Rachel
She hit the double doors at the front of the embassy and pushed one open, emerging into the late afternoon, or maybe early evening sky. It didn’t really matter what she termed it. It was cooling down already, and promising a chilly night ahead.
“So, back to my place then?” she asked, making her way to the stairs and taking the railing.
It hit her when she was halfway down the stairs that there had been no reply. Turning, she realized that Hector was at the doors, holding onto one of them, looking out over the town. Rachel looked at him, taking in his facial expression, his body language and positioning. He was keeping himself closed off to her, half-resting the front of his body on the door itself.
“You’re not coming back with me, are you?” she asked, pitching her voice low.
“You should go on ahead,” he replied.
“Why? Why can’t we go together? When are you coming?”
Hector’s jaw worked, but he didn’t say anything.
“You are coming, aren’t you?”
Hector’s shoulders rose and fell, then he shook his head, still refusing to meet her eyes. “You should go,” he said, his lips barely moving as the words came out. “It would be better that way.”
“Better?” she asked with a bark of laughter. “Better?”
“Yes,” he said solemnly.
“Excuse me? Who the hell are you to decide what’s better for me? I want you to come back with me. I think I know best!”
Hector’s head moved in a negative. “I can’t.”
“Why the fuck not?” she snapped, storming back up the stairs until she was as close to nose-to-nose with him as she could get despite the foot height difference.
Hector opened his mouth but she poked him in the chest first. Hard. “You will look at me when you speak.”
His haunted brown eyes snapped down to focus on her with such force that she rocked back slightly, terrified of the look she saw in them.
“You heard Andrew,” he said softly, the pain in his eyes reflected in his words. “I’m being recalled back to Cadia. That isn’t a temporary thing, Rachel. Once I go, I’m never coming back. Ever. Do you understand that? Perhaps two days, maximum, and then I am gone.”
She felt her eyes well up as he spoke a truth she’d known, but so far refused to completely acknowledge. “I know that,” she snapped. “I’m not stupid. Maybe I want to spend those last forty-eight hours with you. Did your thick head ever consider that possibility? Did it?’
Hector looked away.
“I thought not.”
“It’s inevitable,” he protested. “Why make it even more painful than it already has to be? Just go home, go be with your friends, your groups. Forget about me, and try to start moving on,” he pleaded. “It will be far easier this way, I promise you.”
“Easy?” she shouted, her anger starting to get the better of her. “You think it’s going to be easy to just wave goodbye to you? After the way you came storming into my life, turned it upside down, and made me fall so hard for you? Now you just want to push me away, just like that? Who the hell do you think you are, Hector Gorchan? You have some nerve.”
“Rachel.”
She could hear his voice breaking, but she was so mad she couldn’t feel sorrow for him. It wasn’t fair. He couldn’t just waltz into her life, wait for her to fall in love with him, and then leave. “It’s not fair,” she said quietly.
“What else do you want me to do?” he asked helplessly. “I can’t fight this. If I refuse to go, I become hunted. They’ll send the others after me. When they find me, they’ll be within their rights to kill me. Do you get it? I have to go.”
“Maybe,” she said, slamming her fist into the other door, making the glass shake. “But you have two days before you do. Don’t give up. Fight for yourself. Find a way to fix this.”
Hector snorted. “It doesn’t work that way, Rachel. I’m sorry.”
Her vision became obscured. “Don’t do this, Hector. Please.”
There was a pause. “It’s for the best, Rachel. It really is.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head, tears falling down her cheeks. “I refuse to believe that.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Maybe, maybe this is what I deserve, for letting Corvin die while I was on duty. Maybe this is my fate.”
She continued to shake her head back and forth. “I refuse to believe that, Hector. You’re stronger than this. You have more fight in you. Find it. Then find me.”
Without a second thought she turned and walked away, making her way down the stairs as quickly as she could without overbalancing herself. Every half-step she felt the urge to turn around, to see what he was doing, but Rachel kept her head down and forced herself to keep on walking, ignoring that urge until she was out of sight of him.