Edge of Dawn(56)

Later, she promised herself, drying her hands and then stepping outside to the bunker’s main corridor. Once she was there, she realized she didn’t really know where to go.

She couldn’t bring herself to go to Kellan’s quarters to sit and wait for him. And she knew it wasn’t her place to intrude on discussions or activities taking place between him and his diminished crew. Mira started walking, and soon found herself stepping past Candice’s room.

She glanced in only briefly, but it was enough to notice that the young woman was awake, lying in her bed on her back. Her injured leg was bent at the knee and elevated with a mound of pillows and folded blankets, most of which had at some point toppled off to the side. She was trying to reach for them, struggling helplessly.

Mira blew out a sigh and took a reluctant step inside. “Here, let me help you with that.”

“Thanks.” Candice settled back in a slump, watching as Mira straightened the mess and carefully placed the restored mound under Candice’s leg.

Mira glanced up. “How’s that?”

“Better.” She was still as pale as the sheets that covered her, little color in her lips, which curved into a small smile. “Will you bring me a sip of water, please?”

“Sure.” Mira grabbed the cup and straw from the rickety nightstand beside the bed and held the drink while Candice sucked weakly. “How are you feeling?”

“Good.” She nodded for Mira to set the cup down. “Doc says I’m going to make it. No walking for a week or so, and I’ll have to take things slow for a while.”

“But you’re alive,” Mira pointed out, and she felt genuinely glad about it.

“Yeah. Doc’s the best. He’s a good man.” Candice was looking past Mira now, her jet-black eyebrows knitting into a small frown. “Where’s everyone else?”

“They’re around,” Mira said. “There were things that needed to be done. Things for Chaz . . .”

She said it gently, not wanting to upset Candice. But the woman’s hazel eyes went a darker shade of green as tears welled up in them. “Have they already buried him?”

“Not yet. I heard them talking about taking care of that later tonight. They want to do right by him. I heard them say his life deserves a worthy acknowledgment.”

“Bowman,” Candice said, smiling again, bigger than before. “That sounds like something he would say.”

Mira stared, neither acknowledging nor denying it. But it had been he who’d said the words. It had been he who’d carried Chaz’s lifeless body out of the cell and into a private chamber somewhere deep in the bunker. It had been he who’d informed the others that he wanted to perform a burial worthy of the warrior who’d served with honor and had fallen too soon.

Candice’s eyes were locked on Mira in soft understanding. “Bowman’s a good man too. I have a feeling you know that better than any of us.”

Mira started to shake her head, but the denial wouldn’t come. Instead she murmured, “It was a long time ago.”

Candice’s expression softened even more. “I don’t need to know what he was called then, but I know it wasn’t Bowman. I knew that from the minute he gave me the lie, when he finally woke up after two months of watching over him, unsure if he’d ever open his eyes, let alone speak. I didn’t need to know his real name then either, or what he’d done that put him in the middle of a war zone.”

Mira couldn’t speak. Could only look at Candice and listen, reliving the private hell of the night she’d lost Kellan and his new life began.

“I figured he’d tell me his name one day, but he never did. Eventually I stopped looking for those answers.” Candice brought her hand out from under the coverlet and laid it over the top of Mira’s. “It didn’t take long before I learned all I needed to know about the Breed male named Bowman who chose to live among humans instead of his own kind. I saw for myself that he was honorable. Not long after he was recovered, he learned there was a rebel faction looking to sell a group of young women into prostitution. The deal had already been struck with some bad men from overseas, but on the night the rebels were to make the trade, Bowman stepped in to derail the exchange and free those girls single-handed.”

Mira was hardly surprised to hear it, having seen Kellan in action when they were part of the same unit for the Order. He was a fierce warrior, afraid of nothing when it came to combat and protecting those who couldn’t do for themselves. Apparently those qualities had followed him into this other part of his life too, in spite of the fact he now straddled a threadbare moral line.