Page 111 of Aviatrix

We don’t bother landing on the south runway. Lark’s already been alerted. Might as well face the fallout head-on.

Gary touches down first. I follow close behind, wiping my cheeks and setting my jaw.

Lark’s waiting in the hangar, arms crossed, face dark red. The second my boots hit the tarmac, he starts.

“We have a protocol!” he shouts.

“I’m aware,” I say sharply, trying to brush past him.

Lark steps in my path. “You broke it.”

“You broke a lot more,” I shoot back. “Or do rules only apply to me?”

Gary exhales behind me. “It was my call.”

Lark’s eyes narrow. “You’re dismissed, Lieutenant.”

“I—” Gary starts again.

“I know who orchestrated this,” Lark firmly overrides him. “Get inside.”

Gary throws me a regretful glance before heading in.

Lark turns back to me. “Why do you insist on making this harder than it already is?”

“I needed to know,” I force out. “For myself.”

“What do you think I was doing?” he fires back. “Sitting on my ass? I was reviewing radar, assembling a team, doing everything I could to confirm if your boyfriend was alive or not.”

I flinch.

“I don’t care if you hate me,” he goes on. “I don’t care if you don’t like the rules. This isn’t about you. We follow protocol to keep people alive. You risked that today. You risked Atlas. And yourself.”

“I—”

“I’m not done,” he barks. “You’re on my base. Under my command. You don’t fly solo missions. You don’t make unilateral calls. I didn’t assign you to Alien Warfare, the General did. But you report to me. Clear?”

The word barely makes it out. “Clear.”

He straightens. “Effective immediately, you’re grounded. No more flight access until further notice.”

“N-no,” I choke out. “You can’t.”

“I just did.” His tone is flat. Cold. He’s not my Lark right now. He’s the Colonel.

“Screw you,” I say, throat throbbing. “You owe me. For everything. For cheating on me. For humiliating me. For making me believe—”

“You’re doing fine,” he interjects, his jaw clenching. “Didn’t take you long to run right back to him.”

My vision blurs. “If I did, it’s because you made it easy.”

He looks at me, hard. Then says, low and bitter, “I always wondered why you never set a wedding date.”

My breath catches.

Is he seriously insinuating it was because of Eli?

“You can lie to yourself about it all you want,” he continues, “but we both know the reason.”