The Last Mission of the Living (The Last Bastion Book 2) (15 page)

“Go to a shelter, Vaja. Get a flat assignment. Leave me alone,” she replied in a weary voice.

“It’s him. He came between us.”

Lindsey and Torran exchanged looks. He lifted his eyebrows slightly, but said nothing.

“No, he didn’t. Your lies did. Torran is my friend.”

“You’re fucking him,” Vaja said with scorn.

“If I am, you can’t say a word about it.” Lindsey grabbed Vaja’s bag from under the stairs and shoved it into his arms.

“Yes, I can. Because our love is real, Lindsey. I realized it after you made me leave. I couldn’t bear the thought of not being with you.” Vaja brushed his fingers lightly over her cheek.

Lindsey shivered from the touch, the memories of all they had experienced swirling around in her mind and tangling with the darker thoughts of his deception. She detected Torran circling around behind her. It was natural for him to move into a position to provide backup. They were both soldiers after all.

Setting her hands on her hips, Lindsey stared into Vaja’s beautiful ice blue eyes and ignored his touch. At one point she’d melted at the very sight of him, but now she was just sad.

“I’m not in love with you, Vaja. I’m not in love with anyone.”

That elicited a mirthless chuckle from her ex. Looking at Torran, he said, “Sucks to be you, huh? How long will you last?”

“We’re friends,” Torran replied.

“Sure you are.” Vaja jumped off the stairs, swung his bag over his shoulder, and stared at Lindsey. “I’ll come by tomorrow so we can talk without him.”

“Don’t bother,” Lindsey called after him, but had the sinking feeling that Vaja wouldn’t listen.

“Asshole.” Vaja flipped off Torran, then trudged down the narrow passage to the street.

Unlocking the door, Lindsey slipped into the flat. Torran followed and palmed the door locks. He didn’t say anything. Instead, he leaned against the door, arms folded over his chest, and waited.

Lindsey unbuttoned her jacket and struggled to find words and speak coherently. At last, the only one that slipped free was, “Fuck!”

“Exes. They’re complicated.”

Torran said the words so deadpan it made her snicker. The sound of her laughter provoked a smile to break out on Torran’s lips. The sight made her stomach clench again. She hated that she knew what he did not.

“Should I go?” Torran asked, misreading her expression.

“No. Stay.” Lindsey set her coat on the back of her computer chair. In her mind’s eyes she saw his name again on the SWD roster.

“What’s happening?” Torran ventured to ask.

Lindsey slid her fingers through her long hair and stared at him in silence.

“You know something. Like how you knew about the Inferi Boon and the castellan leaving the city. The night you saved me, you knew so much more than I did. It’s happening again. I see it in your eyes.”

“You see things others don’t. It’s a little disturbing,” she said half-jokingly.

“Lindsey, are you in danger?”

“No. Not directly.”

“Am I?”

Lindsey pressed her lips together and weighed her options. “In about an hour the whole city will know what I’m about to tell you. That’s when the press conference will occur outside of the SWD Facility. The SWD will tell the Bastion we’re on the verge of starvation because of President Cabot’s inept handling of our reserves. Then it will be announced that using the resources gathered from the valley, the SWD is sending troops out to gather food from the dead world.”

“How do you know this?” Torran stared at her with alarm.

Tears filling her eyes, she said, “I know things because I can’t stand not to know what’s happening.”

“You hacked into the SWD. You saw their plans. You saw that I’m on the roster,” Torran muttered, then said, “Shit.”

“Torran...” Lindsey couldn’t find words anymore. She cared about him. He understood her and already felt like a dear friend. In her imagination, she could see him hanging out with her, Ryan, and Maria. He would have fit in so flawlessly. Why had it taken so long for them to find each other? Now he was leaving on a mission Lindsey wanted to fail.

“Can you show me?”

“I shouldn’t show you any of it,” Lindsey retorted. “I shouldn’t have even seen it.”

“But you did. Because that’s what you do. You see what others don’t. It’s what you’ve done with me, you know. You see things others don’t.” His voice was clipped, his expression pained, but he wasn’t being cruel. “I suspected you were some sort of spy or hacker. That computer always running behind your eyes.”

Pressing her lips together, she finally nodded. Sitting at her computer, she disconnected it from the grid. Pulling out her small pad, she accessed the hidden files and relayed the information to the bigger screen. She only showed him the stolen speech and the roster. She didn’t show him the secret intel on Maria and Dwayne.

Leaning over her, Torran studied both of the open documents on the screen. After several long minutes, he finally said, “Okay.”

“It’s not okay.”

Torran pointed at several abbreviations at the bottom of the roster. “Experimental stealth armor. They think they have a way to protect us.”

“Torran...”

“So, that increases our chances right there...”

“Torran!”

Lindsey tilted her head so she could see his face. Eyes wide, his dread was clear.

“What do you want me to say? That I won’t go? Because I have to go. It’s what people like you and me always do, Lindsey. Even if we might die. We go and do what we need to do.”

Standing, she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face into his chest. His arms went around her and he laid his cheek against the top of her head.

“We just met...” he said, and left the words drop away.

Lindsey couldn’t speak. She was torn between wanting his mission to fail and having him return. Caught between her love for Maria and her growing attachment to Torran, she was distraught.

“You didn’t want to tell me,” he said at last.

“No, I did. I just... I want to trust you, Torran. But if the SWD internal security found out—”

“They won’t. I won’t tell a soul,” Torran swore. Releasing her, he took her by the arms and stared down at her. “I promise that.”

“When I went to find you, I just... I was going on emotion.” Staring at the emblem of the SWD on the collar of his black uniform, she hated that she was stuck once again at the center of the battle between people who cared more for retaining power than helping the citizens of the Bastion. “I wanted to be near you before you found out and it all changed. I know we just met a few weeks ago and haven’t spent a lot of time together, but we share so much in common. You actually seem to get my weirdness.”

“You’re amazing,” Torran protested. “You’re such a good friend. A good soldier. So clever. So amazingly talented.” He waved a hand at the computer screen. “And I’m glad I’m finding out from you. It makes it more... bearable.”

Touching his cheek, the sorrow she felt within her startled her with its depth. Maybe she was more attached to him than she allowed herself to believe. Rising up onto her toes, she kissed him tenderly. Torran responded with a soft brush of his lips against hers. Peering into her eyes, he must have seen what she felt: boundaries falling. The kiss that followed was searing with emotion and passion. It was far more intense and consuming than the kisses they had shared the night before. Lips and tongues meeting in torrid passion, they clung to each other as if the world would tear them apart.

With a sob in her throat, Lindsey realized it
was
tearing them apart.

“I had it all wrong,” she whispered against his lips, her fingers gripping the collar of his jacket.

“How?” he asked, a tiny frown between his eyebrows.

“It’s not that life is so short we shouldn’t risk getting attached... it’s that life’s so short we should take every risk no matter how terrifying.”

“They’ll call me in tomorrow morning,” he said in a quiet voice.

“Then stay here tonight with me,” she urged him. It was quite hard to speak, and it hurt to think too far into the future. She just wanted the here and now to be everything that could have been if they just had time.

“If I stay,” Torran said cautiously, “I want more than to just fuck you. I want to know what it is to... love you. Okay?”

With a sorrowful giggle in her voice, she answered, “Again, you seem to read my mind.”

“Forty minutes until broadcast.”

“Let’s make it count,” she said, her fingers playing with his clearly not regulation hair.

Chapter 14

Torran was still tucked inside Lindsey’s warmth when their wristlets chimed. He attempted to roll off her, but she kept him pinned to her hips with her legs. Gazing up at him with eyes that made him want to slay an entire world of Scrags just to be with her, Lindsey brushed the sides of his face with her fingers.

“Just one last kiss before the world changes,” she whispered.

Bending his head to hers, he gave her a long, deep kiss that caused him to stir inside her.

She moaned with pleasure.

The wristlet chimed again.

A sigh escaping his lips, he swiped the screen of his wristlet to see the flashing emblem of The Bastion and a countdown timer to the announcement. Lindsey moaned when he slipped out of her to lay at her side. Reluctantly, she activated her own wristlet, rolling onto her stomach to watch the feed. Torran set his wristlet next to hers and nestled into her side. Pressing gentle kisses against her temple, he waited to hear the announcement of his fate.

When the emblem dissolved, instead of Admiral Kirkpatrick before the camera it was President Cabot. standing in the rotunda of the Capitol complex.

“Citizens of the Bastion, good evening. I apologize for interrupting your evening rituals or wakening you, but recent events have compelled me to speak directly to you tonight. Though we are unified under the banner of humanity, recent events have revealed that elements within our city do not serve the needs of people, but only their own selfish desires. Troubling information of a duplicitous nature came to light tonight.

“Admiral Kirkpatrick and his associates originally planned to speak to you at this hour in order to spread falsehoods about my administration. Their allegations included the gross mismanagement of Bastion food stores and secret plans for survival of only a select few. It is true that our food stores are limited at this time, but with the reclamation of the valley, which I ordered, there is hope for the future. Also, like our predecessors we have emergency contingences to ensure the survival of humanity. Admiral Kirkpatrick and his supporters hoped to skew the truth to appeal to your fears in an effort, once again, to rob the legally elected government of The Bastion of its power. He’d devised to propose a plan where SWD forces would venture into the dead world to retrieve food stores from long abandoned food depots. Depots that were beyond our capabilities of accessing until our fuel reserves were once more available to us due to our victory in reclaiming the valley.

“I concur that this is a viable alternative now that we have the ability to once again venture outside of The Bastion and the valley. But I believe that our strength as a people lies in working together. Therefore, I have requested that Commandant Pierce of the Constabulary and Legatus Martel of the Science Warfare Division formulate a plan that will utilize squads from both branches of our military to carry out a mission to secure these depots.”

Torran felt Lindsey tense beneath his touch. Casting a nervous look at him, she scrambled off her bed.

“Linds,” he called after her.

When she didn’t answer, he followed.

Torran found Lindsey reconnecting her computer to the grid and activating screens faster than his eyes could follow. Fingers flying over screens and keys, Lindsey moved so quickly he was in awe. Her eyes tracked across the readouts with an intensity that was almost frightening. Tapping her fingers against one screen, she twisted her lips.

“Lindsey, what are you looking for?” Torran peered at the display, but could only make out a few things.

“The roster changed,” she answered, lifting her eyes finally. With the sweep of her hand, all the screens vanished.

Squatting before her, Torran rested his hands on her waist. “Am I still on it?”

Lindsey nodded.

Torran could see the computer behind her eyes whirling away, then saw it finally flick off. It was a relief to see her return fully to him.

“So, nothing has changed,” he ventured.

“Oh, no. It’s changed.” Lindsey shrugged slightly. “Now I’m on the roster, too.”

The despair he’d felt when she had told him the news about his name being on the initial roster had been pretty intense, but it didn’t compare to the thought of her life being in danger. “They can’t.”

“They can and did. I’m in charge of the Constabulary squad. You’re in charge of the SWD.” Lindsey pressed her forehead to his and cupped his face with her palms. “We’re going out there together.”

Torran struggled to find the right words to say, but his mind failed him. He wanted to console her, but also rage against the powers that were using the enlisted as pawns in their games. Covering her hands with his, he heard the president speaking through the feed filtering through their wristlets.

“At least we’ll be together,” she said finally.

Lifting his eyes, he saw that she was giving him a sweet smile. “I’d rather you were here. Safe.”

“But, Torran, this is what people like us do, right?”

Torran hated that his words had come back to haunt him, but she was right. “Yes, this is what people like us do.”

“And this is why we have a connection. We understand each other, what we must do, the sacrifices that must be made.”

Nodding, Torran kissed the palms of her hands.

“So we’ll do our duty.” The sadness in her eyes was unbearable.

Torran stood and dragged her into his arms. Holding each other close, they could hear the last lines of the president’s speech and the anthem of The Bastion playing before the feed ended.

Their wristlets chimed, then turned off.

The world had altered around them yet again.

* * *

Watching Torran sleep, his head tucked beside hers on the pillow, Lindsey’s mind spun out all the possibilities of what could possibly occur on their mission. The SWD’s secret mission to retrieve Dwayne and Maria would not be so easily subsumed. The SWD would find a way to split the squads apart.

What would Torran do when he discovered his mission was actually to retrieve Dwayne and Maria?

Lindsey suspected she already knew the answer, and it filled her with dread.