A hand squeezed my knee, and I woke to darkness. The roar of the truck was gone, and the light beams were off. "Where are we?" I asked Dad and sat up in the seat to take in the night world around us. We parked before a long building with dark windows. One bare light lit the doorway to our right.
"We're at the Alliance Outpost on the outskirts of Grayling," Dad said as he got out of the truck.
"What time is it? Aren't they all asleep?" I opened the truck door and poured out; my brain still drugged from the tiny sleep I got.
Dad rounded to my side. "It's two in the morning, but someone will be awake." Dad led the way to the lit door. "There are always a few officers awake at these headquarters in case of emergency."
I followed Dad to the door. Light poured over us when he opened it. My eyes watered at the brightness as we stepped into a small reception area. The room had light gray walls and dark gray carpet floors. Pushed against the wall to the right and left were old chairs. The wall across from us large window with two doors on either side. One of those doors opened and led to the office situated on the other side of the window.
Two officers wearing black uniforms were in the office. A red-haired man sat in a chair and a dark-skinned man leaned against the door frame. Both watched us in surprise. The door closed behind me with a small thud.
Dad stepped into the center of the room. "Hello," he said.
The door frame officer shot a look at his companion. "Hello," he said. He straightened and took one step toward Dad. "How may I help you?"
"My daughter and I drove from Northport. Rebels attacked our home. I need a phone to contact Chicago and we will need a room for a few hours to get some sleep."
The dark-skinned man hesitated. "I'm sorry, sir, this outpost is for Alliance officers only. I can refer you to the Military Civilian outpost that is about twenty minutes away from here."
Dad shook his head at the young man's recommendation. "No, Corporal. The things I need are here. I'm Dave Sparrow."
Dad's name didn't register with the young man, but the red-haired man in the office flew from his seat and rounded the doorframe. He stopped beside his companion. His smile was bright, which was unsettling since a moment ago he wore a mask of suspicion. "Sir, I know of you. I heard you lived in this area but didn't think you would need to stop here."
"No need to call me sir, Lieutenant. I'm not officially back with the Alliance. I need to contact Admiral Welch."
I watched the interaction between the two men in disbelief. How the hell did this guy know Dad? A moment ago, he was wary of us. Now he treated Dad as an old friend. I wasn't alone, Corporal looked just as confused.
The lieutenant nodded. "Yes, of course. We will provide you with a phone. We have a few field agents here who are looking into the rebel attacks. Corporal Wells, go wake them up."
"Sir?" Corporal Wells hesitated. His brown eyes flicked between Dad and the lieutenant.
The lieutenant turned to the man. "Did you not just graduate from ensign? Have you not heard of Dave Sparrow, the tactical officer?"
Corporal Wells thought for a moment, and then his eyes widened. He looked at Dad. "Oh! I'm so sorry, sir, for what I said when you arrived."
Dad waved away his apology. "No need to apologize. Go wake those officers. I will talk with them before they leave. Tell them I will meet them in a conference room."
The corporal nodded and strode to the closed door on the other side of the large window. I stood stunned. Dad ordered him a task, and the man did it without question. Who was Dad in the Alliance? I didn't ask him earlier in the car. The lieutenant seemed to know of him. He said Dad was a tactical officer, whatever that was. Whoever Dad was, he must have had a decent high rank if the corporal did what he said.
"I will talk to the officers," Dad told the lieutenant. "Then I will call Admiral Welch. My daughter and I will get some sleep before we leave in the morning. We need fresh clothes and supplies. My truck is out front, but it won't survive the trip to Chicago."
The lieutenant nodded. "We have everything you need. Clothes, food, a car, communication. Just say it, and it is yours."
Dad half turned to me; his eyes softened when he saw my dumbfounded face. "My daughter, Mel, has an injured hand."
Another set of eyes fell on me. I turned my attention to the lieutenant as he said, "We have a medical room and a nurse."
Dad turned back to the man. "I know my way around these outposts, they are all the same. Can you take Mel to the medical room? I can get myself to a conference room."
The lieutenant nodded. "I can take her there and will have two rooms drawn up."
Dad nodded. He turned to face me. His eyes on me made me shift on my feet. With my arms wrapped around my body, it was hard to hide the uncomfortableness. Dad was a stranger. He talked with authority that I never heard before. And the way the lieutenant knew Dad from his Alliance days made me feel weird.
"Mel, go with him. I'll see you after I'm done." Dad lifted his hand to give me a comfort touch on my shoulder. My body, on its own accord, swayed from the touch. As quick as his hand rose, he lowered it. His lips tightened, but he didn't comment at my recoil. Without a word, Dad turned toward the door.
The lieutenant pretended he didn't see what happened. He only smiled at me. "I'm Lieutenant James. Mel, right?"
I nodded.
"I'll take you to the med room and get the nurse." He nodded toward the door, and I followed him with my arms tight around me.
Lieutenant James led us through the door and into a hallway that sported the same carpet and walls as the front room. Questions swirled through my head that I wanted to ask. What to ask first was hard. Who was Dad in the Alliance? Who was Admiral Welch? And what the hell was a tactical officer?
"This way," Lieutenant James pointed to a hall to our right.
"Who's Admiral Welch? I haven't heard of that ranking," I asked. Normal rankings were corporal, lieutenant, captain, major, and general. There were other ranks to go along with those, but I hadn't heard of Admiral ranking.
"Most of our Alliance ranks are the same as the army, with a few differences. The Alliance was based on the old Navy SEALS in the Old World. Because the Alliance is different from the army, we don't use the rank of General. We use the highest rank of admiral. It sets us apart from them. Welch is ranked Vice Admiral. He's the leader of the Alliance."
My feet stumbled over the carpet. Dad was calling the highest-ranking officer in the Alliance.
Wait.
Less than two hours ago, Dad said he received a letter from an old colleague and friend in the Alliance. He said his name was Welch.
We stopped before a plain wooden door. Lieutenant James opened it. The light clicked on to reveal a small, whitewashed examination room. I stepped inside.
"You seem to know my dad," I stated.
Lieutenant James nodded. "It's an honor to meet him. He was a great tactical officer. He led the most successful missions than any other. When I was in training, we went over many of his missions. They were genius. It's a shame he left in his prime. He could have done so much more. Make yourself at home. Nurse Marigot will be in soon."
"Wait," I turned to Lieutenant James who was about to close the door. "My dad. What rank was he when he left?"
"He was an Admiral."
The nurse was a thin and kind lady. Her words were soft-spoken, either from the dazed look I wore or the fact she was woken early in the morning to tend my hand. The gash across my palm was long and deep enough to deem stitches.
Nurse Marigot explained she would numb the area, clean the cut out, stitch it, and wrap it up. I nodded at her words without really hearing them. My mind was far away. Years away, actually.
My mind traveled to nineteen years ago. Dad was twenty-nine years old. He was an admiral at twenty-nine. Twenty-nine. I was only nineteen. I would be twenty-nine in ten years. How did he accomplish that at such a young age?
Shit. He was an admiral now. He said he was joining the Alliance again to help with this new rebel conflict.
Not only that, from what Lieutenant James said about Dad, it sounds like he was well known. If I didn't know better, Lieutenant James was awestruck. Corporal Wells certainly was after he realized who Dad was. That's what really bothered me. It seemed people in Alliance knew Dad. Or at least his missions during their training.
He was an admiral.
And he never told me a damn thing.
Anger festered in me again. It chiseled at my mind as I thought of all those years Dad never told me anything about who he really was.
He told me in the truck that he regretted leaving his work. I know why. He was an admiral. Probably paid more money than we ever did with fishing. Did he never tell me because I was the reason he left? He said he wanted to give me a life. That he wanted to be a father.
Did he not tell me because he was mad at me for forcing him to leave the life he wanted?
The door opened and my mind snapped back to the little med room. Nurse Marigot finished stitching my palm and was about to wrap it. She looked up at the door. I followed her gaze to see Dad.
His eyes flicked to mine before he focused on the nurse. "How is she?" he asked. He closed the door and leaned against it. Probably chose to stand there because of my death glare.
"She will be fine. Told her to take it easy for a few days. To keep it wrapped up. Her hand did not sustain severe damage, but it will be weak when she resumes using it. I recommend having a doctor see it in a week and I will give her a few medications to help with the pain if needed. Right now, it's numb, but it will hurt eventually."
Dad nodded, and silence fell around us.
A minute ticked by, and Nurse Marigot finished and excused herself from the room. I analyzed the wrap on left hand. The white wrap was tight but still breathable.
"What is it?" Dad demanded when the door closed behind the nurse.
I glanced up. The way his face drooped, and eyes sunk in... He was tired, but there was a slight spark. He knew we were about to start round two of arguing.
"Admiral?" I huffed out a hollow laugh. "You were an admiral. Lieutenant James told me when I asked him. When were you going to tell me you were one of the highest-ranking officers? Hell, Dad, why'd you even bring me along if you don't care to tell me about your life before I was born?" I jumped off the examination table I sat on. "Do you despise me so much that you never tell me anything about your life before me?"
There it was. My feelings laid out bare. Dad didn't talk to me about his life before because he was angry at me for being the reason he was forced to leave.
Dad took a step toward me. Those sunk eyes narrowed. "Don't you dare say that."
"Oh, are you saying that as a dad or an admiral?"
That was a deep cut. I knew it. Yet the words still came out.
"Melissa. I told you in the truck that I don't regret having you. Nor do I regret choosing to be your father."
I took a step forward and pointed at him. "But you regret leaving. I do remember you saying that."
Dad closed his eyes; he rubbed the bridge of his nose. "We are too tired for this conversation."
"Oh, I'm not tired. I'm fuming. I have a lot of questions with no answers in sight."
Dad opened his eyes and glared at me. Anger simmered in his gaz, but something inside me told me he wasn't angry at me. "My father put me in military school when I was a kid. He wanted me to join the army like him. I despised him for it. He was never a father to me. Never. At sixteen, I asked to join the Alliance early. Because of who my father was and because of my schooling, the Alliance let me join early. I climbed the ranks tooth and nail to reach admiral rank in ten years. When I was only twenty-six, I was the youngest admiral appointed. I well-earned it with all the hard work I had done.
"Your mother came along. We dated for about four years before I retired. We were going to get married, but we broke it off. A few months after we split, your mother came to me to tell me she was pregnant. She told me she didn't want to have her child raised in the city. She didn't want her child to go play on cement. She wanted her child to go play in the grass." Dad's anger deflated as quick as it came.
"I loved your mother. That was one weakness in my life. When she said she was taking you to the Lake Region, I thought long and hard about what I wanted. Did I want the life I fought so hard to have, or did I want a family? I decided on a family. I went with her, and we had you. You made my decision to leave the Alliance worth it.
"The true reason I never talked about Alliance is because she was there with me. She was a field officer. She worked on many missions with me during my field days. She led a good amount of the missions I planned when I became a mission director. When you were one year old, we began to fight. The fighting went on for years. When you were five, she had enough. She left you and me. One night, she packed up all her things, took all our money, and left. She left you and me.
"I can't talk about my old Alliance days because she was there. Each time I remember that woman, I get angry because she said family was most important. If that is true, then why did she leave behind her daughter that she apparently loved so much?"
I didn't know that.
Any of it.
Dad never talked about my mother. We never spoke of her. Brief memories cross my mind. A light laughter, a wide smile. Hair like mine that was gold in the sun. A soft voice singing lullabies in the dark.
There were other memories. Memories of her snapping sharp words. Her fists pounded on Dad's chest. Hushed arguments. A year before she left, I remember full-scale screaming fights.
And tears. Both from Dad and my mother.
Sadness radiated from Dad when she left for the first year. Sadness and anger.
One memory haunted me to this day when I allowed it out of its box.
I woke to a sunny morning bedroom and wondered where Mama was. She was always there to wake me up. With my little legs, I crawled out of the tall bed and padded to the door. Small bare feet hardly made any sound on the wood floor. With a hand on the wall and taking one step at a time, I climbed down the stairs and turned toward the kitchen, where the morning sun warmed the room.
Dad sat at the table in the center of the kitchen. A paper in his hand. Silent tears streamed down his cheeks. His face contorted in sadness before a flicker of anger consumed him. He stormed out of his seat, forcing the wooden chair to topple to the ground. Two steps he was at the back kitchen door, his hand on the handle.
He paused.
He paused because I was crying. The sound of the chair falling on the floor scared me.
When he turned, the look would haunt me for years to come. To see the devastation of what my mother did to him sat so bare on his face.
That look of devastation that haunted me as a child, faced me as an adult right now.
"Do you understand why I never told you anything about my past?" Dad asked quietly.
I nodded. I understood. However, it didn't make it right for him not to tell me the truth all those years. But he told me. That was enough for now.
"They have two rooms for us." Dad nodded to the door, and I followed him into the hall.