Page 6 of Ripple Effect
My face paled. “Is that another company?” Alliance was the only family I knew. I didn’t want to leave.
“Officer Candidate School, Cal. We’re going to get you in as soon as you graduate. Then”—Yarborough’s eyes gleamed with unholy amusement—“we’re going to get you out.”
I finished college at twenty, OCS by the time I was twenty-one. And by the time I was twenty-three, there was an “accident” that required a medical discharge requiring me to be released out of my five-year commitment to the Navy. At least that’s what Yarborough arranged.
Since then, I’ve traveled the world anywhere Alliance has sent me—including my current assignment on this college campus. Here, the “professor” became the student in so many ways, and I begin to wonder if Yarborough didn’t arrange for that knife to slice into me. Before, I never understood when we’d try to rescue families with the guarantee of asylum, they would elect to live in the bowels of poverty. “You no understand. Wife gone.” Then they’d turn away, asking only for the food and medical supplies we’d readily offer to leave when we were willing to offer them so much more. I witnessed people crying over loved ones, and while I felt compassion, I never understood their heartbreak.
Not until a smile more powerful than the sun started lighting the dark corners of my heart.
For the first time, I understood why men would break allegiance, disregard political survival, and beg for mercy. But I know better than to reach out for it. After all, as Yarborough once said, “Peace is a facade we convince our families of so they can sleep at night. Right, Sullivan?”
My laconic “I don’t have a family” earned me a slap on the back. It might be the first and last time being an orphan was a bonus. Forget about the years of looking at the door every time there was a knock wondering if it was someone coming to claim me—as if I meant something to someone.
For once meaning nothing to anyone seemed a bonus when Yarborough said, “Good. Then there’s nothing anyone can hold over you.”
Rolling to my side, I realize it was a mistake to touch the silk of Libby’s hair tonight. Now, I’ll never forget what the strands felt like between my fingers. Angry, I grab my phone, determined to find a way to forget her.
But even as my finger hovers over the buttons, I find myself going to my photos. Flipping through, I find a picture I snapped of Libby when she was sitting on the walls of the quad. Someone had just dropped a pile of leaves over her head. Instead of being angry and seeking retaliation, something I likely would have done, she reached down and threw them up in the air again with a laugh. God, her beauty hurts my heart. Her smile is the kind that would bring me to my knees if I’d met her in a different life.
“Somehow you’re always seeking the sun. It’s too bad I live in the shadows.” Closing the phone, I toss it onto the nightstand, determined to get some sleep.
I need to be up early for a run with our newest recruit tomorrow at 0500.
* * *
“You’re a sadistic bitch, Cal,”Sam pants next to me. He’s running in wingtips per today’s instructions. I have little doubt his feet are going to be blistered later.
I smirk, my breathing easy as we take another hill. No one’s up this early to hear his suffering. “What if you had to run for your life, Sam? You’re not always going to be in running sneakers and compression socks.”
“That’s not why you suck,” he mutters.
I’m unperturbed when I ask, “Not that I care, but curiosity has me now. Why am I a sadist?”
“A sadistic bitch,” he corrects. I’m pleased to see his breathing has evened out. He doesn’t answer me for a few as our shoes slap along the old gravel road I chose specifically for its rough terrain. “It’s because you make this look so easy,” he says.
I jolt to a stop, so of course Sam does too. “Sam,” I reply carefully. “I’ve been doing this for seven years, three of those in the military. You’re coming straight into Alliance because you’re a fucking genius with a computer. We just don’t want you to end up dead in the process of working out in the field.”
“I know. That would piss Libby and our family off to no end.”
Shaking my head, I begin running again with Sam keeping pace. “You’re the oddest person I’ve ever recruited.”
“Yeah, but I bet I’m the only one who has a family member you’ve got the hots for,” he says cheerfully.
And I trip. Fortunately, I catch myself before I go down on the sharp stones lining the trail. “Jesus Christ,” I growl.
Sam laughs at me. “So, what are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing.”
Disappointment etches his face. “Why not?”
Rubbing the back of my neck, I glare at him. “Because it’s not a good decision.”
“Hmm.” Sam stretches.
Smart man, I think approvingly as I begin to do the same. But the silence that stretches out between us starts to annoy me. “What?” I finally ask.
“I never took you for a coward,” he says offhandedly.
