Three Suns
Page 32
“I know what I said, but things change and so, you’re leaving now. There’s nothing I can do about it.” I steeled my nerves, masking the pain that was burning a hole into my heart as I finally met his gaze. “Get your things Eikko so you can go home.”
For several moments he just stared at me, not moving a muscle or an inch. He simply stared at me as if I’d lost my mind and was telling him something that he couldn’t believe on a good day. When he realized that I wasn’t going to move or say anything else, he shook his head and scoffed before turning on his heel and going back to his bedroom.
If I could make it through this heartache then I could face anything in the future, but right now, in this moment I knew that no amount of time would heal the broken shards of my heart from watching him turn his back on me.
When I heard the bedroom door close, I spun around and pulled the door open without waiting for him and headed to the airbase; we had said our goodbyes, I reasoned with myself. We’d done it over the past two days and there was nothing left to say. I couldn’t and wouldn’t tell him my true feelings because doing that now, would only create a bigger mess and in reality, what good would it do? My warriors were going on the battlefield to fight an enemy that had been provoked by me and their deaths, pain and suffering would rest on my shoulders. I couldn’t allow Eikko’s overprotective nature and heart stopping purple eyes to deter me from focusing on cleaning up the mess I made for the society that cherished me in a sense. No, I wouldn’t tell him how I felt and like so many other losses, I would take this one and move on with my life. As he should with his.
In no time, we were crossing the threshold to the airbase and staring up at the gleaming black Magdolonian that would carry him back to the blue sun and his own form of normal. A normal that was free of rules, business transaction type relationships, scrutiny, and harsh commands.
“Wait here while I handle the formalities,” I said, without waiting for him to say something. I crossed the tarmac flooring and nodded to a mechanic in respect as he handed me the handheld to confirm that I was the one that was dropping off Eikko for his departure and took responsibility for the current condition that the Magdolonian was in prior to flight.
“Major,” I glanced up to see Fauve coming toward me in a pressed royal purple suit that brought out his white hair.
Handing the device back to the mechanic I turned to my superior officer, “sir.”
“Is everything prepared?”
“Yes sir,” he was really asking me if I said all I was going to say to Eikko before he got on the Magdolonian. One more lie wasn’t going to hurt.
He nodded, “after the aircraft clears the territory line, you are to go to the battlefield to push back the enemy. Is that clear?”
I saluted him in respect and nodded, “yes sir.”
His dark amber eyes shifted from me to Eikko and back before he nodded, turning away from us, and going back to his office.
Taking a deep breath, I motioned for Eikko to come over to the Magdolonian. This was the hardest part. I could do this.
“The pilot and the co-pilot are already onboard and prepared to take you to the edge of Parlan society. Two mechanics will be going with you to ensure that you’re safe during the flight, once you land, you’ll be on your own. Understand?”
“Yes, but—”
“Also, don’t forget to keep your mouth shut when you’re in flight. With everything going on, the pilots can’t be distracted so it’s just best that you don’t say anything. Ok?”
“Yes, but—” he tried again before I turned my back on him.
“Go ahead and board, Eikko. I can’t waste anymore time here. I need to get on the battlefield as soon as possible.” I closed my eyes as I internally flinched at the harshness of my words.
Eikko stood behind me and whispered, “when the silence becomes too much to stomach, remember one thing, I’ll be right there standing behind you, loving you.” He kissed my head, inhaling the scent of my hair before walking away to the Magdolonian that would be taking him home. Leaving me in worse shape than when we found each other.
I only turned around when I knew that the door of the cargo bay was closed and shielded my eyes against the glaring rays of the sun. Maybe it wasn't right for me to let him leave, but we were from two different worlds and he belonged on the blue sun where he could be himself without worrying about rules and watching what he said. It was for the best, at least that's what I kept telling myself as the Magdolonian rose above the purple clouds.
“Do you think that you made the right choice?” My grandmother came to stand beside me, watching the aircraft.
I glanced at her, “about what?”
“Eikko,” She deadpanned.
“What do you mean? There wasn't—”
“Major Shaye,” an unfamiliar voice came from behind us.
My grandmother and I turned to the military officer looking down at his handheld and coming towards us.
He looked up, giving my grandmother and I a salute of respect before looking at me, “we’re ready for takeoff when he is.”
I frowned at the officer, “what're you talking about?”
“Um…” he looked at his hand held again, “Eikko Kangho? We,” he hooked his thumb over his shoulder to another Magdolonian that had the silver stripe of the Padrieg military going from its nose to the tail and several officers suiting up, preparing to load into the aircraft. “Are ready when he is.”
My heart stopped as the pieces fell into place, “who’s flying the Magdolonian?”
“I'm sorry?” The officer looked at me worriedly.
“The Magdolonian! Who's flying it?” I pointed to the sky and prayed that the officer knew the answer to my demand.
“We,” he shook his head and looked at his handheld, “no one from base is out of the domicile or airbase units.”
My heart exploded in my chest as everything began to make sense. I pushed past the officer as my grandmother began to bark orders while I turned on my communication device and located Emric. Even with being on the battlefield, he would be willing to help me get to Eikko without asking twice.
“What's wrong?” He answered before the device could fully connect.
“It’s—” the bomb went off before I could finish the sentence. Ash and ruble filled the airbase, flames erupted from the side of the building, blinding me from any visual conformation that the Magdolonian that had Eikko was still, in fact, in the air. I couldn't see through the smoke or ash and wasn't able to do much of anything because a sharp point lodged itself into my leg.
I looked down at my leg and internally groaned, a sedation dart. Sleep was maybe five sekundi away, ten if I were lucky. Falling down on the cement ground, I tried to think of all the ways that I could save Eikko.
“Ostana, Ostana,” Somsang knelt down beside me with a malicious smile on his face. “It doesn't feel so good to get drugged. Does it?”
I swallowed hard, forcing my eyes to open as they began to close, “why?”
He smirked, tucking a piece of my blonde hair behind my ear, “because your parents are willing to pay a pretty, pretty penny to see their baby girl alive and well.” He leaned down to look me in the eye and smiled fully, “you’re going to make me a lot of money."
I didn't have time to think about what he had just said because the sedation dart finally overpowered my will to stay awake. Yet, as I closed my eyes, the only thing I could think about was Eikko and how I regretted not telling him how I truly loved him. Maybe I could tell him after I got us to safety, I reasoned before my mind went blank and blackness took over my vision.
Epilogue Eikko
The door to the cargo bay closed, shutting out any view that I had of Ostana's back. She made it perfectly clear that after today we would never see each other again. The thought of not seeing the woman that had captured my heart from the start and irritated me all the same burned my soul worse than her fire could’ve.
“Ready?” The man in the pilot seat look
ed in the rearview mirror at me with his freaky dark tangerine eyes narrowing at me.
“Yes,” Ostana’s warning kept bouncing around in my mind and caused my nerves to become on edge. I turned my attention to the closed door as the Magdolonian rose above the airbase and away from Ostana and the purple sun.
Surely, she was right. This would all become a distant memory that didn’t mean anything other than a blemish in our lives and…no matter how hard I tried to ignore that little voice in my mind, something told me that I needed to see her one final time. Everything would be better if I saw her one last time. That’s all I needed.
“Can we go back?” I unfastened my seat belt, already deciding what I was going to do should they try to refuse my request.
The pilot looked at me again through the mirror, “that’s not possible. We have orders to take you back to Parlan.”
“Oh really?” I started digging in my bag as I looked back at him. Judging from his look I could tell that my eyes had changed to the dark purple that Ostana always seemed to get lost in.
“Yes…sir?” There was a stall in the pilot’s tone. The only thing that I needed to tell me that I had him right where I wanted him.
“Turn this plane around now,” my hand wrapped around the grip of the gun and settled on the trigger.
Both the pilot and the copilot looked at each other, debating amongst themselves about one thing or another.
“I’m sorry but,” the copilot was pressing something on his control panel, “what is a plane?”
I motioned around the cargo bay, “turn this around now.”
They looked at each other again and stalled. Stalled too long. The shake of the eruption forced me to have to hold onto the headliner bar with one hand while I kept the gun in my other hand.
“Alpha base, over, alpha base over,” the pilot was looking out the windshield at the scene below us.
I pushed off the wall and staggered toward the cockpit to see for myself what was going on. Although, there was no reason to see it because deep down I knew that I had brought Ostana a world of hurt and pain that she didn’t ask for.
Below at the airbase, smoke and ruble clouded the view from our vantage point but one thing I did see was the swaying curtain of blonde hair that smelled of lilacs disappearing toward the battlefield. Ostana was unconscious in someone’s arms, her body nothing more than dead weight.
I slapped the pilot’s shoulder, “zoom in down there on that thing.” I ordered as if he was really going to listen to me.
“Sorry mate, we can’t do that,” I started to turn toward the copilot when the sting of a needle prick hit me. The same calming and nauseating feeling that I had had after trying to find out where that jackass of a general was taking Ostana consumed my mind and forced me to stagger back before falling on my ass.
“Hit him with a hypnotic, we don’t need him coming back here to start trouble over the Major.” The pilot mumbled, or at least I think he did.
I let my head roll to the side, trying to force my fingers to find the sedation dart and pull the damn thing out when someone stood over me with something that resembled a gun.
“I have to do this,” he said turning me onto my side and pulling the trigger on whatever that thing was in his hand.
The sting of another dart made me grunt, but my limbs were too tired to fight back, let alone reach around and pull something out of me.
“You need to forget everything about Padrieg, especially Major Shaye.” A calm voice whispered in my ear before I couldn’t fight my eyelids anymore. I didn’t need to fight anymore, I kept telling myself as I tuned out the noise around me but the thing that kept me conscious longer than I should’ve been was the one face that I wished I could wake up and go to sleep with for the rest of my life.
Ostana. Those garnet red eyes, golden blonde hair that reached her ribs, her button nose that I wanted to kiss all of the time. Her semi-full lips that always quirked into a smile whenever she found humor in my sarcasm; the way her body moved in the training arena fighting off those red sun bastards. I wanted to kiss her silent tears away and make sure that she never cried another day in her life and if she did, they were only going to be tears of joy and nothing less. I’d be one goddamned liar if I said that I didn’t think I had a true chance to make her happy and marry her; hell, I’d known from the moment that she walked into the debriefing room with a pissed off look on her face and her hand dripping blood from the hole in her arm not being bandaged that I was going to cherish her forever and always.
The rest of my thoughts were cut off as sleep consumed me and my thoughts about Ostana, our future, my intentions and whatever else was floating around went silent. Tomorrow I’d pull my shit together and find out what the hell was going on; that sounded as good of a plan as any and…sleep. I needed to go to sleep.
I normally dream, at least I did when I was in Parlan. I turned over and grunted against the pop in my back as my conscious slowly came back online. What was today? Why did it feel like I had been on an adventure to some place that was completely different than where I was from?
“Good morning Mr. Kangho,” Alysianna, my maid came into my bedroom with a tray of food and black coffee.
I cracked an eye open to look at her, “what happened?”
“Sir?” She handed me my coffee and pushed away her dark brown bangs from her eyes. In short, she was attractive. More so than any other women that I had encountered since becoming famous, but she was interested in my chef, Caraticus. Which was perfectly fine with me.
I took the hot mug and downed half of the java before rubbing my eyes, “what happened? I mean, I remember Somsang coming in yesterday and saying that he had booked a concert in the entertainment district in the purple sun. What happened to that?”
Concern washed over her face as she looked at me with wide pastel pink eyes, “sir, are you feeling ok?”
I sat up in my California king size bed and frowned, “I’m fine. I’m asking you what the hell happened? It felt like I slept for three years and I know that Somsang wouldn’t have allowed that. So, what happened?”
She opened her mouth to respond to me when my bedroom door opened with a pissed off looking Somsang, “dismissed.” He snapped at her before turning on me, “what the hell are you still doing in bed? We need to go to a sound check, get up!”
I snorted, nestling back into the covers of my bed, and turned on the TV, “just let me wake up first, mom. Hey,” I glanced at the news and rubbed my eyes again, “what happened last night?”
“What do you mean?” He went to my closet and started the usual ransacking of my suits and ties.
“My head is killing me, I know you didn’t let me drink because of the calories so,” I shrugged as I threw my arm over my eyes, “what happened?”
The TV flipped to a commercial with a too familiar voice that I couldn’t remember. I glanced at the TV only to bolt upright, ignoring the pounding in my head. Talking about skin rejuvenation looking as radiant as ever was a woman with golden blonde hair and tantalizing garnet red eyes. I knew her, something deep down in me told my mind that I knew her but no matter how hard I tried to match a name with the face, I kept coming up with answers that I knew were wrong.
Pointing to the screen, I didn’t look away from her. Instead I rewound the commercial and kept looking at her, “Somsang.”
“Hm?”
“Somsang, who is that?”
He glanced over his shoulder at the TV before tossing a pressed black suit on the foot of the bed and turning the TV off, “she rejected you once, twice, three times a dozen. Forget about her, Eikko.” He pointed to the suit, “get showered and get dressed, we have a sound check.”
“Who is she, Somsang?”
“Just some woman,” he nervously shifted on his feet before throwing his hands up, “get dressed now.” His phone saved him from having to answer anymore of my questions as he picked up the thing and left me to my vices.
Ignoring the breakfast on my night
stand, I turned the TV back on and fast forward the news to stop on a different commercial with the same beautiful woman showcasing something that looked like a new derma roller.
“Try it now and you won’t be disappointed,” she tilted her head to the side as she looked in the camera and smiled.
Something about her. Yet, the harder I tried to remember who she was and how I knew her, the more my head hurt. I closed my eyes cradling my head in my hands as I tried to force myself to remember who the blonde was and what she meant to me.
“Sedation darts always seem to have a hangover effect, don’t you think?” A familiar voice said from inside my bathroom.
I reached under my pillow, grabbing the pistol that I kept loaded and ready, “who are you?”