This Shattered World (27 page)

But she’s ignoring her things, emptying the bag and then grabbing a knife off the counter. She starts sawing through the lining, cutting away a false bottom. Before I can voice my surprise, she’s pulling out a few unlabeled packets and looking down at them, expression unreadable. Then she looks up, half her mouth lifting in a smile. “Sit,” she orders, jabbing a finger at the rug.

I sink down warily as she rips open one of the packets, giving its contents a curious sniff. Then she shuffles around behind me, out of sight.

Then something freezing cold dribbles onto my scalp, and I yelp. “What are you doing back there?”

“Trying to keep them from shooting you on sight,” she replies blandly. She’s working her fingers through my hair, quick and thorough, if gentle enough. A little of the gel smears across my forehead, and she brushes it away with her wrist. “I know I can’t imagine you as a platinum blond, so I don’t think anyone else will either.”

“Are you serious?” I try to pull away, and she simply grabs a handful of my hair, holding me in place like a mother cat holds a kitten. “Where the hell did you get blond hair dye?”

“I asked for it,” she replies simply. As though that’s all it takes—and for silver-tongued Sofia, perhaps that’s true, though I know she didn’t come by her skills easily. She finishes working the dye through my hair and turns back for the remaining two packets.

She fetches a plate and a rag from the kitchen and returns. She empties the packets, which contain a brown powder, onto the plate and then dribbles some water over it until it forms a paste.

“Okay,” she says, exhaling briskly. “Now, strip.”

I lift my brows at her. “No need to order me, Sof. Most guys will pretty much get undressed any time a girl asks.” She snorts, and as I’m unbuttoning my shirt, I find I can breathe a little easier for the pleasure of making her smile, even for a moment. “Now, since I know the answer isn’t the one I’m hoping for, why am I taking my clothes off?”

“This will tint your skin.” She dips the rag into the paste and reaches for my arm, scrubbing it in circles and leaving dark brown smears behind, like shoe polish. “You won’t find a white guy from Avon with a tan. Everyone will assume you’re an off-worlder.”

“I’m going to look like an idiot,” I mourn, looking down at the unnatural brown of my arm.

“What else is new?” she retorts. “Idiotic is good. Nobody pays attention to idiots—they dismiss them. No one suspects they’re hiding anything.”

I watch as she works her way up my arm. It’s clever. It’s beyond clever—it’s
brilliant
. It’s what a lifetime of living on a planet torn by war teaches you: How to read people. How to blend in. How to disappear. But this—this never would’ve occurred to me.

“Sofia—why do you have this stuff?”

She doesn’t answer, her lips pressing more tightly together. Instead she concentrates on working the paste into my shoulders, my neck, my ears, my face. I watch her as she dabs carefully around my eyes, noting how different she is from Jubilee. Fair, gentle, her features soft, her mouth made for smiling. She looks innocent, even happy, but for the grief in her eyes.

“You were going to run,” I say softly. “When they came for you.”

“Where would I have run to?” She spreads the mixture down my chest a ways, stopping when she’s sure the line won’t be visible under a shirt. “There’s nothing for me on Avon anymore. Unless you think the Fianna would take me.”

I watch as she shifts, leaning over so she can work at my hands, staining carefully around the nails. Someone like her would’ve been a major asset for us—quick thinking and a silver tongue. Maybe she could have helped me fend off McBride.

Or maybe she’d have been dead alongside Mike and Fergal, and I’d have lost one more person that day.

“Don’t go into the swamps, Sofia.”

Her eyes search mine. “No,” she agrees, letting her breath out. “Let that soak in for a while,” she commands, getting to her feet and dipping a glass full of water with which to scrub at her stained hands over the basin.

“Whatever you were going to use this stuff for…can you get more?”

Sofia shrugs. “It’s fine, I can take care of myself.” She rinses her hands and tilts her head so she can peer at me. “But can you?”

“I don’t think Sean would even recognize me now.” There’s a cut at my heart for that, but I shove it aside.

“That’s not what I mean.” Sofia’s eyes are on mine, raking across my features, trying to read me the way she reads the trodairí when determining which one to try to swindle out of his extra rations. “Flynn…is she worth it?”

That brings me up short, and I stop picking at the paste drying to a crusty mess on my arm so I can gaze back at her. “She’s not why I chose what I did.”

The corner of Sofia’s mouth quirks. “You can hide from the Fianna, Flynn, but you can’t hide from me. Your eyes dilate when you think about her; you speak more quickly, less carefully. I’m used to watching for the signs—how do you think I get things out of the trodairí?”

I shake my head, knowing Sofia will read guilt clearly across my face. That the girl who killed my people, who I found covered in their blood, whose hands I had to wash clean—that the thought of her still does this to me is detestable. “It doesn’t matter. What she’s done, Sof—it doesn’t
matter
what I think or feel.”

“You were never a very good liar, Flynn.”

She gives the dyes time to set and then helps me wash my hair and scrub the paste from my skin. To my relief, when the dark brown gunk is swept away, the skin underneath is a much more natural shade of golden brown. Still ridiculous on me, but it’ll pass all but the closest of inspections.

I brought nothing with me, so once the mess is cleared away, I’m left standing by the door, bracing myself to step outside. It’s begun to rain, its patter on the roof muffled by the moss that grows there for insulation from the cold.

When I look back at Sofia, she’s biting her lip, her tired eyes finally lighting a little in amusement. Seeing my glance, she quips, “You
do
look like an idiot.”

“Good, I guess.”

“You can get into the bar via the back door. It’s in the alley behind the building, it leads into the storeroom.” The amusement flees her expression. “I’m probably not going to see you again after they take me away.”

Her matter-of-fact tone cracks my heart. “Maybe not,” I concede. “You never know.” She’s my last hint of home—the last person truly of Avon to look at me without hatred in her gaze. I’m forced to swallow, clear my throat as it threatens to close. “I’ll think of you.”

She shakes her head, lips curving a little. “I’ll think of you too. I’ll remember you looking absolutely ridiculous.”

“At least I’m memorable.” It’s gallows humor, but it helps. A little. I step toward her, lifting an arm to reach for a hug.

Her half smile vanishes, and she pulls away as her gaze slides from mine. “It’ll be easier for me if you don’t,” she says softly. “I have to stop thinking of this place as home. It has to just be a place I lived for a while.”

My throat does close then, and we’re both silent, with only the rain on the roof to break up the quiet. I study the girl I knew, another casualty of this fight, wondering how the wounds of it will mark her. “Clear skies, Sof.” It’s all I have left to say.

“Clear skies,” she whispers. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

The girl grips her brush, tongue poking out the corner of her mouth as she focuses on the page in front of her. The trick with calligraphy is to commit to the stroke. Her hand can’t waver or the ink will blot. The beauty will be lost.

She needs to write a note to the green-eyed boy, and it cannot wait.

But her fingers tighten around the brush’s handle until her knuckles whiten, and she’s pressing too hard. The characters writhe on the paper and weep fat tears of ink so they blur into one another. The girl can’t read them, and she can’t remember what she meant to write.

She stares down at the paper, the urgency beating through her in time with her heart, the memory hovering just out of reach. What did she need to tell the boy?

The blurred letters fade out as the girl watches, and soon the paper is blank.

“CAPTAIN CHASE, YOU’RE LATE.”
Commander towers is glaring at me. But I don’t care. I can’t find my apology—I can’t even find a salute. I’m too busy staring at the man standing on the other side of her desk. He still sports a holstered Gleidel at one hip, too long a soldier to come to a place like Avon unarmed despite having resigned from the military. He’s wearing clean and tidy civvies, practical and suited to Avon’s muddy surface: boots, trousers, a fitted T-shirt, like the most casual version of our uniform. With my hair hastily pinned up under my hat and my buttons in severe need of polishing, I feel like an idiot.

But mostly, I feel relieved. Because of all the people I expected to be escorting around the base, Tarver Merendsen was the absolute last on the list.

“I was just telling the commander that you and I have served together in the past,” he says, turning to face me. His mouth twitches, the barest hint of a familiar smile visible there. “It’s good to see you again, Captain.”

“Sir.” I’m struggling to speak—struggling to breathe. It wasn’t so long ago I was calling
him
Captain.

Commander Towers turns off the e-filer in her hand and tosses it down on the desk with a clatter. She seems agitated, her typically frosty exterior cracking as if under some unseen pressure. “Merendsen’s here to evaluate base security in light of recent events,” she says, her gaze snapping between me and the man by her desk. “Someone raised a concern with TerraDyn that the military isn’t holding up its end of the bargain, and because of his experience, they’ve taken him on as an independent contractor to review our arrangements.”

I can read the annoyance in Towers’s voice. She doesn’t like the implication that she can’t do her job.

“I have some experience with life on Avon,” says Merendsen easily, turning to nod politely at Commander Towers. “I certainly understand the challenges you face, Commander. I’m sure a lot has changed since I was posted here, though. Perhaps Captain Chase could give me a brief tour?”

Commander Towers is no more immune to Merendsen’s charm than anyone else. A bit of the tension leaves her shoulders and she gives a flick of her hand, dismissing us both. “Go right ahead. If you need anything while you’re here, Captain Chase is your man, understand?”

It’s an unspoken order to me to play nicely. Towers’s eyes shift toward me, stern and piercing. So I straighten as if suitably chastised and toss off a stiff salute. Merendsen simply nods, and then we’re both headed for the door.

“One moment, Captain. Mr. Merendsen, do you mind waiting outside?”

Her referring to Merendsen as a civilian makes my muscles twitch, but he doesn’t seem fazed. His gaze flicks from Commander Towers to me, and I realize he’s wondering if it’s safe to leave me with her. He still doesn’t know why I called him here or who he can trust.

I don’t even know who to trust.

I give the tiniest of nods, and Merendsen reaches for the door. “Of course, Commander. I’ll have a look around out there.”

Commander Towers waits until the door closes behind him. I can’t look away from her—there are circles under her eyes more pronounced than the ones I see in the mirror each day, and I can see minuscule lines around her mouth, like the past week has aged her.

“Captain.” The intensity in her eyes frightens me more than anything else, like she’s exhausted but too wired to switch off. She’s unraveled since her strange debriefing, when she shut everything down as soon as I asked about the sector to the east, where I saw the ghost of Flynn’s secret facility.

I wait, but she doesn’t speak. “Sir?”

Her lips press together, a struggle taking place behind her expression. Finally, she says softly, “Don’t tell him what’s been going on here.”

My heartbeat quickens. “Sir—sir, he knows what’s been happening, that’s why he was sent. The attacks—”

“Not that,” Towers interrupts, giving a dismissive jerk of her head. “Don’t tell him everything. Let him do his job and then get out of here.”

I’m fighting to stay casual, to play dumb. “Sir, I don’t understand.”

“Just—use your best judgment,” Towers snaps. She pauses, getting control of herself with a visible effort. She draws herself up, straightening her shoulders. “Don’t tell him what you’ve heard about there being a secret facility east of here.” Her eyes meet mine.

“I’ll do my best, sir.” The lie comes so easily to me now—how quickly I’ve grown accustomed to deceiving my superior officers. The thought makes my stomach twist, sick.

Commander Towers relaxes a fraction, and I take a beat to consider my words before I add, “But you know I trust Merendsen, right?”

“He’s not the one I’m worried about,” she replies. With a jerk, she retrieves the e-filer from her desk and flicks it on again before shoving it my way. It’s the front page of one of the entertainment magazines—and it’s got a loop of Merendsen and Lilac LaRoux posing for the cameras. As I watch, Merendsen ducks his head to press his lips to Lilac LaRoux’s temple.