Breaking Sky(57)

She didn’t. She didn’t know what he meant at all these days. “So now we’ve gone from me not understanding you, to you avoiding me, to you being a stranger, to you hating me. Man, I’m glad Phoenix came to town.” She got up and left.

“Nyx!” he yelled after her. It was the wrong thing to say, and he knew it.

It wasn’t her name.

Chase fled to the Green. Dawn was being simulated by the gradual increase of the sunlamps over the grass, while high above, the black sky was as bleak and dark as the Arctic in November. She sat beneath her favorite tree and remembered climbing it with Pippin freshman year. The day she first became Nyx.

Chase had lugged up Kale’s book on Greek mythology, certain her call sign was hiding in its pages. Pippin had come with her, balancing on a thick branch while reading the Orpheus poems, his headphones snuggled around his neck.

“Here’s one about the goddess Nyx, Daughter of Chaos. She’s a shadowy figure who only shows up when things are going real bad,” he had said. “Sounds like your brand of mischief. Listen: ‘Dissolving anxious care, the friend of Mirth, with darkling coursers riding round the earth. Goddess of phantoms and of shadowy play, whose drowsy pow’r divides the nat’ral day.’”

“Perfect,” Chase had said, reaching so high on the top branch that she could feel the radiating heat of the sunlamps. “I’ll be ‘Darkling Courser.’”

“Or you could be ‘Nyx.’ Which is shorter and not so highfalutin pretentious.”

“Nyx.” She had tried it out a few times. “It’s better than Chase. I hope people call me that instead.”

“In addition to,” Pippin had corrected. “Instead implies you’re being replaced by this new persona.”

Chase had laughed. “Can you replace yourself? That sounds awesome.”

“But then how will I know who I’m dealing with?” Pippin had asked. “Will the two Chases wear different hats?”

She had climbed even higher until she had heard the whining crack of a branch about to break. “I’ll tell you what they both love. They both love to fly.” Chase had let go and held her arms out. When Pippin had grabbed for her, the book fell, breaking its spine on an upraised root.

Its pages had scattered.

Chase came back from the memory. Her chest was heavier than ever as she remembered how pale Pippin had turned when he thought she was going to fall. She still sharply recalled how strange it felt to have someone scared for her.

She wanted to say that he no longer cared, but that wasn’t true. Something deeper was happening with Pippin. She thought over the last conversation until she snagged on the way he’d acted when she brought up Tristan.

She stood up fast, realization knocking into her like a headwind.

Did her RIO have a crush on Arrow?

It made so much sense. Pippin was always with Romeo and Arrow these days, and he’d already been busted trying to hide that fact from Chase—telling her to leave him alone.

She pressed her fingers to her lips and remembered the kiss only hours earlier that had sent her soaring. Was she developing feelings for the same person her RIO was crushing on? Chase might not have been the girliest of girls, but she knew that that spelled crisis.

Oh hell.

? ? ?

Chase finally fell asleep in the rec room and woke up late for the debriefing of the drone event. When she opened the door, many eyes met hers. Adrien, Sylph, Riot, Tristan, and Romeo were seated along with several higher-ups in their crisp-shouldered uniforms. Kale stood at the head of the table.

“What is this interruption?” Tourn’s voice came through the speaker in the center of the table, but his image faced away. Chase breathed easier knowing he wasn’t there in person. Her relief was short-lived. “Brigadier General?”

“The last cadet has arrived,” Kale said, motioning for Chase to come in.

“Who?”

“Cadet Harcourt.”

“Why wasn’t she here with the others?” Tourn barked.

“She’s been in the infirmary. It was quite an ordeal, General.” Kale was talking back to Tourn, and Chase’s heart started to hammer at her chest.

“Brigadier General,” Tourn continued. “I am seriously beginning to doubt your ability to produce diligent airmen.” Chase knew the bleeding contempt in her father’s voice. She saw the flush of Kale’s neck. The tightening of his mouth. She felt sick for him. Tourn’s insults continued like a storm. “You let your cadets have entirely too much freedom. They will continue to be ill-prepared when they get to the academy in Colorado Springs if you don’t—”

“General Tourn, permission to speak?” Chase interrupted.

The pause was too long, and the whole room stared at her like she’d grown antlers. Even Kale.

“No, cadet,” Tourn said finally. “Take a seat and act like you belong.”

Her face went scarlet.

Chase dragged her chair across the floor, hoping the noise covered the painful pound in her chest. Asshole, she couldn’t help but think. Asshole. The word helped a little. She glared at the wood surface, avoiding Tristan’s gaze and Sylph’s what-are-you-up-to gawk.

“As I was saying, we’ve had word from the intelligence office. Ri Xiong Di’s forces have tripled their sky patrols along the demarcation line. It’s our understanding that they are aware that they lost a drone but perhaps are not sure how. That is the best-case scenario.”