This feeling is too familiar. It's exactly like that day, the one three years ago when Dean showed me exactly what he thought about me, my career in the militia, and our contract together.
"Colonel?" I questioned, stepping up and saluting. The man had just missed my name on the list of recruits who had been hand-picked to begin training on the new HEL-SR weapon. It must have been some mistake.
I wanted it. I needed it. I studied for so long. This was going to be the skill that would send me skyrocketing above my current position. I was a sure-thing. The Special Forces position was as good as mine.
"I'm sorry, Lorn. You didn't pass."
I didn't understand.
"How?"
"Ask Freyer."
I turned to Dean who had stopped in his tracks behind me. He didn't say a word.
"Freyer personally requested you be overlooked." Colonel turned away.
"He what?" I burst with wild anger but suddenly didn't know what to do with my hands. They ran through my hair and uncoiled it from its neat knot.
"Said you were still suffering trauma from the last mission. Night terrors and all. He thinks you still need time to heal. I agreed with him."
I was healing. I would have been fine. I needed this. Using this weapon, it was an objective made for me. I wanted it. I had worked hard for it.
Then I found out my position was assigned to Moyra. It was Dean's fault. What happened to her should have happened to me instead. If I had taken her position on the HEL-SR, she would still be alive today. My sister would still be with us.
It took months before I spoke to him again.
If we weren't stuck in this God-forsaken hole in the ground, forced to run in rat circles, I wouldn't have to worry about it. But we are here, in the URE, contracted partners in the HHP, comrades in this new mission, and we are guaranteed to run into each other at least once a day for the rest of our human lives. My eyes burn in their sockets.
Those past feelings resurface again. It's the HEL-SR debacle all over again.
If I had any tears left in my body, I might cry. But every tear has evaporated into a curling steam of loathing that powers my arms and legs. In the heat of my hatred, I don't see him run up beside me and grab my arm on my way out.
Silently, I struggle, but I'm too jolted by this recent reality check.
His massive hands wrap around my arms, holding me in place. "Give me another chance. Please, Nika."
I face him only to tell him to go to hell, but before the words can leave my mouth, like a battering ram at the gates of salvation, he beats his lips against mine, grinding their gravel texture against me. It feels more like a stamp than a kiss.
He smells like sweat and dirt. He's been working in Agriculture again.
This kiss is nothing like the ones we shared in our past. But this motion is familiar. I allow myself one small gasp, one tiny glowing ember that burns a diminutive watt brighter before I snuff it out entirely.
He lowers me with the same soft gentleness of those days when we were first contracted together.
I uppercut his chin and storm away.