Page 10

EBEN

The Captain scribbled furiously as I spoke. I gave her what I could, even though it didn’t feel like enough. The ins and outs of Elysium, the weaponry, the armor, the supplies they’d hoarded in the basement of the bunk house. I told her about the horses and how the militia had fled, and about the dead prisoners. I told her how there was nothing left but an empty shell made of stone and darkness. It was useless; the information I had was nothing more than a recollection of my time there, whispered conversations between guards, no real intel that could help the NEA.

“And what of the women’s prison? The west camp?” she asked, her sharp eyes narrowing when I shook my head.

“I have no idea. I assumed they killed the prisoners there as well. Maybe they fled too? The men… The male guards were not permitted to guard the west camp.”

“That’s the first lie you’ve told.” She set down her pencil and leaned back in her chair. “Who guards them then? Women soldiers?”

Confused, I nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

Her head tipped back as she laughed without humor and Cale squeezed my knee. “He’s not lying.”

“Oh?” She raised a dark brow. “And you can confirm this how, Cale? You were in a cell.” She shook her head and rested her elbows on the desk, pinning me with her glare. “Women are not permitted to join the militia.”

“We were told—”

“You were lied to.” The Captain sighed. “High-ranking officers guard the women.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” I said, and she laughed again.

“Doesn’t it?” Her smile thinned, disgust curling at the corner of her lips. “Women are nothing more than breeders, and if that’s not an option, they’re a hole. They send their soldiers to die while they stay behind and rape the women.” Her fingers trembled as she stared beyond me, remembering horrors I’d hope I’d never have to witness. “I was a prisoner once too. They lied, Eben… and I’d bet every last bag of grain we have they’re still there now. You thought Elysium was well guarded, you have no idea what lengths they’d go to keep the west camp from failing.”

“They let the Boulder front fall?” Cale asked and she nodded.

“Some of the top brass of the militia are housed in the west camp. None of them were at the front. Boulder may have fallen, but this is far from over.”

“Are we… Is it s-safe here?” Cale asked, his grip on my knee tightening.

I rested my hand over his. “I will keep you safe.”

A quiet chuckle turned my attention to the Captain. “Not today.”

“I can—”

“You can’t. You’re a guard with a medical waiver. You’ve never trained. Landon and Jack are your squad leaders. They will train you both when you’re ready. But tonight…” She stood up and I followed her lead, slipping my fingers through Cale’s as he stood and took my hand. “Tonight, you’ll do what Thomas says. You’ll stay in your tent unless otherwise ordered to evacuate.”

“Evacuate?” Cale whispered, his voice breaking.

“If that happens, follow the others past the lake to the other side of the valley and wait for further instruction.” She nodded. “You’re dismissed.”

She held up her hand and gestured for the door.

“Captain?” I tried and her jaw flexed.

“You will get your chance, Eben.” She stared at me for a breath. “So eager to die… all of you young men are. There are other ways to fight.” Her gaze fell to the way Cale’s hand clasped mine. “Your love is resistance. What you did, do for each other… it’s enough. Don’t be so ready to throw your life away… your life and how you live it, here, and hopefully in the future, that kind of love, you never know…” she smiled then, real and soft. “It could help heal a nation.”

“Love?” I said the word and turned to look at Cale.

His cheeks were stained with tears as his gaze met mine.

Love.

It was a word I’d never thought I could feel. But I did. It wasn’t like it once was, that slow-growing ivy that twined its way around your heart with first kisses and flushed cheeks in bar bathrooms, and late nights with someone you could maybe see yourself with three years from now. No, what I had with Cale was a deeper love. A new type of love, born from hope. Born from survival and dark nights, where his eyes had become the stars I’d grown up with, and all I wanted was a place to rest my head only so I could listen to him breathe. Our love wasn’t slow. It was this bold, couldn’t catch my breath, where did it come from, fast-growing thing, like a field of wildflowers grown overnight.

Whatever happened next, I couldn’t deny that she was right. I’d fallen for Cale. I loved him more than anything. Loved him enough to fight for him, to die if it meant the light in his blue eyes never had to dim again. It scared me, how much I wanted to belong to him, to someone. I’d never had that before. Before everything had changed.

“Eben…” He traced a shape inside the palm of my hand with the tip of his thumb. I wanted to ask him what it was, but the Captain cleared her throat.

“I believe you were both dismissed,” she ordered, the softness in her tone long gone.

“Yes, ma’am.” I nodded as I turned for the door.

Once we were outside and a good hundred yards from the Captain’s yurt, Cale pulled me into a hug. “I’m sorry,” he whispered into the crook of my neck.

“Sorry? For what?”

Leaning back, he kept his hands on my waist. “I know you wanted to fight tonight, but I’m glad, Eben. I’m glad she said no, and I can’t feel bad about—”

I kissed him, with the orange sun spilling over the mountaintops, and the morning frost stinging our cheeks, and everything the Captain had said resonating inside my chest. Our love was resistance. It didn’t lift the burden of my guilt. That guilt I had from taking another life, for months of complicity, but I was here now, fighting, and I made a vow through this kiss, with my hands tangled in Cale’s hair, to never stop.

CALE

“You were right,” he said, his lips brushing gently over mine before he pulled away. “I’m not ready to fight… I’m… I’m glad she said no too.”

“Really?”

The skin around his warm eyes crinkled as he gave me one of his shy smiles. “What she said… all that stuff about love.” He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand.

“Yeah?” I traced another heart into the palm of his other hand. “She’s right about that too. My mom, before…” I took a breath, the memory hitting me hard in the chest. “The day before she was taken, she said something like that. Said we had to stay kind, that being kind in the face of hate was the only way we’d remember who we are. I forgot… or maybe I didn’t want to believe her. But then there you were, with that apple. Your kindness, Eben, it saved me.”

He turned my palm face up. “Was that a heart you drew?” he asked, and I nodded as he traced his own heart in the center of my hand. “Our love is resistance.”

My breath caught in my throat.

Four words instead of three, but the meaning felt the same.

“It is,” I whispered, my eyes following his finger in my palm as he drew another smaller heart. “Or it can be.”

He tipped my chin up with his thumb and finger. “It is.”

It was a promise.

“I never thought I would have this again, after Seven died I… I just didn’t think it was possible.”

“I’ve never… I mean… I’ve never been serious about anyone before.” He took my hand again as his gaze drifted toward the mess hall. “I thought it was supposed to happen over time. Love was supposed to be this gradual thing; at least, that is what my parents always said. I never thought it could be… like this. I never expected… you.”

“I certainly never expected you.” Smiling, I kissed the corner of his mouth.

“I do, though… love you.” His cheeks darkened. “I know everything is fragile, and maybe I’m out of mind, but I feel it, Cale. There’s nothing gradual about the way you make my heart rattle around inside my chest. And maybe this love… this love is different, but I want it. I want to feel something good in all this chaos, and I hope…” He bit the corner of his lip. “I hope you do too.”

“Eben…”

“I know you loved Seven, and I know it’s not the—”

“I love you, too,” I blurted and smiled at the dumbstruck look on his face.

“You do?”

“Even if it took me time to trust you, part of me knew that day, when you looked inside that bag, filled with rotten apples. Your face, the shock and utter disgust, and then you brought me a fresh apple every day. You were the kindness I’d been looking for, the kindness I didn’t think existed anymore.” I rested my hand on the side of his neck, brushing my thumb along the line of his strong jaw. This man who had saved my life. This man who had killed to make sure we could be free. How could I not love him? “Gradual… fast… when you know you know. And I know. I know I want to fight alongside you, love you, for as long as I can.”

Eben pressed a kiss to my forehead, and I closed my eyes. I ignored the soft chatter of voices drifting on the chilled breeze, and the smell of bacon coming from the mess hall down the hill, and focused on him.

“We’re going to get through this,” I said.

He leaned back and I opened my eyes. “You’re always so sure.”

“I have you.”

He huffed out a laugh.

“And I have you.”

“Then we’re good.”

***

After breakfast, Thomas had given us orders to meet with our squad leaders at the supply yurts near the north corner of the settlement. Landon and Jack, along with a handful of other soldiers, were already there and were busy packing rucksacks by the time we’d found them.

“Don’t be shy, Greenie, grab a couple of bags and get to work.” Jack laughed as he tossed a rucksack at Eben. “You too, princess.” He threw another at me, and I grabbed it before it hit me in the face.

“Don’t be a dick.” Landon rolled his eyes. “We need about thirty of these filled with supplies, all right. We’ve got a unit heading out at noon, so we need to hurry.” He glared at Jack. “No fucking around.”

Jack’s cheeks turned crimson as he shoved a foil-looking blanket into the rucksack he was working on. “Yeah, all right.”

Landon shook his head with a quiet sigh. I tried not to stare as Eben and I made our way over to the table, but there was something about the way Landon’s gaze lingered over Jack. He lightly elbowed him.

“Hey, I’m sorry, okay?” Landon whispered. “I wasn’t trying to—”

“Power trip… sure.” Jack picked up his bag and started to leave.

“Jack…”

“I know… sometimes…” Jack looked up and caught me staring, the rose of his cheeks deepening. “Never mind.” He took his bag to the other end of the table, leaving a space for Eben and me to stand.

“Don’t mind him,” Landon said with a small smile. “He always gets a little cranky before a mission.”

“He has to fight tonight?” Eben asked.

“We all do.” The soldier next to me handed me three packs of MREs. He was shorter than me with dark hair and bushy eyebrows. “It sucks. I was supposed to have dinner with Zara.”

“Dinner.” A girl across from me laughed. “Is that what we’re calling it these days?”

“Last I heard, y’all were just fucking.” The blond guy we met last night at the gate, Colton, I think, smirked. “Better be careful, might catch feelings.”

“Fuck you, Colt.”

“Been there, done that…no, thanks.”

Eben’s eyes widened and I couldn’t help the smile spreading across my face. Landon noticed. “Aw, did you think you were the only queer rebels in the NEA? In case you missed it, our President is gay.”

“And so is his husband,” Colt laughed at his bad joke, and the guy next to me snorted.

He held out his hand. “I’m Nadim.”

“Cale,” I said and shook his hand. “This is—”

“Eben…yeah, we know,” he said, giving Eben a lazy, salacious smile. “Captain briefed us, welcome to the squad.”

“Oh God, look at you.” Landon chuckled. “What about dinner with Zara?”

“What about her?” Nadim shrugged as he handed Eben a few supplies to put in the rucksack. “Unlike this fucker, I don’t catch feelings.”

Colton flipped him off.

“I’m free to fuck who I want.” Nadim winked.

“Um…” Eben rubbed the back of his neck, and the laugh I’d been trying to hold back slipped past my lips.

Landon pinched the bridge of his nose. “Nadim, keep your dick in your pants, the man’s obviously taken.” Landon’s eyes darted between Eben and me. “And for fuck’s sake, can you just do your job.”

“It’s not like we’re all about to risk our lives tonight or anything…” Another soldier across from me lifted his chin. “Jeff.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“He’s not gay,” Nadim whisper-shouted, and Jeff chuckled.

“You wish I was.”

“Every damn day.”

Eben looked at me as everyone around us laughed and joked like they weren’t about to set off on a possible suicide mission. With a secret smile, he squeezed my hand below the table, and for the next hour we packed rucksacks and listened to soldiers talk about their conquests and whose tent smelled the worst, and every now and then I’d catch Landon staring at Jack. Despite the looming threat of the militia, we’d carved out a small moment in time where we could be young again, where we could be—normal. We could be anyone, friends, family, in laughter, in the small touches of Eben’s hand, in Landon’s stolen glances, in the light of the warming sun, for sixty whole minutes, where the weight of the world had been lifted, we could be free.