Page 75 of Lies That Bleed
“How do you know your visions or whatever are even real?” I hated to ask but I did.
He didn’t look hurt, he just sighed. “The night you were attacked by the drill instructors, I saw it in a vision. That’s how I got there so quickly. Then I had a vision of your father coming to chew out the admirals, and a flash of his office desk drawer with my father’s pocket watch inside.”
My mouth popped open again. I had wondered how he’d been the one to find me and so fast. I’d assumed Liana told Onyx, who in turn told him, but there wouldn’t have been that much time. I’d have been dead without his help. So that’s why he fought to get my father there, so that he could sneak into his office and get the pocket watch back just like he’d seen in his vision. I still wasn’t convinced that his visions and seeing the future were real. He was a Badshah—cunning and ruthless—this could all be an elaborate ruse.
“I also know that if you don’t braid your hair before bed, you wake up with it all tangled.” He reached out and fingered the strands hanging over my shoulder. My breath caught as he then trailed his fingers down my neck. Red hot need pulsed throughout my body but I fought it. This was too much. What he was saying was crazy. But I also wanted it to be true, all of it. I leaned into him, licking my lips to wet them, warring with my own desire. “I know that under this shirt you have a group of freckles that look like a constellation.” He pulled his hand back and sadness filled his gaze. “And I know that no matter how much I want to kiss you right now, this isn’t where we have our first kiss because you freak out and?—”
I ran. I couldn’t hear another word. I bolted out of there as my heart pounded like it was in a cage begging to be freed.
‘Liana, I need to get out of here,’I called for her, and then followed the nudging in my chest that told me where she was. Kohen had scared the crap out of me. All those things he said were true. My braid… the freckles… I felt sick. It was overwhelming. Not because the thought of kissing him or doing any of those things made me sick, but doing them meant I would betray my father, my family. Kohen Badshah was the son of the man who’d brought great pain to my country. If Idid these things in his vision, if I gave into these fleshly desires, then I was a traitor to everything I ever knew and loved.
Liana appeared, dipped her head, and I leapt onto her back. Without a word she shot up to the sky and took off for the clouds, higher and higher than we’d ever flown before.
So high that my ears popped, and when I was all alone in the sky, just me, Liana, and the clouds, I let loose with a gut-wrenching scream from the depths of my soul.
This was impossible. Kohen was the one man in the entire world that I couldn’t have. My father would kill me.
So why did I want him so badly? And why did I believe that everything he said was true?
Chapter
Twenty
The days passed quickly, and before I knew it we were in the final stretch of boot camp. We knew there was a final test that would be pressed upon us at any moment before we could be cleared to graduate. That night we were woken in the early morning hours by sirens.
My heart jackknifed in my chest at the loud noise blaring into my sleep, waking me with a start.
The attack.The death Kohen had spoken of. It had plagued me all week and now it was happening.
“Take cover!” I screamed to Tetra, but then I heard Instructor Ashendell on the bullhorn.
“This is a drill!” she said, and Tetra peered up at me like I’d sprouted a second head. Relief crashed through me.Not the attack Kohen spoke about.
“In this simulation, you will be protecting a shipment. Your task is to safely get it from point A to pointB. Along the way there might be some trouble, so make contingency plans. This is a twenty-four-hour simulation, and we leave in one hour. Get ready!”
Twenty-four-hour simulation!
I immediately started to get dressed.
“Pack some MREs,” I told Tetra. We couldn’t count on the Fleet to feed us during a simulation. Elaine had told me that there would be simulations. Some would last a few hours and would even take you off campus into the woods. But protecting a shipment for twenty-four hours was new. If I was being honest, it was exciting. I’d trained my whole life for this, to be thrust into the action. I really hoped they put me in a leadership position, but if not I would defer to whoever my leader was.
Ten minutes later, I walked into the mess hall with Tetra hobbling beside me. She winced as we moved quickly and I peered over at her.
“You okay?”
She gave me a look of alarm. “Flare.”
No. No. No.Panic rose up inside of me.
“Did you pack your meds?” I asked her, eyeing the pack on her back that we’d just thrown together in minutes.
She nodded once, lips pursed. “I’ll be fine.”
I was worried about her going out there like this but I couldn’t voice it. The drill instructors had pushed three lunch tables together and had spread a bunch of maps out on it. We had to join the others. Tetra haddealt with this her whole life. I had to trust that she’d speak up if she wasn’t okay.
“I will be announcing our team leaders!” Instructor Ashendell said, and Tetra and I moved closer. “These leaders will take turns picking one of you for their team. If you are last to be picked, you owe me a hundred push-ups because you are PATHETIC!” she shouted and I wanted to laugh. Elaine told me that boot camp was all about psychological warfare, and that most of these instructors were nothing like this on the outside. They just thought of mean and demeaning things to say to try to break you down. It wasn’t working. My entire cohort of cadets had been pretty badass so far. No one had given up or been kicked out.
“The leaders for this simulation are…”
