Red as the Dawn

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

(/Mare/)

"But I want to go with you!" Maggie cried as she clutched Cal's legs. She had latched onto him from the moment she had found out that we weren't taking her with us to Cancorda. On the morning of our departure, she had follow us around, whining about how it wasn't fair that Torin and Chelsea got to go, but she didn't. Her cries and pleas were almost pitiful, and she eventually resulted to grabbing Cal's ankle and made him drag her across the floor like a whining puppy that didn't want to be left behind. He had given her a stern lecture, and she'd stopped long enough for us to finish packing and load our gear in the truck we would be taking.

Now, she was on a mission to make us take her. She'd pestered poor Torin until he had literally pushed her out of the room and slammed the door in her face. When she'd gone after Chelsea, the older girl had put up an illusion to hide herself, which actually resulting in Cal and me thinking she was a random end table that was standing in the middle of the hallway. She'd tried to turn her advances onto Farley, who being normally awkward around children, patted her head, turned her body around, and pushed her on Cal again.

"Maggie, I wish you could, but it's not safe." Cal admonished while he tried to pry Maggie's arms from around his legs. I had seen how much it pained him to leave her behind, especially leaving her this distraught, and I had taken charge of her for the morning, so that he didn't have to dwell on the thought and change his mind. Maggie had found a way back to Cal, though, and her cries had been quickly followed by childish tears, then embarrassing outbursts that had actually turned heads.

Cal finally managed to pull Maggie off of him, which resulted in more tears, until he scooped her up and set her on the edge of the truck bed so that she was more eye level with him. "And acting like this is not going to change the fact that you're safer here."

I sat next to her, and putting my arm around her shoulders, I pulled her close and added, "Besides, if you're here,Cal and I don't have to worry about something happening to you. You do know that Chelsea and Torin are being separated from us, right? And they would have put you with someone else too?"

She shook her head and wiped her nose on her jacket sleeve. Cal sighed at the action, then leaning his lower back against the truck on the other side of Maggie, he whispered, "And we don't trust anyone else with you."

Maggie looked up at him with big, sorrowful eyes, and managed through her choked throat, "But I can come with you guys on another mission?"

"Of course, as soon as you've learned enough and can protect yourself with your ability. This is going to be a very dangerous mission, Maggie, and we want you in the relay station helping Maribel. You can't do that if you're acting like this." I replied, running my hand up and down her back soothingly. She trained her eyes on me and nodded as she recalled one of the sayings Cal had started saying regularly, "You can't fight if you don't have a clear head."

"Exactly, and we need you to have a clear head, so that you can tell Maribel if something is going to happen." Cal smiled as he ran his hand over Maggie curls. His fingers brushed mine near her neck, and he pulled away like I had shocked him. We made eye contact over her head, and I looked away quickly. Our encounter in the shower room was still fresh in my mind, and apparently, it was still a fresh wound with him.

Maggie looked between us momentarily, and although she was blind, there was no doubt in my mind that she had seen the awkward tension between us. She opened her mouth to ask me, but was interrupted by Farley arriving with an older man.

He had dark brown hair and piercing blue eyes, at the most, he was probably thirty. Under his arm, he carried a case that had wires sticking out of it in all directions. I looked down at his package warily as Farley introduced him. "Mare, Cal, this is Isaiah, one of our other techs. You will be escorting him into the command center."