them alone, are we?” Tank thought that was a really bad idea. Monumentally bad, even.
“We’re not getting in the middle,” Lev said firmly.
“Talk to you later!” Tank called back to Marie—but Marie and the colonel were focused on each other, the way pit bulls in a dog fight focused right before trying to kill each other. Tank couldn’t do anything about that disaster, so he turned his attention to where Lev was taking them. “What’s a BoO?”
“Base of Operations. The Thurgood Marshall Courthouse. Now let’s get out of here before Clyde gets crankier.”
Tank figured when even the colonel’s best friend wanted to get out of the way, retreat was probably the best option. He still felt guilty.
Chapter Twenty-One
CLYDE WAITED as Lev got Private Tankersley out of the engagement zone. The private wasn’t ready to deal with all this, and Clyde should have vetoed them leaving the hotel. However, he also understood he was in some unknown waters with Marie and Zhu. Who knew what skills the two modified humans brought to the table, and Clyde did not want to turn them into enemies.
More than that, he wanted their help. John did the work of three highly trained combat specialists. When the aliens genetically modified someone, they did one hell of a job, so Clyde was thinking about recruitment.
He just wasn’t sure how to handle it.
The last time Clyde had tried dealing with this age group, his ex-wife had called to tell him that his daughter’s fiancé had broken up with her on her birthday. Intimidation had been involved, ending with Clyde’s daughter threatening him after the boy had gone crying to her. Clyde had been in the doghouse when the fiancé had become his son-in-law. In short, Clyde had no illusions about being able to deal logically with young people.
And that included Tankersley. Clyde generally didn’t get recruits in his unit until they’d seen some combat. So Clyde wasn’t sure if it was lack of time in the Army or a screwed-up childhood that had left Tankersley so damn odd.
Once Lev and Tankersley turned the corner,
John came out of the shadows at the opposite end of the alley, and Marie’s gaze went straight to John.
Yep, the aliens had given her some serious upgrades. “Byrne, right?” Clyde asked. She didn’t answer. “Colonel Clyde Aldrich. You can call me Clyde, but no South Park jokes. If you must know, my mother was obsessed with Bonnie and Clyde.” Clyde grinned at her.
“I didn’t need to know,” Marie said.
If Clyde wasn’t already impressed as hell at what she had survived, he would have disliked her a little for that. Maybe John sensed Clyde’s aggravation, because he started coming down the alley.
“Now that we know about each other, why don’t you let Tank come home?” Marie asked. That was not where Clyde had thought they would start. He’d actually been prepared for her to ask for rocket launchers and automatic weaponry. After all, they’d taken out an alien avatar with fertilizer and a stolen fireworks display. That did suggest a certain lack of weaponry.
“Tank joined the military. It’s a four-year thing.”
“He only joined because he lost someone.”
“Yep, I got that, although I don’t know if you’re talking about Roger Fischer or Ellie Richmond.”
Marie lost most of the color in her face, which made all her freckles stand out even more. Clyde knew he was acting like an ass, but he didn’t have time to hold her hand. Sadler had found signs of a massive incursion. At least twenty avatars were active, as well as a number of pieces of large equipment she couldn’t identify from the scans. General Zeller had signed off on bringing in more soldiers, and if they managed to shut down this hub without losing anyone, Clyde would be shocked and Lev would have enough new toys to keep him happy for a lifetime.
Yep, Clyde had his plate full worrying about his own people. “Come on, let’s talk in the car where we aren’t going to get overheard.” He started toward the end of the alley where John waited.
“This is our fight,” Marie called after him.