Page 92 of Echoes of War

“You already know her,” I groaned, placing my hand on her forehead and pushing her out the door. She kept at it, body flailing as she tried to get around me.

“Elie …” Prescott warned, “Boundaries, little lady, boundaries.”

“Thank you, an annoying habit Amaia and her have in common is the inability to respect them,” I teased.

Harley and Suckerpunch shot out the door, the knocks not stirring them from their stumble but the voice of their second favorite girl instead.

Yasmin’s hand fell on my shoulder drawing my attention behind me. “Hey, you almost forgot this.” She handed me my water canteen I’d left on the bedside dresser. I shook it, grinning at the fact that she’d filled it for me knowing I’d forgotten when I came in late last night.

“Thanks, I’ll be back around lunch. Meet you at The Kitchens,” I said, kissing her cheek.

“Bye, Prescott, keep him safe.” Yasmin grinned at Elie, but there was a strain behind it. I hated how much it pained her to see me leave. Compound first, though. If we lost sight of that, then we’d have nothing worth fighting for.

Prescott offered her a nod, waving as she shut the door.

“Yasmin is your girlfriend?” Elie chided, “Dude, she’s hot. Way out of your league.”

“Quiet, Eleanor.” I snapped, the corner of my lips pulled against my will. “And I know.”

“Elie,” she corrected before skipping off, Suckerpunch and Harley at her heels.

Prescott grabbed my shoulder, bringing me to a halt with a wide grin. “Proud of you, you know?”

“Getting sentimental on me, old man?” I retorted.

The morning sun beamed down on my skin. There was a breeze swimming through The Compound, a welcoming aspect of the January air. Kids played throughout the streets, heading toward their weekend training, their parents watching them from their doorsteps. A few adults bustled about, focused on making it to whatever morning shift they were responsible for. I waved to a few as we made our way out of the General Living Quarters.

“Who, me?” Prescott countered, hand over his heart. “What I’m saying is, it’s nice to see you with a smile on your face. I know you took it pretty hard, not having Amaia around. Two of you have always been attached at the hip.”

I kept my focus on the cobblestone. It was hard talking about her, which was odd because she wasn’t dead or anything. I don’t think.No, she’s fine. You would feel it in your soul if she was gone. Still, it tugged on my anxiety in a horribly painful way.

“I miss her,” I said. “So much that it hurts. I want to know that she’s okay.”

“My sweet girl isn’t exactly sweet. She can handle herself, try not to worry too much.”

His words offered little reassurance. I knew he was confident in her abilities; I was too. But overconfidence never did anyone any favors. Anything could happen out there, unmatchable power or not.

“I know. It would be nice to hear from her is all. She was in denial about Seth for so long, didn’t want to see it.” I bit back the words leftunsaid.

Had she listened to me, a lot of this could have been avoided. From the moment he’d arrived, I never really trusted Seth. I worked with him, tolerated him, even formed an odd friendship of sorts, but it was all at Amaia’s request. Spending time alone together hadn’t exactly been at the top of either of our to-do lists.

I remembered when he and Reina had arrived. The hate that lingered behind his eyes when she hopped off that horse and entered our gates hadn’t been brotherly at all. There was an envy there that unsettled me. From that moment on, I vowed to keep an eye on him. You didn’t have to trust someone to play nice, just needed to be good at pretending. Seth had been good at pretending too. Sneaky little bastard.

“But you did, and that’s all that matters,” he reassured me, indubitably noticing the worried frown on my face. “You were there for her and now you’ve stepped up while she’s gone. I’m proud of you. Though that won’t mean anything soon. She’ll put my admiration to shame when she sees how you’ve handled it all. You’re a true leader, Riley, someone they’ll write about in history years from now. The three of you, the kids I never asked for but somehow got. I’ve lost one, but I pray I never lose another, not until I’m long buried in the ground.”

“Which is ages from now, Pres,” I said, side-eyeing him. Angling my head, I tried to find the best way to approach a question that had been eating at me for weeks now. “Do you think … Do you think she’ll be mad about Yasmin?”

“Mad? No, I think she’ll be happy to see you happy. You know her more than any of us, Riley, that isn’t the true concern that you have. Perhaps you’re wondering if she’ll understand.”

I rolled my eyes at both his statement and his tendency to redirect open-ended questions back at someone. Always making people ponder their own answers.

“Solid point. She’s always been … less than pleasant to the women in my past. But this wasn’t some rash decision. Sure, the circumstances are questionable, I understand that. I care about Yasmin, though. Mohammed would accept it, Yasmin said so herself,” I started walking again, intent on catching up to Elie and the dogs. I knew I was rambling now, but I couldn’t help myself.

Amaia never paid any mind to the women I’d been close with in the past. She had a way of welcoming them with open arms, yet treating them as though they would come and go, which they had. But there had been a few that I’d taken more seriously than the previous, and her disdain for them had ultimately resulted in me pushing them away.

“Sounds to me like you’re questioning things on your own without Amaia around,” Prescott implied. “The heart wants what the heart wants, my boy; something tells me when she gets back, there will be her own situation to discuss.”

“Alexiares?” I scoffed, my nose pulling up at the thought of the two of them being anything more than enemies working together. They both used each other as a means to an end. Certainly, there was no romance there. A shiver went through my body as I shook the idea off, “No, she would never. The girl has standards if nothing else, Pres. Plus, she hates him.”

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