Supernova

Chapter Thirty Four - Cass and Nova to the Rescue

When I got back to The Academy and back to our room, I found that Elias had already returned, and was waiting for me. He smiled as he lifted his hand in a wave, and I did the same. I was happy to see him, but the moment felt heavy. He once again held his unscarred hand out towards me.

"Princess Stronghold," he greeted me, his tone reluctant.

"Heir Claeson," I said back, sounding the same. I looked away from him as he kissed my hand, which he definitely noticed. "How were your holidays?"

"Not exactly what I had hoped them to be," he admitted. "But pleasant nonetheless."

"If this is just going to be nice while it lasts," I started, shaking his words and their weight from my mind and off my back. "Could you just call me Cassanova instead?"

"If it's all the same." He was smiling with a certain kind of knowing that I would not understand until after I had left The Academy. "I'd prefer to call you Nova."

"Of course," I told him, suddenly enjoying having my given name dropped completely. It made me feel like a spy.

Demon was still pissed at me, actively demonstrated in his refusal to answer his door, mindful scoffing and ignorance when I tracked him down in the training gyms, and his sharp tongue telling me that I should be ashamed of myself for using precious oxygen and food to power something so useless. He also told me not to bother waiting around for them for the next tour, and that I should pick something dangerous enough to get me and my equally useless slug killed. Because he deserved it, I let him have it. Needles, who hovered at his side, didn't say anything. I didn't know what bullshit Demon had spewed off to him to justify his anger, but I assumed that the fact that Demon's rage extended to Elias pleased him, and because he deserved that, I let him have that too.

I was feeling cocky from our month with Demon and Needles, and we tried our hand at camping, just us prissy kids. I'd camped with the staff members and other teammates on mission in New York. It couldn't be that hard. However, I didn't think to check the location or the forecast. It rained in a downpour the entire time, and not only did I not bring any tarps, but I was unable to make a fire. We spent all our time in the tent, Elias wrapped in both sleeping bags and reading under the lantern, moving his books from side to side to avoid the drops, which were falling from multiple weak points in the roof, me using whatever clothes I'd brought to soak up the leaks as they pooled in and dripped down, flashing him silent apologetic looks.

"We're really bad at this," I finally admitted, halfway into the second night. He hadn't complained, not even once, but I hated watched him shiver and knowing he was uncomfortable.

Elias smiled back at me, with no reaction outside of his trembling and breathing on his frigid fingertips. "If anyone asks, it went effortlessly."

"Til death?" I asked him.

"On God," he said back, laughing slightly.

We packed up the next morning and made our way to the mission site. Outside of speed of transportation, it was the same general level of ease. We got into the target house with minimal trouble from any security, retrieved the stolen candelabra, ran back to the rest of our rain-soaked things and called for the extraction immediately, kissing under the small dry patch we'd managed to find under a large tree's protective branches until we heard the whipping of the blades.

After we'd gotten back, unpacked and repacked, I mentioned that we'd best be more mindful of the missions we chose. Elias agreed, the disappointment heavy on his face as he lifted his waterlogged books out of his bag and into the bin under our sink. On our way to select our next mission from the two-person section, he leaned into me, mischief taking up most of his face, and told me that if it was going to be nice while it lasts, we'd might as well have as much fun as we could. I knew exactly what he meant when I read over the R stamped clipboard that he'd selected and handed me. I also knew that I should not be as excited as I was, and suddenly recognized that whatever dark deviation my soul had embedded in it, Elias had the exact same one.