Page 97 of Silver Elite

I hurry to wrap a consoling arm around Betima, smoothing her bangs off her forehead as she empties her stomach. When a prickly sensation travels through me, I lift my head and notice Roe standing nearby, suspicion tightening his brow as he watches me. He frowns, as if I’m somehow responsible for what happened to Glin tonight.

I break the eye contact and focus my attention on Betima.

—

The weight of tonight’s tragedy hangs heavy in the air. Nobody says much when we return to the base. In the barracks, the usual chatter is replaced by somber silence. Betima seems especially haunted by Glin’s accident. Her eyes held a dull sheen on the helo ride back, and she appears to still be in shock. While everyone else undresses and gets ready for bed, I notice her slip out the door, still clad in tonight’s all-black getup.

I push away from my bed to follow her. Kaine gives me a questioning look, offering to come, but I shake my head.

She’s halfway down the corridor when I exit the bunks.

“Hey, wait,” I call after her. “I’m coming with you.” I falter when I realize I’m being presumptuous. “Unless you want to be alone?”

Betima waits for me to catch up. “No, it’s fine. I’m going up to the roof. I need a smoke.”

We enter the stairwell at the end of the hall. I’ve never been to the roof of the training facility before, but evidently it’s a popular spot, because tobacco butts and old joints litter the rooftop floor.

“Will this lock behind us?” I ask, holding on to the edge of the metal door.

She shakes her head, so I let it shut.

We walk to the ledge that overlooks the base. I scan the various outbuildings, then focus on the main installation in which I was held when I first got here. The interrogation room. The stockade. It feels like a lifetime ago.

A soft hiss breaks the silence. Betima flips the top of a metal lighter and sparks a joint that’s neatly rolled in brown paper.

“Didn’t know you smoked,” I remark.

“I don’t do it often. I like to save it for the nights I watch someone get impaled on a fence and listen to them shriek in agony.”

“Seems like a good occasion for it.”

She takes a deep hit. Her chest rises as she inhales, then falls on the exhale. A minty, medicinal odor floats in my direction.

“Do you want?” she offers.

I shake my head. I’ve never been a fan. Jim liked to smoke euca in the evenings sometimes, claiming it went down smoother into the lungs compared with the cannabis that used to be freely available all over the globe. I heard there’s still a lot of cannabis production in Tierra Fe. Cocaine, too. But it’s almost impossible to find it on the Continent, not without shady connections.

As she sucks on the euca joint, I tip my head up to the sky. “You can barely see any stars here.”

“Too much pollution. You’re from Z, right? You see the stars there?”

I nod. “The sky is gorgeous. All you see is stars.”

She takes another deep drag. Blows out another billowing plume that’s carried away by the breeze.

“You couldn’t have saved him,” I say quietly. “I hope you know that.”

“I do. He was dead the moment that spike went through his body.” She bites her lip. “I’ve just never held someone as they…” She exhales in a ragged burst. “I didn’t realize how awful it was to feel someone die.”

“Death is pretty awful.” The memory of Uncle Jim hitting the ground flashes through my mind. Blood oozing from all the bullet holes in his chest.

“Have you dealt with a lot of it?”

“My parents are dead, but I was so young when they died, I don’t know if it truly affected me. Losing my uncle was the first time I lost someone close to me. You?”

She nods. “I’ve lost friends.”

The door creaks behind us.

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