Page 4 of Night in a Waste Land

Two cadets in clean, new fatigues sat across from her desk, both young, one boy and one girl. The girl wore her dark hair in a severe braid; she turned at the sound of his light knock on the doorjamb.

It was Rose Greer.

He felt a spark of emotion in his gut, and refused to call it eagerness. A frisson nonetheless; a prickling awareness all through his tired limbs that had him standing up straighter, keenly aware of the mud on his face and clothes. It was probably in his hair.

Her face was narrower; sharper. She’d lost weight, but she didn’t look sick. No, far from it. As she titled her head and scrutinized him with alarming indifference, he saw the strong line of her throat, and the way her shirt clung to the muscles in her arms and shoulders. She was strong; had been training hard.

The boy he noticed as an afterthought: young, and curly-haired, scruffy-chinned. He didn’t look old enough to be here.

Captain Bedlam lifted her head from the files she was scanning and clocked him in the doorway. “Du Lac, good, I was just going to send for you. Meet your new teammates: Francis Gallo, and Rose Greer.”

“It’s Frankie,” the boy said, meekly. “Or Frank.”

Rose said nothing.

~*~

He found her in the mess, later.

He wasn’t trying to. He took his hot shower – all five allotted minutes of it – and dressed in clean clothes. Lay on his bunk a moment, staring at the low ceiling, until he realized that his stomach was growling, and that his jaw was clenched. That he wasangry.

Tris happened by a moment later, in fatigues and a plain black t-shirt that highlighted the size of his biceps, hair wet from the shower and sticking up at wild angles. “You coming?”

“Yeah.”

When they walked into the mess, his gaze found her straight off; locked onto her. She sat at the end of an empty table beside the other new, young recruit, Gallo-I-go-by-Frankie. Gallo was speaking to her, but Rose paused, fork hovering in front of her mouth, gaze lifting up through her lashes and fastening to Lance’s. Like she’d felt him staring.

She stared back, blank-faced.

It wasn’t fair, he thought, as he followed Tris over to the meal line. They’d just buried one member of their team, one whose name he couldn’t remember; whose face was just a blur, a replaceable set of hands to hold a rifle. Someone’s son, someone’s brother, maybe someone’s father, and he’d been nothing to Lance; was nothing to the military. They threw themselves at this mad war every day, and for what? Could they win? Could they turn back the vicious, world-killing tide of heaven vs. hell?

Here was the girl he’d saved, come to throw her life away on a battle they couldn’t win. Because he’d suggested it. Because he’d been a part of the group who invaded her home, and killed her makeshift family, and it was all his fault, really. He wasn’t a hero. Wasn’t saving anyone.

“Lance.” He was aware of Tris calling after him, but didn’t respond. Set his tray of soy-based slop down across from Rose, and sat down hard, unable to keep the scowl from his face.

“S-sergeant du Lac, sir,” Gallo stuttered.

Rose broke off a piece of hard biscuit and dunked it in the gravy on her tray, all without taking her eyes from him. “Lance,” she greeted in a flat voice.

He felt a smirk touch his lips. “Insubordination on your first day, Greer?”

“No, sir.”

“Sir?” Gallo asked.

He ignored him. “You made it through training, then,” he said, nodding toward the jacket Rose had draped across the back of her chair – the one with the silver wings pinned to the collar.

She popped the bite of biscuit into her mouth, chewed and swallowed before answering. She didn’t even blink. “Top of my class.”

“I don’t doubt it. Why did you want to be a Walker? Because I told you that’s what I was?”

She broke off another corner of hard biscuit. “No.” That shouldn’t have disappointed him, but it did, somehow. He’d thought he’d lost the capacity for disappointment. “Because it’s the elite branch, and I don’t care about being common.”

“Rose is really good, sir,” Gallo said in an undertone.

“She is,” Lance agreed, still without taking his eyes from her. Her eyes were the loveliest shade of blue, and expertly shielded. “There’s no shame in being a soldier. Being infantry,” he said. “And out here, on the front lines – it isn’t like being in class. It’s dangerous.”

She brought a finger to her mouth and licked a spot of gravy off the tip with what seemed like purposeful slowness. “I’m aware of that.”

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