Chapter 19
The thin cot mattress shifts, jostling me slightly as the light brush of a hand slides over my shoulder. “Get up.” Chris’s quiet, yet firm, voice cuts through the fog of sleep. It’s soft but steady and controlled. His voice always is.
I groan with my face half-buried in his pillow. “Ugh…”
“Come on.” There’s a hint of a smile in his tone. I know he’s watching me. “The guys are getting the gear ready. We’re rolling out in about twenty minutes.”
My head snaps up. “Rolling out?”
The morning light is spilling through the tent’s canvas, catching the sharp lines of his jaw. He’s already fully dressed, pulling his tactical vest over a dark shirt. Staring down at me, he doesn’t look at me the same way he did a few hours ago. He’s all business now.
“Back to your village,” he discloses, checking the magazine on his rifle before slinging it over his shoulder.
I sit slowly, the sheet slipping down my chest. “Chris…” His name suddenly feels heavy on my tongue, intimate in a way it shouldn’t. “I didn’t.” I swallow hard. “Last night wasn’t to make you… or convince you…”
“If they’re willing to make an attempt on your life, there’s clearly something they don’t want anyone to know about,” he states flatly, glazing over—or ignoring—what I said. After sliding his knife into its sheath, he moves toward the tent flap. “Twenty minutes.”
My heart stutters. “Are you sure?”
He turns, and his eyes lock with mine. The same eyes that bore through my soul unguarded are now cold as steel. “If you promise to listen.”
“I promise.”
He nods once. That’s all I get before he steps out into the desert.
I slip from bed and dress quickly. When I push open the tent flap, I’m met with the searing sun, faint smell of diesel, and the distant hum of an engine. I follow Chris toward the trucks where Jagger and Damon are doing a weapons check.
Chris tosses Jagger a set of keys. “Damon and Gunnar will take point. We’ll tail behind with Reese.” Jagger nods. These men communicate more with looks than words; their language and trust forged through years of violence and survival. I’m the outsider here. And the reason they’re all on edge.
I open the rear door to the Humvee, and Chris helps me into the vehicle. His hand brushes my waist—just a whisper of contact—and my body betrays me with the smallest shiver. This morning plays on a film reel behind my eyes. His breath. His hands. The way he called me his.
And now… this.
Silence and distance, like it never happened at all.
The drive is quiet except for the engine and the occasional squawk of the radio.
Dust clouds rise behind the short convoy as we head into the vastness of the desert.
Nearly an hour later, Jagger slows the truck before we crest the hill on approach to the village.
I look out the window, realizing that Damon and Gunnar did the same about fifty yards to our left.
Jagger kills the engine and slips from behind the wheel, grabbing a pair of binoculars off the dashboard. Standing beside the Humvee, he scans the landscape. “Movement,” he murmurs. “Far end, near the well.”
Chris’s jaw flexes. “We split up. Damon and Gunnar sweep east. We’ll go through the center.”
Jagger relays the message to the others through the radio, and a short, broken “Copy that” echoes through a moment later.
Chris opens my door, and my pulse hammers.
I shouldn’t be here. I know that. But when he looks at me and outstretches his hand to help me from the SUV, there’s no room for argument.
“Stay behind me,” he insists quietly, tightening the straps of my bulletproof vest. “Don’t make a sound unless I tell you. ”
Walking behind him, we reach the top of the hill.
When the village comes into view—the same cluster of worn homes and dry fields I left what feels like weeks ago—my stomach knots.
It looks the same, and somehow completely different.
It’s a ghost town. The narrow streets are eerily still—windows shuttered, doors hanging open.
A child’s toy lies in the dirt, half buried in the dust, beside clothes left behind when someone fled in a hurry.
Chris moves ahead of me, low and silent, every step measured.
Jagger flanks us to the right, both of them with guns drawn and ready for whatever we might find.
A few streets in, we hear the faint shuffling of feet on the dry, packed sand.
Chris’s hand shoots back instinctively, catching my arm.
In one swift motion, he pulls me and presses me into the corner of a crumbling wall, using his body to shield mine.
I gasp—too loudly—and his hand comes up fast, covering my mouth.
“Shhhh.” His breath is warm against my ear. His body solid and unyielding, the weight of it against me both protective and far too familiar.
My heart pounds so violently, I’m sure he can feel it through the Kevlar. Every nerve in my body is on fire—not from fear, but from our proximity. It’s wrong, but my mind can’t seem to separate safety from desire. Or protection from possession.
Peeking to the side, I look down the alley to see a figure crossing at the far end of the street. Chris’s hand lowers from my mouth, his palm brushing my jaw for the briefest second before he pulls back. “Stay close,” he whispers gruffly.
I nod, my throat too tight to speak. We move in the shadows, cutting through narrow alleys and abandoned homes, in the direction the man came from. The silence grows heavier the farther we go toward the outskirts of the village.
The wind gusts, and I scrunch my nose. The scent is faint at first, but unmistakable. Rot. It creeps in slowly, sour and sickly sweet, clinging to the back of my tongue. My steps falter as instinct tells me to stop.
Chris notices and grabs my hand. Squeezing it firmly, he pulls me back beside him. “Stay with me,” he demands, the unease in his tone unmistakable. We follow the dirt path beyond the last row of homes, and the stench thickens with every breath.
“Oh my God…” The words tumble out before I can stop them.
Chris’s reaction is immediate. He grabs me, pulling me against his chest with one gloved hand over the back of my head.
I bury my face in the bulletproof vest he’s wearing, but even with my eyes squeezed shut, I still see it.
I shake against him, my lungs refusing to pull in the pungent air.
“Don’t look, Reese,” he murmurs against my hair. “Don’t…”
But I already saw too much.
I ease out of his hold, my body trembling, and turn away from him. Back to the scene that will haunt me until the day I die. The grave is wide and shallow. The dirt uneven, as if someone tried to hide the bodies but didn’t care enough to finish the job. Men. Women. Families.
My knees buckle, but Chris catches me before I hit the ground. His hand grips my arm, squeezing tight enough to hurt. “Reese.” His voice cuts through the rush of blood in my ears. “You don’t have to—”
“Yes,” I choke out, tasting the death on my tongue. “I do.”
With shaking hands, I fumble for my camera. The strap tangles around my wrist, and my trembling fingers mishandle the lens cap.
“Reese,” Chris warns again as the little plastic disk falls to the sand at my feet.
“People need to know what happened here.” My voice doesn’t sound like it belongs to me.
It’s thin, cracking under the weight of the horror before me.
Guided by instinct, by purpose, I lift my camera.
The shutter clicks again and again. My stomach churns with every snapped frame, but I owe the victims that much.
The wind shifts, carrying the stench straight toward us.
I gag, pressing my sleeve over my mouth.
Chris steps closer, his hand steady on the small of my back, a silent anchor as I document the worst atrocity I’ve ever seen.
Behind us, Jagger mutters a curse under his breath.
His face is pale and his eyes hard. “There have to be about sixty of them,” he shares, void of every bit of his normal jovialness. “Shot. Executed”
Gunnar and Damon walk along the gravesite, joining us from the other side of the village. Both of them are as somber and silent as we are. I lower the camera, its weight suddenly unbearable. “Why?”
“Because they were in someone’s way,” Chris exhales, his voice quiet but sharp. “Of what, you’ll need to find out.”
He doesn’t say it, but I can see it in the set of his jaw and the tremor in his hand. This isn’t the first time he’s seen something this horrific. He’s seen too many graves. Hell, he’s dug them.