Bonds of Brass (The Bloodright Trilogy #1) - Emily Skrutskie Page 0,107
“Ten thousand troops will fit in the ships we’ve gathered,” he starts. “They’ll be packed tight for four days, but the soldiers are willing and the mechanics have made adjustments to the life-support systems to handle it. We’ll be taking the fight to the dreadnoughts, catching them off-guard. Cutting the head off their leadership, commandeering their troops. Swarming as many as we can. And then we take the assault to Rana.”
I nod. All of it fits together with the snatches I’ve caught from the briefings I’ve been able to stomach.
“And when we reach Rana, every single one of those ten thousand people falls into the jaws of this nightmare I created. Every last one of them dies, and the best, the brightest among them will probably do so painfully and publicly on the steps of the citadel.”
Bile rises in my throat, but I can’t look away. Gal’s brows drop, his lips tightening around the words stuck in his throat. He breathes deeply through his nose, clenching and unclenching his hands.
“I chose it all. I drove them into this. All of this is my fault. And you expect me to live on this base, to watch it happening around me, and be the same?” His voice is getting quieter and quieter, hissing through his teeth, forcing me to lean forward to hear what he’s saying. “I said it before—you don’t know what it’s like, spending every day surrounded by people you’re going to kill and knowing what they’d do to you if they knew what you were. If they catch us, there’s a chance for you. You’re one of them. They’ll make all sorts of excuses. But me?” He breaks off with a low laugh, leaning forward to jam the heels of his palms against his eyes. “I just want to stop a war, and it’s probably going to kill me.”
“Gal,” I murmur, taking a step toward him, but he shrugs away from my outstretched hand. “I had no idea—”
“Don’t start now,” he groans, fixing me with a vicious glare. “You…Gods, this whole gambit was your idea in the first place, and you’ve left me alone to see it through. Left me to go off gallivanting with Wen.”
“Don’t you dare drag her—” I start, but Gal breaks my gaze, sinking his knuckle against his lips as he stares petulantly out at the hangar.
“I’ve never seen you like this with anyone,” he says bitterly. “It took you months to even have a real conversation with me when we first met. And yet you stumble across this stupid girl who almost blows you up and all of a sudden you’re ride or die for her?”
Nothing he’s saying is false, and yet I want to protest it with every fiber of my being. “I’m not…It’s different. It’s not what you think.”
“Is there something I should be thinking?”
The cockpit stills. My lungs have frozen, my breath trapped as I fight down the words that feel like they should be coming out now. Not like this. Not like this. Not like this.
Finally Gal breathes out a long sigh, tangling his hands in his hair. “I’ve been trying so hard to keep it together, and you keep…slipping away. I can’t stop it. I probably shouldn’t stop it. I thought…”
I step around the pilot’s chair and round the copilot’s. I fight back the building dread, even though everything in me wants to flee. I’ve spent my whole life running from anything that mattered, anything that felt too huge to confront. But nothing is going to matter more than this.
“It’s not working,” I start, but have to cut off around a thick swallow. Gal’s eyes widen in obvious panic, and I hastily correct, “It’s not working because we’re doing this all wrong.”
It’s so clear now, looking at him. I should’ve trusted my instincts from the start—they always point me back in the same direction. Him, him, always him. Save him. Kiss him. Tell him.
I go through my days working off the base assumption that I can’t have what I want. That maybe I never should. So even when it seems like I might, I push my chances away.