The Gender War (The Gender Game #4)(89)

She paused, letting out a soft sigh, then yanking the thread up and beginning another stitch. “Anyway, I became obsessed. I asked him to teach me, but he refused.” She smirked as she pushed the needle through the fabric again, her face reflecting some faraway triumph. “But I was persistent. You know me. Eventually he gave in and showed me around his heloship, talking me through everything, step by step. He never took me up—couldn’t without risking imprisonment, but he taught me all that he could. He even let me use his simulator.”

She paused again, and I looked over at her, watching her use her teeth to cut the string. She held up the shirt, inspecting it closely, then turned and draped it over the back of the chair before sitting back down. I waited for her to continue, but her gaze was turned inward, the warm look of nostalgia warring with an old grief. This had mattered to her, I realized. Amber had cared a lot about this man, whoever he was.

When it became evident that she wouldn’t continue, I couldn’t help myself. “What happened?”

Amber gave me a maudlin look and shook her head, her face tightening. “My father found out. I was put under house arrest, and our pilot was fired, his flight privileges revoked for teaching a female something so ‘unseemly’. I… I never saw him again.” Her voice turned bitter. “If I’d known that would happen, I would have done some things differently. A… lot of things.”

The look of regret in her eyes was stained with the anger that I’d come to associate with Amber’s dealings with her father. I wondered if I’d ever hear the full story about this person, and just how deeply it had changed Amber’s life.

She shook herself. “Anyway, when Desmond brought me into the Liberators, she found out I had some training, and got ahold of a simulator for me to continue practicing on. Just in case.”

I smiled at her, appreciating the irony, and then straightened up from my hunched-over position on the table, looking at the assortment of detonators I had wired to the explosives. It wasn’t pretty, but it would work.

Reaching over, I placed my hand on Amber’s arm. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry that happened to you. But I’m glad you’re here now, helping me.”

Amber gave me a surprised look, and then rested her hand over mine, squeezing it slightly. “I’m just sorry we didn’t stay before,” she replied. I watched the shadows fill her eyes, darkening them, and withdrew my hand after a final squeeze. I knew nothing I could say would help chase away those demons.

“I’m going to use the bathroom,” I said. Amber nodded distractedly, and Thomas just grunted, buried in the computer, his eyes dancing over information and code.

I pulled open the door to the bathroom and almost shrieked. Tim and Jay straightened—as much as either of them could in the tiny bathroom—and met my shocked expression with two mutinous ones of their own.

It took me a moment to find my voice. Then I cried, “Are you insane?”

“What’s going on?” came Amber’s voice from behind me.

“We have stowaways,” I announced needlessly, as Tim and Jay slunk by and I closed the door behind them.

Amber cocked her head at the boys, while Thomas blinked blankly at them. I couldn’t find the words, either—an explosion of emotions had rocked my chest the moment I saw their faces, and I didn’t know where to begin. I finally began simply, “What are you doing here?”

Tim puffed up his chest and straightened to his full height—several inches over me. He didn’t look guilty; he looked serious. “Came to help,” he replied.

I shook my head at him, warring between anger and terror at his actions. “But you said you would say behind!”

Jay’s eyebrows furrowed and he took a step forward. “Quinn is my friend, and I wanted to help rescue him. Violet, we’re both sixteen. Tim’s almost seventeen. We’re not kids. We can make our own decisions.”

I blinked at him. “Normally, I would agree. But sneaking onto a heloship that’s heading directly into danger?”

“You, here too,” Tim growled, and I looked away, resisting the urge to snap at him—mostly because he was right.

“That’s different, Tim. I’m here because I have to be. Tabitha ordered me to. Believe me, I wish I didn’t have to go to this meeting. But I can’t leave—”

He interrupted. “Cad… trouble. Family… trouble.”

“Which is why you shouldn’t even be here!” I argued. “I can’t risk you too, Tim! If Tabitha gets to them—”

“My family too,” Tim said.

I tightened my fists and looked at Jay.

“No,” I said, my chest constricting in fear. “No. You guys have to stay on the heloship. You can’t come on this mission with us. There will be… There will be bombs. And soldiers.”

“Violet,” Tim said.

“Tabitha is there, and I can’t let—”

“Violet!” This time he shouted, and I stopped babbling, staring up at my little brother’s grim face and realizing, again, that he wasn’t so little anymore.

“I talk, Jay talk,” he said. “You listen.”

I looked back and forth between the two of them, then back at Amber and Thomas, who were staring blankly at us. I suddenly wondered what this looked like to them. I saw no sign that they supported me in either of their faces.