To Be A Champion

Chapter 44: Failed Transmissions

"Why did he allow us to get split up?"

As I pace the room, the words leave my mouth in a painful mumble. My legs burn, but I can't stay still, can't rest, can't stop. I barely could get myself to take a shower and change clothes. Sitting in a chair, Sam looks up, tired and weary of my questions.

"Callista-" He starts, but I shake my head.

"That wasn't a part of the plan. Why didn't he tell me the whole plan? He didn't even tell me he thought Shona had killed Jones' decoy. Why didn't he tell me? We worked for days on the plan. We worked on it together! We were supposed to trust each other to keep each other safe! I could have kept him safe if we'd never split up!"

I'm breathing heavily now, trying to get enough air as my eyes burn.

"She wouldn't have been able to go after us both at once. Even if she had enhanced speed, we could have—both of us would have had our pistols trained on her. She wouldn't have been able to hurt us, hurt him."

"This wasn't your fault."

I glare at him because that doesn't make the pain stop. It doesn't make it go away. It's just wasted words, wasted breath to tell me something I know but can't completely accept. "Stop saying that! We were supposed to have each other's backs, and now Tom is in surgery and nearly bled to death because of me! I never should have agreed to split up. That wasn't a part of the plan! I knew that. I had a bad feeling about it, but I did it anyway.

"What if I had stayed in the caves and didn't come until Tom called? What if I hadn't been able to distract Shona-"

"But you did," He interrupts. "You got to him in time. You carried him through those caves. You saved him."

My shoulders shake as my vision blurs. "He lost a lot of blood. I don't..."

I can't find words. I can't get out what I so badly need to say because I don't know what I need to say. It's so jumbled and chaotic and I hate it!

I hate it!

I grit my teeth and scream through them as my palms press into my eyes.

My chest heaves. Why does it hurt so much to breathe?

I don't know when Sam got up or walked towards me, but the second he wraps his arms around me, everything freezes. The silence that follows is agonizingly maddening.

I break.

"I can't let another one of my best friends die because of me," I sob, dropping my hands. "I couldn't take it."

"What do you mean?" Sam asks as he leads me to sit on one of the cots, holding onto me tightly as he does so.

I can't bring myself to say it outloud. But their names appear in my mind.

Wesley was my best friend, and he died because of my shitty aim. Caleb was my best friend, and I shot him, and then I blew up the Comansys flotilla with him on it.

And Peter—how many times has he almost died because of me? How many times has he actually died because of me? Over and over again.

How am I going to tell him about this?

Just the thought makes want to curl into a ball and die. This wasn't supposed to happen!

I can't speak about failing my friends, but I can't stop the other words that tumble from my mouth. "Shona chose Tom because he was infected with nanites. But she also chose to have him go with her because I told her that he and Janine were the two most important people on our team whenever she tried to talk to me about my importance. She did it because I told her. If I'd let her keep thinking I was important, maybe she would have wanted me to come with her."