Aston looked up from a large map spread across his table. He wore a ripped white shirt and pair of pants that must have come from the Terra Preservation army. Out in the dust fields, they would give him perfect camouflage with their burnt orange color. Bo cautiously entered the tent, not caring that she probably should have knocked and that she should probably wait to be asked before she pulled out a chair and flopped down in it. Whatever he had to say, she knew she wasn't going to like it, and she'd rather show him that she was the same girl who used to beat him in practically every game they ever played when they were children.
"So nice of you to actually obey my orders for once," he said, looking back down to the map. He marked a few places with a pencil, then went back to staring. Bo shrugged and leaned back in her chair, unimpressed.
"Well, I had nothing better to do, so why not see what the meathead wanted from me?"
"Watch it."
Bo shrugged again.
Aston looked as if he might try to make her apologize, but he only snarled at her for a moment and then pushed away from the map table. "I'm not here to argue with you, Bo," he said. "I want you here as the friend that knows me better than anyone else. I want the girl who led this camp while her dad was missing, and the girl who never backs down."
Bo chewed on the inside of her cheek, her arms crossed, waiting to see where he was going with all this almost-praise.
"We're poised on the brink of greatness," he continued. "With the militia, we're able to do so much more than we ever thought possible. We have more weapons, soon we'll have more people, and I hope to one day have more land. If we can negotiate a deal with the Terra Preservation army for a plot of land in the protected areas, we might be able to get a reliable source of food. If we can raise ourselves up, we can become something that's worth remembering. I want people all over the Blast Zones, here and in the rest of the world, to know our names and know who we are."
"The militia is so overdone, though," Bo said, waving her hand in the air. "Why not travelling circus, instead? Singing competition?" She widened her eyes and leaned forward in mock excitement. "Imagine all the people who would know us if we did those things!"
"Shut up," Aston said, but he put no anger behind it. He walked to stand in front of her, looking down with an expression she wasn't sure she wanted to analyze. "The militia wants us to start our service soon. And if we offer a few extra months of service to the militia each year, we'll rise in their ranks. They'll give us more men, more weapons, and we'll only keep growing. We could be a town within a few years."
"Great, well, I call dibs on naming the main street after me."
"Bo, stop making it all a joke," he said, his voice nearly cracking. This made Bo stare in wonder. She'd never seen Aston get riled up like this before. He was easy to anger, easy to frustrate, but this sort of restless intensity she did not often see provoked by anyone. "Don't you see that we will have power if we do this? We would be have the fire power to take care of that alien that kept your captive. If he is the Beast of Lyx, like you said, we can get vengeance for all those humans he slaughtered on the battlefields."
Bo's mouth went dry. "You'd go against an alien? You don't even know where he is."
"The militia is pressuring us to start our rotation. I've been putting them off due to you coming back and making everyone doubt the plan, but if we start now we can gain their power. We can tell the Terra Preservation about the alien, and then we'd have the whole army on our side. I am sure we could find him with their technology. You wouldn't have to worry anymore. You'd be safe."
For some reason, Bo's heart had sped up in her chest. Her hands shook, but she hid them in her pockets. "There's no reason to do that. He'll stay in the Dead Woods and we'll stay here. Why go looking for trouble?"
Aston's face was hard and unreadable. "I thought you were worried he'd come after you? You said he might come here with firepower and wipe us out. What happened to that, Bo?"
She knew she'd said it, but she never really believed it. Somehow, she knew the Beast would stay where he was, even though she had broken her promise yet again. She just knew that he wouldn't mix with humans unless he had to. And she wasn't important enough to him for that... or was she?
"That's all beside the point," she said, hoping to change the subject. "The militia is not the way to go, and you aren't going to convince the entire camp to suddenly trust men who are just bandits under a different name. I don't want you to start any sort of rotation with them."
Aston leaned down, putting a hand on either of the arm rests, and stared Bo straight in the face. She fought the urge to jump off the chair, knowing that the only way to deal with Aston was to face him head on.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"If we're going to become a town, we're going to need impeccable leadership. Like you said, we're divided. The older ones want your father's legacy to continue. They don't appreciate my views, and they take every opportunity to push the boundaries of my rules. The younger ones, of course, see the value of my plans and know that we won't get anywhere without my pushing and risks."
"So, you want me to officially step down?"
"No, I want to make sure there is no descent anywhere in the camp. If you return to leading us, we'll lose our position with the militia and we'll continue as a stagnant camp just scraping by. But if I keep the role of leader, a part of our camp may protest and we'll lose precious manpower when it comes time to fulfill our obligations to the militia."
"What are you suggesting?" Bo said, hating that her voice sounded so strained.
"A joining of forces. Something that no one can dispute or argue against." He looked her in the eye. "A marriage to ensure the safety of our camp forever."
"No way," Bo snapped. "I'm not going to marry you, Aston, not now or ever." She glared at him. "I'd never respect you as a husband, and my love only extends as far as brotherhood. So just wipe what could be your stupidest plan ever from that fevered little brain of yours and forget it."
"Bo!" Aston said, his fingers tightening on the arm rests. Bo glared back at him, shoving him squarely in the chest, but unable to move him even an inch.
"Move it, Aston," she said.
"Just think about it," he said. His lip curled at the end, a visual growl. "You'd be passing up a chance to make something of yourself."
"Make something of myself by marrying you?" Bo laughed. "I'd rather go back to the Beast than marry you."
She shouldn't have said it, not when Aston remembered so well the sight of aliens killing his mother and father, but when she was around him her temper always flared and she said things before thinking about them. Aston's lips flattened, and she knew what was coming next even though she knew she wouldn't be able to dodge it in time.
The blow caught her on the side of her chin, snapping her neck to the side. The taste of blood filled her mouth and she felt something dribble from her lip. She rose an arm to block the next blow, catching it only glancingly on the cheek, and then delivered her own punch to Aston's stomach. He doubled over, his breath coming out in one heavy burst, and stumbled back a few steps. Bo took the moment that he was off balance to slide out of her chair and spin out of his reach. She grabbed the handle of her pistol from her side, and when Aston turned to face her he stared directly down the barrel of a cocked and loaded gun.
"Hit me again and you'll be wishing all you had to worry about was divided camp loyalties," she said. "The militia has changed you, Aston. I don't know you anymore."
Aston stared at her, breathing heavily, but not moving. "I've changed? You're the girl who once used to care about the people in this camp. Now all I see is a lazy coward hiding in her tent. I think you're the one who's changed, Bo, and I think that alien did it to you. You didn't even try to come back, did you?"
Heat rushed into Bo's face, but she knew better than to rise to his bait. "If you ever lay a finger on me again, I'm going to blow your brains all over the dust fields. Consider yourself warned."
She holstered her gun and spun around, stalking away. She couldn't tell if he watched her, or if he followed her, or where he was at all. It took all her control to keep her strides even and calm, heading for her tent as if this was a completely normal day. It was only once she was inside, safe from prying eyes, that she gagged on a sob and raced for her sectioned off little corner of the tent.
Behind the hanging sheet, she collapsed onto her bed, gasping for air that seemed to desert her. Her lip and chin burned and she swiped her sleeve over them to wipe away the blood. Her brain buzzed, taking with it all reason. She just stared at the blank white of the hanging sheet, her gun clutched close, wondering how in the world she and Aston had come to this.