“Thanks.” I crossed in front of him. “People hate Sandlers, but they mostly leave me alone about it here.”
“Anyone doesn’t, you tell me.” He started to close my door. “Lock this when I leave.”
I always locked it before I went to bed. “Sure thing.”
He closed it all the way. I stood there, my heart in my ears. I was probably imagining it. In fact, I had to be. But it had seemed like Jackson had paid me special attention tonight. The kind of interest a man showed a woman when he was interested in her.
No, I was wrong. I shook my head as I locked the door and moved on to my bedroom. He was getting to know me because I was going to be responsible for his life when he came back from time travel.
That was it. He was friendly.
I took a long shower, and when I came out, I was ready to spend the rest of the night with my book. I might even finish it and start another one. I stopped abruptly. There was no noise. What had happened? The silence after all that noise was deafening. Had they all stopped at ten o’clock at night?
I beamed, happiness flooding me before the day caught up with me, forcing me to my bed. I was actually going to get a good night’s sleep.
Maybe everyone had an early morning, too.
I woke slowly to the sound of my tablet’s alarm. My muscles were tight. I hadn’t moved the whole night. I had that feeling that came with knowing my body had been too still for too long. I stretched.
It was still dark outside, but it always was when I roused. I didn’t mind doing the very early morning shifts. Jackson had said six. I should have corrected him. I got up at four. People with families deserved to spend the mornings together. I didn’t mind the early days. The more I worked, the more rations I got. Eventually, I would figure out who to have over, and I would host a dinner here.
Of some kind.
When I learned how to cook…
I put on my green scrubs and wrestled my hair into a high ponytail. My skin was slightly broken out, and I dabbed cream on them, hoping it would get better and not worse. My skin was extremely sensitive.
My head was clear, but I would still grab coffee on my way into the Med Bay. Early mornings were quiet. I tended to spend most of my time there, reorganizing whatever mess had been made the night before. It had become my unofficial role to keep things straight. I walked slowly through the hallways. The Farm buildings altered depending on what was in them. My living quarters were in the central facility that housed the Med Bay and the Mess Hall. There were ten hallways like mine inside the walls. I liked to listen to see if anyone else was awake when I walked by. How did others live?
What were they doing? I never heard anyone in my block. They tended to be night owls not early birds.
When I rounded the corner toward the Mess area, I stopped abruptly. Sitting on a bench outside of the dimly lit area was Rohan. He stood when he saw me, giving me a slight wave of his hand. I continued toward him. I’d never seen him here before at this hour.
“Good morning,” I greeted him. “How are you? What brings you here so early?”
“Oh, I almost never sleep. I don’t need it. As for why, I’m here because this is where you come in the morning before work. I’ve seen it on the monitors.”
Well, it made sense then that he’d be here. Of course, the question was why. “Did you need something?”
“Yes, I wanted to congratulate you on the good job helping Ari to deliver the baby.”
If I wasn’t careful, I was going to say nothing to Rohan except “oh” all the time. “I hardly did anything. The baby is beautiful, isn’t he?”
“I saw him on the monitor when they took him home. He is a very well put together baby.” He held out a cup of coffee. “You take this with cream, but no sugar.”
I resisted the urge to say oh again. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. None of this is frightening, correct?”
I walked to the bench and took a seat. If I wasn’t making my own coffee, I had a few minutes to talk. I was always early. I’d just be on time. That was fine. “Not scary. Kind of you. I’m flattered you spent so much time thinking about me.”
Rohan sat down next to me, which was what I’d wanted. “That’s good. I was afraid it might be… stalker-ish. That’s a word that Diana told me once when I mentioned how I watch people. I’m not trying to invade privacy. Not with how I watch or how I listen. Part of my job here is to monitor people. Jackson tasked me with it. I’m good at it. We’ve found three traitors before they could do any harm.”
I hadn’t known that. “Thank you for keeping us safe. You watch me because you watch everyone.” I could understand that. “Why the coffee? Not that I’m complaining. I have few people to speak to in the morning. But why did you decide to get my coffee? Did you just want to congratulate me on helping with the baby?”
“No.” He sighed. “Both the coffee and the congratulations were excuses. You’ve seen right through the pretense. I’m not very good at this.”
His brow was furrowed, and the best I could describe his dark gaze was disgruntled.
“At what?” I touched his arm.
Rohan went very still. “I want to get to know you better.”
That made sense. Like Jackson, I was going to be in charge of his life for an hour. He needed to know who I was. “Well, then. Let’s do this every morning. Unless you’re sleeping. I won’t be offended if you take a morning off. If you happen to be up, come meet me. We’ll spend half an hour together. I’ll drink coffee.” I sipped it. He’d gotten it exactly correct. This was the amount of cream I put in my coffee. “Do you drink it?”
He smiled at me slowly, real joy lighting up his face. “No, I don’t need caffeine. Ever. I would like to see you every morning. I’ll walk you to work. Oh, but you need to eat, too. You don’t. And then you go to lunch and have that soup. In no way are you getting the right nutrients into your system every day.”
So, Rohan was a little bit of a caregiver. “You’re right. I don’t eat when I first get up. I do tend to have a protein bar in a few hours when my stomach can stand the idea of food. And what I don’t get in nutrition, I try to make up by taking vitamins. They’re not the same. I could do better.”
“I’ve never seen the protein bar. That’s interesting. So you just don’t want to eat when you wake up?”
I shook my head. “Not for a while. You do?”
“I eat every six hours when I’m awake for however long I’m awake.”
He still smelled like nutmeg. I loved the scent. It drifted over me. Rohan was handsome. He tended to hang in the background of the rooms. Jackson had said people found him frightening. I’d always found the idea of the Super Soldiers to be more fascinating than scary. Diana was married to a Super Soldier. He carried her daughter around, making her laugh. They were just humans with genetically superior abilities.
They were victims. The things Evander did to them should be illegal.
“Do you have food you like?” Maybe he’d come to my someday dinner party.
He seemed to consider this for a while. “I like very strong tastes. Like if it’s too tart for others, or too sweet, or too spicy… I suspect they did something to my taste buds. They altered most of my functions so why not those, too?”
“Altered your functions?” I leaned on my elbow. Maybe it was because it was so quiet around here, but it really felt like it was just the two of us in the universe. “You’re human. Not a machine. They changed your DNA. I’m sorry for the ways they made you suffer.”
He sighed. “I didn’t mean to bring the conversation this way.”
“That’s okay. You might actually survive my cooking because of your ability to heal and that you like extreme tastes. My food tends to be extremely burned.”
He laughed. It was an abrupt, burst of sound. “Can’t cook?”
“No. Can you?”
He shrugged. “I’ve never tried, but I imagine I could. I can do most things I set out to do.”
That would have been a completely egotistical statement if I didn’t think he was simply stating his truth. He probably could do things fairly easily if he tried. “I can’t. Most things I try to do, I fail at, for a while at least. Try and then try again. Someday I will manage to cook something that doesn’t burn.”
Just then, a vicinity alarm went off. Rohan jumped to his feet. “I usually hear the ships before the alarm. I wasn’t paying attention.”
I rose. “I’ll get to the Med Bay. If the ships coming in have injured, they’ll need me to be ready. This was fun. Be safe. Whatever happens today, okay?” I touched his arm, again.
He shook his head, his eyes hard. “I’ll walk you there.”
There it was again. When had everyone decided I needed an escort? Still, he took my elbow and led me forward like I didn’t do this each day. The alarm was loud and blaring. If it had been a false alert, the signal would have stopped by now. Maybe we were under attack. I knew where my place was when this happened.
Rohan left me at the door without a word and was gone before I could say goodbye. This morning’s coffee felt like a stolen moment, a perfect one in the middle of chaos.
By the end of the day, I was sweating. A quarter of our fleet had come back with their ships seriously damaged and every shuttle had injured. There had been fatalities, but no one had died on my table. Two captains, suffering from tremendous burns, fought for their lives in the med machines. The rest of the fleet still fought in Earth Space, against both Sandler and Evander enemies. We were making ourselves known. There were people to stand against them.
I took a sip of my coffee. I hadn’t eaten anything today, and I hadn’t even noticed. My stomach was tight. I didn’t want food.
Doctor Wade Bryant had been on duty with me. We’d worked side-by-side. He’d arrived four months previously and, after clearing security, had worked off shifts, similar to me. Unlike me, he had a reason for needing the hours. He cared for his younger brother and sister. They were teenagers. He liked to be home when they were.
Wade was handsome, yet he hadn’t made it into my daydreaming routine. In fact, there was something about him that always made me… uncomfortable. I swore he could look right through me as though he knew all my worst qualities. He was tall, with dark hair and bright blue eyes. As far as I could tell, he was a very good doctor.
I’d caught sight of all of the staff today. Everyone had appeared, as per protocol, when the alarms went off.
I should have gone home hours ago, but my patients were still in the med machines. I would go when they were out of danger. Until then, I’d wait.
The doctor stared at the readings. “You did good work today.”
“Thanks.” I didn’t think we’d ever spoken outside of medical related things. Usually, he said stuck to small talk throughout the day. I knew, for example, that he didn’t like the meatloaf the Mess made on Tuesdays. I sipped my coffee again. My stomach was basically acid. “You did, too.”
“Well…” He patted the med machine. “I guess we’ll see.”
I approached him slowly. “Twenty people walked out of here okay because they saw you. That’s good work. And these will, too. I’m confident.”
“Hey, Waverly, would you, maybe, like to…”
I had no idea what he would have said. Rohan appeared in the doorway, and Wade’s eyes widened. I’d seen that look before whenever Rohan, Canyon, or Sterling went somewhere. That had to get old for them to live with.
“Hi,” I greeted Rohan. “You’re okay.”
He nodded. “I am. You are as well. Doctor,” he said, acknowledging Wade. “The ships are all almost ready to go back. I assisted. You have been here since before dawn. You haven’t eaten. I can practically feel your tiredness. Doctor, you’ve taken a break. You’re fed. You can stay here. She’s coming with me.”
“Oh.” I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Rohan. I can’t go now. My patients are here, and I’ll be here until they’re not.”
Rohan pointed at the machine. “They could be in there for days. You can’t stay here for days.”
“If that is the case, I’ll come and go. But for now, I’m here.”
The Super Soldier nodded. “I see. Okay.”
As quickly as he was there, he was gone. Wade looked paler than he had when Rohan came in. He visibly swallowed. “You know him?”
“I do.” I picked up some instruments and put them in the sanitizer. “He’s nice.”
The doctor choked. “Nice?”
Why was he so surprised? “Yes. Nice.”
“He’s scary as hell.”
I sighed. I really wished he hadn’t said that. The truth was, I could never hold my tongue when people were unkind to others. Myself, I handled cruelty just fine. But not for others. I’d taken many a beating for this from my father. I couldn’t seem to learn my lesson.
I stayed very still. “I hope someday you’re not in a position to be judged based on things you can’t control about yourself. None of the Super Soldiers volunteered to have this happen to them. Their abilities are circumstances based on their birth. It’s no different from, say, not being pretty or not being smart. You assume he’s frightening without even knowing him? That’s cruel and unkind. Frankly, I would think that would be beneath you as a man of science.”
He stared down at the ground, and I wondered if he was about to fire me. He could. The doctors could get rid of the nurses. They were in charge of us. I’d never regret speaking my mind on this. Wade had been wrong. That didn’t mean I wasn’t about to find myself in some job I hated because I’d told him how truly wrong he was.
“You’re right.” He shook his head. “Sometime I’ll tell you about my upbringing. I’m ashamed of myself for falling back into that crap. I hope I can have a friend like you, someday.”
I sighed. “Wade…”
The door opened again, and Rohan was back. In his hand was a tray, and on the tray, plated, was a chicken breast, a salad, and some water. He set it down on a table in the corner.
“You’re hungry. If you won’t go to food, food will come to you.”
That was the sweetest thing. I didn’t think anyone had ever brought me food before, ever. Or at least not since my mother died. The servants used to make me go to the kitchen, even when I was sick. They weren’t paid to bring me food.
I choked up. “Thank you, Rohan.”
He was quiet before he reached up to touch a tear I didn’t know I’d shed. “I’ve made you sad.”
“No.” I sniffed. “Happy. Happy tears.”
“I didn’t know there were such things.”
Wade chimed in. “Most of the time, that’s a woman thing. Can happen to men, sure. I’ve seen it more with women.”
“I see.” Rohan tapped my chin, and I looked up at him. “I’ll always be nice to you, Waverly. I’ll always strive to make you happy.”
Those were huge proclamations. And not ones I’d ever had anyone make before. They weren’t really for me, but for Wade’s ears. “You heard.”
“I can hear everything. Down to your heartbeat. Did you know that every human being has a unique heartbeat? Yours sounds different than any other person I’ve ever heard. It just sped up. Are you afraid?”
I shook my head. “You don’t frighten me, Rohan.”
“Foolish girl. You should always be afraid when a predator is in the room.” His smile was disarming. I answered it with my own. He was funny.
“Thank you for the food, Rohan. I’ll probably be here in the morning, so I won’t be there to meet for coffee.”
He nodded. “That’s okay, Waverly. I’ll bring your coffee here. Try to get some sleep.” He raised his gaze to Wade. “Goodnight, Doctor.”
“Ah, yeah. Goodnight.” Wade returned to studying the med machine. Maybe he didn’t know that a Super Soldier, who could locate my heartbeat, had heard him. Maybe he didn’t care. All I knew was that Rohan had brought me food.
Before I could sit down to eat it, Rohan was gone. And the room was
colder without him in it.
5
Time Travel
In the end, one patient lived and one died. Taylor Montgomery went home to his wife, and Zach Kerr did not return to his husband. I gave Taylor instructions while his wife wept in his arms. The machine said he was healthy. If he felt sick, he should come back. Don’t wait. Come right back. Return in a week for a follow up exam. Any of the doctors could do it.
I listened while Wade spoke to Zach’s husband, David. It was really David who spoke. They’d been married for fifteen years, but there was no room for their love in a Sandler regime, and people said Evander was worse. Fighting that kind of hate for them was worth the risk. Still, the pain. The utter agony. I could do nothing for him.
We hadn’t saved Zach. I walked home to my room, passing groups of people. The battle had been a success. We’d won. It didn’t feel that way for me. They’d probably have a party. I didn’t even care. Numbness had overtaken me. I felt… nothing, and the sense of it… the vast emptiness was harrowing in how large it was. Despite my despair, this experience wasn’t about me. Zach was dead and I couldn’t have a Waverly pity party because of it.
Still, I showered out of habit, not because I had a sense of needing one. I’d been awake for thirty hours. Intellectually, I understood my head needed to turn off. Yet, I didn’t feel tired. David’s words banged around in my head.
There was no room for their love in the areas the Sandler Cartel controlled.
He was right. They’d have been killed for being homosexual. And my father was responsible for that. I shared his blood. I crawled into my bed. Zach’s face when we put him in the machine floated in my vision. I told him he was going to make it, that he’d go home.
I sobbed, the sudden onslaught of pain racking through my body. I shook from it. All I could do was cling to the pillow and wait until sleep took me under.