Breaking Sky (9 page)

Chase hadn't been in the embrace of the sky for a week. Not since the night flight to JAFA and back again. She missed
Dragon
. She missed mach speed and all its glorious direction. She missed being able to think about something—anything—other than the fact that Tristan Router knew the secret of her parentage.

She kept reliving that moment when she'd stepped into the hall. The very focused yet resigned look on Tristan's face. The way he had seemed small, folded up on the floor even though he was nearly a foot taller than her.

What had he been doing there? Waiting? Eavesdropping?

Her anxiety wrestled with the memory, smacked it down only to feel it flip into anger. It almost made her want to catch Tristan and threaten the breath out of him, but her fear held even those more Nyx-like aggressions in check. She was in new territory, and it was like waking up in a room that she hadn't fallen asleep in.

It didn't help that Tristan had assumed an ambitious social agenda, gallivanting around the Star, making friends with everyone. He was already liked and trusted, and if he told one person, just
one
, she would no longer be the elusive celebrity pilot but
the
black sheep. The girl who didn't deserve to be at the Star.

Chase lay across her bunk like roadkill, exhausted from frustration, when Pippin came in. She rolled over, half falling off the mattress. “How's the library?”

“Wasn't at the library,” he said.

“Where've you been?”

“Out.”

“No shit, Sherlock. Out where?”

Pippin sat down and scribbled in his notebook. “I haven't been with anyone.”

“Wow, that wasn't even my question. What's going on?” He didn't answer, so she added, “I'll tell you what's going on with me.”

Pippin eyed her wearily. “Will you?”

“Um…” Chase braked. She hadn't told him about her talk with Tourn—or that Tristan knew about her dad. That would mean
discussing
it. No way. Pippin might be her only real friend at the Star, but she had limits.

“I just…I need a hop. I feel so meandery without flight in my veins.”

“Evocative. Also incorrect. Adding a
y
to the end of word doesn't make you a creator of neologisms. It makes you ignorant.” Pippin put his pencil down. He closed his eyes like he had to force himself to be civil. “They won't send us skyward until the terror threat is lowered back to reasonable levels. It should only be a few more days. Unless Ri Xiong Di decides to do to us what they did to JAFA.”

She rolled the rest of the way off the bunk and landed so hard that Pippin jumped and gripped his notebook against his chest. Chase held her hand out. “All right, give them to me. You know you're not supposed to take your asshole pill twice in one day.”

“Me? You've been paranoid all week. I know you're worried
Phoenix
will take
Dragon
's spot in the trials, but take a breath. There's nothing we can do while grounded.”

“What?”

They stared at each other.

“Don't tell me you haven't figured that out.” He sighed. “Now that they can't surprise
Phoenix
on us at the trials, they really only need two jets to face off. Three is overkill. Sylph is going ballistic over the fact. She should. She's the slowest. They'll probably run a few hops to suss out the worst candidate and ground him or her.”

Chase's mouth was hanging open.
Phoenix
could replace
Dragon
or
Pegasus
?

Pippin cocked his head. “If that's not what's bothering you, what is?”

“Nothing,” she lied. “I've just got a lot on my mind right now.”

“Spill.”

“You first.”

“Touché.”

Chase bit off the edge of a hangnail while Pippin went back to scribbling. She hadn't told her RIO a thing, and yet he'd picked up on her anxiety all the same. Maybe she should tell him. Would it help? She felt newly close to giving it a try. After all, if she couldn't talk to Pippin, then she couldn't talk to anyone.

Baby
steps
, she thought.

“Pip, how about a change of scenery? Let's go down to the hangar and see
Dragon
.” She moved a little closer, and he snapped his notebook shut.

“The jet is not a grandma in a home. It doesn't need visitors.”

Whoa. She stepped back. Pippin didn't usually dismiss
Dragon
, although Chase had to admit he didn't love the Streaker the way she did. He didn't love anything at the Star the same way. And suddenly, the fact that he wouldn't even tell her where he'd just been proved that she couldn't possibly talk to him about what Tristan knew.

Anger twisted down her arms. Her fists closed tight. “Are you thinking about quitting again? Do I have to remind you about the trials? Christ, I need you up there!”

“Stop yelling. I'm not going to quit.” He spit the words. “I
can't
, if you haven't noticed. Not unless I want my brothers to starve.”

She made herself lower her voice. “Look, I'm feeling it too. I don't want the Star to get leveled like JAFA or to lose
Dragon
, but—”

Pippin laughed so hard that she took another step back. “I'm sorry,” he said, wiping bizarre tears from his eyes. “You're so far off the mark that it's funny.”

“Yeah. Hilarious.”

He reached for his headphones, but she was faster. She flung them across the room, and they hit the wall before flopping onto his bed. He met her gaze coolly. “Do you want to fight?”

“No. Do you want to fight with me?”

A knock sounded on the door, followed by Riot's voice. “Nyx. Food.”

They continued to stare at each other while the moment released slowly. Too slowly. She'd never fought with Pippin before. They snarked and rubbed elbows sometimes, but this felt so strange. Borderline hostile. When Chase forced herself to speak again, her voice cracked. “We're going to the chow hall. Come with us?”

“Not hungry.” He returned to his notebook.

“Eat. Let's go,” Riot called sluggishly.

“What a dreamboat,” Pippin mocked. She could tell he was pressuring himself to sound normal too. “How do you contain yourself?” Chase play-punched his shoulder, and Pippin grabbed her hand, a hint of wild right behind his eyes. “I'll talk to you later, but you have to share too. Deal?”

She braked again. She couldn't help it. “Yeah…right.”

Pippin must have heard the taillights in Chase's tone. He let go of her hand with a frown and went back to his notebook, scribbling so hard his pencil went off the side of the paper and he wrote across the desk.

• • •

Riot and Chase got their lunches to go and sat beneath the largest tree on the Green. The sunlamps shone a very brilliant orange-yellow, but Chase looked beyond, past the glass ceiling to the navy sky tinged with flame blue. The color reminded her of Tristan's eyes reflecting JAFA's blaze.

The fire was so high…

Her imagination hacked her consciousness. She saw red drones overhead. Missiles falling hard and fast. Her world turned to fire and screams and broken glass. Is that what it had been like for Tristan? Is that what it would be like if this face-off opened itself to another world war?

Her mouth had gone thick and dry, near-panic leaning over her like cloud shadow. She tossed her sandwich to Riot.

“Where's Pippin?” Sylph sat cross-legged in the grass beside them, flipping her braid over her shoulder. “We need to discuss our anti-Canadian strategy for the trials.”

“He's busy.”

“Busy with what?” Riot asked.

“With whatever he wants to do,” Chase said, trying not to give away the fact that they'd been arguing. Just thinking about how they'd snapped at each other made her feel red—both aggravated and embarrassed. Truth was, Chase wasn't used to fighting with anyone. Whenever she disagreed, she cut and ran. It was a policy that had kept her from having scores of friends but also from all the suffocating drama at the Star.

A policy that had just failed.

“Pippin's not with us.” Sylph produced an inch-thick folder.

Chase peered over at the stream of notes.
OFF-THE-CUFF
was written across the top in intensely red ink. “A collection of your thoughts on my flying?”

Sylph eyed her coolly. “We'll get to that soon. More importantly, we need to discuss our major weaknesses. And your primary one is that Pippin is irreversibly contaminated. He's been hanging out with the
Phoenix
team.”

“Pippin hasn't been with the Canadians,” Chase said, instantly wondering if he had been.

“He has. In the rec room. Every night.” Riot shoved her sandwich into his mouth like a dog bent on swallowing something whole. What was she doing with him again?

“Why don't you know where he's been? Or wait”—Sylph's eyes gleamed—“you sent him to spy on them. Didn't you?”

“What?”

Sylph went back to her notebook. “Disappointing. But we'll work around it.”

Chase popped her knuckles one by one. Pippin was hanging out with Tristan and Romeo?

“Speak of the devils,” Sylph said as Tristan and his RIO set their bags down at the foot of a tree a few yards away. “I can't believe everyone is so infatuated with them.
Exchange
students
,” Sylph said. “What a euphemism. Like Ri Xiong Di would even allow us to have an exchange program. I suppose they can't hide the big one's French accent.”

“They're survivors, Sylph,” Chase found herself saying. “They've been through a lot.”

“Yeah. They look it.”

Chase couldn't argue with her. Tristan and Romeo certainly didn't act like they'd escaped with only their lives a week ago. Four underclassmen girls stood in a semicircle around them. Their titters and body language proved they were all in love with Tristan. Romeo, seemingly oblivious, kept trying to engage one of them in a thumb-wrestling match.

“Maybe we should be working with them to make the trials look amazing, not scheming behind their backs, Sylph.”

“The government board wants combat and skill. Not an American-Canadian alliance. No matter what General Tourn said.
You
are my wingman. They are the enemy. That's the setup of the trials from what I've gathered from Kale. We have to outfly them, Nyx.”

Chase eyed Sylph. “Why do you hate them so much?”

“Hate implies emotional investment, of which I have none.” Sylph shut the folder and stood.

“Pippin said that one of us might get booted from the trials. That they only need two jets.”

Sylph acted as though she hadn't heard Chase. “Fifteen minutes to class. Don't be late. If you get put on restricted duty again, we'll never have time to figure this out.” Sylph left.

Chase shook her head. “Sometimes I worry she's not all there.”

“You struck a nerve, that's all.” Riot reclined in the grass with his hands behind his head. “She's scared. She doesn't like them because they're faster than she is.”

“Everyone's faster than she is. She slows down every time she has to pull a maneuver. Maybe that's what I should tell her when we're ‘exchanging weaknesses.'”

“Please don't. I like your face better without bruises.” He tried to take Chase's hand, but she leaned back. Across the way, Romeo was hanging upside down from a tree branch. That RIO was a helpless, crazed flirt; she'd gathered that much. Tristan was harder to pin down. She stared at his dark hair, his easygoing everything. It felt like a front, but it was hard to say. She'd only glimpsed a few flashes of the more serious and driven side underneath.

Enough to want to see more.

The fear came back with her curiosity. He had so much power over her, and he probably didn't even know it. All Tristan had to do was tell one person that she was the spawn of the military's angel of death…

Why, why,
why
had he been waiting in the hall?

Tanner walked across the Green. He paused to talk to Tristan like they were old friends.
Boy, this day just keeps getting better
.

“Hey.” Riot pinched her ankle. “Want to meet up tonight? Boys' locker room?”

“
Ugh
, no.” She couldn't stop herself. “I think we're played out, Riot.”

Riot sat up. “What're you upset about?”

Chase had answers to that, but none that had to do with Riot. “Do you tell people when we hook up?” she asked, remembering Tanner's disclosure in the hangar, back before JAFA burned and her whole world turned Canadian.

“Are you asking if I brag? Of course I brag. You should like that.” Riot's frown zapped all the cute out of his face. “This is about the stupid
Phoenix
team. Everyone loves Arrow and
Romeo
. You too, I bet.”

“I don't.” Chase was still staring at Tristan. Busted. She looked away in a hurry, catching Riot's doubt. “I'm keeping an eye on them for Sylph.”

“Don't be a skank, Nyx,” he yelled. He left, and every cadet on the green, including the Canadian contingent, was looking at her. She put on a small smile and lay back in the grass with her arms behind her head.

What a morning. The emotions that had been so new earlier—like waking up in a strange room—now made her feel like being stranded on a different planet. She'd fought with Pippin, found out that the trials might be reorganized, pissed off Sylph, and dumped Riot.

Then there was the X factor: she still hadn't figure out what to do about Arrow.

To make matters worse, the loneliness that she hadn't felt since before she'd come to the Star trickled over her. She wasn't supposed to feel this here. She was supposed to be surrounded by peers, flying in one proud direction and striving for an end to the Second Cold War. Tears sprang forward, and she made herself whistle “Another One Bites the Dust”—that crazy old song Pippin loved to sing after one of her affairs flamed out.