by Jaci Wheeler
“What the hell?” I ask, half stunned half pissed.
“Where is she?!” He screams an inch from my face.
Boss or not I’m not taking this crap. If I do something wrong, you can yell at me and I’ll take it like a man, but I’m tired and confused and not putting up with anymore of his crap. I grab him by the collar and shove him into a chair. I keep my hand wrapped firmly around his shirt.
“I don’t know what you are going on about, old man, but you better fill me in and fast. What happened to your daughter? What the hell did you do? Because I told you she wasn’t ready and, boss or not, if something happened to her I swear I will--” I don’t get a chance to finish my threat. Edward shrugs me off and sighs, running a hand through his hair.
“You really don’t know?”
“We’ve established that already. Move on. What happened to Aria?”
“She’s gone.” His shoulders slump and he sounds utterly defeated.
Gone? What does he mean gone? She wouldn’t have left, not without telling me.
“A mission?”
“No, boy, you aren’t listening. She’s vanished. She cleaned me out and left.”
“Lies!” I yell. He chuckles with no humor.
“You are a loyal one, I’ll give you that. The ungrateful brat got too cocky and entitled for her own good. I should have seen it coming.”
I don’t listen to him for another moment. I’m out of his office and taking off at break neck speed for my brother’s room.
I bang on his door and when he doesn’t instantly answer I pick his lock.
“Hayden, wake up now!” I bellow.
He springs up and looks around with wild eyes.
“Did you know?”
“Did I know what? It’s two in the morning, Cameron. What has gotten into you?”
“Aria is gone. Did you know?”
He doesn’t have to say a word; his eyes just about bug out of his head.
“No, she can’t be,” he whispers.
“Yes. Edward said she cleaned him out and took off.”
“There’s no way.”
“I agree. Something is going on and I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”
“What can I do?”
“You reach out to everyone you can, and find out anything and everything. Last person she saw; last activity she did. Something happened and if it was bad enough to scare off my little firecracker, it’s got to be pretty freaking bad.”
***
The last two weeks I’ve run myself ragged. I’ve checked every lead, everyone who had anything to do with Aria, and I’ve come up with nothing. There’s no way she just vanished, and there’s absolutely no way she’s gone rogue and is as dangerous as Edward told everyone in a meeting he called.
Apparently, Aria sold her country out. Treason. No freaking way. That’s what scares me the most; the lies that her father is spewing can only mean one thing, and that’s a cover up. I refuse to rest until I know what happened to her.
I take a long, hot shower to try and uncoil some of the stress. Once the water turns cold I turn it off and grab a towel. I freeze when I see what is written on my mirror in the steam as I step out.
“She’s safe. Believe nothing.”
Four words, just four words, and I feel like I can finally breathe again. I can’t help the sob that escapes me or the tears that fall. She’s safe. That’s all that matters. I didn’t fail her. The other thought that occurs to me is that she isn’t alone. She obviously had help from someone here, or at least someone with access, so why wouldn’t she have reached out to me? I can’t focus on that right now.
“She’s safe. Believe nothing,” I whisper to myself.
***
I’m slipping. Everything is slipping, my work, my sleep, and my thoughts. All I can do is worry and wonder, wonder and worry, and back again. I train with Ezra every day even though my heart isn’t in it.
Hayden is almost as bad as I am. The light hasn’t gone from his eyes but I can see the failure in it. I should; it mirrors my own. There’s a knock on my door and it catches me off guard. Hope is a dangerous thing because as I’m swinging the door open, part of me expects to see her standing there with a pint of ice cream.
“What do you want?” I ask more harshly than I should when the disappointment sets in at seeing Tali standing there and not Aria. She visibly flinches like I hurt her and I remind myself that it isn’t her I’m angry at and I soften my voice.
“Tali, can I help you?”
“Uh, well, yeah. It’s just that I--” For crying out loud; we are going to be here all night at this pace.
“You might as well come on in. I have a feeling this might take a while,” I say as I hold the door open for her. She stands frozen for a moment, looks around a bit, and then takes a few tentative steps inside, jumping when I shut the door behind her.
“Geez, Tali, you seriously need to lighten up. I’m not going to hurt you and you came to me, remember?”
She nods once and I can see her bracing herself for what she has to say.
“You were saying?” I lead.
“I want you to be my handler,” she blurts out quickly, and then sighs like she can’t believe she actually did it.
“You’ve got to be kidding me! No, no Tali, do you hear me? You failed; move on to support,” I snap as I push past her, making my way to the couch where I sit down. With more courage than I thought she possessed, she follows me in and stands with what I can only imagine is her version of a scowl. Unfortunately for her, it looks more like she is going to sneeze or faint than anything else.
“I’m going to become an agent, Cameron. Whether you help me or not, I will. The only difference will be if I pass the second time or the tenth. Do you think I wanted to ask you, to come here and humiliate myself? I hate you, Cameron, and to be honest I’m a bit terrified of you. And as much as I need you to accept, I don’t want you to. But the bottom line is, if I want to pass you are the only way it will happen. I saw how you trained…”
And there you have it, the giant elephant in the room. Not to mention the awkward meter just shot up about a hundred notches and anytime Tali is around, it’s already high to begin with.
I’m ready to shoot her down again when something causes me to pause. She obviously has determination and drive if she’s willing to put herself through that hell again. As long as you have those and hard work, anything is possible. But I refuse to torture someone as gentle as her; I can’t sit back and watch her be tortured either. I wouldn’t make it. I can tell my silence is unhinging her. She is visibly squirming where she stands.
“Why?”
“I told you. Because I know you can.”
“No,” I cut her off, “Why do you need to be an agent so bad? I need to know what the reasoning is behind it or you can just walk yourself right out that door and don’t return,” I say it firmly, but without any heat behind my words.
She sighs and I can see by the way her eyes dart up and she shifts her feet that she is weighing her options. She finally comes to a decision and she makes her way to where I am and gestures to the couch.
“May I?”
At my nod, she sits and folds her hands in her lap like a prim and proper lady. I can’t hold in my chuckle; she and Aria are like night and day.
“Do I want to be an agent? No. The idea absolutely terrifies me. But it’s deeper than that, Cameron; it’s like a calling.”
I can’t help rolling my eyes at that and she visibly tenses.
“You can mock me all you want, but it’s true. I know I must become an agent to fulfil my purpose in life.”
“And what is that?”
“Sacrifice.”
Her answer intrigues me.
“You want to sacrifice yourself?”
“No, you don’t understand.” She sighs like she’s frustrated with me.
“Can I trust you, Cameron? You’ve never treated me as though I am insignificant, never taunted me or shown pity for my sca
rs, so that is something. But can I trust you?”
Normally I would say no. I don’t like being trusted. It’s too much responsibility and it leads to nothing but worry and heartache in the end, but looking into her face and seeing the pain in her I don’t know what possess me to nod.
“I don’t talk about my past,” she says in a quiet voice to the pillow next to me. She has yet to meet my eyes since she sat down.
“Part of it is because of the unspoken rule that the past is behind us, but the other part is because it’s all I have left of them, and it’s just mine, you know?”
“Your parents?”
“Yes. Unlike most of the students here, I was older when I came to the academy. Eleven to be exact. And I came from a good family, a loving and caring family.”
She sniffles and I have no clue what to do. I’m not a comforter; I’m horrible with tears and emotions, so I just stay silent and listen to her.
“My room was on the second floor, theirs was on the bottom floor. The neighbors called the fire department when they saw the flames. They got my parents out and hadn’t know about me. By the time the men realized my part of the house had gone up in flames, my dad had rushed back into the house with my mom on his heels and the firefighters told me later that they couldn’t stop them.”
She’s silently crying now and all I can do is take in her silent strength.
“Dad broke my window. By that time, the fire had reached me, I was burned pretty badly. He kissed me and told me he loved me and that he knew I was going to do great things, that I would make them proud.”
“They didn’t make it?” I ask, needlessly.
“No, they didn’t. He tossed me out of the window and that’s the last thing I remember and the last time I’ve ever see them. By the time I was released from the hospital I was too old and too physically damaged for anyone to want to adopt me. My social worker had a soft spot for me and bribed Edward into taking me somehow. I’m still not sure what exactly went down, but he took me in and I’ve been here ever since.”
We both stay quiet for a while after that, me absorbing her story, and her reliving her nightmare. After several minutes go by I know I need to say something, but I’m crap in these situations and I really wish Hayden was here. He’d know exactly what to say.
“You know there are other ways to make them proud, Tali. You don’t have to sacrifice yourself and who you are to do that.”
“But I do, Cameron. They paid with the ultimate sacrifice so that I could become something. I don’t need to become an agent to prove anything to Edward or anyone else. I need to do it for myself. I need to make their sacrifice worth it. It would be easy to take the support position, just like it would have been easy for them to have left me or let a firefighter go in their place, but they didn’t take the easy way out.”
“And neither will you.”
“Neither will I.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Cameron
What on earth was I thinking? Emotions and tears, that’s what. That came back to bite me in the ass as soon as I agreed to this stupid undertaking.
“Again,” I bark out.
She’s crying…again. Or should I say, still? But she keeps taking the hits. I can’t do it. She’s too broken, too fragile. I swore I’d never touch her and I haven’t. Hayden, however, is in the ring right now going as easy as he can on her and she still has tears running down her face. I run a hand through my hair, ready to pull it out.
“Enough,” I yell, hoisting myself up into the ring.
“Tali, this is insane. Hayden is wearing childproof gloves and you are still falling apart here. Honey, it’s okay. Not everyone is built for this, but you can’t keep putting yourself through this.”
“I can and I will,” she says through the sniffles.
Hayden looks at me and shrugs his shoulders.
“Let’s come at this from a different angle. How fast are you?”
“Well, I don’t know. I guess I’m okay.”
“Come on, Tali, can you duck a punch? Be light on your feet? You gotta give me something to work with here!” I yell at her and I see her instantly fold in on herself. Hayden places a hand on my shoulder.
“Let me take it from here for a bit, bro.”
He motions for her to sit.
“You wanted to learn to fight like Ari, right? Aria has fire; she has determination like I’ve never seen, but it’s her inner fire that drives her. You are a different person, Tali. You’re sweet and quiet, and that’s okay, but you need to find what drives you. Find your inner fire. When you do, then you bring it with all you have, okay?”
He looks over at me and smiles.
“I have to get to work. You okay here?”
“Yeah. Thanks, bro.”
Something Hayden said sparks an idea in me and I hop up and approach the ring.
“Get up, Tali. We have work to do.”
She does as she’s told but is eyeing me suspiciously.
“I want you to hit me.”
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t like repeating myself, Tali, I said hit m-.”
Just like that she slaps me across the face. I’m not sure who is more shocked out of the two of us. I stare her down and she stands there frozen, rapidly blinking up at me. God, I have my work cut out for me.
“Tali,” I say in my low voice that has been known to terrify full grown men.
“I did not say slap; I said hit. And before you try to pull off any more of that chick crap I will show you. Come here.”
She ducks and I snap. I pick her up with one swoop and toss her over my shoulder. I march her down to the shooting range and stand her right in front of a target.
“Do not move,” I growl and then march to the gun storage, making sure I grab plenty of blanks. I text Hayden to send me over as many of the sharp shooters as he can and within minutes the ten of us are ready to go.
“Wha-wa-what are you do-doing?” Tali stutters out.
“Scaring the fear right out of you. You can’t be an agent and be afraid of your shadow, Tali, so starting now we are getting rid of the fear. Then we will work on confidence. Do. Not. Move.” I command as I march back to join the others.
“On three, folks. One, two, three.”
Just like that, thirty rounds go off around her. She’s screaming and tears are running down her face but she doesn’t move. Maybe she can be taught after all. I hold my hand up to stop. I walk over to her and bring her shoulders back, wipe her tears with my thumb and stand back waiting for her to stop sobbing. When she’s done, I look her directly in the eyes.
“We will go until you no longer so much as flinch. We have all day, Tali. You cry, you scream, you cower, and we add more rounds. You hear me?”
She bobs her head up and down. I nod once and turn back to the squad.
“Fire.” This time the screaming stops but her eyes are closed tight and her body folds in on itself. We do the same thing for nine hours. Nine freaking hours. I go through four shifts of shooters. I miss two meals and I’m ready to murder her, but she finally got it.
At 1am she finally stands with her shoulders back, head held high, and looking me straight in the eyes with a stare that curses my existence. Good, that makes two of us. I dismiss the squad and they all take off, relieved to be done. Tali doesn’t move; she just stands there with fire in her eyes. I have to keep from laughing; she’s got a little spirit after all.
“I hate you,” she says when I approach.
“You aren’t exactly my favorite person right now either. Now get to bed and be up by six. We have some major confidence training to do!”
I leave before she can start whining since I hate whining almost as much as being a handler.
***
“Good morning, sunshine. Sleep well?”
Tali, still pissed from last night I assume, just shrugs and says nothing.
“See, this right here is the problem. I know I agreed to be your handler but I don’t thin
k this is going to work, Tali.”
Her mouth is hanging open in shock and I can see something in her snap and I know she can’t hold back now.
“You don’t think it’s going to work?! I had to stand in place for nine hours without moving while people shot at me. Shot at me for heaven’s sake, Cameron, and you don’t think this is going to work?” she asks in utter disbelief. I can’t help it; I laugh. I laugh hard and from the gut.
“That’s the first real sass I’ve gotten from you. It’s about time.”
“Excuse me? You want me to sass you?”
“Not particularly, but I want something from you, Tali. Geez, you are just so timid and scared of your shadow. Aria might have driven me crazy but at least she had fire. I can work with fire, I can work with sass and attitude, but the meek, scared of your shadow thing you got going on just isn’t going to work for me, babe.”
“Babe? You are such a condescending…”
“What?” I ask, stepping way too close for comfort. I’m so close she can feel my breath on her face. She drops her head down and lets her long, curly red hair cascade around her face.
“No, I won’t let you hide from me,” I bark out as I grab her face to look at me. She instantly flinches and I drop the act for just a moment as concern takes over.
“Did I hurt you?” I ask, instantly dropping my hand. She shakes her head no, but backs away.
“Tali, did I hurt your burns?”
“No, you didn’t hurt them,” She whispers out.
“Then why did you flinch as if I had?”
“Because I don’t want you touching them. They are gross and you don’t need to touch them,” she chokes out. She doesn’t look up and I know I’ve pushed her too far.
“Go back and rest. I’ll be by first thing in the morning to get you.”
How am I ever going to make this work? I can train just about anyone with hard work, but I don’t work magic. She is terrified of everything, and I’m terrified of hurting her. This is never going to work.