Page 31

Dominic

There’s always somewhere to go.

I don’t have anything to do.

It’s strange. I’ve showered, changed. Cleaned my room.

Made my bed twice. I’ve done a perimeter check and got shooed away from the surveillance room.

Everyone’s busy doing their own thing. Normally I’d have a dozen tasks to work through, but they’re either covered by civs.

.. or they’re Jayk’s responsibility now.

A steady chatter of voices fills the halls, and I drift toward the kitchen.

“I still think we should go after her,” someone says.

I pause with my hand on the door.

“Yeah, with what weapons? Madison’s gone up against Cyanide and lost twice now. If she and the Rangers couldn’t do it, then there’s no way we can,” another voice grumbles back.

“No one is going to Cyanide.” I recognize Ethel kicking back like a recoil. “That girl can handle herself. We have plenty to fret over here. And I...”

“Ethel, sit down,” Ida says sharply. “Kasey, bring some water.”

Cutlery and bowls clatter inside.

“Is she . . .” Kasey starts.

“I’m fine, quit your nagging,” Ethel grumbles.

“Do you think those Reapers really have food?” Kasey asks, subdued. “Maybe they’re not that bad. Maybe it’d be okay if we?—”

“Maybe we should attack them instead,” Katherine mutters, and I’ve heard enough.

I push inside, and everyone shuts up. Maybe a dozen civilians are sprawled around the room, and they could be any gossipy soldiers in any restless, dusty mess hall I’ve supervised over the years.

A chicken is being carved up. Its organs are sitting in a bowl, and Mary Beth’s gloved hands are busy cleaning and chopping.

Ida is dropping the bones into a large, fragrant pot with a handful of vegetables, and Katherine is making some sort of thin stew.

A whole chicken.

They’re stretching it, butthe chickens were still laying when we left. Breeding. Rations aren’t my area, but is the net benefit of a few meals now really worthlosing the supply? We had less than a dozen left.

“Need something?” Kasey asks, the same belligerent set to her jaw I’ve seen Jayk wear for years.

I don’t miss the exchanged glances. The tensing. Mary Beth is already cringing, not looking up from her work.

Ethel looks at me tiredly from a seat beside the breakfast bar.

She seems older and frailer than I remember.

It’s a stinging reminder of how badly I’ve fucked it up with them, so I swallow my disapproval. It’s Jayk’s call, and he’s defused the angry mob. A chicken’s a small price to pay.

I shake my head. “I’m going to crash. You need a hand with anything before I go?”

Ida pauses, then turns from her pot to study me. She and Ethel exchange a weighted, puzzled look.

“From you?” Kasey says under her breath. She takes a swig of her water bottle. “ Unlikely .”

Right. Defusing teenage girls is beyond my expertise.

Sitting on the breakfast bar, Sloane looks up tiredly. “Shut up, Kasey.” She glances my way, and she’s got the same grim look I saw in the mirror earlier. “We’re good here. Thanks, Dom.”

I nod to her. Sloane’s been almost as quiet as me since Cyanide—and as guilty about Heather. She should hate me for it.

I’m glad she doesn’t.

The silent fuck off from the rest of them is clear enough, though.

I should take it and go. It’s not my call anymore.

I’ll talk to Jayk tomorrow, make sure he knows they’re spitting ideas that’ll get them killed, but it’s up to him what he does with that.

Their lives aren’t on my shoulders anymore, and there’s a relief in putting down that weight. And I am putting it down.

I turn for the door, then hesitate.

God damn it.

I slap the frame in frustration and turn back.

I’ll put it down in a minute.

I cast a heavy look around the room. “Starting a fight with the Reapers would be a bad call. We’ve been out that way before. They might be farmers, but they have numbers—big numbers—and the Sinners wiped our firepower. We can’t afford another war.”

Then again, making a deal to defend the Reapers would start one, too. There’s no way Alastair would let that slide.

We’re fucked either way unless we get food soon.

Katherine rubs a defeated hand over her face, and Kasey’s freckled nose wrinkles in a withering look.

“What are you even doing here? Don’t you have any friends to boss around?” She settles back against the wall and mutters, “Jayk will figure it out.”

“We all will,” Ida murmurs back, sprinkling some salt into her pot.

Sloane thumbs her lip ring as she looks at me, grim disagreement in her bunched shoulders.

I arch an impatient brow back. She should know better than to go looking for a fight. She saw how Cyanide played out.

Giving me a long look, she just says, “Maybe you should spend less time eavesdropping, and more time fixing your own problems.”

There’s no heat to her voice, but her words still hit me under the ribs. They heard Jayk’s bullshit speech, then. Probably half the fight with Beau, too.

For fuck’s sake. Sloane is right. Our team is a mess.

After an awkward pause where no one meets my eye, the conversation moves on, and I take the hint this time and leave, stinging.

But my feet stick outside the kitchen door, and, hesitating, I stare blindly at Beau’s shit crammed into the halls. That whole interaction took all of five minutes, and I still have nothing to fill the rest of my night. Nowhere to go. No decisions to make.

Just dead hours stretching in front of me.

Grimacing, I slowly make my way up to my empty room. The house is quiet now, everyone locked away behind closed doors, spending time with their people. I pass Eden’s door, locked tight, and I force myself not to slow.

It doesn’t help.

Her face floods me, like it does every day. She’s everywhere. Her soft, hidden smiles haunt me. Her scent chases me. I still taste her in my mouth, still feel the way she sucked on my tongue like she wanted my cock instead. My body reacts like she’s under me again, and I grit my teeth.

She doesn’t make sense .

She didn’t trust me to handle Alastair and Mateo, or enough to tell me the truth before we walked into that shit show at Cyanide—and I get it, why should she? I’ve fucked up at every turn. But she befriended me. She pursued me .

Why the hell would she do that?

If she doesn’t respect me as a leader, as a man , where does she get off looking at me with all those stars in her eyes? Why would she tell me she wants me—or that she thinks I’m brilliant —when she can’t count on me when it matters?

And why the fuck does she have to keep calling me sir ?

That wrenching, familiar ache settles into my chest, and I let myself into my room. It’s inspection-ready. Crisp and clean, the way I left it. No clutter on tables or loose edges on the bed.

It’s . . . hollow.

Lucky’s things are all packed and gone, and he’s locked away too now, with Jasper. It’s a good thing. He was a shitty roommate. Loud. Messy. Touchy.

The silence rings in my ears.

Slowly, I sit down on the larger couch in front of the silent TV. It gives under my weight. Minutes pass, and the walls stare back at me. How did this happen? When did I turn into my old man? Living between battle plans and empty rooms.

The military corners of my bed scream at me from across the room.

What do people do with their nights if they don’t have a purpose?

What if they don’t have people to be locked away with?

Am I supposed to just... sit here? Read a book ?

There’s only one in my room—and I was reading it the day she came.

When Beau made her fall apart all over his lap in the games room.

When I let him share her with Jasper and not me.

My empty room stares back at me.

The unwatched action movies and the unopened whiskey.

Pressure closes in on my chest, and I slam to my feet. There has to be something to do. Someone always has a problem, and Jayk’s occupied. I’d only be helping him out.

I stride to the door and wrench it open... only to stop short.

Beau is sitting in the hall. Still coated in dirt and sweat from the day, he’s in his full kit, with his rifle and bag propped up beside him.

A pillow hangs from his filthy hand.

His head tilts up as the door opens, but he doesn’t quite meet my eyes. He’s examining a stain on the pillowcase.

My throat gets rocky and painful. I doubt words could make it out, even if I could think of anything to say.

“I’ve been in the med bay with Deanna and the others, and these people, Dom.

.. they need food.” He stares at the wall, his eyes searching nothing.

“I don’t know what to do. It’s not my kind of medicine.

Everything’s... all of it’s such a mess.

” His breath sighs out, so tiredly, and his head tips back against the wall. “How’d it get to be such a mess?”

The lead that’s been in my gut since Cyanide sits heavy and cold. I don’t know what to say to that either, because he’s right. It is a mess.

But it’s been a long time since Beau has talked to me about his messes.

The quiet stretches between us.

“I...” Beau’s throat bobs, and his voice is low. Too controlled. “I don’t have any place to go.”

The rocks have jagged edges, and I can’t swallow past them.

I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore.

I snapped today. The two of us have been at each other’s throats for weeks now, but that fight... that was bad. My own shit has been taking me by the throat, so I shot a bullet into every soft spot he had. It’s pathetic.

Weak .

Today, I was exactly who my father always thought I was. I was exactly the kind of man I told myself I’d never be.

But Beau is still at my door, bleeding out in front of me.

He’s always at my door, especially when I least deserve it.

Glancing up, I blink hard, then push off the doorframe and hold out a hand to him. It shakes more than it should.

Beau stares hard at it, then ducks his head away.