Page 4 of How You See Me (You and Me Duology #2)

“Is someone dead?” His dark eyes find me over the rim of his readers. No tact. No empathy. No humanity.

“No, sir. My little sister—”

“Denied.”

The vein in my neck pulses. “Sir, she’s—”

“Not dying.” His tone is cold and dismissive as expected. “Get to work, Staff Sergeant.”

I swallow down the response rising in my throat like shards of glass.

He won’t see me crack. But someone will feel it.

◆◆◆

I stay longer on the sparring mat than I intended. Before entering, my body had already been pushed past its limits, but I need the pain. I want it.

Private Dixon—big Georgia kid, all muscle and wrestling trophies—tears me apart one takedown at a time. Sweat blinds me. Knuckles and knees bleeding. Lungs scorched inside. Yet, I demand one round after another. He wipes the mat with me, happily, but with each loss, my rage slowly drains out.

By the time I drag myself back to my apartment, I’m wrecked. The anger simmers lower now, next to a stitched-together lie, telling me I’m fine. I don’t even bother changing. Just collapse face-first onto the bed and fumble for my phone. It’s late, but I need to hear Ava’s voice.

Waiting for Mom to pick up, I pray she doesn't rope me into another conversation. I don’t have the capacity to talk about my so-called father or my failures tonight .

She must sense it, and pretends neither were ever mentioned. “Hold on, baby. I’ll get her.”

“Hi.” One small word and the rustle of bedsheets. No joy. No sparkle.

“Hi, Cupcake. You okay?”

“I’m tired.”

The honest answer slices me open across the gut. I sit up, ignoring the new throb there. “I bet. Is there anything I can do? Tell you a story? Sing you a song?”

“You can’t sing.”

“How do you know?”

“No one in our family can sing. Not even Mom and she sings all the time in the car.”

“I heard that,” Mom yells from somewhere off the line.

A smile flickers, but it hurts to hold. “I’d still try if you asked.”

“Are you going on our trip?”

A live wire flicks inside me and my body tenses. Of course, she’d ask ask that. Of course, I’m not ready.

“You know I’d do anything for you, but—”

“You can’t go?” A subtle tremble in her voice might as well have been a full sob from the way it rattles me.

“It doesn’t look good right now. My boss—” I stop. The details don’t matter. “It’s complicated.”

“Haysie?”

God, that nickname. She gave it to me when she was four, before our family fell apart. Back when our father still came home, and cancer was something other families dealt with.

Leaning an elbow on my thigh, I pinch the bridge of my nose, hoping to hold it together long enough to get through this call. “Yeah, Cupcake?”

“Please ask again.”

There’s no explaining to her how the chain of command works.

How indifference can kill you just as clean as a bullet.

I want to explain that it’s out of my hands.

That the military isn’t like other jobs.

But I know her nine-year-old brain wouldn’t understand the rules, the denials, or the way personal lives come dead last here. Then again, she shouldn’t have to.

“I will.”

“Did Mom send you my list?”

“No. What’s on it?”

“Things.” A touch of mischief peeks through the weariness.

“What kinds of things?”

“Fun things to do on our trip. You have to do all of them when you go.”

“What if I don’t?”

“I’ll cry.”

“Cupcake . . .” I laugh to keep my chest from caving.

“Kidding.” Her giggle puts air back in my lungs, if only for a moment. “But it’s your mission, okay?”

“Why?”

“Because.” She pauses. “I’d want to do them . . . if I could go with you.”

“Okay,” I whisper. “If— when —I go, I promise to do every single one.”

“With no grumbling.”

I groan for dramatic effect. “No grumbling.”

After we hang up, I grab a notepad to sketch out a route. East Coast to West. Days, distances, stops I’ll check off because she can’t. Her list is a mission brief now.

I don’t know what she’ll have me do along the way, but I’ll get it all done somehow.

Even if if it takes bending the whole damn universe.

_____

I file the leave request anyway, knowing exactly how it’ll end. But maybe—just maybe—if Major reads my reason, a spark of decency will flicker in his hollow chest, and he’ll remember what it’s like to be human.

The denial hits my screen before I can even close the app. Instant. Automatic. Heartless.

Something ugly and rabid roars through me, and I hurl my phone at the cinderblock wall. I need something to break other than me. It ricochets off the concrete with a satisfying crack, raining down to the floor in pieces.

How will I tell Ava? She’ll be devastated.

Needing air, I bolt from the room, fists clenched, breath ragged. My boots pound the pavement, and I run until my lungs give out. Until the edges of my vision blur and I can’t remember where I started or why I can’t stop.

When my legs fail, I collapse in a heap outside the galley, forehead pressed to the cool ground.

Voices and approaching footsteps muffle around me like I’m underwater. Sweating and breathless, my head throbs with the flashing lights going off in every direction.There's distant shouting.

Then—nothing.