Page 72 of Rising

“If you could both pull your heads out of your asses, you’d be able to do some good together. Make a good team. From what I heard about your assessment, a power to be reckoned with.”

My fingers found my rings, sliding them up and down out of habit before I forced myself to stop. “I didn’t come here to be on her team.”

“Then why did you come here.” She wasn’t asking, not really.

Silence followed before she made another attempt. “I’ll try again. Why come on this mission then, if you had no intention of being a team?”

“Because I’ve got people to do right by.”

Without missing a beat, she took a chance, feeling confident she could trust me too. “Then do right by them. Because I have a feeling, we’ll probably need that in the future.”

She’d been having visions since we’d left for Reno. Visions she hadn’t told anyone else about. Visions of war in the future. She hadn’t told Reina, or Seth, and by her words, certainly not Amaia. Hoping that this trip could help change the outcome, she didn’t want to burden Amaia with the different versions of their future reality. Didn’t want her to become unfocused and make the wrong guilt-wrecking mistake. Scared for her to fall victim to her own mind and abandon them all again.

“You don’t feel guilty? Taking that choice from her?” I asked.

She smirked, bumping my shoulder. “See, already going to bat for your teammate. But no, the future always has the ability to change, and I hope that it does. Putting the weight of the future on her shoulders, knowing that every choice she makes can directly lead to the loss of thousands … I can’t put that on her, won’t.”

Leaving me with that last thought, she gave offered another playful shove before heading to break up the now full-blown argument between Seth and Reina over a fucking tent.Children.

Amaia had just started pitching our tent when I made my way over, helping her in silence. When it was finished, she’d left towards her friends’ tent, offering no words as I headed inside. The sky was a few shades from pitch black. Soon there would be no natural light other than the soft glow of the stars. Since Amaia was adamant about not being ‘dumbasses to let their target see us before we can see them,’ a fire was out of the question. Officially making doing anything outside the tent pointless.

She joined me a few minutes later, eating our food. Small smacks and slurps of water were the only sound, the others keeping their voices low inside the tent. We were hidden between enough brush to be out of eyesight in the dark, but too much noise would cause anything out there to start investigating the cause.

Neither of us slept that night.

The tent was stiflingly quiet as we lay there, our sleeping bags overlapping in the cramped space. I could sense her eyes on me, even though I couldn’t see them in the dark. Both of us reluctant to turn our backs to each other in such close quarters. Every little shift or rustle brought us closer, our limbs tangling together. It was hot and stuffy, a night I’d usually strip down to nothing and enjoy the kiss of the damp air on my skin. When I’d stopped moving long enough and she assumed I’d fallen asleep, she wiggled out of her sleeping bag, her skin brushed against mine, sending a shiver down my spine. Her shirt was lifted just enough to reveal a sliver of her stomach, shirt slightly lifted against my arm.

Neither of us moved again, and I woke up not knowing who had truly fallen asleep first.

* * *

“I amnotdoing that again.”

Amaia sat legs crossed, reviewing the map as she smacked on nuts and bread, waiting for the others to awake while leaving me to pack the tent away. She’d said nothing as she unzipped the tent, had merely sat up, grabbed her belongings, and scanned the perimeter, gun drawn.

Reina emerged from the tent resembling a walk of shame stumbling in a hungover state across campus, ended up in the city, and left at a bus stop for her friends to show up three hours later, asking for the details. Her hair was tangled in a knot at the top of her head. She wore a shimmering night gown of all things, her skin blanched and pink near the corners of her eyes as if she’d been rubbing them incessantly.

“What happened to you?” Amaia asked, trying to contain a laugh. “Look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“More like listening to these two swoon in each other’s ear all night and makedisgustingnoises. And then Moe did this thing with her—”

Tomoe slid out the tent glaring at her friend and pulling on her jeans from the day before, handing Seth his cotton button up shirt back. “First of all, we thought you were asleep.”

“Second of all, shut the hell up,” Seth chimed in,like clockwork.

Tomoe worked to nip it in the bud before it began, elbowing him in the gut as he let out a grunt.

“Moe, you promised, you weren’t gonna do it in my presence!” Reina said, her voice loud even as she attempted a hushed tone.

“No, I said I wouldn’t make you fall asleep to that. You’re usually a solid sleeper. You slept through Amaia rage, lighting the bed on fire last summer!”

“We were drunk. That doesn’t count! Doesn’t matter, not doing that again.”

Reina walked behind some bushes in the distance, mumbling about needing to tend to the ladies’ room before directing her energy towards me and Amaia. “By the exhaustion on y’alls faces, your tent ain’t much better!”

A mix of confusion and contained laughter filled the awkward silence of the campsite. The lack of her voice meaning nothing, knowing she wasn’t yet finished.

“I’ll just cowboy up and do my own damn tent,” she yelled from her outdoor bathroom. “I’ll be just fine, thank you very much.”

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