Bree has recovered from surgery, but we’re still scheduling these ahead as we work on a secret project! Mwahahahaha! This serial was originally posted (mostly!) on Patreon, and has been edited and finished to be posted live on our blog over the next few weeks. But for those who just want it NOW, or who hate reading on a blog and would like an epub… Well here is the epub!

Return to the world after the Beyond Series and meet the residents of Sector Three…

When Ashwin asks Six & Bren to take in an emotionally fractured Makhai soldier, there are a thousand things that could go wrong. But they are hard at work building their school and rebuilding their sector, and Sebastian is a genius who can fix anything. Anything. In return for his help, all they have to do is give him a safe place to find out if his emotional wounds can be healed.

Just one traumatized supersoldier in the middle of a school filled with former feral street kids, war refugees from exclusive brothels, and a few dozen kids who barely know what a school is.

What could go wrong?

—

DISCLAIMERS: this is a serial meant for existing readers of the series. it contains full series spoilers for the Beyond Series and may not make sense if you haven’t read it.

It is also NOT erotic. This is the first part of a very very very slow burn romance between a broken Makhai soldier and an artist who escaped Sector Two after the bombings. There may also be a few other romances a brewing… consider this more like a TV show with multiple members of the cast up to hijinks, even if there are two main characters.

—

Bren heard the footsteps as soon as they entered the courtyard–muffled by the trampled grass, too quick to be sneaky and too slow to be threatening. He kept sanding the curved wooden surface before him and listened closer.

It wasn’t until the visitor reached the gravel inside the gate that he identified the stride. Long, confident steps with graceful footfalls. Heeled shoes.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Yep, definitely Lex.

He turned just as she yanked off an oversized pair of sunglasses to glower down at him. “Building a chair,” he answered simply.

“You make furniture now? Since when?”

He laid aside his hand sander and rose, brushing his hands off on his jeans as he moved. “Since Six domesticated me, I guess. Also, I need a fucking chair.”

She huffed in clear disappointment. “It’s always the quiet ones.”

“Shut up and kiss me.” He bent his head–not that he needed to. Lex was practically taller than him in those towering spike heels.

She pecked his cheek, then patted it a little harder than necessary. “Where’s Six?”

“I’m here, I’m here.” Gravel crunched again, loud under Six’s boots. Next to her, Jyoti wore strappy sandals that barely made a sound as she wandered past Six to look at his work area. Six smiled and jerked her head toward Jyoti. “She wanted to say hi to Leah.”

“Leah?”

“A former Orchid,” Jyoti said absently, stroking her fingers over the back of Bren’s chair with an admiring smile. “One of my more promising students. You’d like her.”

Lex arched an eyebrow. “Kinda like her, like her like her, or be vaguely unsettled but still want to fuck her?”

“That last one,” Bren confirmed. The thought of Lex and Leah circling each other was like wondering what would happen if a tornado smacked full-force into a hurricane. Bren wasn’t sure the potential destruction would be worth it.

“She reminds me of Lili,” Six said, leaning one hip against the table. “When she first showed up, I mean. Cold, quiet, and perfect. I don’t know if she entirely trusts us yet.”

“Likely not.” Jyoti smiled gently. “The O’Kanes take some getting used to.”

Six huffed. “Don’t I know that.”

Lex threw her arm around Six’s shoulders. “Now, the person I really want to see is your new Makhai soldier. I asked Cruz if he was hot, and he actually blushed a little. That means yes, he most certainly is, and I want a peek.”

Six groaned. “You know, Noelle wanted to see him, too. And if you don’t want Jas to have an actual fucking heart attack at my bar, maybe you should tell her not to play with emotionally unstable supersoldiers from the Base?”

“I wouldn’t dare discourage her dreams.”

Bren snorted, but managed to hide his laugh with a cough. He still got an elbow in the side from Six. “It won’t be so funny when you’re the one having to deal with Jas’s meltdown.”

“Noelle knows how to deal with trauma,” Jyoti pointed out. “And Ashwin wouldn’t have brought someone malicious to a place where they could endanger anyone Cruz cares for. That’s not how he works.”

Six threw up her hands. “Fine! Lex, bring Noelle over and you can let her play with the Makhai soldier. He’ll probably adore her, anyway. Everyone does.”

“So true.” Lex grinned. “It’s going to have to wait, though. She’s about to pop. That kid is going to be making its arrival any day now.”

If anything was likely to make Jasper McCray melt down, it had to be impending fatherhood. “Then I’d better go check on Jas later. See how he’s holding up.”

“Maybe check on Dallas, too,” Six added. Then she raised an eyebrow at Lex. “Unless he’s calmed down?”

Lex rolled her eyes. “He’s worse. You’d think no one in the history of the world had ever had a baby before. Did you know that he actually asked Dylan and Kora to be on hand for the birth?”

Okay, that sounded a bit like overkill.

But Lex wasn’t finished. “Without asking Noelle what she wanted.”

Oof.

“At least they know better,” Jyoti said. “Dylan told Dallas that Noelle is in charge of how she has her baby, end of story.”

“But Noelle can’t resist Dallas’s sad eyes, so she agreed to have them on standby,” Lex explained. “It’s probably not a bad thing. Dylan and Kora would both be upset if we didn’t ask.”

“If she pops out that baby soon, maybe she can come to this party we’re trying to put together.” Six waved her hand vaguely. “The summer thing.”

“The Midsummer Festival,” Jyoti supplied. “Sector One just had theirs, though it’s a lot larger than anything we did in Two. In Two…” Her expression faltered. “Well, Cerys had her own version of a Midsummer Celebration, but it is not something to emulate, or a fond memory for any of the refugees from Two, I’d imagine.”

Sector Two didn’t seem like the kind of place that cultivated fond memories. Bren might have bounced from the streets of Eden right into military servitude, but he’d take that over what some of the kids from Two had gone through. He’d take it eight days a week.

“What sort of atmosphere are you going for?” Lex asked. “I know Three used to have massive block parties, way back before the bombing. Something like that?”

Six grimaced. “By the time I got here, that sort of shit was long gone. Some of the old timers talk about them, but fuck if I know how to make something like that happen. Throwing parties isn’t exactly me’n Bren’s main skill set.”

“How hard can it be?” Bren protested. “Look, Charlie and Art told me it was mostly music and food. Everyone would bring a dish or some drinks–Charlie called it a potluck–but I figure we can handle that. If people think they have to bring something, they won’t come because they don’t have anything to bring.”

“Lights,” Lex interjected. “String some pretty lights. Those are nice. And I think Bren’s right about the food.”

“A lot of folks know Scarlet,” Jyoti pointed out. “And she still performs with Riff. I bet they’d be willing to provide a little music.”

Bren nodded. This party stuff wasn’t so bad once you got the ball rolling. “With live music, we’ll block off the street so people can dance. Maybe do some games for the kids?”

“Games would be good.” Six grinned. “The Sector Three kids were pretty dubious about games at first, but they’re getting into them.”

Jyoti smiled. “I know exactly what you mean. I’ll send Mad over. He’s got almost a dozen nieces and nephews and is very good at thinking up ways to entertain them.”

“Hawk’s the same way,” Six replied. “Maybe we can put them in charge of the kids.”

When you got right down to it, planning a party wasn’t much different than planning a strike or an infiltration. You made a list of tasks, assigned personnel to said tasks according to their individual skill sets, then executed your maneuvers.

Piece of cake.

Bren turned back to his chair. He was almost finished with the sanding. He’d give it a good wipe down, then stain the wood. Something dark, with warm tones. Cherry, maybe.

“Leave it all to me,” he said. “I’ll get it done.”

What could go wrong?

Bree has recovered from surgery, but we’re still scheduling these ahead as we work on a secret project! Mwahahahaha! This serial was originally posted (mostly!) on Patreon, and has been edited and finished to be posted live on our blog over the next few weeks. But for those who just want it NOW, or who hate reading on a blog and would like an epub… Well here is the epub!

Return to the world after the Beyond Series and meet the residents of Sector Three…

When Ashwin asks Six & Bren to take in an emotionally fractured Makhai soldier, there are a thousand things that could go wrong. But they are hard at work building their school and rebuilding their sector, and Sebastian is a genius who can fix anything. Anything. In return for his help, all they have to do is give him a safe place to find out if his emotional wounds can be healed.

Just one traumatized supersoldier in the middle of a school filled with former feral street kids, war refugees from exclusive brothels, and a few dozen kids who barely know what a school is.

What could go wrong?

—

DISCLAIMERS: this is a serial meant for existing readers of the series. it contains full series spoilers for the Beyond Series and may not make sense if you haven’t read it.

It is also NOT erotic. This is the first part of a very very very slow burn romance between a broken Makhai soldier and an artist who escaped Sector Two after the bombings. There may also be a few other romances a brewing… consider this more like a TV show with multiple members of the cast up to hijinks, even if there are two main characters.

—

River had been wary at first when Six returned to Sector Three as a newly minted member of the infamous O’Kanes. Dallas O’Kane’s reputation had always been one part violence and three parts debauchery, and none of that had seemed like a recipe for excellent leadership.

River had learned swiftly that the O’Kanes’ reputation was mostly marketing. Oh, they could be violent when the situation called for it. And they loved a good debauched party. But underneath all the sex and stabbings was a fierce family that showed up when one of their members was in need.

Sector Three had gained a ton of practical advantages from Six’s connections once she took over. O’Kanes were in and out all the time, lending expertise and time and most especially ridiculous amounts of actual money. River could appreciate all of it.

But her favorite part was how willing they were to step onto the training mat and take a swing at her. Survival had taught her plenty of dirty tricks, but sparring with Lorenzo Cruz, former Special Tasks soldier in Eden and current O’Kane badass, taught her how elegant a fight could truly be.

Of course, it also provided frequent lessons in how to lose gracefully–something she was still working on.

Her back hit the mat with a solid enough thud to steal her breath, and she bit back a growl of frustration as she stared up, and up and up, at the towering figure of Cruz. His skin was a lighter brown than her own, and his brown eyes were always very serious, but his dark hair had lost some of its short military precision, and there were shadows under his eyes.

Twin babies probably did that to a guy. She let her smug superiority over avoiding that fate wash away the bitterness over her failure.

Cruz didn’t seem to think she’d failed at all, though. “That was good,” he said, extending a hand. When she clasped it, he pulled her effortlessly to her feet.

“So good I ended up on my ass,” she muttered.

“So good you almost didn’t,” he countered. “There aren’t many people who could have avoided it. But you’re quick and you’re smart and you’ve clearly been training with Six.”

The sop to her pride worked, but River still shook her arms to loosen them as she prepared to go again. “How can you tell?”

Cruz rubbed a hand over his jaw. A reddened spot had risen where she’d clocked him just before he took her down. “That elbow to the face? Classic Six.”

It was true, but River scowled at him anyway and bounced lightly on her toes. “Nah, Six would have just bitten your face off.”

“Is that so? What an interesting strategy.”

River stiffened at the light, breezy voice–so casual and so irritatingly familiar. She turned, expecting to see Leah in her inevitable flouncy skirt and fluttery blouse, and instead got an eyeful of…

Well, everything.

Not that Leah was naked. The icy blonde wore sleek baby blue leggings that molded to her toned legs and covered her to mid-calf. The matching sports bra probably offered some support, even though it was cut like high-fashion, with some sort of ridiculous asymmetrical single shoulder strap and a diagonal slash of pale fabric that matched Leah’s skin tone so precisely that for a second River worried the whole thing would fall apart at the first movement.

But it stayed firmly in place as Leah stretched her sleekly muscled arms over her head, giving every impression that she was here to work out.

Jesus, that was just what River needed.

She turned her back on the other woman, only to find Cruz smiling at Leah in welcome. “She’s not wrong. I’ve been on the sharp side of Six’s teeth once or twice.”

“Lorenzo,” Leah greeted him warmly. “It’s so good to see you. How are the children?”

“Adorable and exhausting in equal measure.” He rolled his eyes. “They’ve taken to sleeping on opposite schedules. Thank God there are three of us, and lots of aunts and uncles who like to babysit.”

“Enjoy them while you can. Before you know it, they’ll be grown.” She glanced at River, then returned her thousand-watt smile to Cruz. “You don’t mind if I cut in, do you, Lorenzo?”

“Not at all. I promised Bren I’d meet up with him soon anyway.” The traitor grinned at River as if he wasn’t cutting and running. “Same time next week?”

She wanted to be churlish–the man was abandoning her with the princess–but Cruz taking time out of his extremely busy life to help her train meant something. Not just to River, but to Six and Bren–and she owed it to them to be gracious. “Same time next week.”

Cruz clapped her lightly on the shoulder and headed for the door.

Once it had swung shut behind him, Leah raised one perfectly manicured hand. “Should I wrap them, or do you lean in to the whole street fighter thing?”

Six and Callie had tried to warn her, but even with all her lean muscle on display, it was hard to look at this powdered and pampered darling in her designer high-fashion workout gear and see a threat. Not that Leah wasn’t graceful–River recognized that at least–but some stone-cold killer?

Well, there was one way to find out.

Crossing the room, River swept up the tape and tossed it to Leah. “This is just some friendly sparring, right?”

“Of course.” Leah yanked off a long strip with a firm, decisive jerk. “What else would it be?”

River started taping her own hands. “Payback for tattling on you to Six?”

She just chuckled, a soft, melodic sound that was somehow both cute and a little scary. “That isn’t my style.”

“What, payback?”

Leah hummed.

Very enlightening.

River tossed the tape to the side and strode to the middle of the floor. “I hear you were some kinda hotshot in Two.”

“Sadly untrue.” Leah rubbed the last piece of tape into place and placed the roll on the end of a bench lining the wall. “I was no one.”

That seemed unlikely. River had been no one. When you were no one, you had nothing. No fancy clothes, no fine manicures, no sexy workout gear tailored to your every curve. When you were no one, you could disappear without a whisper and not a soul would care.

But she supposed she’d always had one thing going for her–at least her life had been hers. Enough of the girls who’d come over from Two told a different story. River had recognized trauma in their hesitant gazes. She’d recognized survivors under the pretty dresses they discarded so gratefully.

But Leah hadn’t discarded anything. She clung to her perfection like armor and stared down her nose at all of them, as if her education and accomplishments simply granted her status as a higher class of human.

Or maybe she just made River feel that way.

She was doing it right now, her perfect lips quirked in an amused smile, as if laughing at a joke she’d told herself. River flexed her fingers, suddenly wary. “I’m ready when you are.”

“Excellent.” Leah folded her hands in front of her…and waited.

After a tense thirty seconds, it became clear Leah wasn’t going to take the first swing. So River did, coming in fast and easy only to have her hand slapped away in a chiding fashion as Leah flowed out of her path.

Then it became clear Leah wasn’t going to take the second swing either. In fact, nothing River could do would provoke her into joining the sparring match. She parried and blocked, delivering more than a few gently swinging swats to arm or wrist as she pivoted out of the way with the grace of a dancer.

But she wouldn’t. Fucking. Swing.

Five minutes in, River didn’t know if she was impressed by the other woman’s flexibility or irritated by whatever game she was playing. “Is this all you’ve got in you?” she growled. “Dodging?”

“No, but it’s a wonderful place to start.” Leah grinned, a mischievous quirk of the lips that vanished in a heartbeat. “And a terrific way to observe your opponent.”

Belatedly, River realized she was right. Angry heat rose in her face, because she hadn’t had the luxury of tutors and formal instruction in the finer art of reading an opponent. River had learned to fight in a brutal school of survival–fast and dirty, doing anything it took to even the odds, because the chances were always good that whoever she was fighting was faster, stronger, and wanted her to hurt.

Leah probably hadn’t been trying to hurt her, but River’s pride could only take so much battering in a single day. She stepped back and dropped her hands. “I’m not here to play weird head games. If you want something, just tell me.”

This time, it was definitely remorse that flitted across Leah’s face. “I’m sorry. It’s just…that’s what a fight is, isn’t it? A head game. Otherwise, whoever was fastest or carrying the biggest knife would always win.”

River snorted. “Whoever’s fastest or carrying the biggest knife usually does win. The only way to beat a bigger bully is to take them down before they realize the fight has started. You won’t survive long enough to play mind games.”

“I can teach you.”

Just like that. A simple offer, and River didn’t understand it. “Why would you?”

“Because I want to learn, too.” Leah moved–not to attack, but to close the distance between them. With only inches between their faces, Leah stared at River, her blue eyes chips of ice hot enough to burn. “I dodge because it’s what we were taught, all we were allowed to do. I can fight properly…but not the way you can. And I want to.”

A sarcastic reply died on River’s tongue as she stared into those suddenly intense eyes. This was what she’d never seen in Leah before–the fire and scorching anger it took to survive in the sectors. And that anger made River wonder why they’d train their pretty dolls to move like championship fighters but never throw a punch.

Actually, no. River could imagine exactly why they’d do that.

“Okay,” she said, keeping her voice low. This close together, the almost-whisper felt unbearably intimate. But they were talking violence, not sex. “I’ll teach you to punch, you teach me how to not get punched.”

A slow smile curved Leah’s lips. “Deal.”

They may not have taught Leah how to throw a punch over in Sector Two, but that smile was a deadly weapon, and it landed square in River’s chest.

Fighting, she could handle. But with Leah? She was in way over her head.

Bree has recovered from surgery, but we’re still scheduling these ahead as we work on a secret project! Mwahahahaha! This serial was originally posted (mostly!) on Patreon, and has been edited and finished to be posted live on our blog over the next few weeks. But for those who just want it NOW, or who hate reading on a blog and would like an epub… Well here is the epub!

Return to the world after the Beyond Series and meet the residents of Sector Three…

When Ashwin asks Six & Bren to take in an emotionally fractured Makhai soldier, there are a thousand things that could go wrong. But they are hard at work building their school and rebuilding their sector, and Sebastian is a genius who can fix anything. Anything. In return for his help, all they have to do is give him a safe place to find out if his emotional wounds can be healed.

Just one traumatized supersoldier in the middle of a school filled with former feral street kids, war refugees from exclusive brothels, and a few dozen kids who barely know what a school is.

What could go wrong?

—

DISCLAIMERS: this is a serial meant for existing readers of the series. it contains full series spoilers for the Beyond Series and may not make sense if you haven’t read it.

It is also NOT erotic. This is the first part of a very very very slow burn romance between a broken Makhai soldier and an artist who escaped Sector Two after the bombings. There may also be a few other romances a brewing… consider this more like a TV show with multiple members of the cast up to hijinks, even if there are two main characters.

—

It took Sebastian a few days to come and see her.

Callie had determined not long after her talk with Six that it had to be that way. Any further contact between them had to happen by his choice–even if that choice was to never speak to her again.

But when the soft knock echoed through her empty studio, her shoulders sagged with relief. She hadn’t realized how much it meant to her for that not to be the case. How much she needed him to want to speak to her again.

“Callie?”

“I was hoping you’d…” Her smile froze in place as she turned and caught sight of him. She couldn’t quite read his expression, but it was rigid. Grave. “…come by.”

He hesitated in the doorway, a small brown paper bag gripped in one hand. Then, squaring his shoulders, he stepped into the room. “I came to apologize.”

No. “You don’t have to do that,” she protested. “What happened was my fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” he countered quietly. “And maybe it wasn’t mine, either. But I knew I was uncomfortable and I wasn’t honest with you about it. I don’t have the luxury of that. Not with the harm I’m capable of.”

It wasn’t precisely true–or fair to him. “You were honest. I pushed.” She gestured to the sofa. “Would you like to have a seat?”

With a slight nod, he crossed the room and sat, his body still tense and the bag resting on one knee. “I wasn’t sure you’d want an apology gift,” he said, holding it out. “But Six said everyone likes donuts. It’s not as fancy as a picnic…”

Callie accepted the bag, biting her lip to quell another smile. “Thank you.”

That seemed to relax him somewhat. “Can I be honest again now?”

“Please do.”

“A week ago…” He swallowed hard and closed his eyes. “A week ago I was locked in a basement, being chemically and psychologically tortured. I’d been there since they bombed Sector Two. I tell myself that I should be fine, because it’s over now. But I’m not.”

Callie’s throat constricted in a sudden ache. Six had told her, but that wasn’t the same as hearing the words from his lips–especially the trembling thread of pain that lurked beneath them. “Fine? How could you be, Bast? You’ve only just begun.”

“I’m Makhai,” he said, as if that was an answer. “We were designed to endure.”

“And you did.” She could barely force out the words. “But now you have to heal.”

He opened his eyes, and his lips quirked in a sad, almost wistful smile. “That’s never been part of our training. But I think it’s why Ashwin brought me here.”

“Makes sense.” She mirrored his smile. “We’re all healing here.”

“You were…” He hesitated. Flexed his fingers. “I don’t want to ask if you don’t want to talk about it.”

Blood rushed in Callie’s ears, and the bag crinkled in her hands as they clenched into fists. She’d only told Six, and she wasn’t sure the other woman had fully realized what she was saying. What she was admitting. Though, in a burst of morbid humor, it occurred to Callie that if she told Sebastian the truth, perhaps he’d stop treating her like she was helpless, delicate.

Innocent.

A muscle in her cheek jumped, and she smiled wider to cover the tic. “It’s not a pretty story. But I’m willing to tell it.”

“Then I’d like to hear it.”

Slowly, Callie moved to the other end of the sofa and sank to it. She forced her fingers to relax, opened the bag of donuts, and held it out. “You might as well help me with these.”

He reached in and pulled one of the lop-sided but well-glazed donuts from it. His brow furrowed as he regarded it with some suspicion, but after a moment he took a bite. Both eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline as he chewed and swallowed. “That is…very sweet.”

“Yes.” His almost comical shock jarred something loose in her chest. “I murdered my patron back in Two.”

Sebastian froze with the donut held in front of him. His gaze swept her face, assessing and intent. Then he took another bite, chewed slowly, and swallowed. “From everything I’ve ever heard of Sector Two, he undoubtedly deserved it.”

Maybe he was right–or maybe it was just easier to think so. She passed him the bag of donuts and clasped her hands in her lap to hide their shaking. “I told you before that I was a Dahlia. Do you know what that means?”

He shook his head.

“Dahlias are all about innocence. It’s their singular allure. When a man procures a Dahlia, that’s what he wants. The wide-eyed, untouched flower.” She fixed her gaze on a spot on the wall, just above a drawing one of the children had done for her. “My patron prized purity, but he also believed that his attentions spoiled it. You see the problem.”

Sebastian set the bag aside, and his half-eaten donut with it. Then he turned more fully to face her, his gaze serious. “He hurt you,” he said softly. Not a question.

“Yes,” she allowed, even though he couldn’t possibly know why he was correct. Not yet. “I was his third flower. Every time he tired of one, he would beat her until he tired of that, then sell her and buy another. Reselling is against District rules, but you know how it is. Rich men do what they like.”

The roaring in her ears returned as she plunged ahead. “I had managed to avoid the abuse because of my art. I’m very good at forgery. I can copy anything on canvas. So I made him a lot of money. Too much money.”

Sebastian’s serious gaze didn’t waver. “Why too much?”

Callie could hear the soft music her patron liked to play during meals, feel the cool silverware growing hot under her fingers. The knife in her hand. “He was celebrating. He had commissioned another girl. And he said–he said–”

I can have as many as I like, my pearl. Thanks to you.

“He was going to do it all again. And I made it possible.” A hot tear slipped down Callie’s cheek. “I had to stop him, so I stabbed him in the neck with my steak knife. Then I stood there with his blood drying on my hands and wondered what the hell I was going to do next. That’s when the first bomb fell.”

“You endured,” Sebastian said quietly.

“I endured.” She wiped her cheek and laughed, though it sounded shaky and almost desperate, even to her. “See? Compared to my patron, dealing with you is a piece of cake. You’re not evil, you’re just…”

“Broken?”

Broken. A memory tugged at her, and an idea formed. “Have you ever heard of kintsugi?”

He tilted his head, but after a moment shook it. “No, I don’t think so.”

“It means golden seams.” She shot off the couch and went to her shelf, looking for the book she needed. “It’s an ancient Japanese art form. If a ceramic bowl or vase broke, instead of throwing it away, they would mend the cracks with a mixture of lacquer and a precious metal like gold.”

She found the book, a volume Ace had brought back to her from one of his forays into the defunct art museum in Reno. Flipping through it, she quickly found the section she was looking for, and laid the book in Sebastian’s lap.

He traced one finger over the page, studying it in silence. “Is this what Six and Bren are doing with Sector Three, then?”

With the sector, and with the people in it. “Broken things can be fixed,” she whispered. “And they can be even more beautiful than they were before.”

He nodded, his finger stilling on the image of a delicate bowl in midnight blues shot with gold. “The world changed while I was in that basement. Eden has fallen. Ashwin Malhotra is in love. The Base agreed to give me a chance to heal instead of throwing me away. It might take me some time to catch up.”

“That’s okay.” Her hands were shaking now, as the real import of what she’d confessed began to hit her. She’d told Sebastian what she’d done. And now–”Do you think less of me?”

“For protecting yourself? For saving other young women like you?” He closed the book and faced her again, his eyes gentle. “Of course not.”

“But you…” She struggled to articulate her fear. It wasn’t that Sebastian needed her to be ignorant and naive–a Dahlia–but he’d seemed to expect it. “You were so insistent that I couldn’t understand the threat you pose. You thought I was nice. And now you know I’m not.”

His brow furrowed again. “Why do you think you’re not nice?”

Because she had killed her patron, then let everyone believed he’d died in a bomb blast. Because she’d committed crimes for him in order to save her own skin. Because she’d failed in her trained purpose.

Because she wasn’t a very good Dahlia.

She shook her head. “Like I said, we’re all healing.”

“Here’s what I know now,” Sebastian said quietly. “You’re a woman who was given too few choices. You found a way to survive a hell no one should have put you in. And when you thought your choices might endanger someone else, you removed the danger immediately. Not to protect yourself. To protect the next girl who was given too few choices.” His lips quirked in that sad little half-smile again. “And you got it done, which is more than I can say for myself.”

Callie’s first instinct was to refute his words, because surely he was only trying to make her feel better. But they held the ring of truth, a desperate, fervent honesty that she had to return in kind. “You would have only gotten yourself killed, Sebastian. And I’m really glad that didn’t happen.”

“I’m glad too. I think.” His face tightened, as if the words had hurt to say, but he clenched his jaw and repeated them. “I’m glad.”

That something lurched in her chest again, followed this time by a warmth that spread outward until it tingled through her fingertips, and she knew she could fall in love with him. The tantalizing, terrifying possibility of it played through her mind in snapshots and flashes, so clear she stood abruptly, pulling the art book out of his hands.

Shaky steps took her back to the shelf, and she stowed it in its place before hauling open a drawer. “Here.” She pulled out the lightly textured pages and thrust them at Sebastian, “I promised I’d give you these. My–your sketches.”

His fingers curled around the pages, but he didn’t look at them. “Don’t you want them?”

“No. You can sit for me again. Someday.” Someday, because she could tell by the look on his face that it wouldn’t be soon.

“If–” He paused. His jaw clenched again, but he forced the word out, calm and even. “When I’m feeling better. We can do that.”

“When,” she agreed. It was a much better option than if.

He rolled the sketches up carefully. “Thank you for trusting me with your story.”

“That’s what friends do, Bast.”

“Friends.” He seemed to be testing the word out. “I’ve never had friends before.”

“Now you can. You do.” She smiled encouragingly, even though the words were bittersweet on her tongue. “I’ll see you around, okay?”

He rose and started for the door, pausing on the threshold to glance back over his shoulder. “Is there anything in your studio you need fixed? Something I can work on?”

There was nothing, and she hated that. No reason for him to stick around. “I’ll check and let you know. Thanks.”

He nodded and slipped silently into the hallway.

Callie wasn’t sure when she’d see him again. He needed time, but he also seemed to need distance, at least from her.

She’d just have to live with that.

Bree has recovered from surgery, but we’re still scheduling these ahead as we work on a secret project! Mwahahahaha! This serial was originally posted (mostly!) on Patreon, and has been edited and finished to be posted live on our blog over the next few weeks. But for those who just want it NOW, or who hate reading on a blog and would like an epub… Well here is the epub!

Return to the world after the Beyond Series and meet the residents of Sector Three…

When Ashwin asks Six & Bren to take in an emotionally fractured Makhai soldier, there are a thousand things that could go wrong. But they are hard at work building their school and rebuilding their sector, and Sebastian is a genius who can fix anything. Anything. In return for his help, all they have to do is give him a safe place to find out if his emotional wounds can be healed.

Just one traumatized supersoldier in the middle of a school filled with former feral street kids, war refugees from exclusive brothels, and a few dozen kids who barely know what a school is.

What could go wrong?

—

DISCLAIMERS: this is a serial meant for existing readers of the series. it contains full series spoilers for the Beyond Series and may not make sense if you haven’t read it.

It is also NOT erotic. This is the first part of a very very very slow burn romance between a broken Makhai soldier and an artist who escaped Sector Two after the bombings. There may also be a few other romances a brewing… consider this more like a TV show with multiple members of the cast up to hijinks, even if there are two main characters.

—

 

Blue whistled as she moved through the barn after her last morning class, gathering gardening trowels and hand cultivators as she went. The kids were always eager to play in the dirt, but by the end of class, their rumbling bellies were more focused on lunch than picking up.

No matter. She had some things to do before she headed to the kitchens anyway. Zayan was back in the sector for a while, which meant he’d be running his customary Friday night poker game, and she planned on claiming a seat at the table.

It was the only way she’d ever win her money back from Zeke James, Sector One Rider and certified poker hustler.

Blue dumped the tools in the bin by the door and made her way into the greenhouse. Here, the dry, dusty smell of dirt gave way to the scents of life–the sharp tang of greenery and the humid earthiness of loamy soil. She breathed deeply, drawing it in as she moved down the rows to her destination.

The tomato plants were doing well, with strong vines and robust production. She counted down the row until she found what she was looking for–the third plant from the end.

She’d found the recipe in a pre-Flare cookbook of sorts, in something called a magazine, according to Bren. Its pages had once been shiny, but age and wear had rendered them brittle. Not so brittle, however, that she couldn’t make out the recipe for the mouthwatering sandwich on the page.

It was called a BLT. Blue had already picked her lettuce, and Sally was saving her some bacon from Hawk’s last trip. All she needed now was one perfect tomato, and she’d had her eye on this one for a solid week.

She knelt beside the plant and stopped short.

It was gone. The gorgeous tomato she’d left ripening on the vine for days was just…not there. She examined the stem left behind. The tomato had definitely not overripened and fallen off, which meant someone had picked it.

Blue supposed it could have been one of the students, or maybe even Sally. Except…it had been hidden within the dense foliage of the plant, not visible at a glance. There were much easier tomatoes to be found.

Odd.

Oh well. She picked the next best tomato and carried on, resuming her whistling as she ran it under water at the greenhouse’s ancient, rattling sink. Then she scrubbed her hands, carefully removing as much grime as she could.

The shed just outside the greenhouse housed their medicinal plant and herb preparations. Since proper medicines from Sector Five were readily available, these herbal alternatives weren’t typically used, but Blue felt better having them in case of emergencies, and Six had agreed. Besides, some of the staff preferred them–like Sally, who had asked for a feverfew tincture because her arthritis was acting up.

Because of the potential danger to younger students, they kept the shed secured with a padlock. Blue opened it, then blinked at the shelves. Her carefully stocked medicines had been rifled through, and some were missing. Half the plantain poultices were gone, as well as bottles of feverfew and willow bark tincture.

Bandages and pain relievers. Blue frowned. As far as she was aware, no one had been injured. And she knew that she had the only key to the shed. Lifting the padlock, she examined the keyhole closely and finally spotted them–tiny, telltale scratches in the metal.

Someone had picked the lock.

Blue peered into the shed once again and spotted a rust-colored smudge on the edge of the shelf. Dried blood.

She bit her lower lip. She should probably replace the lock with something tougher, or temporarily relocate the supplies. But if someone had been bleeding and desperate enough to break into the shed and take medical supplies, then someone needed help.

The idea made her throat hurt.

She hurried toward the main building of the school–not to the kitchen, but to the teachers’ lounge, where they stored the emergency medical supplies.

Leah was there, sitting at a table with a steaming cup of tea. She glanced up when Blue rushed in, greeting her with a hum and an arched eyebrow.

“Hi. I just need some things,” Blue told her as she used another key to unlock this cabinet. “For the barn.”

Leah hummed again, her politely bland expression making it clear she didn’t give a damn what Blue was doing.

Just as well. The blonde made Blue nervous. She almost dropped the stack of bandages, as well as the tube of med-gel she’d taken. She rebalanced the stolen–borrowed–items and, after a moment, added a small bottle of a topical painkiller.

Blue hurried back to the door. “Anyway,” she called over her shoulder. “Bye!”

Her heart rate didn’t begin to settle until she’d placed the items on the shelf in the shed, carefully arranging them so that whoever came looking was certain to see them. If they came back at all. Every street kid learned fast that hitting the same place twice was just asking for trouble, but Blue could hope.

And she did, because whoever had broken into the shed needed help, and she knew what that was like–the fear, the loneliness. Running through every angle and coming up with no good options. It was a scary way to live, one she wouldn’t wish on anyone.

Come back, she pleaded silently. So I can know you’re okay.

And maybe, just maybe, convince them to stay.

Bree has recovered from surgery, but we’re still scheduling these ahead as we work on a secret project! Mwahahahaha! This serial was originally posted (mostly!) on Patreon, and has been edited and finished to be posted live on our blog over the next few weeks. But for those who just want it NOW, or who hate reading on a blog and would like an epub… Well here is the epub!

Return to the world after the Beyond Series and meet the residents of Sector Three…

When Ashwin asks Six & Bren to take in an emotionally fractured Makhai soldier, there are a thousand things that could go wrong. But they are hard at work building their school and rebuilding their sector, and Sebastian is a genius who can fix anything. Anything. In return for his help, all they have to do is give him a safe place to find out if his emotional wounds can be healed.

Just one traumatized supersoldier in the middle of a school filled with former feral street kids, war refugees from exclusive brothels, and a few dozen kids who barely know what a school is.

What could go wrong?

—

DISCLAIMERS: this is a serial meant for existing readers of the series. it contains full series spoilers for the Beyond Series and may not make sense if you haven’t read it.

It is also NOT erotic. This is the first part of a very very very slow burn romance between a broken Makhai soldier and an artist who escaped Sector Two after the bombings. There may also be a few other romances a brewing… consider this more like a TV show with multiple members of the cast up to hijinks, even if there are two main characters.

—

 

On the Base, the vast array of solar panels were cleaned remotely and automatically, using a set of brushes and a supply of highly filtered and demineralized water. Removing the human element minimized the potential for accidents, and the carefully maintained schedule prevented any buildup that might render the solar panels less efficient.

The solar panels on the roof of Six’s school looked like they hadn’t been cleaned properly in decades. Soot from the makeshift biofuel generator had collected along the edges and lingered in hard to remove smudges, and Sebastian could feel the slight tacky residue of soap beneath his fingers–a magnet for dust and dirt, and a rookie mistake.

Scrubbing the panels clean by hand was an exacting and precise task, especially for someone with the strength to shatter glass with an irritated flick of one finger. Sebastian chose it because it required control, and that was what he needed right now.

To feel in control of something. Of anything.

Steady, measured footfalls crunched on the graveled tar behind him–tactical boots. Too heavy to be Six coming to stab him for upsetting Callie, which was a mild disappointment. Guilt was a sick churn inside him, almost strong enough to drown out the memory of fiery agony.

He didn’t think Bren was here to stab him. And that irritated him. Bast sprayed the next panel with filtered water and started scrubbing in the top left corner. “Is Callie okay?”

“Yes and no.” Bren knelt beside the array and watched him work. “Worried about you.”

Of course she was. Because no one in this fucking sector seemed to have an ounce of survival instinct, despite claims to the contrary. “It’s my fault,” he said bluntly, scrubbing away the grime on the glass. “I knew sitting for her was a bad idea. I’m not stable.”

“Yeah.”

He hadn’t realized he’d been braced for some cloying denial until the tension in his shoulders eased. At least Bren wasn’t going to pretend he wasn’t a threat. “Why aren’t they scared of me? Don’t they know what I am?”

Bren didn’t hesitate. “Not entirely. But they know more and better than you think they do. They just believe people can change–their behavior, their circumstances. Their lives.”

Sebastian let that sink in as he sprayed more water on the panel, washing away the lingering grit. The sky reflected back, an endless perfect blue with only a few wisps of fluffy, cheerful clouds. “I suppose they need to believe that, here.”

“I know I did.” Bren huffed out a laugh. “That was the first thing Dallas O’Kane told me–that he didn’t give a shit what I’d done in the past, only what I planned to do going forward.”

Sebastian glanced at him. Not a soldier from the base, like Lorenzo Cruz. But still Special Tasks, who had basically been the Council’s hit squad. The chances were good Bren had done his share of terrible things. “How did you end up in the Sectors to begin with?”

Instead of answering, Bren picked up an extra spray bottle and a brush. “Like this?” he asked as he spritzed the glass, then began to clean it in careful strokes.

“Yes.”

Bren hummed and sprayed the glass again. “Some bad shit went down, and the higher-ups at Special Tasks needed someone to take the fall. I had already started having too many doubts, asking too many questions, so I was the clear choice. They booted my ass out. Can’t say I’m sorry, either.”

Bitter amusement twisted through the pain still burning him up from the inside. “I asked questions, too. I wish they’d settled for booting my ass out.”

“So do I.” Bren sat back on his heels. “If you knew it was a bad idea to pose for Callie, why’d you do it?”

Why? Because she’d been bright and shiny and so insistent, plowing into him at full speed with picnic baskets and lemonade and promises of acceptance that were more tempting than money or power.

And because there was pain in her. Men had hurt her before. Given what he knew of Sector Two, most likely one man–specifically and repeatedly. And yet she’d come up here with her bright eyes and her green beans, determined to set him at ease.

“I didn’t want to make her sad,” Sebastian muttered, attacking the next panel with a little too much vigor. The bristles slid wildly across the glass, and he immediately corrected the pressure. “I miscalculated. Obviously.”

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting things to be different.”

“But they’re not different.” Sebastian closed his eyes, dragging in a deep steadying breath. “I am what I am. This isn’t just training, or trauma. They made me different in my blood and bones and DNA. Wanting can’t change that.”

Silence. Then, “It did for Ashwin.”

His heart lurched, like it would pound straight out of his chest. He’d tried not to think about Ashwin, even as the thin scar across his wrist burned in remembered promise in the dark of the night. Because Bren was right.

Ashwin, the prototypical Makhai soldier, the one held up as the gold standard by trainers and generals alike…

Ashwin was apparently in love.

Sebastian swallowed the ache of it and resumed his careful scrubbing. “Do you know how it happened?”

Bren snorted. “You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

“I don’t know if I should be,” he admitted, glancing at Bren. “Giving another Makhai soldier information about the woman Ashwin Malhotra loves is a good way to end up dead. Even me. Do you all understand that?”

But Bren only laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m not about to tell you anything Ashwin wouldn’t share. I don’t need to.”

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “Then tell me what you think matters.”

Bren tossed his brush aside with a sigh. “Ashwin found a home, a place where he could be himself, and that was enough. Falling in love didn’t save him. Finding his place in the world did that.”

Simple words, but the impact of them almost rocked Sebastian over. He sat back on his heels, thinking back to the promise Ashwin had extracted from him.

Six months.

No. Six months surrounded by problems that needed solving, people who didn’t know how to fear him, and orphans who wandered into his room to lend him their stuffed animals whenever he had nightmares.

Maybe miracles were possible, because it seemed like Ashwin understood him after all. “So that’s what all of this is about. Ashwin thinks this is my place in the world.”

“He thinks it could be, like Sector One is for him. Like Four was for me. But what matters is what you think.”

“I think I’m still too tired to think.” The spray bottle was a comforting weight in his hand, something he understood. Something he could control. He sprayed down the next panel and didn’t look at Bren as he spoke. “I don’t know if there’s anything in me to save. But I like having work to do, and you have plenty of that. It’s something.”

“No rush.” Bren rose. “You should probably find Callie and apologize. Or let her apologize to you. Probably both.”

The scrub brush creaked as his fingers tightened around it. But Sebastian had survived a year of torture. He could survive a few moments of discomfort. “I will.”

“Like I said, no rush.”

Bren’s exit was heralded by the fading crunch of gravel and the eventual soft click of the door. A riot of conflicting emotions churned through Sebastian–hope, dismay, mild terror, desperate relief… contradictory and confusing and exhausting…

But the pain had stopped. At some point during their conversation, the acid burn through his veins had faded away, leaving only the soft ache of memory and sweet relief. Sebastian savored it, and let the riot in his mind sort itself out.

He’d learned long ago that he couldn’t control his emotions. Only his actions. So he turned back to his meticulous work, scrubbing until the sky reflected bright blue from each panel in turn.

When he felt the same clarity inside, he would seek out Callie.

Bree has recovered from surgery, but we’re still scheduling these ahead as we work on a secret project! Mwahahahaha! This serial was originally posted (mostly!) on Patreon, and has been edited and finished to be posted live on our blog over the next few weeks. But for those who just want it NOW, or who hate reading on a blog and would like an epub… Well here is the epub!

Return to the world after the Beyond Series and meet the residents of Sector Three…

When Ashwin asks Six & Bren to take in an emotionally fractured Makhai soldier, there are a thousand things that could go wrong. But they are hard at work building their school and rebuilding their sector, and Sebastian is a genius who can fix anything. Anything. In return for his help, all they have to do is give him a safe place to find out if his emotional wounds can be healed.

Just one traumatized supersoldier in the middle of a school filled with former feral street kids, war refugees from exclusive brothels, and a few dozen kids who barely know what a school is.

What could go wrong?

—

DISCLAIMERS: this is a serial meant for existing readers of the series. it contains full series spoilers for the Beyond Series and may not make sense if you haven’t read it.

It is also NOT erotic. This is the first part of a very very very slow burn romance between a broken Makhai soldier and an artist who escaped Sector Two after the bombings. There may also be a few other romances a brewing… consider this more like a TV show with multiple members of the cast up to hijinks, even if there are two main characters.

—

 

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

Shit.

Callie’s hand shook as she knocked on Six’s office door. “Six? Six. Oh God, please be in there.”

The door jerked open to reveal Six with a gun in one hand. “Callie? What’s wrong?”

“I broke him.” She could barely gasp out the words. “I broke your supersoldier.”

Six’s brow furrowed. “You what?”

Callie brushed past Six and paced the floor in front of the couch. “He was posing for me in my studio. He agreed to let me sketch him if I would tell him about Three and the people here. But then I mentioned the bombing in Two.” The memory of the look in his eyes made Callie shudder. “I didn’t know it would upset him. I’m so sorry.”

After a moment, Six closed the door and moved to her desk. She placed the gun on its surface and gestured to the couch. “I’m pretty sure you didn’t break him,” she said gently. “The Base already did that.”

Callie managed not to flinch–barely. “He was doing me a favor, and I upset him so badly, Six. How do I fix it?”

“Sit, Callie.”

She dropped helplessly to the couch, her hands twisted together in her lap.

Six crouched in front of her and covered her hands with her own in a warm, comforting grip. “Let me worry about him. Are you okay?”

“Well, I’m down a stool in my studio,” she answered tightly, “but he didn’t hurt me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It’s not.” Six squeezed her hands. “Remembering that day can be hard for everyone.”

If Callie closed her eyes, she could still hear the rumbling whine that had heralded the first bomb.

If she rubbed her fingers together, she could still feel the blood drying, tacky and thick, on her skin.

She pinned Six with an open, unblinking look–and told the truth. “I’m upset, but not about that. I promise.”

“Okay.” Six gave her hands a final pat and exhaled roughly as she rose. “I don’t know a lot about Sebastian and his secrets are his own to tell or not. But the one thing I do know is that he disobeyed orders after the bombs, and they punished him for it.” A short, harsh laugh. “Tortured him for it, more like. That’s probably what it is, and you couldn’t have known. It’s not your fault, any more than it’s his. We’ve all got scars, Callie.”

“I know.” She’d seen his. She just hadn’t known they were so intertwined with her own. “So what do I do?”

“Let Bren check on him. He’ll make sure Sebastian’s okay.” A small fridge sat in the corner, and Six pulled two glass bottles out of it and brought one to Callie. “And just…treat him the way you’d want to be treated if someone had stepped on one of your bruises. You don’t need to make a big deal about it.”

Hearing that should have been helpful. Instead, it twisted the knot in Callie’s gut even tighter. If she’d freaked out like that at someone, she would want to crawl into a hole and never come out. Her mortification would never allow her to look that person in the face again.

What if Sebastian felt that way, too?

“I’ll leave him be,” she whispered, cradling the bottle close to her chest. “Give him some time and space.”

“It’ll be fine.” Six dropped to the couch next to her, her legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. “You remember what it’s like. So do I. The first time you find a place that’s safe… it takes a while to believe it.”

And some never did. Callie pushed the thought away. “What was it like for you? When you first went to Sector Four?”

Six took a sip of her hard cider and smiled. “Messy. I didn’t trust any of them. Damn near tried to bite Lex’s fingers off once. And I slipped into Dallas’s bed.” She made a face. “Not my proudest moment.”

Callie couldn’t stop herself from grimacing in sympathetic embarrassment.

“Exactly.” Six patted Callie’s shoulder. “If I could come back from that, Bast will be fine. Honestly, I’m surprised he was sitting for you to begin with. Bren got the impression he planned to stay pretty much to himself.”

Guilt surged again, and Callie almost confessed that he hadn’t wanted to. It was true, after all. She’d pleaded, cajoled, even bribed him–everything short of outright coercion. “I’m sure he will, after today.”

“Really?” Six took another slow sip, and shook her head. “My money’s on him tracking you down to try to apologize.”

“Oh, God.” Callie covered her face with her hands. “That would be worse.”

“Possibly.” Six wasn’t always physically affectionate, but her fingers ghosted over Callie’s hair in a soothing touch. “I can’t tell you how to deal with it. That’s your pain, too. Your scars are all tangled up with his. But it’s not your fault. You hear me, Callie?”

Callie nodded, drawing in a slow, deep breath. It would be easier, in some ways, if Six could be right. But the deep, present nature of Sebastian’s pain eclipsed everything else. And even if it hadn’t…

Thinking about the bombing of Sector Two hurt. It always would. But that agony mingled with so many other feelings–relief, righteous indignation, and pure, murderous spite–that Callie couldn’t keep it all straight. And she certainly couldn’t separate them.

But wounding Sebastian was simple. And it had been her fault. “Can you check on him, or get Bren to do it? I would, but…”

“Of course.” Another soft brush of fingers, then the couch creaked as Six rose. “He’s one of ours, now, too. We’ll take care of him.”

Of course they would. Six and Bren were used to calming the skittish strays they collected. They’d fix everything.

And if Sebastian wanted to keep his distance from her, Callie would just have to live with that.

Bree has recovered from surgery, but we’re still scheduling these ahead as we work on a secret project! Mwahahahaha! This serial was originally posted (mostly!) on Patreon, and has been edited and finished to be posted live on our blog over the next few weeks. But for those who just want it NOW, or who hate reading on a blog and would like an epub… Well here is the epub!

Return to the world after the Beyond Series and meet the residents of Sector Three…

When Ashwin asks Six & Bren to take in an emotionally fractured Makhai soldier, there are a thousand things that could go wrong. But they are hard at work building their school and rebuilding their sector, and Sebastian is a genius who can fix anything. Anything. In return for his help, all they have to do is give him a safe place to find out if his emotional wounds can be healed.

Just one traumatized supersoldier in the middle of a school filled with former feral street kids, war refugees from exclusive brothels, and a few dozen kids who barely know what a school is.

What could go wrong?

—

DISCLAIMERS: this is a serial meant for existing readers of the series. it contains full series spoilers for the Beyond Series and may not make sense if you haven’t read it.

It is also NOT erotic. This is the first part of a very very very slow burn romance between a broken Makhai soldier and an artist who escaped Sector Two after the bombings. There may also be a few other romances a brewing… consider this more like a TV show with multiple members of the cast up to hijinks, even if there are two main characters.

—

Sebastian loathed being stared at.

On the Base, it had been an inevitability. Even if Makhai soldiers weren’t rare enough to be instantly recognizable, he was the only one who was permanently stationed there, and thus an object of intense scrutiny and fascination.

People stared at him out of fear and morbid curiosity. They gaped at him and whispered when he passed, they nudged each other and pretended they weren’t watching his every move, because he wasn’t a person to them but a monster left to wander loose. A predator off his leash.

They’d all stared, but no one had seen him.

Bast expected that Callie had noticed more about him in the past thirty minutes than the gawkers on the Base had in a decade, and for the first time he imagined he understood how those terrified fools had felt.

Very little scared him. Being seen did.

“Can you turn your face a little more toward the window?” she asked softly. “And tip your chin up–yes, just like that. Thank you.” Her pencil scratched furiously over the paper.

The men who had tortured him in an attempt to break him would be grimly amused, he imagined. They’d gone to great lengths to attempt to elicit even a fraction of the discomfort Sebastian felt now. All they’d needed was a sweet-faced, dreamy-eyed artist with a pencil and paper.

Of course, that was the crux of it. Callie would be horrified if she knew how uncomfortable he was. And that made him more uncomfortable. If being seen was unnerving, being cared about–even in an abstract way–was outright upsetting. It scraped along nerves he’d thought safely cauterized.

Maybe that was why this whole damn place had him off balance. Even the children were trying to soothe him.

None of it made sense.

“Do you need a break?”

Sebastian blinked, and slanted a look at her. Was his discomfort obvious after all? “I’m fine, if you want to continue.”

She stared at him for a moment longer, then relented with the shrug of one shoulder. She returned to her sketching, then spoke again without looking up. “Do you want to know what I did before I came here?”

Not at all a safe path for the conversation. “You were from Sector Two,” he said carefully.

“Yes.” Callie tilted her head. “Would you like to know or not?”

A fair question. Any story from Sector Two was likely to be tragic, and he wouldn’t be able to hide his anger. Not from her.

But…he wanted to know. “If you would like to tell me.”

The corner of her mouth tipped up. “I was an art forger.”

Sebastian glanced at her before he could stop himself, both eyebrows going up. “Really?”

She laughed softly. “Truly. There was a robust market for it in Eden, and my patron made liberal use of my talents.”

That made sense. Surely, in their hearts, the wealthy citizens of Eden must have understood that any great work of art was likely a fake. Travel across the Mississippi was rare, even now. But he supposed the provenance didn’t matter–only the rarity. Owning something no one else could have. “Do you still do it?”

“No. I was only doing it in the first place because my patron forced me to, and I–” Her voice failed. “He’s dead. When the city bombed Two. So now I teach, and I make my own art. Not other people’s.”

He couldn’t stop his body from tensing. Fire seared his veins, unexpected in its ferocity. He couldn’t tell what hurt more–the obvious pain in her eyes, or the vicious sensory memory of his first round of brutal reconditioning.

The bombs. That had been the beginning of the end. Cruel, unnecessarily brutal weapons dropped on the heads of helpless women and children–all the more galling because the men with power, the corrupt bastards who’d kept Sector Two’s brutal system of sexual exploitation in place–had been given the warning to run.

If Callie’s patron hadn’t escaped, he’d either been useless, greedy, or stupid.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice grating with the force of his agony. “I tried to stop them. The bombs.”

Her gaze softened, some of the pain giving way to gratitude. “Thank you. It means a lot that you tried.”

“I failed.” He curled his fingers toward his palms, hoping the bite of nails would distract him from the pulsing flames beneath his skin. “I should have done more. It was inexcusable, what they did to you.”

“Inexcusable, yes.” Callie frowned and set her sketchpad aside. “But it wasn’t your fault, Sebastian.”

Wasn’t it? Perhaps he hadn’t given the order, or pushed the button. But he’d spent decades fixing the Base. Streamlining their power consumption. Working on drones, and planes. Computers and other tech. There had been a thousand–ten thousand–points of failure that might have stopped a catastrophe like this, but he’d been the glue holding the whole thing together.

“It’s complicated,” he rasped. “I may not be at fault, but I’m certainly complicit.”

She rose–and reached for him. “Sebastian–”

He jerked back hard enough that the stool wobbled. Springing to his feet, he listened to the dull clatter of wood crashing to the floor. Her hand hung there, too forgiving, too close, and if she touched his skin the fire burning him to ash from the inside might consume her too.

“I’m sorry,” he said, reaching for the stool. The top of it came off in his shaking hands, and he dropped the wood and backed toward the door. He couldn’t trust himself with his own strength right now, which meant he couldn’t be trusted.

Not here. Not with these reckless, relentless fools who refused to fear him.

Turning his back on Callie’s stricken face, he fled.

Bree has recovered from surgery, but we’re still scheduling these ahead as we work on a secret project! Mwahahahaha! This serial was originally posted (mostly!) on Patreon, and has been edited and finished to be posted live on our blog over the next few weeks. But for those who just want it NOW, or who hate reading on a blog and would like an epub… Well here is the epub!

Return to the world after the Beyond Series and meet the residents of Sector Three…

When Ashwin asks Six & Bren to take in an emotionally fractured Makhai soldier, there are a thousand things that could go wrong. But they are hard at work building their school and rebuilding their sector, and Sebastian is a genius who can fix anything. Anything. In return for his help, all they have to do is give him a safe place to find out if his emotional wounds can be healed.

Just one traumatized supersoldier in the middle of a school filled with former feral street kids, war refugees from exclusive brothels, and a few dozen kids who barely know what a school is.

What could go wrong?

—

DISCLAIMERS: this is a serial meant for existing readers of the series. it contains full series spoilers for the Beyond Series and may not make sense if you haven’t read it.

It is also NOT erotic. This is the first part of a very very very slow burn romance between a broken Makhai soldier and an artist who escaped Sector Two after the bombings. There may also be a few other romances a brewing… consider this more like a TV show with multiple members of the cast up to hijinks, even if there are two main characters.

—

Callie had never been this nervous.

She paced from one side of her studio to the other, rubbing at the goosebumps that rose on her bare arms. She had everything in place–easels, pads, pencils. Chairs and drapes. Even a small cooler she’d begged off of Sally in the kitchen, full of drinks and sandwiches and the last of the hand pies made from their tiny berry harvest.

This was her favorite part of the process, chasing the spark of inspiration until it caught fire and bloomed in her imagination. It was fascinating, and it was fun.

So why was she freaking out?

A soft knock on the edge of the door startled her. She had to laugh at herself for being so jumpy, though the laugh died in her throat when she turned.

Sebastian was standing in the open doorway, backlit by the sun, waiting to be invited in.

Her nerves drowned under a wave of anticipation so sharp it sucked the breath right out of her lungs. “Come in. Take a look around.”

He moved slowly across the threshold, his gaze sweeping the room like he was mentally clearing it of dangers. He lingered for a moment on the wall of proudly displayed finger paintings, and again on a row of still lifes painted by some of the more talented advanced students.

Finally, his gaze settled on her. “Where do you need me?”

“Well…” She indicated the sagging couch along one wall. “You can have a seat for now. We have some things to discuss. Would you like a drink?”

“I’m fine.” He moved to the couch and sat on the edge, his elbows resting on his knees, his entire body still coiled as if he might lunge at any second. But he didn’t move, his very stillness unnatural as he studied her.

And waited.

She sat as well, mirroring his posture. “First of all, thank you for agreeing to do this. It often surprises people, how exhausting it is just to sit. If you get tired, please do tell me. I don’t want you suffering on my account.”

His lips twitched. Just a little. “I am sure I’ll be okay.”

She got the sense that any other man would have openly laughed. But instead of feeling self-conscious, she felt her lips curving in an answering almost-smile. “Fair enough. First real point of business: your incognito status. I know I said I wouldn’t draw your face–and I won’t, if you don’t want me to. But I’d like to, even if it means destroying the sketches at the end of each session.”

Another pause. His gaze drifted to the childish finger paintings again. “May I ask a question?”

Callie had expected a silent nod of acknowledgment, or perhaps a single syllable of denial. Eager to hear his question–a freely offered one, at that–she leaned forward. “Of course.”

He gestured to the children’s work. “Art lessons seem out of character for what I’ve seen of Six. Is this something you talked her into doing?”

“It took a little persuasion,” Callie admitted. “But by Ace–Alexander Santana–not by me. Though all he did was tell her the truth. People need different things, and some of the kids need…this.” She nodded toward the displayed art. “Six understands that.”

“What do they get out of it?” he asked, his tone one of genuine curiosity rather than challenge.

“That depends on the kid. For most, it’s fun. Others frankly don’t like it at all. But for just a few, it’s like breathing.” She met Sebastian’s gaze. “Art will save their lives.”

“It’s that important?”

“It can be.”

After a moment’s thought, he inclined his head. “You can sketch my face. But you shouldn’t display it. For your own safety.”

“I don’t plan to display any of this. You have my word.”

“Then it’s fine.”

“Thank you.” She pushed ahead. “How do you feel about nudity?”

That earned her a raised brow. “I can take my shirt off, if that’s helpful. More seems…inadvisable.”

Callie couldn’t resist. “In what way?” she asked innocently.

He just stared at her. “I am not Ashwin, you know. I can tell when I’m being teased.”

She almost managed not to smile, but she couldn’t stop her cheeks from heating. “Whatever you’re comfortable with, nothing more.” She sobered. “Sometimes, when it comes to positioning, it helps if I can physically move you instead of giving instructions. Will that be all right?”

This time the pause was longer. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I’m in an unfamiliar place, I have instinctive responses and…” His jaw tightened, and he swallowed whatever he’d been about to say. “Maybe not this first time? I don’t want to hurt you.”

Her chest ached. “Whatever you’re comfortable with,” she repeated. “Nothing more.” Then she rose. “Shall we begin? The light is beautiful right now.”

Sebastian rose easily, his hands already reaching for the hem of his dark T-shirt. “Where should I sit?”

Callie hurried to pull a stool into a wash of light streaming through a window. “I think this would be a good spot to…” The words died as she turned and caught sight of his bare chest.

He had scars. Not the ridged and puckered kind the people of Sector Three usually bore, remnants of knife fights in dark alleys and stray gunshot wounds. His were small, almost regimented. Surgical in their precision and in their healing, except there was no rhyme or reason to their placement–

Almost no rhyme or reason. They were all located in highly innervated spots. Places that would hurt.

She knew she was staring. But, to her absolute horror, she couldn’t stop. “What did they do to you?”

“They wanted me to stop feeling,” he said without emotion. As if it mattered little. “So they hurt me.”

That never works. Callie blinked away the tears that welled, burning her eyes. She swallowed hard and nodded. “I’m sorry. I…know what that’s like.”

His muscles tensed, rigid like steel beneath his scarred skin. “I’m sorry.”

She started to ask him why he would be sorry when he hadn’t been the one to hurt her. Then she realized he was only echoing her own apology.

“It’s in the past,” she said instead, then patted the stool. “Ready?”

Sebastian moved fluidly to perch on the stool. He rested there, his hands lax on his thighs, his expression still tense. “If you need to position me the first time, I’m ready.”

“No, that’s okay.” Callie picked up one of her sketch pads and went back to the couch. She curled up on it, her legs tucked beneath her, and touched the pencil to the paper’s slightly rough surface. “If you want to ask me things about Sector Three, go ahead. Quid pro quo, right?”

One of his fingers tapped against his thigh. “Tell me about the other teachers,” he said finally.

Callie quickly sketched the slight quirk of his brow. “What would you like to know?”

“You’re not all from Three.” That definitely wasn’t a question. “The history teacher…”

“Leah,” she supplied. “She’s from Sector Two. Like me.”

His gaze flicked toward her for a heartbeat. “But not the same house,” he said. “You don’t have the same training.”

The pencil tip jerked slightly, and Callie smoothed away the smudge. “No, we don’t. Leah was an Orchid. I was a Dahlia. Entirely different….specialties, if you will.”

“Hers included combat.” His finger jumped again, before he flexed his hand and seemed to intentionally still himself. “The woman who leads Sector Four. She was an Orchid too?”

“Lex.” Callie smiled. “Lex is famous–or infamous. My advice?” She arched an eyebrow, subtly mimicking his expression. “Never cross an Orchid.”

His lips shifted almost imperceptibly. “I wouldn’t have underestimated her. Or the one who does the scavenging runs. River.”

“River is Sector Three, through and through.” Callie did two quick studies–the angle of his jaw, and the slope of his shoulder into his upper arm. “She’s a good person. Honest to a fault, and shockingly generous. But she doesn’t trust easily. And if you betray her trust, it’s all over for you. Maybe literally.”

“Few trust easily in the Sectors, from what I’ve observed,” he murmured. “It’s rarely advisable.”

“I won’t argue with that.” Callie outlined the angles of his collarbones. “Have you met Blue?”

“Bren pointed her out, but I haven’t spoken to her.” He hesitated. “She seemed…”

“Innocent? Sweet?” Callie looked up to meet his gaze. “Dangerously so, on both counts?”

“Vulnerable,” he said after a moment. “It’s not something many of us have been allowed to be.”

Out of everyone at the school, Callie understood Blue the best. She recognized the other woman’s determination, even when others misinterpreted it as naivete or ignorance.

“You’ve got it all wrong.” Callie tipped the pad up and rested her chin on it. “No one allowed Blue to be vulnerable. It’s gotten her hurt in the past, and it will get her hurt again. But if she lets that pain change her, harden her, wouldn’t that mean they won?”

Sebastian’s gaze locked on her face, and then, after an endless moment, he inclined his head. “I see the distinction.”

His eyes really were remarkable. As deep and dark as the ocean, sharper than any knife. She stared back at him, willing herself to commit them to memory, though she wasn’t sure when she’d be confident enough to try and put them to paper.

The longer she stared, the harder her heart thumped. Finally, when she was sure he’d be able to hear it, she broke away and went back to her sketches.

Bree has recovered from surgery, but we’re still scheduling these ahead as we work on a secret project! Mwahahahaha! This serial was originally posted (mostly!) on Patreon, and has been edited and finished to be posted live on our blog over the next few weeks. But for those who just want it NOW, or who hate reading on a blog and would like an epub… Well here is the epub!

Return to the world after the Beyond Series and meet the residents of Sector Three…

When Ashwin asks Six & Bren to take in an emotionally fractured Makhai soldier, there are a thousand things that could go wrong. But they are hard at work building their school and rebuilding their sector, and Sebastian is a genius who can fix anything. Anything. In return for his help, all they have to do is give him a safe place to find out if his emotional wounds can be healed.

Just one traumatized supersoldier in the middle of a school filled with former feral street kids, war refugees from exclusive brothels, and a few dozen kids who barely know what a school is.

What could go wrong?

—

DISCLAIMERS: this is a serial meant for existing readers of the series. it contains full series spoilers for the Beyond Series and may not make sense if you haven’t read it.

It is also NOT erotic. This is the first part of a very very very slow burn romance between a broken Makhai soldier and an artist who escaped Sector Two after the bombings. There may also be a few other romances a brewing… consider this more like a TV show with multiple members of the cast up to hijinks, even if there are two main characters.

—

Blue’s favorite time was when she had the greenhouse to herself.

She liked the kids, of course. Little ones always loved playing in the dirt, and the older ones tended to treat her like a respected but cool older sister, which was a nice change of pace. Most of the time, people treated her like a nuisance.

It wasn’t that she was particularly annoying–at least, she hoped not. But she was young, and in Sector Three, that was sometimes worse.

It wasn’t even her chronological age that did it. People saw her as young because she was, admittedly, naive. Though an orphan like so many others, Blue had fallen in with a slightly older, harder crowd of kids who had both treasured and envied her innocence. They’d fought hard to shelter her, like nurturing a plant that had sprouted in barren soil. As long as she kept her optimism, it meant there was hope for them all.

Unfortunately, not many folks in Sector Three believed in optimism. It was no better than a fairy tale, a concept for children to outgrow. When they didn’t, it meant they weren’t smart enough to understand reality. And they treated those poor, silly, sunny souls accordingly–like children.

Which was why Blue liked to be alone in the greenhouse. There was no one around to pity her, plus she got to witness that miracle all over again, with the kids and the plants. This time, she got to nurture things until they grew.

“What about kale?”

Of course, the next best thing to being alone in the greenhouse was hanging out with people who didn’t think she was a) silly, or b) a child. Like Hawk and Jeni, who had the greenest thumbs imaginable, and would hop over from Four to help her sometimes.

Hawk had grown up in Sector Six, where huge farms dotted the landscape. They’d been largely destroyed during the war with Eden, but people were starting to flood back in and rebuild. Jeni, on the other hand, had grown up in the city, but she knew so many things that sometimes it made Blue’s head spin.

This time, however, she knew where Jeni was going. “Kale would be good for winter,” she agreed. “We don’t have to plant it in the greenhouse. We could put it in the boxes we’re building outside, and keep this space for more delicate crops.”

“We figured out a lot about conserving space from the roof gardens in Four,” Hawk said, his gaze still studying the unused space. “I know you want the basics, but what are your big dreams?”

He said the word without judgment, without scorn. Blue smiled. “To grow everything the school needs, plus some. There are so many things we could teach the kids then–cooking and preserving food, even how to sell things. We could start a market like the one you have in Four.”

Hawk exchanged a look with Jeni, then nodded. “Strawberries,” he said. “One of my brothers has been cultivating seedlings. They’ll grow in towers and make great jam. Concord grapes, too. Those could go on trellises outside, they’re hardy.”

“Jams and jellies,” Jeni agreed. “Can’t go wrong with small luxuries in a market. Have you thought about livestock?”

“We have some. Six hates it, but chickens only make sense. They don’t take up much room, they’ll eat anything, we can compost the shit for free fertilizer, and eggs.” Blue bit her lip. Six didn’t like farm animals, so she’d been hesitant to share her thoughts. “I’ve been thinking about converting one of the abandoned buildings to a barn. We could have more chickens, and maybe even some goats.”

“Goats,” Hawk agreed immediately. “The Reyes family has been trying to offload some of their animals to focus on horses and cattle. You could get them at a steal. But Six might dig her heels in.”

She probably would, but she’d eventually give in. Six’s bad memories of growing up on a farm wouldn’t stop her from doing what was best for the school. “I’ll mention it to her. Do you have diagrams for the towers and boxes?”

“I’ve got something better.” He pulled one of the new folding tablets out of his pocket and snapped it open, revealing a wide screen. “Mia in Sector Eight decided the rooftop gardens were too good an idea to waste. She and Noah did some computer wizardry and made this.”

As she watched, Hawk input the size of the greenhouse and then tapped his fingers over the screen. “It lets you plan out what sort of structures you want and then exports a list of required resources and building instructions.” He held the tablet out to her.

There was some text on the program, but the interface mainly consisted of images and symbols.

Blue swallowed hard. She could read…sort of. Her education had been as haphazard as everyone else’s in the sector. Her grandmother had raised her, and she’d spent most of her time teaching Blue about plants–what would grow and when, and under what conditions. How to look at them and tell what they needed to thrive. It was the only education she’d had to pass on, so she had.

After her death, Blue had relied on the other kids in her gang to teach her things. One girl had been smart–so smart, maybe even smarter than Six. She’d told Blue that she needed to be able to read, at least a little. Enough to tell safety from danger.

But this program managed to be understandable, even without words. Just knowing there was someone out there, in a whole other sector, thinking about how people might need something like this? It made her throat ache.

“Thanks,” she muttered. “I’ll go over it with River. She’ll be scavenging as many of the materials as she can.”

“Let us know if you come up short on anything.” Hawk’s sudden smile transformed his usually serious face. “Trust me, I know how cranky Sally gets when her supplies are subpar.”

“Thanks, Hawk.” She threw her arms around him for an impulsive hug, then turned and hugged Jeni, as well, mindful of the swell of her pregnant belly. “You guys are the best.”

“Let us know if you need any help with labor, too,” Jeni urged. “We’ll load up a bunch of strapping O’Kanes and drop them at your feet.”

Blue laughed. “Don’t, you’ll make me swoon.”

“Hey.” Jeni sobered. “There’s always a place for you in Four. Dallas said so himself.”

It was tempting, Blue had to admit that. Just like it was tempting to settle in One, or Five, or any of the other sectors that had subtly, respectfully offered to set her up. It would be a fresh start, a chance to be someone new.

But there was no outrunning the past. It would always be part of her, no matter where she went. Besides, Three was her home, and Six needed her. The kids needed her. “Thanks, but I’m staying put. We have a lot of work to do right here.”

“Understood. Remember what I said about the extra hands, though.”

“I will.”

Bree has recovered from surgery, but we’re still scheduling these ahead as we work on a secret project! Mwahahahaha! This serial was originally posted (mostly!) on Patreon, and has been edited and finished to be posted live on our blog over the next few weeks. But for those who just want it NOW, or who hate reading on a blog and would like an epub… Well here is the epub!

Return to the world after the Beyond Series and meet the residents of Sector Three…

When Ashwin asks Six & Bren to take in an emotionally fractured Makhai soldier, there are a thousand things that could go wrong. But they are hard at work building their school and rebuilding their sector, and Sebastian is a genius who can fix anything. Anything. In return for his help, all they have to do is give him a safe place to find out if his emotional wounds can be healed.

Just one traumatized supersoldier in the middle of a school filled with former feral street kids, war refugees from exclusive brothels, and a few dozen kids who barely know what a school is.

What could go wrong?

—

DISCLAIMERS: this is a serial meant for existing readers of the series. it contains full series spoilers for the Beyond Series and may not make sense if you haven’t read it.

It is also NOT erotic. This is the first part of a very very very slow burn romance between a broken Makhai soldier and an artist who escaped Sector Two after the bombings. There may also be a few other romances a brewing… consider this more like a TV show with multiple members of the cast up to hijinks, even if there are two main characters.

—

The solar panels on the roof of Six’s main school building were a disgrace.

No, they were an insult to disgraces.

At some point, Sebastian supposed these would have been considered cutting edge. After all, Eden and the Sectors had originally been envisioned as the city of the future. It had been constructed by experts in the field of self-contained renewable communities. Eden had been designed to be self-sufficient and sustainable for generations.

Whoever had installed this solar array probably hadn’t reckoned with the Sector being firebombed and then left to decay under the ravages of the weather, time, and neglect. A set-up like this should have produced enough power to power a city block. Now it wasn’t even keeping the building going.

Someone had wired a truly horrifying hacked together biofuel generator into the building’s power supply to make up the difference. It spat ugly smoke and smelled vaguely of the garbage that had been recycled into the fuel that ran it. It offended Sebastian even more than the truck engine had.

And Six was proud of it. Probably because this was the best her empire had.

Sector Three was a heartbreaking mess. Crumbling at the edges, held together with grit and stubborn hope and pride. They refused to admit they were all but broken.

They didn’t have to be. He could help.

He wanted to help.

The roof access door opened, hollow metal scraping over the patchy tar. “Hello?”

Sebastian turned, his entire body tensing at the unfamiliar voice, and found himself facing the young woman who’d been sitting with River and Six at breakfast.

She seemed an unlikely threat. Of middling height, her soft curves and sweet expression stood out in a Sector that seemed full of hard-edged, wary predators. Her brown hair was tucked behind her ears, and her flowered sundress revealed pale skin freckled by the sun. A tiny streak of blue rested high on one cheekbone, and the hands clutching a picnic basket in front of her had nails with paint embedded underneath them.

So. This was the artist. “Hello.”

“Hi.” She stared at him, her body stone still and her eyes roving over his face.

And this was why he hadn’t wanted to meet her. As guileless as those brown eyes were, there was something about the way she was looking at him that set his instincts on high alert. His entire life had been a life-or-death struggle to hide the unacceptable parts of him.

Being seen was intensely uncomfortable.

The silence dragged on until he cleared his throat. “Can I help you?”

That broke the spell. She shook her head a little and surged forward, one hand outstretched. “Sorry. I’m Callie. I teach here.”

He stared at her hand. His fingers itched. Did his promise to Bren extend to engaging in social rituals? No doubt if he asked, they’d reassure him that he could draw whatever boundaries he wished. Everyone here was positively frantic to protect him. Even the tiny children.

His pride finally pushed to the breaking point, he ignored his unease and reached out to clasp her hand. Her fingers were warm in his, smaller than his own but surprisingly strong. Her skin was soft, but she had calluses on her ring finger and thumb.

Definitely the artist.

His skin buzzed where they touched, but he ignored it. He was good at ignoring things. “I’m Sebastian. Bast.”

“From the Base, I know. You weren’t at lunch, and Bren said you were working on the power, so I brought you a basket. I thought you might be–” Her breath caught, staunching the flow of her words. “You’re beautiful.”

Sebastian blinked. “Excuse me?”

She blinked as well. “What? No, I mean… You… I’m an artist, and your face…” She sighed. “Your face is art.”

Sebastian quite literally did not know what to say. He stood with his hand still extended, grasping hers, utterly at a loss for words.

She relaxed, as if speaking had opened a pressure valve. Her smile was brilliant as she released his hand and lifted the basket. “Can we talk while we eat?”

He thought, briefly, about turning her down. But the earnest brightness in her eyes felt like something rare and precious. He didn’t particularly enjoy crushing people’s joy–much to the Base’s chagrin–and he was hungry. Eating was rational. Sharing the meal was a fulfilment of his obligation to Bren.

Such clever rationalizations. It appeared even he was vulnerable to having people say nice things to him.

Moving slowly, he unbuckled the heavy tool belt from his hips. “Thank you for bringing me lunch.”

“It’s my pleasure.” She ducked beneath the tattered awning that had been set up adjacent to the roof stairwell enclosure.

There was a table there–for breaks, he assumed. Callie set the basket on one of the rickety folding chairs and pulled out a tablecloth, which she unfurled over the rough stone surface.

She made quick work of unpacking the rest of the basket, then stood there, her hands on her hips, and surveyed the spread. “Just sandwiches, but I snagged an extra bottle of lemonade and some coffee.”

“Sandwiches are good.” He picked up a towel and scrubbed it over his hands, though he had grease as deeply embedded under his fingernails as the paint was hers. “What did you want to talk about?”

“I’d like to hire you.”

He hesitated with one hand on the back of the second chair, confused again. “If you need something fixed, it’s not necessary to hire me. I’m here to help.”

“Not for that.” She sat and primly unfolded a napkin across her lap. “As a model.”

His fingers clenched around the flimsy chair. The metal bent slightly under his grip. He’d been demoted from terrifying monster to purely decorative over the span of thirty-six incredibly baffling hours.

“You want a model,” he said flatly. “Do you know what I am?”

“Of course. You’re Sebastian Montoya.” She opened one container and looked up at him. “Green beans?”

Bren and Six were warriors to their fingernails. River was clearly a survivor, and dangerous in her own right. And the child this morning hadn’t known the kind of beast she was poking.

But Callie did. She sat there, sweet-faced and utterly earnest, staring up at him like he wasn’t strong enough to bend metal with his bare hands and trained to do the same to human necks without feeling or regret.

Only he didn’t find it quirky this time. Or odd. Or mildly irritating or reluctantly amusing. Her vulnerability enraged him. She shouldn’t put herself at risk like this. She shouldn’t trust him.

Bracing one hand on the table, he bent down until his face was even with hers. “Men like me are dangerous,” he said softly. “I’m not here to hurt anyone. But if you approached another Makhai soldier like this, you likely wouldn’t survive the experience. Tell me you won’t.”

Her smile softened into something almost sad. “Don’t worry, Sebastian. I know all about dangerous men. But you do have my word–I won’t approach any other Makhai soldiers.”

It didn’t soothe him. If anything, the sadness in her eyes made the itching under his skin worse. And that resigned tone of voice, the echo of pain. Soft, almost hidden…but it had been hidden on the Base, too. Sebastian had manufactured the reassignment–and eventual rescue–of more than one domestic handler assigned to his colder Makhai brothers.

Callie was likely from Sector Two. It was unlikely the men there presented the same kind of physical threat as a Makhai soldier, but there were many ways to abuse power. So many ways to hurt people.

Swallowing the need to extract a name from her, he slid into the chair and made a peace offering. “I like green beans.”

Her smile returned, clear and brighter than ever, unencumbered by pain. She served the plates and passed him a wrapped bundle of cutlery. “I understand if you’d rather not make any firm commitments, or if the idea of being paid for something like that…” She trailed off, then cleared her throat. “You could do it as a favor to me, and I would owe you one. Or several.”

Making her smile felt better. He parted his lips to agree, just to do it again, but his brain caught up. “I’m a man who isn’t supposed to exist. It might be best if my face isn’t displayed publicly. And safer for you, after I’m gone.”

“Oh. I didn’t think of that.” Callie bit her lower lip, then reached across the table, her hand stopping just shy of his. “I’ll work around it. If you don’t want your face to be visible, I’ll do profiles, or maybe shadows. And I’ll swear to you right now, up front, that everything will remain private. No one but us ever has to see it. No one else even has to know.”

Her fingers were too close. He could feel them, even though she wasn’t touching him. At least he had regained enough self-control not to show it by jerking his hand away. He held himself perfectly still and considered her offer.

It seemed harmless. It would clearly ingratiate him to her, and undoubtedly please Bren and Six. But more importantly, if she was from Sector Two…

The irrationality of the people in this sector was threatening to succeed where the Base had failed. If he couldn’t find a way to understand them, he really would crack. Surely a woman trained to understand people–the woman who had created the art in his room with such naked clarity of vision–could explain the people here to him.

“Not a favor,” he said firmly. “An exchange.”

She opened her mouth, and he could see the eager agreement she hadn’t yet voiced. Then she stopped, arched one eyebrow, and eyed him with something approaching skepticism. “What do you want?”

“Information.” He settled back in his chair, sliding his hand from hers. “I don’t understand the culture or people here. I don’t know how to contextualize their behavior. I suspect you do.”

“I’m not from here,” she told him dubiously, “and I’m not sure how much contextualization has to happen. People in Three tend to pretty much say what they mean.”

“I’m interested in your insight regardless. Especially as someone not from here.”

Callie took a deep breath and released it on a small sigh, her shoulders falling. “Honestly? This doesn’t seem fair to you. I’m asking for literal hours of your free time, and you only…want me to tell you what the people here are like?”

Sebastian nodded. “I asked for what I wanted. You can accept or decline.”

“I accept,” she said quickly, her hurry melting into a rueful smile. “I don’t approve, but I accept.”

He caught her gaze and held it, stifling another surge of irritation at her sincere lack of self-preservation. “One thing you can always trust is that a Makhai soldier knows how to look out for their own interests. You should be more suspicious.”

She just nodded politely, smiled again, and took a bite of her sandwich.

He could have proved his point. Risen from this chair and snapped the stone table in half with his bare hands, or any number of intimidating displays of his genetically enhanced danger. He suspected at this point that it would only earn him a disapproving look, like a school child who’d decided to misbehave.

Whatever else the people of this sector were, they were certainly survivors.

And Sebastian was no bully. Destruction for the sake of intimidation was–

pain. fire in his veins.

–wrong.

He swallowed down the nausea that always came with challenging their attempts at recalibration, and reached for one of the sandwiches. It was simple but good, made from fresh ingredients. His appetite was slowly returning. Surely that was a good sign.

Maybe he wasn’t entirely broken.

“Lucky you, you get a head start.”

“A head start?”

“Yes.” She rewrapped half her sandwich and braced her elbows on the table. “Ask me anything.”

He considered for a moment. He wanted to ask about her–and about who might have put that shadow of pain in her eyes, so he could find them and remove from them the capacity to repeat the experience–but it felt too revealing and too raw. So he asked something safe. “Tell me about Bren and Six.”

“Six is local. She had a difficult time under the last sector leader, Wilson Trent. He hurt her. She spent some time over in Four with the O’Kanes, and now she’s back, running the place.” Callie retrieved one of the bottles of lemonade and tilted it back and forth, a slow-motion agitation. “She has a plan to rebuild–I’m guessing that’s where you come in. But nothing is more important to her than this school.” She shrugged. “I don’t know as much about Bren. He’s from Eden, got booted from Special Tasks, then fell in with O’Kane over in Four. That’s how he and Six met. But sometimes…” She hesitated. “Sometimes, I get the feeling his background isn’t so different from Six’s. He’s got the same street-kid air as some of the others. It’s sad.”

“Is that why they’re spending so much time on the school?”

Callie’s gaze sharpened, filled with appraisal as she studied him. “I think so, yes.”

“It’s questionable strategically,” he explained, in response to her look. “The resources she’s put into this could have already rebuilt their manufacturing capacity. Given the rebuilding going on in multiple sectors, that would be the quickest way to achieve financial independence. That’s the way people are trained to think on the Base. Resources first, people second.”

“How very short-sighted of them.”

“Mmm.” He finished his sandwich and washed it down with a sip of tart lemonade. Six and Bren could be investing in the future of their Sector–an educated work force would be able to produce at a far superior level. But Sebastian suspected their motivations had been more personal.

More irrational.

He finished the lemonade and exhaled, bracing himself for the question he had to ask. “When would you like me to sit for you?”

She bit her lower lip. “Tomorrow afternoon? I’m free after two.”

During daylight. That felt safer, somehow. Perhaps the intimacy of being alone, under her too-observant gaze, would be somewhat blunted by fierce sunlight. “I should be available, as long as I can fix these solar panels today.”

“If you need to change it, just let me know.” She rose and began to efficiently gather the remains of their lunch. “You’re the one doing me the favor. I’ll rearrange my schedule, if I have to.”

What were you supposed to say to end a conversation like this? He’d had so few, nothing felt natural. His chair almost collapsed under him as he shoved it back, and he rose swiftly and found himself hovering, unsure if he should help clean up.

Enough.

Enough.

He might not be conversant in pretty manners, but he was a grown man who’d navigated far more treacherous waters than this. He’d survived and even sometimes thrived on a Base that wanted to destroy the essence of who he was.

He would not be skittish around one small, harmless artist.

Clearing his throat, he moved to hoist his tool belt. “I’ll make the schedule work. Tomorrow, at two. Where should I meet you?”

“I have a studio next door to the greenhouse–upstairs.” Her smile turned shy as she handed him two extra bottles of the lemonade. “I’ll see you then.”

She vanished through the door, taking her brightly colored sundress and pretty picnic basket with her. The roof seemed sadder and grayer than before, somehow. The grimy solar panels more desperate, the sputtering generator more neglected.

That was dangerous. He’d started ascribing moods to inanimate objects.

Feelings were truly insidious.

He set both bottles of lemonade down on the sad little stone table and turned his back deliberately on them. Then he buckled on his work belt and told himself that his determination to finish rewiring the solar panels tonight was about getting this building back on efficient power, and nothing else.

Lying to himself was insidious, too.