Apex Five: Mech Elite novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Trust Me

I did not sleep in the bunk Ronan gave me.

It was a steel cot behind a curtain in the back of the hangar, with a clean blanket and a lamp that buzzed.

I lay on top of the blanket in my flight suit and listened to the core on the bench pulse in the dark.

Four dead frames.

All of them still answering me.

At two in the morning I gave up and went out to the kitchen table.

Ronan was already there.

He sat with his scarred forearm flat on the wood and a cold mug beside him, going through a stack of old paper contracts one page at a time.

He did not look up.

"You're supposed to be resting," he said.

"You're supposed to be sleeping."

"I don't sleep before a qualifier."

"The qualifier is on Friday."

"I don't sleep before that either."

I sat down across from him, and for a minute neither of us said anything.

The lamp lit his jaw and the old weld scars on his arm.

I looked at them longer than I meant to.

"Does it hurt?" I asked.

"Only when someone asks."

"Then I take it back."

His mouth moved, a very small movement, almost a smile.

Then the alarm on the hangar gate went off.

Ronan was on his feet before the second chime.

I followed him to the side door.

On the security screen, a woman stood alone under the dock lamp with her arms wrapped around a flight bag.

Her dark bob was soaked.

Her left cheekbone was swollen purple.

Mira.

"Don't open it," I said.

Ronan looked at me.

"It's your hangar. It's your door."

"It's your friend."

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