Page 70 of Break Me Apart
Ordinarily, this sort of journey drags. Today it doesn’t, or at least, not in the same way. I’m too busy imagining the look on Ari’s face when he sees me and realises I’m not a phone line or a half-finished email away anymore.
At one of the stops, when everyone loosens up enough to stretch, breathe and complain, I glance around and realise I don’t hear Mason and Bennett bickering like they usually would. In fact, I don’t see either of them.
I check again because habit can be a stubborn little bastard.
Still no sign of either of them.
They ought to be here, near enough that I can at least see the back of their heads and hear one of them moaning about the cold. Instead, there are two other faces where they should be.
Hall is standing a few feet away with a clipboard, looking as if the existence of paperwork has offended him on a spiritual level. I hop down from the truck and head over before I can overthink it. “Sir.”
“Varrik,” he says, looking up.
I glance once over my shoulder at the men spread around the vehicle. “Where are Mason and Bennett?”
“Bennetts gone. Contracts up. He went back home, from what I've been told.”
“And Mason?”
The answer comes too quickly to be good. “Gone too.”
“Where?” I ask, staring at him in shock.
Hall’s expression barely changes, but there’s the slightest tightening around his mouth. “Elsewhere.” Which is no answer at all, obviously. I look at him for another second, and because he’s Hall and not thick, he understands what I’m really asking. Why? His voice drops half a notch. “It was dealt with.”
A cold feeling slips in under all the excitement I’ve been running on since this morning.
Dealt with.
I’d known, in the way everyone knew without saying it. I knew from the silence and the sideways looks. From the atmosphere on base changing, going sour and watchful in a way I recognised too well. Still, hearing the outcome said aloud, however vaguely, leaves something bitter in my mouth. Hall glances at me more directly then. “This doesn’t concern you anymore, Varrik. You’re wheels up.”
There’s a warning in that, or maybe advice. It’s hard to tell with him. I nod because what else am I going to do — start a righteous scene beside a fuel drum and get myself reassigned somewhere even more useless? “Yes, sir.”
He looks back at the clipboard, conversation over.
I stand there for a second longer, watching the men climb back into the truck, and feel the earlier excitement change slightly. Russia is still Russia. But Mason is gone, and the speed with which the system has swallowed him up leaves a nasty, sick feeling in my stomach.
By the time I climb back in the truck, I’m quieter. Not because I’m less glad. But because now there’s something else travelling with me.
Anger.
The rest of the journey goes by in a blur. When the base finally comes into view through the muck on the glass, my whole body goes stiff.
The familiar shapes resolve themselves as we pass through the gate. It’s the same ugly, practical layout, same buildings, and the same stretch of road I could probably walk half-asleep.
I jump down when we stop, unload my gear where I’m told to, and head inside to get my bearings.
My first stop is a habit more than anything. The briefing room door is open, and a few officers linger inside, talking quietly, papers in hand. Ari isn’t there, of course. He’s still away on exercise, that much I expected, but Niko isn’t there either.
That catches me off guard.
Niko missed things sometimes — everybody did, of course. But rarely briefings, and not without good reason. I stand there a moment, scanning faces, waiting for him to come out of some side office with a mug in hand and a look on his face that says the coffee’s undrinkable and the company isn’t much better.
He doesn’t.
I ask one of the officers I recognise, someone neutral enough that the question shouldn’t mean much beyond curiosity. “Where’s Niko?”
The answer doesn’t come straight away. He looks at me, then away, then back again, as if he’s trying to decide whether I’m serious. “You didn’t hear,” he says.
