Pixie Hazard by Archibald Bradford (top young adult novels .txt) 📕

narrowed: now was as good a time as any.

“Sledge. If you’re done moping I want to see you in my office.”

Maria started, suddenly looking guilty as her captain opened the hatch to her quarters.

“Yes ma’am.”

They both went inside, the blonde’s stomach flopping as she tensed up while Donnie sealed the door behind her.

She knew she’d fucked up, and she knew she was going to be hearing all about it very shortly.

Donnie sat beside her desk and look to the woman still standing before her.

She opted to not bother with the preamble, Maria knew what was up.

“First you take your helmet off in the middle of an op, then you fuck off on Mung without your coms unit?” She shook her head helplessly; “Maria, you’re supposed to be one of the sensible ones!”

Though she was still raw about the situation with Bryan, the towering woman had too much respect for her captain to show it.

“No excuse Major.”

“I wasn’t asking for one! I’m not your commanding officer anymore, least not like that. So stop standing at attention.” Donnie finished with a grumble as she slumped further into her chair.

Maria relaxed her posture, having not even noticed that she was maintaining it.

“Still, I’m sorry I let you down... Captain.”

“You haven’t let down shit Maria! We’re worried about you! Ship full of vagina like ours how couldn’t we be? Eva thinks you’ve gone soft, though she thinks that about the whole damn crew, so pay that no mind. But there is no denying that you’ve been distracted lately and we both know why.”

The berated blonde’s lips were pressed into a thin line by the time Donnie finished.

“Gets lonely out here in the cold, you know that.” She said thinly.

As much as Maria tried to hide it, the skipper noticed the bitterness in her tone and nipped it in the bud immediately.

“I’m not going to begrudge you the chance at some sort of relationship, if that is what you’re after. But I think we can both agree it is time to press pause on it, least until we figure out how fucked we are with having him onboard.”

“I’m not in a relationship ma’am, not anymore.”

“Fuck off you aren’t! Do you know the terms of the NDA he signed?”

Maria had no answer ready for that, though she was surprised that Donnie was defending Bryan after he kept her in the dark.

“That poor kid might be destined to become a eunuch for breaking his contract for all we know. Not to mention he just found out that he is a... whatever the fuck Billy called him. I’m just saying, you’re allowed to cut him some slack.”

The corner of Maria’s mouth twitched as she remembered the conversation she had with Bunny not too long ago along the same lines.

Truth be told a large part of her wanted to be in medical right now, holding Bryan’s hand and comforting him while Billy did her thing.

But she was still conflicted.

Donnie sighed, seeing no response forthcoming from her marine.

“Look, I’m not going to stick my nose into your personal life. Just… stop giving me reasons to worry. We’re in some shit right now, and I need to know that when the bullets are flying, you’ll be able to get the job done.”

Once again Maria was standing at attention as she nodded earnestly at her commander.

“I will ma’am.”

“Good. Dismissed. And if you salute me right now I’m going to have Eva kick your ass.”

Maria’s arm had twitched upwards, years of habit not easy to subdue.

She smiled finally.

“Says the woman who just ‘dismissed’ me.”

“Whatever. Piss off. Go and hug Bryan. Or smack him. Whatever you need to do to get your head right.”

The blonde chuckled as she opened the hatch.

“Probably a bit of both.”

But before she left Donnie had one last point to make.

“Just whatever you do with him, don’t forget that you will be saying goodbye to him in the near future. We can’t keep him forever, you know that.”

Maria opened her mouth to argue, but closed it with a glum nod.

“Roger that Captain.”

Chapter 30:Taste of Forgiveness

Bryan felt guilty for leaving everyone in the dark, especially Maria, but that paled in comparison to the other stuff that had been dropped in his lap.

He simply couldn’t wrap his head around the turns that his personal drama had taken.

If what Doctor Wu had told him was true, and he had no reason to doubt her, then his entire life was a lie.

After she ran several more tests and did her best to offer him answers to questions he never thought he would need to ask, he left the infirmary for the common room.

The most horrendous thought for him was that his parents simply had to have been involved in Outerlight’s experiment.

His mother was the one that introduced him to Professor Calvin.

After his father died he suspected their might be something going on between them, but he had assumed it was romantic, not… diabolical.

In a haze Bryan plopped down on the couch in the common room, his shoulders slumped with the weight of everything and his face in his hands as he tried, and failed, to process.

Maria found him there a few minutes later, giving him one more thing to worry about.

“Hey.” She said awkwardly.

Again he flinched at hearing her voice.

“Um, hi.”

He managed little more than a whisper, mouth suddenly dry from anxiety.

The powerhouse cleared her throat as she sat next to the beleaguered botany student.

There was thirty seconds or so of silence between them, until they both broke it at once.

“I wish that I had-”

“So Bunny thinks-”

They stopped, turning to face each other, both looking flustered.

He let her go first.

“Bunny thinks I