Page 17 of Darkest Desire

“Because of these.” He cupped her cheek in one hand and swiped at her cheek. “You’re crying.”

“I’m sorry!” Phoebe pulled away and swiped hastily at her eyes. “I didn’t mean to!”

“Why does crying make you so upset?” Sirex sounded honestly confused.

“It’s not just crying—it’s crying in front of you.” Phoebe sniffed. “You’re my mentor—I’m supposed to be proving how strong and brave I am. And now I’m crying for the second time in two days! It makes me weak.”

“Crying doesn’t make you weak in my eyes,” Sirex told her. “It lets me know that you’re feeling something deeply, which is good—I need to know your mental and emotional state.” Reaching out, he stroked a strand of hair out of her eyes. “It’s all right to show me your feelings, Phoebe. I prefer it if you do.”

For a moment, Phoebe felt lost in his red-on-black eyes. His soft words and gentle tone made her want to submit to him all over again. She wished she could lay down and put her head in his lap and just let him stroke her hair and call her “baby” like he had when she was so upset.

But the practical part of her knew that couldn’t be. He was just being a kind, good mentor—nothing else. Right?

“Thank you, Sir,” she mumbled at last, looking down. “I just…don’t feel like I’ve displayed very much courage in the past few days.”

“Everyone has a breaking point, Phoebe.” His voice was soft. “It’s better to find yours in a training simulation than out in the field. Besides, what happened wasn’t your fault—it was the training tunnel.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I mean the training tunnel was trying to break you. It’s not actually a real simulation, you know—we call it that because that’s the most accurate way we can describe it, but the training tunnel is actually a living entity.”

“What? The whole tunnel is alive?” Phoebe demanded. The idea made her feel creeped-out in a whole new way.

“It’s a semi-sentient entity the Kindred found on one of the worlds we explored,” he explained. “It has psychic powers, which allows it limited access to your thoughts. In this way it’s able to find your fears and present them to you for the greatest possible challenge. Only the tunnel went too far yesterday.”

“I had no idea it was getting into my head!” Phoebe exclaimed. “So that’s how it knew I’m claustrophobic and afraid of spiders.”

“Exactly. And you’d been doing so well for the past few weeks it decided to take your excellence as a challenge.” He shook his head. “I’ve asked the warriors who deal specifically with the tunnel to recalibrate it—don’t ask how, there’s apparently a process for it—and to keep everyone out of it until it’s fixed.”

“So what it did to me yesterday wasn’t normal,” Phoebe said.

“Not at all. I’ve never seen it go after anyone like it went after you.” He shook his head. “Even when it’s fixed, I don’t think it will be any more use to me in training you—we need to move on.”

“Move on to doing what?” Phoebe asked, frowning.

“To other scenarios you might encounter in the field. The tunnel teaches you stealth and physical coordination but we also need to work on combat skills. I know you’ve had a bit of hand-to-hand combat and weapons training, correct?”

Phoebe nodded.

“We did hand-to-hand at the PD academy and I’m a fairly accurate shot.”

“With a projectile weapon, but how are you with a blaster?” He patted his hip where his blaster was clipped. “Or a knife?” He pulled out the long, curving blade that was clipped to his other hip and handed it—hilt first—to Phoebe.

She took it and weighed it in her hand. It was heavy and perfectly balanced—obviously made just for her mentor.

“I have to admit, I’ve never been in a knife fight,” she said. “I didn’t know that was something I’d have to worry about.”

“There are some areas out in the field where blasters aren’t allowed—which means everyone carries knives,” Sirex told her. “You need to learn to fight with a blade—and with your body. We’re going to be working on that exclusively for a while.”

“All right.” Phoebe nodded. “Er, thank you,” she added awkwardly.

He arched an eyebrow.

“For what?”

“For understanding about the training tunnel. For not treating me like I’m girly or weak because I lost it in there yesterday.”

“You are not ‘girly’ or ‘weak,’ Cadet Jenkins.” His eyes blazed at her. “You have courage and a strong sense of purpose. I admire that. It’s going to take a lot more work on both out parts, but you’re going to make a fine agent.”

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