“You’re kind of hard to like,” I said. “You know that?”

She nodded. “I do. And right back at you.”

I gritted my teeth. “Let’s just get through this meeting with your mom first, and then we’ll worry about that headache.”

“You’re a headache,” she muttered under her breath.

“What was that?” I said, although I knew perfectly well what she’d just said.

She looked me right in the eye. “You. Are. A. Giant. Headache,” she said. “A hammer pounding between the eyes, it feels like my head is going to explode headache. We could have avoided this if you weren’t such a jerk.”

“Well, if I’m a headache, then you’re a royal pain and dumb as a rock if you thought I was going to let a letter keep me from being the youngest cadet to level up,” I said a tad too loudly, so that we both glanced nervously up and down the empty hallway before continuing.

“You’re right,” she said with a smug smile. “It took me. You’re welcome.” With that she turned and strode off down the hall.

I scowled at the back of her stupid blond head the entire rest of the way to the staff offices.

I’d only been in the staff section a handful of times. Once when my schedule had been messed up, and I’d needed the Academy secretary to un-mess it for me; the other times were for office-hours visit with this professor or that. But I’d never, not even once, gone in the commander in chief’s office, and had Regan not decided to totally mess up my life, I probably never would have.

Regan looked like she was ready to meet a firing squad when we finally arrived outside her mom’s office door. If she was this nervous, I was definitely in trouble, I thought grimly. Doing my best to ignore the sinking feeling of dread that was pulling at my heart like a lead weight, I squared my shoulders and held my chin up as the door slid open a second later. We walked inside the cavernous office as the doors slid shut behind us with an ominous click.

Chapter Fourteen

Regan

Mom’s office was big and impressive, and I hated it. I avoided the place when I could, and barely tolerated it when avoidance didn’t work. But it wasn’t the office itself that bothered me. It was who my mom became when she sat behind that big desk. Here, she was the commander in chief, not Mom. Here, she accepted nothing less than perfection. Here, I was just another cadet. I knew that was how it had to be, but it didn’t mean I had to like it.