In His Command (20 page)

“Mmm-hmm.”

Rolling onto my back, I crossed my arms behind my head and looked up.
Stars. Sky. Freedom.
I looked at him. Blondie. Nathaniel. My lover. My heart expanded with hope I couldn’t afford now and that I’d never fathomed seven weeks ago at the Amphitheater.

“A life I can be proud of. It doesn’t have to be peaceful or easy.” I turned sideways and whispered, “I want to remember this feeling. I want to
feel
.” Pursing my lips over his quickly, I added, “I want to be allowed to love you.”

His throat moved, but nothing came out.

“I wish for the same thing I wanted the night of my birthday. You. More of you. Endless days and nights with you.” My mouth trembled, the ring on my finger a watery vision.

I watched those steadfast stars and knew they were in my eyes right then. “I love you, Blondie.”

That seemed to be good enough for him, because after our days of running, nights of loving, he fell asleep with a smile on his lips.

Having no fondness for sleep myself, I stayed awake just to watch him, touching him with the most loving light caresses so he wouldn’t wake. Dawn would come. It always did, and I’d already forfeited too much time with him.

Morning started out shitty with snow. It could’ve been pretty—all the white fluffy flakes falling into pristine mounds, unmarred by the touch of people—if I didn’t feel like I was walking toward the type of hell even the Love Hovel with all its garish delights couldn’t compare with.

We were so close to the Outpost, I could taste hate and distrust in the air. Or maybe that was just me being a bitch about the snow on my tongue and coating my eyelashes.

The closer we got, the further me and Blondie distanced ourselves.

Seven fateful weeks. Eight hundred kilometers. From Alpha Territory in the southeastern block of the former United States, through the Wilderness on a winding path. Our pit stop at the commune felt like years ago. The Outpost wasn’t situated in any of the Territories, yet it belonged to the InterNations. To the Company. Northwest of that magnificent mountain range people three generations ago called the Appalachians.

Eventually, the path we trod turned into a narrow road cleared of fallen snow. It must’ve been the work of Outpost people, so recent only a thin dusting of the white stuff puffed under our boots, drilling together,
Left, left, left right, left…

Underbrush and rubble had long since been bush-hogged. This pathway was well maintained, pointing toward civilization. The kind I now hated, the type I’d have to mold myself into once more.

In about half an hour.

We walked forward, hands linked across the space separating us until the walkway turned into a narrow paved road, salted against ice. Our fingers slipped away, hands falling to our sides. Clinking my Glock, the ring on my finger rang clear as a bell through the drifting white hush.

We approached wicked steel gates looming five meters high. Regulation razor wire, speakers, gun towers, halo lights—all the usual tricked-out accessories—emphasized their evil presence.

My breaths came faster; my feet slowed to a halt. “Thank you for the ring, baby.”

His smile was so pure. “Promise ring. Remember that.” Shaking the snow from his hair, he started toward me. “Caspar, I—”

The gates groaning inward cut him off.

The sixteen Territory flags all flapping in the wind was the sight I focused on as the gates opened. I didn’t know why they bothered. It was a waste of fabric, if you asked me. They were all the same from the insignia, colors, and of course, the slogo:
Regeneration, Veneration, Salvation
.

Close-circuit cameras dotted around the compound homed in for our close-ups displayed on the massive data screen bolted to the front of the Outpost building. Even out here in the heart of the Wilderness, you needed your daily mind-feed.

More of a mansion than a bunker, the Outpost itself was a bit too fucking swank for my liking. The building looked white, clean, and corrupt. The centerpiece was a big fat rotunda for big fat CO fuckers to preach their prohibitive publicity from, no doubt. On either side, two wings came forward in blocky marble shoulders, adding to the imposing atmosphere of the building. The architectural crap was kept to a bare minimum and the windows were one-way eyes, always on the lookout.

It had been called Greenbrier Bunker in Old History. Seeing as they’d pretty much bulldozed the green part into the ground, preferring cold concrete to nature, the new name for this secret locale was simply the Brier, as befitted the sweet-ass rumble-wire decorating the barricade. Aka the Outpost, or as I liked to call it—especially seeing all the weapons raised, locked, and loaded—Screwedville.

I finally dropped my sights to the semicircle of soldiers and higher-ups. They represented an odd mix for a firing squad from crisp fatigues to pressed suits to—
Jesus Christ
——that thorn in my side, the blade to my shoulder, and now the noose around my neck.

Goddamn fucking Kale.

He just had to be unlucky number thirteen, the missing party from the recon unit.

Click, click, click.

That was all the pieces of this cunt of a puzzle coming together. Oh, and the sound of hammers cocked. I scanned over the guns pointed at us.
Correction.
They were all aimed at me. Turned out I was right to hold on to that last little splinter of suspicion.

Seeming at best like it was bunking it in the garrison for me as opposed to the CO suites for Blondie, I chanced a look at him. Suddenly he was unrecognizable, appearing to be all those things I’d thought about him up in Alpha CO HQ. Cold Company Blondie.

I didn’t even think I could call him Blondie anymore. Maybe I’d change his nickname to Backstabbing Two-Faced Son of a Bitch. Or BTS for short.

When the pair of cuffs came out and five guards approached me, I definitely settled on his new name. My wrists were cinched so tightly inside the metal rings, my circulation went south and cuts opened immediately.

I couldn’t decide whether to puke or laugh.

Maybe I’d just pass out until we got to the rope around my throat part.

“Commander Caspar Cannon of the Elite Tactical Unit, Alpha Territory, you are hereby charged with homosexual acts and wanton corruption of a Company officer.”

D
idn’t that charge just lend a whole new level of hopelessness to this brand-new snafu?

I didn’t even want to think about that motherfucking canary, Kale. I was waiting for him to break out in hoots and hollers; instead he settled on that chipped-tooth grin. And Jesus Christ, even the stupid notch in Kale’s tooth made me think of Bl—Backstabber.

Man, this is gonna be a fun ride. Wonder if I can disembark early, if I cause enough trouble. Bypass the rest of the hell headed my way.

Snuggled between two soldiers, with one more in the lead and two at my rear, making my hackles rise, I was marched off. On the way to my dungeon-style digs, I caught a glimpse in one of those blacked-out windows. That shit was as reflective as a mirror. And who did I see? Blondie. With something skittering over his features—that formerly beloved face—something more human, less mask.

Probably just a trick of the light.

What wasn’t an illusion at all was my appearance. I’d seen myself only through Blondie’s eyes recently and figured I was still pretty handsome. Now I didn’t look so hot. Face pale as snow. Eyes empty in sockets dug deep in my skull. Though I would bet my appearance, reminiscent of being gutted by my own knife, was recent fallout care of Blondie’s nonreaction to my arrest. But what are you gonna do?

Copying his stoicism, I gave away none of the turmoil inside.

Like how, behind my back, the ring was a brand of his betrayal, no longer a betrothal, weighing me down more than the heavy shackles cinching through the skin of my wrists. It was an effort to walk ramrod straight when my knees were halfway to buckling. In fact, it was an effort to move at all when my heart would rather just stop beating.

I imagined opulent halls inside the Brier, bursting with rich furnishings done up in those velvety fabrics from our caravan. Fragile chairs and long tables brimming with delicacies, vases overflowing with flowers. The bastards presented an austere exterior, cut from stone, grafted in hate, but they lived it up once out of the public eye. I had only to think of Blondie’s taste for finery, his lavish spread in the heart of Alpha to know that.

What I got was a long walk around the compound to the brig. The garrison was low to the earth, as if it had been caught with its pants down and was unsuccessfully trying to pull them up. Built of rough-hewn granite blocks, crystal flakes shined amid the maudlin gray stone.

I learned it was so low because the bulk of the jail was a maze of underground tunnels going farther and farther south until it really did feel like I was walking into the mouth of hell itself. The halos skipped off; red lights flashed on, showing tunnels devoid of decoration, nothing to distract from the overwhelming sense of desolation. Cells were partitioned by thick walls slick with cool moisture and fungus spreading green fingers into the grout. Iron bars in narrow slats separated the units from the corridor.

How frigging quaint.

There were no seamless steel doors, no motion sensors, no retinal scans, only skeleton keys, iron bars, and the putrid stink of death.

Classic.

I wasn’t motioned into my two-by-three-meter cell. I was shoved by a hand between my shoulder blades so I ate the cake of concrete. Spitting a glob of saliva and dirt at the soldiers’ feet, I was hammered in the stomach before I could even think of the pain.

Boots beat the shit out of my belly and ribs, ramming into me one after the other, until I knew bearing bruises was gonna become as fundamental as breathing. But even when my kidneys were burning and my liver crying for mercy, I gritted my teeth and rode it out.

Always with the insults:
Homo! You like it up the ass. How’d you like this boot up your ass, faggot?

I was “liberated” of my clothes, but that didn’t concern me. It was only when they catalogued my weapons that I felt like hyperventilating. Standing naked, I watched them empty my guns, unsheathe and inspect my knives, and find the special hidden in my pocket. I sent a smile with that one, instead of the bullet I wanted to fire at their brains.

“That it?”

“You wanna check my asshole for anything else?” I stole a Blondie move, lifting one eyebrow.

“You’d like that too much, slut.”

“Doubt that.”

Scraping along my jaw, my fingers itched for a gun. The motion highlighted my ring.

Blondie’s ring.
Ripping the ring from my finger, they left me naked, cold, and unburdened, adding theft to my charges. With the promise ring gone, the sight of my bare finger shook me from my suspicious thoughts. It burned like a bitch to lose that token. Minutes before I’d been whining about its weight. Now I was desperate for its return.

Blondie always had a plan.

He couldn’t have set me up. We’d been through too much together. Of course they wouldn’t send him down here with common riffraff like me. He was just being questioned in plusher surrounds. I ought to be thankful about that. He’d find a way to wipe off whatever mud Kale slung at him. He was a smooth talker.

I gave up skewering myself with any more thoughts, concentrating on the cell, marking out the space instead. Not bad. I’d seen worse. A bit different having an inside view of the bars.

At least they’d uncuffed me. I wasn’t hog-tied anymore. That turn of phrase came from Micah, and I wasn’t spending any head time on him or the commune either.

Shutting it all down, I put my bare ass to the cold floor.

I didn’t even have my arsenal that used to keep me warm at night, before Blondie, who was looking more and more like Old History.

Wakey-wakey time around here obviously meant breaky-breaky time.

A fist lancing off my temple shifted me into blaring awareness from a dream of Blondie. I was overcome by punches that didn’t do a good enough job dulling the buzzards pecking my brain.
Was it all a lie, or was everything he said the truth?

Coming off the contact high of my dream—a colorful landscape through which our fireside moments and waterfall interlude had spun, so unlike my grim, gray surrounds—my heart thumped with recognition. I was looking down the barrel, and just like so many times before, I wanted to save Blondie at all costs. A bleak end to a heavenly beginning, but I was gonna do my duty until my very last breath. I’d be the other man. I’d take Alejandro’s place on the gallows.

I’d die with honor, hoping Blondie still had some.

Thank fuck the knuckles collapsing my cheek ended that train of thought. Physical pain, I could deal with. A good thing, too, because my guards made our mean Alpha devices look like a day at the ranch.

“Lover boy’s sitting up in his dee-luxe digs. What you got to say about that then?” A whip of spittle flew across my chin, dripping down my neck. I didn’t move, didn’t wipe it off.

“Seems the least he could do was visit his nut-Nancy, don’tcha think?”

Since I didn’t know the names of my twin torturers, I generously handed ’em out. Spitter couldn’t rein in his saliva as it leaked from the corners of his mouth, a mouth bent out of shape with hate, a tiny twisted thing to match his mind. His broad, flat head sat on the plinth of square shoulders with no neck to speak of.

Hitter liked to giggle. His clenched fists felt like cement blocks, all knuckles and meat. He boxed around behind Spitter, his boyish pink cheeks oh so out of place. He shoved his pal excitedly. “You know what? You know what?”

“Back off, fuckface. I’m questioning here.”

Face falling, Hitter looked like a crushed little boy. “Was just gonna say Rice is probably too busy with his lady friend up there topside.”

I made a point not to hear that. Instead I was all about Blondie saying to me,
I won’t hurt you, ever.

“So, so, so he can’t think too much of Commander Suck-Cock here, can he? Ain’t seen those two leave his office since he arrived. Guess he’s got his hand shoved so far up that blonde’s skirt, he ain’t got no time to visit his own prisoner, ya know?”

“You got a fine point.” Spitter congratulated his pal with a slap on the shoulder.

I would not let their dumb fucking two-for-one show affect me.

“Got nothin’ to say to that, you big bastard?” Spit landed on my shoulder.

Lifting my hand, I flicked off the offending wetness just as I deflected their comments that were missiles assaulting my heart.

When those goads didn’t faze me, they conferred in the corner. I stood stock-still, head high, hands down, my fingers twitching for my KA-BAR. Throwing a punch would only mean more honky hijinks from the pair, so I kept my lips sealed so fucking tight I doubted I’d ever say a word again.

Which was for the best.

After a protracted discussion about how to proceed with my questioning, Hitter deferred to Spitter. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who’d be the topper in that relationship.

“That’ll get him good, won’t it? Won’t it?” He clapped his hands.

“Just upload the scans.” The guard in charge splatted another round of goo to the floor.

To make sure I saw exactly what they wanted, Hitter dropped me down and held my palms flat to the ground, his knees digging into my calves and his hand grabbing hold of my neck in a classic doggie-style position, although I hadn’t gotten the impression he was interested in me that way.

He kept me bent over until I had no choice but to look at the D-P peep show they were so keen for me to see.

Images rolled over the screen showing Blondie Betrayer Backstabber holding hands with a slim young woman whose fair hair was tightly drawn from her face in a bun.

Next the woman was making big pretty eyes at him, clasping his cheek in one hand, rubbing that dimple I’d tasted. Her other hand met his, on her waist.

In another frame their lips were touching. The passion I recognized had his hips tilted toward hers. A desk in the background was cluttered with papers, gadgets, wires, and crap.
Blondie’s office here.

I’d thought earlier he was just being questioned in more comfy surrounds. Yeah, he looked comfy, all right, with his hand on her ass. I was pretty damn certain now Blondie’s plan had always been to send me down.

“S’her name again?” Hitter asked, pushing my face closer to the pictures that made my stomach curdle, my brain seize, my arms shake as I tried to duck away.

“Eh, just call her Nate’s Jailbate—his new one, that is.”

Laughing it up, Hitter made me look some more, his forearm digging into my windpipe until my breaths gasped and I closed my eyes.

Spitter leaned in and peeled my lids back between his thumb and forefinger. “That hurt yet? ’Cause I promise you, it’s gonna get a whole lot worse.”

Right then, his buddy had a revelation. “Farrow! Name’s Farrow. Right? Right?”

“Yeah, fucking Farrow. She was betrothed to Rice in Alpha before he backed out of it. Looks like Farrow the female done brought him to his senses.”

He was with
Farrow
right now?

An endless screen of photographs, an endless scream inside me. Fingers twined, lips touching, smiles exchanged. My hold on his vow slipped.
I love you, Caspar.

I should’ve known better than to hold on to those last shreds of hope, but I guess I was just a stupid lovesick fuck. Every moment caught between the two was so convincing, it could’ve been captioned by the announcement of their Validation of Union. I spiraled right into my home away from home, shutting down the leaky valve of my emotions.

When Spitter pulled the D-P away, his bottom boy let me go, and I huddled over, my brow to the cold floor.

“Well, that there did it.”

“Yup, but now we gotta know the truth. Allegations can’t be standing if Rice returned his faggoty favors.”

Their voices spun over me, meaningless.

All of my time with Nathaniel, meaningless.

“Because where there’s smoke—”

“There’s fire! I got that one right, didn’t I?”

“Sure did. So we need water to put it out.”

I was wrestled to the wooden board they brought in, my arms and legs tied down and my face covered by cloth dark enough to blind me.

My world narrowed to the gush of water poured over my face.
I had to breathe.

I wouldn’t scream, goddammit.

I didn’t beg.

I struggled so much, my arms wrenched in their shoulder sockets. The pop of joints hit my ears. I was gonna black out.

I had to breathe.

Jets of water rushed in, drenching my face, my pulse pounding in my ears, fresh flashbacks drowning me just as hard and fast.

Alejandro on the scaffold, his nose covered and then his lips.

Liquid pounded into my nostrils, filled my mouth.

He held his head so high those final moments. I’d wanted to shout at them to stop. I’d bitten my lip, drawing blood, hot as the tears I’d swallowed back.

The water kept pouring over me, into me. My back arched off the board and I thumped my head, trying to twist aside because my lungs were getting blocked up. I was gonna—

The pounding stream let off.

This was not condoned. Only the highest-ranking Company officer could order waterboarding.

I gasped for breath, water running out of my mouth and over my chest.

“Did Executive Nathaniel Rice accept your advances?”

I choked out, “No.”

Another round. Liters of icy water beating inside my mouth, down my throat, chugging out through my lips and nostrils. I still couldn’t inhale.

I’d reached out and stumbled forward, but I was shoved back. When that coiled knot had slid over Alejandro’s neck, when it tightened enough the muscles of his throat bulged and turned purple, I cried out.

I wanted to claw at my neck, puke, turn on my side, but I was strapped down.

My mouth foamed, every one of my sluggish exhales sounded wet.

I tried to focus, but their words swam in my ears.

“What do you know about the whereabouts of First Lieutenant Grant?”

Liz is missing?
“Nothing.” Razor blades cut all through my lungs every time I inhaled. I didn’t talk because I’d never give Liz up, even if I did know where the fuck she was.