HMS Valediction

Chapter 7

"There was a two-hour presentation on it. I wrote it."

"He's doing it again!" I can't stop the tears. The sting as they pool under my eyes and I try like hell to hold them back. But it's useless. I blink once and they cascade down my cheeks, my relief and horror from the past few weeks with them.

We sit in silence as my son accomplishes some impressive high-kicks to my abdomen.

"You're not going to be able to hide this much longer." Knuckles hasn't tried to pull his arm from my grasp.

"I'm going to try and keep up the ruse until it's absolutely necessary. We're here for forty-five days. The port is relatively safe. Once we return to flight, I'll let everyone know. Until then, I can keep this up. Forty-five days is nothing. I've been hiding him for—"

"Thirty. You've only been hiding this for thirty days, Lorn. If you think you're capable of doubling that number and hiding behind your armor, you're delusional."

He levels with me, his dark brown stare cutting me to pieces. I know. But if I at least believe I can make it that long, it's a target to acquire.

"When do the VIPERs return to port?" Knuckles opens my hand and taps on my PAHLM. Small blue numbers and letters appear over my skin, scrolling through all the analytics that speak to him, telling him exactly what he needs to know.

"I wanted to go back down with them tomorrow?"

"You wanted?" he practically shouts, startling me from the joyful calm I've floated into. "Are you thick?"

I raise a brow at the booming voice.

"There is no need for you to waddle down to the unknown planet and subject yourself to thousands of dangers yet known to man when you could be sitting back, resting, letting your team do the work that they're supposed to be doing for you anyway? You're going to thrust your enormous rump into a perilous situation because you wanted to?"

Enormous?

I falter for words. Molten guilt drips over my skin. But as the guilt cools and solidifies, a new thought emerges.

"The only enormous ass in here is you, Knuckles. This is my job. I don't have to go, but I choose to be there for my unit. We work together. I wouldn't send them out into anything I wouldn't be willing to run into first. There is no way they're going without me."

For the first time since meeting him, I watch as he carefully takes his glasses from off their ledge on the tip of his wide nose. He folds them and places them between us. Without the thick glass dividing his glare from mine, his brown eyes shine bright and deep. He knits his brows together and shuts his eyes tight.

This is the first time I've ever seen him lose his temper at me for something that I've directly said or done. Normally his sharp words are aimed at the HHP, the ship, the URE, his rotten luck, or any other inconveniences he's experienced. This was the first time he's bitten me. I don't know how to react.

The night with Simon and Tahn flashes to the forefront of my mind. I remember how I had Tahn's windpipe between my fingers. I remember my father's strong hand on my arm and I remember him using enough force to get me to drop my arm and regret the whole experience as his finger-marks tingled on my skin for days afterward.

There are no handprints this time, but each phrase is a little cut that makes me stumble back and out of Knuckle's room in the Clinic.

"Janika," he says as I back far enough away to step into the open passageway. He states my name as if it's one of the statistics he read earlier in my hand.