Enemy One (Epic Book 5) (64 page)

Though Catalina and Tiffany’s exchange would be mutually forgiven, the swelling of Catalina’s emotions to the surface of her heart—particularly as they pertained to Mark Peters—would be difficult to shake. It had been five days since Mark had been killed along with so many of their other teammates over the Great Dismal Swamp. Five days since he’d been sucked out the back of their Vulture in an explosion of fire. There’d been no meaningful last words between them—no lingering, final look into his eyes from afar. One second he was there, and in the next…

…in the next, she was rolling around in a wheelchair in
Northern Forge
. There’d barely been enough time between then and now to breathe, let alone grieve. Besides the tears that’d fallen as a result of her leg injury, she’d scarcely cried any at all. She’d just been numb.

Mark had been more than a teammate to her. The two of them had had something. Was it special? She didn’t know. But it’d been theirs. She’d never called it
love
, even when Mark had asked her outright about it. But it wasn’t
just
lust, either. They pushed each other physically and emotionally. Truth be told, had she wanted to take their relationship further, into the realm of the definable, Mark probably would have gone for it.

Of course, none of that mattered now. Mark was gone. Life had changed. Thinking about what could have been—what perhaps
should
have been—was of no benefit in her current situation. Instead of facing those feelings, she tried to block them out for the sake of moving on.

Tried to.

At least she still had Tiffany.

Catalina had never envisioned herself as a sidekick, yet in the duo that
was
she and Tiffany, that was what she’d become. While Catalina had never been one to demand the spotlight or put herself in a position to be the center of attention, she exuded more than enough confidence to slide naturally into the role. People went where she wanted them to go. People did what she wanted them to do. People wanted to know what she was up to. Or at least, that’s how things had once been.

Simply put, Catalina had been upstaged by a mall rat.

That was putting it crudely, and any effort her mind made to describe things in such a way was met by immediate self-chastisement. She was no more special than Tiffany, and most certainly no more deserving of the perceived limelight. She just wasn’t used to being forgotten. It didn’t anger her. More than anything, it made her reflect. Perhaps she wasn’t the wildcard she’d always thought she was. Maybe Catalina Shivers was part of the backdrop. Somehow, she couldn’t accept that—yet there she was, rolling around on her own, lost on Level-2 of
Northern Forge
, with no one seeking her out or asking for her input on anything. Had they, she’d have gladly given it. No, this operation was Tiffany’s, the new adopted sister of the Fourteenth, led by the man Catalina herself aspired to emulate at
Richmond
—to the point where maybe, just maybe, Catalina was a little bit bitter about it. But friends didn’t get bitter. Or, at least, they weren’t supposed to. Perhaps she wasn’t as good a friend as she thought she was either. Had she been a neutral third party observing her own behavior, she’d have dubbed her mindset, “self-pity, party of one.” But she knew that thought was silly.

This wasn’t a party at all.

At long last, the sound of something new caught Catalina’s ears. Though it wasn’t the dinging of the much-sought-after elevator, its strangeness drew her toward it. It was grunting, coming from a room just ahead of her. Deep grunts, followed by heavy breaths, repeated over and over. There was no mistaking what it was: someone was working out. But on Level-2? Did
Northern Forge
have a gym that she didn’t know about? As things turned out, the base did, tucked away in the middle of rooms dedicated to foodstuffs, clothing, and boxes of ores. The room wasn’t a
genuine
gym—it was as makeshift as one could be. This was empty space that’d been repurposed with weights, mirrors, and a handful of workout machines, just slightly less elaborate than one would expect to find at a mid-rate hotel. But that a gym existed in the labyrinth of Level-2 wasn’t what surprised her the most. What surprised her was who she found in it. There, in the middle of the room, sitting in his own wheelchair with weights in each hand, was Auric Broll.

“Auric?”
she asked from the doorway.

Stopping in mid-curl, the facially-scarred German slayer turned his head in her direction. When he saw Catalina, he smiled. “Hello.”

Of all the members of the Fourteenth, Catalina had come to know Auric the best, by proximity. The two had been side-by-side, literally, during their entire stay at
Northern Forge
. Though she wouldn’t have described her knowledge of him as “well,” she nonetheless had exchanged a decent amount of small-talk with him in the medical bay over the course of their time there. He seemed genuinely nice, for what little she knew. She’d referred to the two of them as, “Team Cripple.” He’d laughed at it.

That was the extent of their friendship.

The raven-haired soldier rolled toward him. “What are you doing? Should you be doing that?”

Laughing deeply, the sweat-covered German answered, “That is why they are fifteens.” He lifted up the weights.

“Fifteens, or not,” she said, giving him a look that was part wry, part wondering if he was crazy, “you
just
had major knee surgery. I…kind of can’t even believe you can
do
that.”

“Do not let your backup see the field,” Auric said. When she gave him a strange look, he chuckled. “I learned that from the captain. It is, umm, American football term, I think? I must show that I am useful, or I will be replaced.” As Auric thought about it, another small laugh escaped. “Ironic, I think Remington was a backup.”

As Auric exhaled and set the weights down on the rack, Catalina wheeled up to him. “Just, you know, don’t hurt yourself. Your knee’s being held in place by plaster, not titanium.”

“Oh, yes, I know.” He smiled. “It hurts.”

Catalina eyed the German curiously as silence fell between them. At long last, she tilted her head and asked, “You’re kind of like a human battery, eh?”

“I am sorry?”

“You just go, and go, and go. Even in the medical bay, you were fidgeting the whole time. You just…you have to be doing something.”

Nodding his head, he looked down almost sheepishly. “Oh, yes. Yes. I like to work.” He stretched toward the rack for a towel and wiped the sweat from his face. “You came here to work out?”

“Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no, no.” She smirked. “I actually value my recovery. I’m here because I’m lost.”

“Oh?” At that, Auric laughed. “Lost, okay. Umm, where were you trying to go?”

She didn’t have an answer for that. “Honestly, I just wanted to get out on my own. I’ve been cooped up so much—you know the feeling. But I guess, uhh,
now
I’m looking for the elevator.”

“Ah. Okay.” Pointing toward the doorway, he motioned to the left. “Follow this hall, right there, to the third-to-last intersection. Go left, it is in the middle of that hall.” He shook his head and gave her a funny look. “It sounds harder than it is.”

Watching him for a second, Catalina nodded her head. “Well, all right. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

As the Canadian slowly wheeled backward a few feet, Auric turned back to the weight rack, reaching for the pair of fifteens he’d just set down. Only when he was on the verge of resuming his curls, did she speak to him again. “Okay, what’s the deal with you?”

“I’m sorry?” Auric asked, huffing and setting the weights back again.

“I feel like we should know each other better. We’ve been side-by-side for days. What’s your story?” she asked, going on with more questions before he could answer. “Where are you from? Why are you here? How’d you get the scar on your face? Stuff like that.”

Eyes widening a bit at the mini-barrage of questions, he laughed and half shook his head when she was finished. “Well, the face is easiest. I was shot by a plasma bolt.”

Catalina’s jaw dropped. “In the
face
?”

“Yes.” Auric motioned around his neck and shoulder. “
Interspecies Conflict
. Bolt hit here—boom. It splashed up and got my face.”

“And you’re not home, with your feet propped up, slamming a beer?”

Auric shook his head, his pleasant expression remaining. “No, I couldn’t.”

“Gotta keep working, eh?”

“I don’t drink.”

Staring him down as if waiting for him to laugh, Catalina narrowed her eyes when he didn’t. “You don’t drink?” she finally asked.

“No.”

“Everyone drinks.”

Now, his smile widened. “No, not true. There are a few in the unit who don’t. The captain, myself…Sveta, the commander—at least, not anymore.”

“You strange, strange folk.”

“But, to answer your question, no, I could not have left
Novosibirsk
, even after the plasma bolt. I have nothing else to do.” After a momentary pause, he motioned to her. “Will you leave? Now that you have that?”

Her jester’s smirk widened, and she nodded her head. “Sure. I’ll just retire, nice and quietly. ‘Dead girl returns home.’ I’m sure that wouldn’t make the news.”

“Well, you know,” Auric said, “if you want to go home, you will find a way. As I will find a way to make this leg work again, to put on armor, and to fight once more. It is what I really want to do.” When Catalina offered him no real change of expression, the German said, “You are not happy.”

“My leg is destroyed, I’m rolling around in a wheelchair, and I’m lost in the middle of a secret mountain base in Russia. I don’t have very many reasons to be happy.”

He indicated to her nonchalantly. “But you are alive.”

Her face remained unchanged. “Yes. I am alive.”

“But it is not about any of the things that you said. You are sad in a place much deeper.”

“Is that a statement or a question?” Silence prevailed between them as Auric didn’t respond. At long last, Catalina released a long, weary sigh. Rolling a floor tile closer, she said, “Everyone knows what they want. You want to get better so you can fight—you live for this, it’s obvious. Tiffany wanted to fly for her father, now she wants to fly for Travis. Captain Remington, I’m sure he has passionate reasons for doing what he’s doing.” Though Auric nodded, he remained quiet. “Then, there’s me. I’m not here for a grand purpose, Auric,” she said with self-depreciative smugness. “I’m here because I was bored. Ta-da, look at me.”

Auric made a deep,
mmm
, sound.

“I could be the lead singer of a rock and roll band.” Her tone retained its almost sing-song matter-of-factness. “But I was like,
whatevs
, and got the wonderful notion to enlist with EDEN, so I could get shot out of the sky
by
EDEN, to end up here, sitting in a wheelchair talking about life’s futility with you. Wow, I have certainly gone astray.”

Despite the mocking irony in her voice, the look Auric offered her was not amused or eager to placate. Rather, he simply looked sad.

Leaning back in the wheelchair, Catalina bit her fist for a moment before going on. “Do you know how good I was, for that brief moment in time, in this career path I chose because I had nothing better to do?”

“How good—”

“I was damn good, Auric. I was like…” She pressed her lips together tightly as if searching for the right word. In the end, she just shook her head in disgust.

Again, a quiet came over the gym, as Auric’s eyes drifted between Catalina, the weights on the rack, and the floor space between them. Only when it became clear that she wasn’t going to say anything else did he speak. “You have fire in you.”

The Canadian scoffed with laughter. “Did you even hear one thing I said? I was bored, Auric. Bored.”

“One does not get so upset about things they are not passionate about.

“That is…not correct.”

He shook his head. “No, it is correct. You simply have not discovered what that passion is yet. You think that it must be for this, for being a soldier.”

Looking at him stupidly, she asked, “If I’m not here to be a soldier, why am I here?”

“To be significant.” The moment he answered it, her expression changed. She now looked at him strangely. “Maybe, I don’t know. To be noticed in a different way? Perhaps to show yourself that you can do it.” The German motioned to her leg. “And now you are not sure. You think that maybe things for you are over, but they are not—not unless you want them to be. I got shot in the face, I got blown out in the knee…but I will be back.” He smiled. “So will you.”

Even Catalina had a hard time identifying the look she was giving him. Her quintessential jester’s smile was still there, but it felt forced—shrouded in embarrassment. She
felt
herself looking uncomfortable. To Auric’s credit, he didn’t point it out or ask her to say anything. Had he, she wouldn’t have known
what
to say. He’d nailed her motivations.

Turning his wheelchair back to the rack of weights, Auric said, “If you wish to join me, please feel free. If not, I understand. I hope something I said helped.”

If by
helped
, he meant,
made things unbearable
, then yes, he’d helped. But he’d pretty much described her to a T. As Auric reached out for the fifteen-pound weights again, Catalina simply observed him as he lifted and lowered them with heavy breaths and loud blows. There was physical pain in the German’s face. This workout—as it was expected to—hurt. But he never slowed down.

Eventually, sitting there and watching him workout began to feel awkward, at which point she knew she had two possibilities: leave or accept his invitation. So she gave in. Pushing the wheels of her wheelchair forward, Catalina drew near to the weight rack. “So, what do you think for me? Tens?”

Blowing out a hard breath at the end of a curl, he said, “Fives. Start with fives.”

“Thanks for the show of confidence.”

Auric laughed between huffs. “I mean, look.” Motioning to himself, then to her, he left unspoken the insinuation that he was simply stronger than she was. It was true, to be sure—but that didn’t make it cool to say.