I took it off the door on the way to the showers.
Meet me by the burned-out officers’ showers.
My heart squeezed. “No way.” I had to read it twice.
Galen had always found it amusing the way we tended to go through officers’ showers. It wasn’t my fault, though. They seemed to get caught up in a lot of practical jokes.
I read the note again and then shoved it into the pocket of my robe. You’d think he’d come into camp if he could. He was sure popular around here. Unless he couldn’t show himself. Had Galen left his unit? I cringed to think of him going against orders again, especially when the consequences had been so severe the last time.
The gods had punished his insolence by stripping him of his immortality. It was basically a death sentence. When the war started up again, Galen would be pitted against immortal demigod warriors over and over again. Until…
I didn’t want to think about it.
Instead, I took the fastest shower in history and changed into a fresh set of scrubs. I could roll with this. I combed my fingers through my wet hair. If he’d come back, we could at least talk. We could set things right before he headed off to war again.
I barged out of the showers and ran straight into Holly.
“You’re not on shift today, are you?” she asked, righting herself.
“No,” I said, already halfway past her. “Sorry. I’m meeting a friend in the minefield.”
“Way to rebound.” She gave me a mock salute.
“It’s not like that,” I said, walking backward, eager to be on my way.
We called the unit junk depot “the minefield” only because the field beyond the cemetery was so full of broken-down vehicles, half-wrecked buildings, and machinery parts that the bored among us had seen fit to rig it with practical jokes. It was pointless and immature, but that was why we liked it.
You’d think that people would avoid the place, but you had to go through the minefield in order to make it to the prime make-out spot—the only place you could really count on being alone—the rocks.
I’d never been to the rocks. Scratch that. I’d been there once with Galen. And it had been amazing. But most of the time, I went into the minefield to see Father McArio or to work in the makeshift lab I’d set up out there.
But it never failed. If you braved the minefield, people always assumed you had a date on the other side.
If I remembered correctly, the burned-out officers’ showers should be about halfway through the maze of junk, right after the mangled helicopter.
I rushed through the city of scraps faster than I should have. Hulking skeletons of half-rotted bed frames and Jeeps lay rusting on either side of the rock-strewn path. I ducked past leaning heaps of particleboard and a mashed-up refrigeration unit, breathing in the tinge of rust and dirt. A slight left after the gutted ambulance took me past my workshop and almost to the officers’ showers.
The Limbo suns beat down. I stripped off my scrub shirt, glad to have a tank top underneath.
A low peeping made me stop. Dukkies. They were tiny red birds with black horns and sharp little beaks.
In the egg stage, you could eat them. In the adult stage, they might try to nest in your shoes. But in the just-hatched baby stage, they’d bond with you like you were a mother duck.
I lifted my foot and searched for trip wires. Two steps ahead, I spotted them half buried in the dirt. They led to an innocent-looking box.
Ouch. I’d be sure to tell Father McArio. He worked with a group of nuns who did creature rescue. In the meantime, I stepped over the wires and continued on my way.
Just past it, I spotted the burned-out showers. The door stood ajar.
“Galen?” I called, walking carefully, keeping an eye out for any more dukkie-style traps.
I could see a shadow moving inside. The two front stalls had been ripped out, leaving one main tent support.
Maybe Galen was trying to be subtle. Yeah, well, subtle didn’t work on me.
“Did you miss me?” I barged in the door and nearly fell over.
The shower-turned-shack was small and dim, smelling of charred wood and rotting canvas. Light filtered from loose boards in the ceiling.
And there, right in front of me, stood Marc.
My pulse pounded and my head swam. I hadn’t seen him since New Orleans.
He loomed larger than I remembered, harder, with slashing green eyes that made him look like he wanted to eat me alive. I could feel the heat of them through my thin tank top.
His blond hair had been shorn hard, so that it spiked at odd angles as it grew out. He needed a cut, but I doubted he cared. Marc was never one for rules that didn’t suit him.
He’d been drafted ten years ago into the Old God Army. He’d been killed ten years ago. And while I had a special talent for seeing the dead, I could tell right away that Marc was very much alive.
Sweet heaven. I’d sat in his mother’s living room and grieved with her. I’d helped bury an empty casket.
“Marc?” I choked.
His face was unreadable. At least I had no reference for it. Not anymore. He wore the tan fatigues of the enemy, with a green ankh emblazoned on the sleeve. I shook my head. Of course. He was with the medical corps. They’d taken him from Tulane Hospital on a cold day in February. We’d eaten cookies for breakfast that morning in the hospital cafeteria. That was the last time I’d seen him.
Until now.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. What do you say to a dead man?
He took a measured step closer. “It’s been a long time, Petra.” The light fell on him, and I saw a jagged scar along his neck.
He’d suffered.
Hadn’t we all?
A chill skittered up my spine. “You’re alive.” All those years, I thought he was gone. I mourned him. I missed him.
He took another step closer, and I caught my breath. If I could have ever imagined having this kind of second chance, I would have thought I’d rush into his arms, or wax poetic. Or at least have something interesting to say. But I couldn’t even bring myself to move.
He looked older. Leaner. There was an unfamiliar hardness about him.
He shook his head ruefully, the same way I’d seen him do it a hundred times. Only he looked different doing it now. He’d changed.
So had I.
He began to reach out to me, then stopped, swearing under his breath. “It’s good to see you.”
It was all so surreal. “What happened to you?”
He glanced toward the door. “I don’t even know how—” he began, his words heavy with regret. “First, I need to ask you something, and I don’t have much time.”
“No kidding.” He was in an enemy camp.
He blew out a breath, as if he’d read my mind. “I can’t believe you’re here.” A trace of light skittered across his features.
“Why are you?” I asked, standing opposite him, as if we were separated by a great divide instead of two feet of dirt.
Frustration stirred in my gut. He was no better than Galen. Scratch that. Marc was worse. He hadn’t even had the decency to tell me he was alive.
He clenched his jaw, determined. “I need someone I can trust.”
Chapter Three
“Trust?” The man wanted to talk trust? For as much as I wanted to feel relief and joy, all I could comprehend was stark white shock.