Epic: Book 02 - Outlaw Trigger (29 page)

“
That is enough,” she said. “I will get my things, you will rest. I will be back soon. Within half hour. Do not go anywhere—this is order.” Before he could answer, she hurriedly stepped from the room.

Scott sat on his bedside in silence. When it came to things like this, she outranked him in every way. She was right when she said it wasn’t his decision. Not in matters like this.

But it didn’t matter. Her staying wouldn’t affect him. Not like she wanted it to. She could watch him. She could protect him. But she couldn’t stop him.

Someone was out there. Someone with a name, with Nicole’s blood stained on his soul. Someone had an appointment with the devil. No—not the devil. The appointment they had was much worse.

They had an appointment with Scott Remington.

_{* * *}

It didn’t take David long to find Esther. She was exactly where Becan said she would be—sitting alone, outside on the concrete sidewalks of
Novosibirsk
. David knew the moment he saw her that she was changed. Her shoulders trembled. Her head was down. She hugged at her knees with all the anguish of a traumatized child. She was a shell of the girl she had been days before.

Though Esther didn’t know it, Max had taken a hit for her in the hours that passed. He’d reported to
Novosibirsk
Command that the cause of her errant transmission was not a mistake on her part, but a glitch in her comm—an oversight that fell against him. Max had escaped with a stern warning of diligence. Esther had escaped with her life. David was one of the few people who knew that.

Esther became aware of him as soon as he drew close. She turned her head instinctively to him, then quickly shied it away.

“
Hey,” David said as he stopped beside her.

“
Hey,” she quietly whispered back.

“
Okay if I sit?”

For several moments she didn’t respond. When she finally did, it was barely a nod of the head.

David eased down at her side before she had a chance to change her mind. “Talk to me, kiddo.”

She glanced in his direction, though again she said nothing. Her eyes weren’t moist; it appeared as if she had stopped crying some time ago. But by no means did she look all right. Her gaze slid away again, blankly retreating to the landscape before her.

He hung his good arm over her shoulders. “You know, I’ve done some stupid things in my life…”

“
I killed them.”

David fell silent.

Her shoulders tensed. She turned her head away, and her brown eyes distanced to the ground. For a moment, she didn’t even breathe.

When David finally answered, his tone was softer than hers. “I know you did, Esther. But you’re forgiven for that.”

She almost laughed. Her head lifted from the ground. “I know how to work a bloody comm. It’s so simple.” David fell quiet as she spoke. “I’d worked with one every day at Academy, doing things so much more difficult than what I was asked to do today. But today is what counted, and today is the day that I failed. I killed them.”

“
Esther…”

“
I wanted to perform so well. I’d trained for four years, I’d gone through so many exercises, all to arrive at this horrible failure.” She looked away. “If I were anyone else in this unit, I would hate me for what I’ve done.”

“
Esther,” David sighed, “we don’t hate you.”

“
Everything that happened is on me. Whatever happened to the Eighth, to Khatanga, is my fault. I don’t even know what happened there after we left.”

He squeezed her shoulders. “I don’t either. But I do know one thing…nobody brought their best to Khatanga. Nobody.”

“
But at least they could work their sodding comms.”

Silence fell again as they sat side by side. There were few operatives walking the grounds around them; such sparseness was unusual for the middle of a weekday.

“
I’m so scared,” she finally whispered. “I’m so scared to go back in that room.”

“
What room?”

“
Room 14.” She closed her eyes and lowered her head. “I know what they’ll all be thinking. About me. And the lieutenant…”

“
Scott will be fine.”

“
He was so excited to have me. Now he’s not.” She winced as she said the words. “He lost his fiancee, and he needed that mission. He needed it for himself, and I took that away. What am I supposed to say when I see him?”

David fought back a frown. “Don’t say anything. Put this behind you. Be strong—be what you’ve been trained to be. Just be there, ready to go when we get called out again.”

She pressed her palm to her forehead. The disappointment in her voice grew heavier. “I was always so proud when I did something well. I was so proud when I graduated. What have I to be proud of now? I feel as though I’ve betrayed the unit. I wasn’t what I was supposed to be.”

“
Esther, you can’t think like that. You know we don’t feel that way. Becan and Jayden went looking for you earlier today, and it’s not because they’re disappointed.”

She scoffed and looked away.

“
I’m here,” David said. “And I’m not disappointed. Max isn’t disappointed in you, and neither are Galina or Varvara.”

For the first time in their conversation, her eyes rimmed with tears. “What do I say to him? To the man who needed something, that I tore away?” A teardrop rolled down her cheek. “How can I put on that uniform? How can I look at his face?”

He pulled her against his side. She didn’t resist.

“
I just want to go home…”

“
I don’t want you to go home,” David said. “Neither does anyone else.”

“
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. It’s not who I am.”

“
Esther…”

“
I’m leaving, I have to.”

“
Don’t.” The forcefulness of his voice made her stop. She turned her head to him. “Esther…this is hard to understand, because right now you’re in the middle of it. You haven’t had time to look back.”

“
To
when
?”

“
To right now.” She turned her face fully to see him. “Sometimes…we have to fail to succeed. Sometimes our most important moment is when we rise up from our worst one. What you did today isn’t what’s important. What’s important is what you do tomorrow, after you’ve absorbed and acknowledged what’s happened today. That you’ve learned a lesson and become stronger—that’s what defines who you are.”

She stared at him in silence for several moments, before she turned her head away. “You don’t understand. You don’t understand this at all.”

“
I’ve made mistakes, Esther.”

She almost laughed. “Did your mistakes cause people to die?”

David watched her for several seconds, until he drew in a very deep breath. He returned his eyes to the landscape. “Yeah, they did.”

Esther was taken aback. Her mouth lingered partially open as she sniffed in a breath and faced him.

“
I know where you are right now,” he said. “I know what it is you’re feeling. You see, Esther…we’re all damaged. And the people who aren’t damaged yet…someday they will be. That’s just life. Life happens to every one of us.” Esther watched him as he spoke. “What you did can’t be undone. It can’t be revised or revisited. But
you
can always change. You can always grow.”

She hesitated, opening her mouth to speak. No words came out.

“
I can’t tell you what to do,” David said. “I can’t tell you how to deal with this. But I can tell you one thing.” He turned his head to face her. “This is your most important hour. This is the hour that’s going to dictate what you do with the rest of your life. There are only two choices. You’re either going to run from it…or you’re going to face it. You’re going to face it and say, ‘I made a mistake. I’m not perfect. But I refuse to let that stop me.’” He looked at her gravely for several seconds. “I believe in you, Esther. Not because I know anything about you, but because I know that you care. Sometimes…that’s all that separates heroes from washouts.”

She stared at him in silence, her watery gaze never wavering from his own. When she finally looked toward the horizon, she allowed herself a small smile. “I suppose I don’t have to ask which of those two choices you made.”

“
I ran.”

She turned quickly to face him, her eyebrows arched with surprise. “You
ran
?”

He turned his eyes back to the landscape. “I’m here, aren’t I? And that’s why I want you to hear me.”

For several seconds, she simply stared. Then she too fixed her gaze on the distance.

“
I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. I don’t even know what’s going to happen tonight.” He turned his head back to her. “But I hope we go through it together. You, me…Scott, Becan, Jayden. All of us. I hope you don’t choose to run away.”

Her eyes fell blank as they distanced. She lowered her stare to the ground.

“
Think about who you are, then think of who you always wanted to be. Then, make whatever decision gets you there. You know that’s what you have to do.” He sat in silence for several moments, then slowly pushed up from the ground. He winced when his left shoulder moved.

“
Mr. David…”

“
Just David,” he said with a smile, hiding his pain.

She smiled, too. “David…”

“
Yes?”

She lifted her head toward him. The moisture still dwelled under her eyes, but the tears had long stopped falling. She stared at him somberly for several seconds, before her smile faintly widened. “Thank you for finding me.”

He winked. “There are still more people to find.”

Esther gave him a warm grin, and watched as he stepped back, turned, and walked away.

She remained on the sidewalk for many more minutes, her eyes remaining fixed on the distant landscape. Aside from the occasional brushing of loose hair from her face, she remained comfortably captivated by stillness.

No one else sought her out.

* * *

Dostoevsky was repressed as he eased open the door to his private quarters. He stepped inside, sealing the door shut behind him. An eerie silence accompanied him into the room. It was the same silence that had followed him since he first stepped in Room 14 minutes before. There had been no acknowledgments when he’d walked past his teammates. There had been no words of greeting. And for the first time in his Nightman life—ever—one of his subordinates had struck him. Fearlessly. But that wasn’t what weighed on his mind.

What weighed on his mind was that no one else cared.

Dostoevsky’s room was black, until a sharp tug at his desk lamp caused a dim yellow hue to flush away the darkness. He padded to his bed, sat on its edge, and slipped off his uniform and undershirt.

He was well aware of his status as one of the most notorious Nightmen in
Novosibirsk
. While fitness was a strict requirement for all of Thoor’s men, Dostoevsky was an exception to the rule—a superior one. The aggressive firmness of his muscles had always been the marvel of all Nightmen who knew him. He did not have the body of a model, but he had the prowess and strength of a savage.

Four classes of Nightmen dominated the Nightman regimen. There were sentries, donned in their metallic hulls, serving as guardians. They surveyed The Machine through the mirrored lenses of their zombified helmets, greeting new arrivals with icy coldness, leaving no question as to who was in control. Next there were the eidola, the hidden eyes of General Thoor, mingling among the innocent as wolves in EDEN clothing, undistinguishable from the general populace. There were the slayers—the grunts—who made up the majority of the Nightman army. Their rank of armor, slender and purposeful, was the most frequent of all Nightman classes.

Then there were the fulcrums. The pivots. The devils. Their armor was indistinguishable from the armor of the slayers, save for one distinct feature. Their spiked half-collars—their horns. The fulcrums were the Nightman leaders—the leaders that Thoor called his own.

Leaders like Yuri Dostoevsky.

Prior to the
Assault on Novosibirsk
, there had been two fulcrums in the Fourteenth: Baranov and Dostoevsky. Despite the fact that Baranov outranked him in the unit, there was no question that Dostoevsky held a special place in Thoor’s order. He was one of the general’s most prized soldiers. He was one of the general’s best.

He was also one of the Fourteenth’s most feared. Few in the unit dared to speak to him, and Baranov was the only one who had ever ventured to confront him about anything. Even Clarke watched his tongue when Dostoevsky was near.

Until today.

Like many in the Fourteenth, Dostoevsky was skeptical of Scott upon his arrival at
Novosibirsk
. Unlike the rest of the unit, Dostoevsky’s feelings didn’t change. Scott’s amiable personality grew on everyone else. They came to embrace him. With the fulcrum’s cold approach, that embrace never happened. Even during Dostoevsky’s personal training with Scott, the two men kept an emotional arm’s distance. As far as Dostoevsky was concerned, the Golden Lion was an overrated idealistic embodiment of a hero.

An embodiment whose love had been murdered.

Dostoevsky exhaled and leaned back on his bed, taking a moment to look at the ceiling above him. There was a small crimson triangle imprinted there, directly over the pillow he’d placed his head on. He had put it there himself as a constant reminder of his singular purpose. He lived to serve the Nightmen. He lived to serve Thoor.