to do—wrapped his arms around me. It should have been awkward. Instead, it was actually comforting. He understood. He felt the loss like I did.
“I barely got to be a real part of the flight,” I whispered, “and it’s being ripped apart again. A piece of me is glad he’s safe, and will stay safe, but another piece of me is angry. Why couldn’t Hurl have been kept safe, or Bim?”
Jorgen didn’t respond.
“Cobb told us, on that first day, that only one or two of us would make it,” I said. “Who dies next? Me? You? Why, after decades, don’t we even know what we’re fighting or why we’re doing it?”
“We know why, Spensa,” he said softly. “It’s for Igneous, and Alta. For civilization. And you’re right, the way we do things isn’t fair. But these are the rules we play by. They’re the only rules I know.”
“Why is everything about rules, to you?” I asked, my forehead still resting against his chest. “What about emotion, what about feelings?”
“I . . . I don’t know. I . . .”
I squeezed my eyes shut tighter and held on. I thought about the DDF, about Alta and Igneous, and about the fact that I didn’t have anything to defy any longer. I’d spent my life fighting against the things they said about my father.
Now what did I do?
“I do feel things, Spin,” he finally said. “Like right now, I feel incredibly awkward. I didn’t ever think you were the hugging type.”
I released the front of his flight suit, causing him to drop his arms. “You grabbed me first,” I said.
“You were attacking me!”
“Lightly tapping your chest for emphasis.”
He rolled his eyes, and the moment was over. Strangely though—as we joined FM and walked toward our new classroom—I realized something. I did feel better. Just a little, but considering how my life had been going lately, I was willing to take what I could get.
42
A number of days later, FM and I ate with Inkwell Flight and Firestorm Flight, the other two cadet flights who had started at the same time as us. Between them, they had six members remaining, meaning that even all of us combined didn’t make a full ten-person flight.
Most of the conversation swirled around whether or not we’d be collected into a single cadet flight. If that happened, which flight name would we keep? FM argued we should make up a new name, though I figured that since we still had our flightleader—the other two had lost theirs at some point—we should be in charge.
I stayed quiet, finishing my food quickly. Part of me kept expecting the admiral to burst in and haul me off. The food was amazing, and instead of my old patched jumpsuit, I’d been able to requisition three new ones that fit me perfectly.
The other cadets were growing anxious for graduation. “I’m going to be a scout,” said Remark, a boisterous guy with a bowl cut. “I’ve already got an invitation.”
“Too boring,” FM said.
“Really?” said one of the girls. “I’d have thought it would appeal to you—with all your talk of ‘Defiant aggression.’ ”
“It’s so expected though,” FM said. “Even if I am kind of good at it.”
As I listened, I wondered if FM would be taken away by her family too, though she didn’t seem as important as Jorgen, who was off at another state function. I idly wondered what it would be like to attend one of his fancy government dinners. I imagined the delicious scandal I would cause. The daughter of the infamous coward?
Of course, everyone would be too polite to say anything, so they’d have to suffer through it while I—being a primitive barbarian girl—ignorantly slurped my soup, belched loudly, and ate with my hands. Jorgen would just roll his eyes.
The fantasy made me smile, but then I frowned to myself. Why was I thinking about Jorgen, of all people?
The others at the table laughed as someone mentioned Arturo’s callsign, which nobody could pronounce. “It must be quiet in your training, now that he’s dropped,” said Drama—a girl with an accent reminiscent of Kimmalyn’s.
“We’ll survive,” FM answered. “Though it is odd with him gone. There’s no one to constantly explain things to me that I already know.”
“What a strange flight you must have,” Drama said. “I know Jorgen, and I’ll bet he doesn’t open his mouth except to give you an order or chew you out. Right? And Spin is obviously quiet. So your flights must be silent. Our line is