The stones that made up the hallway looked like broken cement pieced back together. The edges were jagged, and Rea felt like the floor. His life was split apart with Karma gone. In the week since she'd left, he'd shattered somehow.
He walked down the hallway, weary after the training today. Even though he'd promised himself he wasn't going to do it, he thought about her anyway.
Rea stopped at Gears' door. He had filled his life with every conceivable project he could think of. He had taken extra guard duty, helped in the mess hall, cleaned animal stalls, and polished weapons. He was running out of work to keep his mind off of her leaving him again.
While staring at Gears' door, he silently wished he could ask his friend for advice. If only the doctor could give him a drug that would make him forget her. Maybe Gears could erase all his memories of Karma.
Raising his hand, Rea knocked on the metal door with a loud rap. The sharp tap bounced off the cold stones of the large hallway. The base doctor opened the door.
"What is it, Mac?" His friend planted his shoulder against the door frame and touched the center of his glasses.
"I was hurt at training. I need you to fix it up. It's on the back of my leg. I can't see it very well. Cleanliness is next to godliness, right?"
"Fine, I'll be there in ten minutes." Gears started to close the door but then paused. "Is there anything else you want to say?"
"No," Rea stubbornly lied.
After what happened with Karma, there was a separation between them. He couldn't forgive himself for what happened, and he didn't expect Gears to either. Damn it, but he hated her. Rea hated her for making him feel this way. She'd ruined his once peaceful world. He had plans to move on with his life. Rea planned to leave this base and start on a different path. Her showing up changed that somehow. Her intrusion into his life had him asking all sorts of questions about what he really wanted. The worst of it was that Rea discovered that maybe what he really wanted was her.
It was all Karma's fault that Gears and he couldn't get along anymore. It was all her fault he was now unhappy with his life, and he was doing a piss-poor job of training the men.
Well, none of it was actually her fault, but he was going to blame her anyway. What Rea needed was to be able to boot her out of his life as she'd done to him. They never really had anything but teenage puppy love. He should've listened to Gears from the beginning.
"Hey, Mac, did they ever find the missing equipment?" Gears asked before Rea could leave.
"No. She took the extra guns, Brice's winter clothes, and the new snowmobile with the heated cover you just perfected. She's long gone. I want to blame the men for leaving those items unsecured, but I should've tied her up or kept her in interrogation. I should've killed her in the greenhouse. I could've killed her a hundred times."
He waited for Gears to say, "I told you so." It never came.
"I got to thinking about it, and if it had been my girlfriend, I'd have done what you did." Gears pushed up his glasses. "I had no right to judge you. Besides, I'll say this, you were happier with her here than I've ever seen you before."
Rea didn't want to hear that. He wanted everything to go back to the way it used to be.
Soon the training would be over, and then he would go far away. Some place, he wouldn't be able to remember Karma's name. Since she'd left, he'd talked briefly to Ken about the whole situation and the gap that existed with Gears. In the end, Ken didn't have answers, and he was still stuck on this water base. She haunted him in a way he couldn't explain.
Rea gave Gears a curt nod and didn't say goodbye. He couldn't trust himself to talk. He wanted to yell and punch something. Instead, he spun on his heel and walked back to his room. He was so strung out. His body ached with the tension to hold it all in. His mind begged for sleep, and that was part of the problem.
As he strolled along the corridor, Rea reviewed the events of his day. He'd been preoccupied at training, and one of the men had knifed him in the back of his leg. Ken had suggested he get some rest. He pointed out how absent he'd become at training.
After Gears looked at his injury, Rea would crash. Maybe Gears could give him a sleeping pill to knock him out until tomorrow. Sleep that didn't have him dreaming about Karma seemed like heaven. It had been a hellish week, and a part of him screamed that she wasn't coming back. He asked himself if he wanted her to. No, he couldn't have her back in his life. She would make him love her. Karma would fill his life with her energy and spirit, and then she would leave again. He couldn't go through that a second time. It hurt. He didn't want her to come back. That's what he insisted when he talked to Gears, Ken, and himself.
Rea stopped in front of his door. He dropped his forehead against the entrance instead of going inside. His hands refused to twist the knob. He couldn't stand looking at his bed and remembering how he held her. When he was all alone, he speculated on whether she was alive or dead. She was a killer. She was probably dead or killing people. Both were dark thoughts.
He wished he could go back in time and figure out a way to keep her. He wanted to know who had turned her into an assassin. Who had made her do this kind of work? Did she want to do this?
When he heard some of his men walking down the hall, Rea glanced up. He quickly opened his door and clicked the light switch for his overhead light. He frowned when the room stayed dark. He punched the switch again. The light above the bed flickered but didn't come on.
He'd tried to fix it by himself last night, but the lamp was still busted.
His mud-soaked shirt fought with him as he struggled to remove it. Finally, he tossed the garment to the floor. Walking to the bathroom, Rea flipped on the small light above the sink. He paused at the threshold of the bathroom.
Something was wrong. He spun around to assess what was making him uneasy.
As he turned, he found Karma staring at him.