Battle Strong by Elizabeth McCready (have you read this book TXT) 📕

know who did? Ander. You came to me when I was upset, when I was trying to get you to give me space and trusted you and you kissed me. You kissed me, Noeh. While I was telling you how I felt about someone else. So yes, I can be mad or upset. I have every right to hold a grudge. You took advantage of my trust in a time when I needed you to be my friend. That’s not easy to forgive.”

“But it’s easy to forgive him?” Beth was irritated, and rightly so, she turned from Achilles and stepped angrily trying to pass Noeh, who blocked her path as he spoke.

“Don’t even start with your childish attempts to break this, Noeh.” She shoved his chest. “It has been years since Ander left, years. No, I don’t know why he did that. I probably won’t even ask, you know why? Because instead of berating me about forgiveness, and pushing me to act insane, he was there for me. He protected me, he listened to me, and he helped me. Don’t you forget that while you were stuck spinning with your own thoughts, Ander was the one that came for me. He didn’t just say he was sorry, he showed it Noeh. You want me to forgive you? Then give me a reason to. Instead of yelling, and fighting me, show me why I should even want to forgive you. Because from where I’m standing there is no reason to do so.” She shook her head and shoved herself past Noeh and out of the stall, she retreated in the office where Quill only knows what happened. 

Noeh checked to see if anyone saw what just happened, he was admittedly embarrassed for what he had done. It was wrong, but he didn’t really see why it was any different from what Ander had been doing. He snuggled all up to her while she was sleeping, he left her for Quill’s sakes why the hell would she pretend that never happened. At least he didn’t abandon her, his mistake was just that, a mistake, that he didn’t do to hurt her. Ander left her on purpose, with the knowledge of what he was doing. She should hate Ander. 

Fed up with yet another fight, he climbed up to the hayloft to find Stievan dead asleep in the middle of all the hay. 

“Hey asshat, wake up.” Noeh said, giving Stievan a light kick to the ribs.

“What?” Stievan grumbled.

“Let’s get out of this dump, teach me to ride a damn horse.”

“No.” Stievan said and rolled over on his stomach.

“Stievan get your ass up and help me or I will make your life a living hell.”

“It already is.” Noeh kicked him harder, this time in a much more sensitive place. Stievan shouted and shot up off the ground.

“What the hell man!” He groaned.

“It’s past noon, get your ass up and teach me how to ride a horse.”

“Fine, damn. You’re a real dick in the morning.”

“It’s not even morning.” Noeh said as they started for the horses.

*~*

It had been four hours since Ander first started looting the demolished cabins, now with the help of Pietre, Quinn, and Beth, they were finally making progress. 

“So where are Noeh and Stievan exactly?” Quinn asked.

“Hopefully, far, far away from here.” Beth scoffed pulling weapons from one of the armories.

“What’s your deal with them?” Pietre asked.

“Nothing's my deal with Stievan, Noeh on the other hand, he’s being an asshole. And he apologizes way too much.”

“Did he try to talk to you again?” Quinn asked a little too intensely. 

“Yeah, he did. He kind of cornered me while I was taking care of Achilles earlier. Kind of demanded an explanation on why I haven’t gotten over it yet. All the while dragging Ander back into it every chance he got.” Beth and Ander looked at each other. Their glance suggesting that she may have said more about the problem than she had before. 

“What’s Ander got to do with it?” Pietre asked, Beth and Ander again exchanged glances. 

“When Noeh kissed me, I was in the middle of telling him my feelings for-” She swallowed and looked at Ander who nodded and shrugged as if to say, Now is as good a time as any, “Ander.”

Quinn and Pietre paused and looked at them with gaping mouths, waiting for Ander to react.

“So this isn’t news to you?” Quinn asked Ander.

“No, is it news to you?” 

“Well, actually no, not really. But, didn’t you guys know each other before you came here?” 

“You could say that.” He smirked at her, “We grew up together and were involved with each other before I was taken to battle camp.”

“Taken?” Pietre asked, and Beth was glad he did because she questioned the same thing.

“I was forced to go,” He said nonchalantly, “I got cut off from my family, my friend’s, Beth, and was taken to a town just west of the royal village on the King’s orders, he said he had followed my progress and thought I was a promising subject for A1 and wished to oversee my progress himself.” He looked at Beth with apologetic eyes. It was him. It was her father that tore them apart, she should have known. But, her father didn’t even know where she was, or if she was even alive. Was this random? That is why Ander never responded, he couldn’t. Or maybe they didn’t even make it to him. How could they? He wasn’t even at the camp she sent the to. If her father somehow found out who Ander was or who she was, they would be taken back to court, or even worse, killed.

“That’s intense.” Quinn shrugged and got back to opening the armories and stuffing bags with clothes and weapons. 

“We should take some of this back, eh? Ander will you give me a hand?” Beth asked, gesturing to the bags around her. When the two were out of range of the others Beth spoke, “My father is the reason you left?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t mean to dredge up old issues, but is that why you never wrote back?” He looked surprised when she said that.

“Well, no. I think you made it very clear that I should’ve stayed as far away as possible. I believe your exact words were, ‘Go to hell, you rotten shit eater. Never speak to me, or I will find you and I will rip off each of your fingers and toes and let you bleed out.’ I just assumed you meant it.” He chuckled a little, Beth was the surprised one then.

“I didn’t say that. Any of that. I literally sent like ten letters begging you to reply, and when I was finally done with it I sent one that said, ‘Maybe, it’s best you stay away from me.’ I would have never sent you something like that.” She was starting to get concerned because when she said letters Ander looked even more shocked.

“Beth, I only received one letter from you. I sent maybe thirteen myself, then when I got that one I thought it was over.” The realization dawned on both of them at the same time.

“Ander, the only reason someone would keep us from writing to each other is someone who knows a very big secret.” She said with clear concern.

“Or someone who doesn’t want the soldier they are supervising getting distracted over the girl back home.” Ander set the weapons down in the main aisle of the stable and ran a hand through his hair, just then a moment of panic, “You didn’t put anything that would give away your identity, did you?” 

“No, of course not. Either way, someone out there knows who I am, whether they read those letters or not.” She half-smiled and let out a little laugh.

“What? What’s funny about that?”

“I thought you left me. I-” She laughed a little louder, “I started battle training because I thought you left me on purpose. I thought- wow. I was so angry for so long, and you know, it makes sense.”

“What does?”

“That this was the doing of my shit father.” She slammed a hand against an empty stall door frame.The two sat in silence for a moment, Ander smirked and slid a hand on her waist.

“It didn’t work,” He whispered before kissing her cheek. “And you know, I really thought you were a badass for sending that letter. But, you didn’t send it.” He sucked air through his teeth and laughed, Beth turned around and lightly hit his shoulder.

“I’m still a badass, even if twelve year old me didn’t send a nasty letter to you.” She laughed as he slid his arms around her waist and lifted her into the air.

“What badass? No badass here!” They laughed, Beth pulled an arm from his grip, grabbing his shoulder and shoved her weight to his side, planted her feet and pushed him to the ground. Stepping over him, he laughed.

“Here she is.” Beth looked back at him smiling and kept walking back to the cabins to help Pietre and Quinn.

*~*

“Well, that is an interesting duo.” Pietre said watching as Beth threw Ander to the ground and still somehow managed to make that flirty.

“You could say that again,” Quinn said with a smile and shook his head, sifting through his own armory.

“Did you have a girl back home?” Pietre asked.

“Dude, no. None that were worth keeping around anyway. We were all twelve when we left home, and I had little indulgences in the camps but nothing that stuck.”

“Yeah, me either. Never seemed worth it.”

“Whatcha talking about?” Beth asked as she went back to her own armory.

“Nothing important, what are you so giddy about? I don’t think I’d ever seen you truly smile before.” Pietre said.

“Hey, I smile. It just has to be a good reason. And there is nothing wrong with being cold in a place like this.”

“Point taken, but it’s good you have a reason.” Pietre said, she nodded.

Pietre had a very limited opinion of Beth. Scary, grumpy when tired, and lethally destructive. Never had he accounted for goofy, or happy. It just didn’t seem like her, or anyone here. Other than Chaess, he was always smiling. Even on his deathbed. Pietre wasn’t the kind of person to feel things, he had always brushed past trauma and death without a second thought. But he never really experienced happy things either. He was usually pretty numb. The battle camp instructors always loved that about him. No matter what emotional trauma he’d endured during his training, it never changed the way he fought, and it certainly never distracted him. From a humane standpoint, it was a shame, but for him it was how he survived. He was an orphan, his parents died in year one of training, that was when the country’s armada decided he’d be best placed in battle. He was hardly phased by the death of his parents, they were never close to him anyway. So he fought, did what he was told, and made it to A1. He never told anyone what his life was like and maybe that was because no one asked, or maybe it was because he didn’t care to tell them. He just sort of lived, no extraordinary accomplishments, nothing that really gave him a purpose other than being in battle. That was the only thing that made him feel. Truly feel. He wasn’t too antisocial, he got along well with others mostly, and he did understand humor enough to laugh. But, that was it. They only things that he looked forward to were food and fighting. 

Pietre looked to the others as if they could hear his thoughts. But they were still hard at work salvaging for weapons and clothes.

“Find anything else?” Ander said as he returned to them.

“Some good clothes for Beth in Melina’s armory, a bunch of knives from some of the others, swords.” Quinn said.

“Okay, well get the stuff back up to the stables, it’s going to start getting late and we want to make sure we get everything settled. Has