“I’ll see if I can figure something out,” I said.

  “Good.” He placed his bottle down and dropped his eyes to my attire. “Yeah, you’re going to have to wear a uniform unfortunately. You’re going to stick out like a rose in a field of weeds. Hey, Robort?”

  “Seriously? Did you name your robot after you?”

  Robert looked at me. “He’s my progeny,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  The robot whirred over to Robert. “Yes, sir?”

  “Get Lara here fitted for the customary school uniform,” he said. “We’ll have her classified as tech support for now, but we might change that later, depending on what she winds up specializing in. Make sure she gets a food card and give her unlimited access to funds. I also want her equipped with a badge so she can get down here after-hours.” He tilted his head up, almost as though he was running through a list on the ceiling. After a moment, he caught my eye. “Is that it? Have I forgotten anything?”

  I shrugged. “How do I TA?”

  By the time I got home, I was exhausted. I opted to bring home food for dinner instead of cook anything, hoping to give myself a break. I didn’t want to think. There was too much filling up the space. I had three pairs of uniforms, forest green and silver. Apparently, that was the symbol that I specialized in tech support, which was the department Robert himself headed up. On top of that, I got my schedule, my food card, and access to one of the academy’s buses since I lived off-campus.

  But it was the work Robert and I did that evening that caused me to buzz with energy. Besides the fact that I actually saw Ilumenescent in person, he also told me about the Crawler 1. Apparently, his entire goal with this car was to be able to locate people with some kind of geo-location and pull them from rubble or whatever might be inhibiting them from seeking help. It wasn’t a flashy fighting piece of tech, but he hoped it would reduce the number of casualties in the next invasion.

  Which he was certain would happen, though he didn’t elaborate as to why. There was this look on his face though. Haunted. I couldn’t explain it, but I believed him.

  “How was the academy?” my mother asked as I walked in. She was hunched over the small stove, white, floral nightgown already on her frame. “Learn anything interesting?”

  Ha. That was a loaded question.

  “I’m not sure yet,” I answered honestly as I made my way down the short hallway and deposited my things carefully onto my bed. The last thing I wanted to do was wrinkle my outfit, especially when taking pride in appearance was important to the academy itself. I headed back into the kitchen and plopped down at the dining table. “But I’m curious.”

  “Curiosity’s always a good sign.” My mother smiled and proceeded to slowly walk over to me. I pretended not to notice the way her hands would shake slightly as she took the teacup to me, pretended not to notice how much slower she was moving recently. “Your father was curious about everything.”

  “His curiosity killed him,” I said, taking the teacup from my mother so she wouldn’t have to set it down and inevitably spill. Once it was in my hands, I swallowed. My throat was heavy with my callus words. As much as I liked to pretend I wasn’t affected by my father’s death, even three years later, it was a lie. A lie I couldn’t seem to tell. “Sorry.”

  “Oh, honey, we all have our ways of coping,” my mother said. She brought out some creamer and sugar. “I hope this academy is a positive way for you to cope.”

  “Mom, I’m going to the academy to learn,” I said as I doused the camomile in sugar. “Not to, I don’t know, cope. Dad died. We had a funeral. We were lucky we had a body to bury. I’m…I’m okay.”

  “No, you’re not,” my mother said. “Just because we have appropriate closure doesn’t mean we’ll ever stop questioning things. And that’s why the gods hate us. We question. We question things all the time. That’s good, my love.” She reached out to squeeze my shoulder. I was surprised by how firm her grip was. “Don’t stop questioning things. Don’t accept something just because someone tells you it’s right.” She gave me a long look. “And I don’t mean with just the gods.”

  I nearly choked on my tea, but I caught myself.

  When I looked up at her, though, she was far away, and I knew whatever she said, whatever I wanted to ask her about, was momentarily forgotten. And I wasn’t sure if it would come back again.

  Chapter Six

  The next few days overwhelmed me more than I cared to admit. Robert’s class was fine because I understood science. But history was difficult to wrap my head around only because there were too many gods to keep up with, some of them were good, some were bad, and most were painted in this odd shade of grey that was hard to distinguish between right and wrong. This must be Robert’s insistence of knowing the enemy, understanding them, because I was surprised by the empathy the majority of these deities were getting from Professor Johnson.

  When Friday rolled around, I found myself in a tracksuit with a heather grey t-shirt and tennis shoes on my feet. Physical training occurred twice a week, once on Monday, once on Friday. It was literally the last class of the week, and I dreaded it.

  To say I was out of shape was being generous. I might look healthy in terms of being slender, but I couldn’t run to save my life, which was obviously a problem if I was expected to fight actual gods.

  I fiddled with my ponytail for the thirteenth time in the last five minutes, glancing over at Charley. Thank God Robert put me in the same rotation as her. She had blue pants, symbolizing her specialty in medical services.

  “I can’t believe you have to do this too,” I said, wiping my sweaty palms on the front of my pants.

  A couple of other students trickled onto the expansive field, the sun shining down despite the November chill. Goosebumps littered my arms, but Charley explicitly said jackets weren’t required and shouldn’t be worn if I could help it. Considering I got cold when it was seventy degrees, I should have seriously reconsidered her warning and just dealt with getting ridiculed by whoever the instructor was.

  “You know Lannister is adamant about that,” she said, cocking her head back and locking eyes with me. “Everyone needs to protect themselves. No victims. No damsels.” She wrinkled her eyes. “Tell me, how’s it going with him? You know, the secret lab stuff and the TA’ing. Did you quit the PD?”

  “Yeah.” I curled hair behind my ear, squishing more blades of grass under my feet and then feeling guilty about it. It wasn’t their fault that I was nervous about training. “The lab stuff is good. Interesting. And I haven’t really done anything TA related yet except for sitting in a couple of his advanced lecture classes.”

  Before I could say anything else, Charley grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze. She raised her eyebrows, face taut, before dropping my hand and rolling her shoulders back. Her gaze was fixed on something behind me. I glanced over my shoulder to see what it could be, only to find a man, no more than thirty, prowl across the field directly towards us.

  The reaction was almost instantaneous. The students filed into three lines facing out, hands behind their back, feet a little wider than hip-width apart. I fell into line beside Charley, trying to copy the move. I didn’t want to stick out even though I was sure the instructor knew I was a new student.

  No one said anything. It was silent. I never thought it could be possible that the outdoors could be silent, but it was, at least around him.

  I still wasn’t sure what his name was, but as he drew closer, I could tell why everyone was intimidated by him. He stood over six feet tall with wild, unruly chestnut brown hair that grew down his face and in the back of his neck. He looked almost animalistic rather than human with those bronze eyes and that hair. His face was grizzly and chiseled, and while his body was broad and packed with muscle, he wasn’t classically handsome. There was a brutality in the way he walked. Every step had a purpose and it wasn’t good. In fact, the scowl marring his face seemed permanent, like he’d rather be anywhere but here.

  I sucked in a breath, trying not to let my perfectionistic tendencies kick into gear. There was no way I was going to do well in this class simply because I wasn’t naturally athletic. And that was fine. But I didn’t need to add any more pressure to myself than the instructor’s mere presence managed to do on its own.

  “I smell new meat.” Gravelly voice like sandpaper, low and rough.

  His eyes found me almost immediately, like he was a predator who could sniff out his prey, no matter how camouflaged I was in the sheep’s clothing.

  “So,” he said, coming up to me. He was a foot in front of me, maybe more, looking down at me with hard eyes. He wasn’t glaring and his gaze wasn’t lecherous, but he took me in, sizing me up. “You’re Lannister’s pet project, hmm? Green, huh? What - tech support, right? Good thing you won’t be on that field. Don’t want to have to worry about my men saving your ass. Let me ask you something. You ever run a mile before?”

  I looked up at him. “Yeah,” I said slowly, wondering if this was some sort of trick. “Everyone has. Eighth grade in PE.”

  The instructor snorted. “Fucking typical,” he said. His breath was warm and he smelled like…not cigarettes, but something headier, muskier. “The name’s Logan. You better get acquainted with your tennis shoes, girlie, because that’s what you’ll be doing in my class until your mile is under six minutes.”

  A six-minute mile? Was he insane? I wasn’t even a field operative. I was tech support for crying out loud. The chances of me needing to run for my life was minimal.

  “Well? Get going. You see the painted lines on the field. Three times around is a mile.”

  I looked at Charley. Charley lifted a shoulder, though I noticed the strain in the gesture, like she probably wasn’t supposed to move in front of this guy, let alone respond to my unasked question.

  I opened my mouth. He arched one left brow, cocking his head to the side, almost daring me to question him. Instead, I shut it and nodded to myself one time. I turned and began to jog towards the painted white lines, trying to ignore the fact that I knew everyone was staring at me including Logan and Charley and even Dalton Rogers, who happened to be in this class too. I was surprised Robert himself was nowhere to be found, completing my sense of embarrassment.

  At least I didn’t have to deal with anyone. Running sucked. I was already out of breath by the time I reached the first corner of the rectangle that made up the field. I pushed through it, trying not to breathe like I was some kind of panting dog. I pointedly ignored the group, though I could see from my peripheral that they broke up into partners and were engaging in some kind of hand-to-hand combat.

  Damn.

  I wanted to learn that if only so I could protect myself. At least, I would be able to know what to do if I needed to do anything.

  Instead, I continued trudging along. My feet continued to move, though I wouldn’t say I was running. Hell, I wasn’t even jogging. I was doing this weird skip-walk thing that felt like it was more agility-based than it was.

  There was no way I was going to be able to run a mile in under six minutes.

  No way at all.

  By the time class was over, I had completed a mile at fourteen minutes and forty-seven seconds, which seemed like a small victory because I had finished it.

  Logan seemed to think otherwise. He was rubbing his head with his hands, massaging his temples.

  “Come on,” he said. “I guess I should be happy that you didn’t collapse onto my field. That’s a lawsuit I don’t want to deal with.”

  “Is that something you have dealt with?” I asked before I could stop myself. There was a good chance he was being sarcastic, but I wasn’t sure if Logan had a sense of humor. I still couldn’t get a read on him so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

  “Hmm.” He grunted, looking away.

  I wasn’t even sure what to say to that, so I said nothing. Everyone else, including Charley, had already left for the showers. It was just Logan and me and the flattened grass on the field thanks to my attempt at running.

  “Why’d you get roped into this?” he finally asked, shoving his hands in the pockets of his tracksuit hoodie. He had to squint his eyes because the sun was setting in front of him, the rays teasing the back of my neck.

  “Well, Robert - uh, Mr. Lannister put it on my schedule -”

  “I mean, the academy,” he said. “You a scholarship kid?”

  I nodded.

  “Hmm. I guess that explains it.”

  I furrowed my brow. “What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

  “No need to get your panties in a twist, Wheatie,” he said. “It’s just, scholarship students have a different sort of work ethic. At least, in my experience. They see anything physical as something beneath them, but it’s bullshit. Working on your body is just another way to work on your mind. You find the balance for both, you’ll be all right.”

  “You think so?” I asked. I hadn’t looked at things from that perspective before. Now that I had, it actually did make sense.

  Students started trickling out of the locker rooms, freshly showered. One such person was Dalton Rogers himself. His crisp blue eyes stayed on me for a moment longer than was appropriate before he looked away, turning back towards the campus.

  “You and Dalton Rogers?” Logan asked, snorting.

  “God, no,” I said abruptly, feeling my cheeks pinched. “I happened to disagree with something he said and I don’t think he liked that.”

  “Huh, yeah, well, men with money don’t like a lot of things that aren’t what they want,” he said.

  I looked at him again. “You really think I could get better at this whole running thing?” I asked. I didn’t want to talk about Dalton Rogers or the fact that he already hated me. I didn’t want to talk about the fact that there was a good chance he could be referring to Robert Lannister with his snippy wealthy-men assessment, even if it was more often than not true.

  “You won’t be outrunning even the fastest of gods,” he snarked, kicking at a couple of pebbles with the tips of his shoes.. “But you keep at it, you might get there. It all depends on you and what you put into it.” He tilted his head to the side, gazing out at the field, eyes still squinting, nose wrinkled. “We’re made to be well-rounded creatures. Maybe the gods made us for worship, for their egos, but we don’t have to be boxed in. So, do your tech support and shit. But learn other stuff too. Make yourself an asset, not a statistic. Now, scram. I’ve got a fight lined up I can’t be late to.”

  And without another word, he was gone.

  Chapter Seven

  I rushed to the lab without showering when I realized I was already five minutes late. I knew Robert knew I was at training - maybe he did, I wasn’t sure if he actually paid attention to the specifics of what my schedule was - but I also knew what a stickler he was about timeliness.

  As I walked into the lab, even Robort wheeled away from me. If a robot could look worried for me, that was what Robort looked like. Or maybe I was just projecting.

  “Is that you, kid?” he asked as I stepped into the lab. My eyes lingered on the encased dagger too long before I ripped my gaze away, only to find Robert under the car again, this time no socks on his bare feet. “I can smell your sweat from here, even over the oil and gasoline.”

  “Yeah, well, I cut the shower so I wasn’t going to be too late,” I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest.

  “There’s no too late, a little late, all that bullshit,” he said. “You were already going to be late. Might as well have showered beforehand.”

  I couldn’t believe we were talking about my smell out of all things to discuss. I all but stomped over to where the creeper was, squatting down near his toolbox. It was only a matter of time before he asked me to hand him certain pieces, and I didn’t need him criticizing me for not understanding the assignment after a few days of coming up with a routine that seemed to work with it.

  However, he pushed out from under the car and tilted his chin down, sitting up slightly in a way that kept himself from toppling off the thing.

  “How was it?” he asked.

  “Training?”

  He rolled his eyes. Hair matted his forehead probably because he was sweating just as much as I was. The difference was, I had been attempting to run while he had been working on this project constantly.

  “No, how was your date?” he asked sarcastically. “Yes, the training. How was Logan? The guy’s a pretty polarizing figure, so I was curious how you handled him.”

  I lifted a shoulder, trying to maintain my balance. “He’s scary,” I admitted, “but he’s not terrible. He made me run the whole time, which sucked.”

  “Really?” He seemed genuinely intrigued by this.

  “He said until my mile was under six miles, I couldn’t train,” I said. I scowled. “Who runs a six-minute mile?”

  “Probably everyone in that class,” Robert said, tilting his head to the side. “Me. I think Dr. Dickhead does too.”

  I frowned, shifting over so I could look at him again. “You’re actually agreeing with his thought process?” I asked. “Running is akin to torture.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you were actually tortured by the gods, would you?” he asked seriously. His eyes were doing that intense thing they did when he had a point he wanted to make and wouldn’t let it go because he was adamant he was right.

  I wanted to argue with it, but the truth was, I didn’t realize what I had said until Robert responded. And I was an idiot.

  “You’re right,” I said. I reached up, cupped the back of my neck, looked away. Tension coiled around my body. My stomach twisted like I was trying to offer to repent for my sins.

  “Look, kid, I’m not asking for an apology or anything,” he said quickly, holding up his arms. Today, he wore a black Anaheim Ducks t-shirt, the logo sprawled across his chest, his arms poised and muscled. “I’m just…sometimes, people don’t know what they say. And usually, they say the wrong shit because they’re not thinking. And while I’m adamantly against trigger warnings, I do recommend that maybe…maybe…”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7