American Queen

He chews on his lip, the guilt practically slicing up from under his skin. “So you see, it doesn’t matter that I didn’t know. I still did it. I chose it. I enjoyed it. I even had fond memories of it until Jenny’s funeral.”

I remember Merlin’s story. “That’s when she told you.”

A bitter smile. “Yes. The perfect time for her, I suppose. A way to gut me and try to ruin my campaign. But then why take me to the club and try to help me the very next week? Sometimes I think she herself doesn’t know how she really feels about me.”

“Merlin said her father raised her to hate you.”

Ash shrugs, looking down to where the gold of my hair spills out from underneath my hat. He twines the ends around his leather-clad fingers. “That’s true. I don’t doubt that in the least, but…” a pause “…she hates me because of something else. Something I did in Carpathia.”

“To her? But I’m sure you didn’t mean to. You helped so many people there, saved so many lives.”

He swallows. “I’m not a hero, Greer. I hate it when people say that. I did the best I could, I tried to win battles and save my fellow soldiers and as many civilians as I could, but I did bad things there. All those men I killed…so many…and God, I wish I’d shot them all. I wish. But so many of the battles were in villages and towns, we were clearing out places building by building, room by room. I stabbed them. Strangled them. Beaten them to death. At the end of the war, they’d resorted to using teenagers, just barely tall enough to fit into their uniforms, and not just boys, but girls too. Do you know what it’s like to be attacked in the dark, to stab or punch or choke and then get out your flashlight and realize you’ve just killed a teenaged girl?”

“Ash,” I say softly. “I had no idea.”

A joyless laugh. “Now you know why I can’t sleep.”

“So what happened with Morgan?”

He keeps his gaze studiously on my hair. “She came to visit the base a few months after that week in Prague. It was a little outside official channels, but the Leffeys are a powerful family. The kind that can pull strings whenever and wherever they want. She said she was there to see Embry, but I suspect she was really there to see me. Not that it mattered, we were so busy that neither of us had time to see her, and one day…well, there was a town famous for its medieval church nearby, next to a little lake. Morgan went that morning to tour the church, and we didn’t think anything of it. Except that evening, we got word that the separatists were getting close, and we had to evacuate the civilians in the town. But we were too late. The separatists got there first. It ended up being the first real battle of what would become the war. My first real battle.

“They’d locked up all the men and women they could find in the church while they looted the homes. All the children they’d put on a boat. For security, I think. To keep the adults of the town compliant while they pillaged it, to force the men to join their army. But maybe there was a miscommunication. Or maybe it was never just for security. By the time we got to the village, the boat was on fire.”

My hand flies to my mouth. “With the children?”

Ash nods, grimly. “That’s all we knew at first. Hostiles present, civilians locked in the church, children on a burning boat.”

“What did you do?”

“I was only barely in command then. Just a second lieutenant. I was so young, and I…” He looks hopeless. “I chose the children. I sent four men to the church. But the rest of us went to the docks. We were dodging enemy fire the whole time, trying to find a couple boats to steal, going across the lake. But we made it. We got to the boat and found an older child fighting off the fire with an extinguisher. We got all seventeen children off safely.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God.”

“But the adults in the church…” his voice is tight, tormented. “I should have known better. I should have realized it was a trap. I should have sent more men. All four killed, and all of the civilians, the church lit on fire. We fought our way to the church, chased off the separatists, and opened the doors to complete carnage and flames. Almost forty men and women shot. Only one survived.”

“Morgan?” I guess.

“I knew she was there. I knew the odds of her being in the church were high. But the boat…” Ash spreads his hands out, palms up, as if pleading with me to understand.

“She survived, though. She lived.”

Ash slumps those powerful shoulders. “Barely. Shot in the shoulder. She played dead. When we found her, she was underneath two other bodies, unconscious from blood loss and surrounded by fire. When she woke up, the story she heard from the army doctors was that we’d chosen to rescue another group of civilians, even though we knew she was in the church. I don’t think any other circumstances mattered to her after that.”

“But that’s so unfair!” I explode. “Anyone would have chosen the children!”

“Greer, she almost died. It was mere luck that the bullet missed anything vital, and even more luck that we managed to pull her out before the church burned down around her. She would have died because I didn’t properly allocate my men, because I didn’t think about the situation critically enough. Yes, I had to choose those children, but there was a way I could have saved everyone, and I didn’t see it. I was too panicked and inexperienced, and it almost cost her life. Of course she hates me. I knew she was in danger and I chose not to come after her.”