SIXTEEN #2
“Because he meditates. He actually gets really deep into it after so many years of practice.” Jolie’s faint smile told Stina just how much she loved him. “At first I thought it was ridiculous. Then I tried it at three in the morning when he was gone.”
“You mean you were out of options.”
She gave her the side-eye. “That too. But it helps.” She shrugged.
Stina contemplated the idea. After a minute she made up her mind.
“Show me what to do.”
She sat cross-legged against the wall next to Jolie. Her back was straight and her eyes were closed. She rested her hands on her knees and tried like hell to focus on her breathing.
But she was too busy making detailed lists of everything that could go wrong.
After two painful minutes, she slumped sideways against the wall. “I can’t,” she said to the ceiling.
Jolie opened one eye. “You lasted more than I did the first time.”
She shoved away from the wall and dropped her face into her hands. “Where are they? Are they going to be shot at?”
Compressing her lips, Jolie shook her head. “There’s always the risk, Stina. But they’re Blackout. The best of the best.”
She nodded, feeling slightly better. She stared up at the ceiling again. “I need something to do. I don’t feel like stress baking.”
Or making Rome’s favorite meal and not knowing when—or if—he would return to enjoy it.
She pushed out a sigh.
A slow smile moved over Jolie’s face, the kind that Stina had seen before.
“Get dressed. Warm clothes.” She leaped to her feet.
“Jolie?”
“I have a surprise. I’ve been keeping it for a while because I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure it was going to work. But I think it is.” Her expression was brighter than she’d seen it since their men went off to fight.
Their men.
Her man.
She swallowed hard.
Jolie nudged her foot with her own. “Get dressed and I’ll show you.”
After she threw on jeans and a sweater sourced from the stash Jolie shared with her, she bundled her hair off her face and tied it with a hairband.
Jolie led her out of the room and through the maze of corridors she was starting to get the map of in her mind. Then she led her to a door she’d never noticed before.
Jolie continued to lead the way up a flight of steep stairs. She expected to pop out in the resort, but instead she was greeted with the outdoors.
No, not the outdoors.
Glass walls…with the huge dark sky beyond them.
In the glow of moonlight, Stina saw what brought them here.
Herbs in long trays along one wall. Plants staked in pots along another. And small green leaves sprouted about an inch out of the soil.
Stina pressed her hand to her mouth. “Jolie! This is amazing. You planted these things?”
“Yes.” She bounced over to the trays. “This is basil. And parsley. And I’m growing mint too.” She waved a hand at the other plants. “Tomatoes. Look!” She pointed to a tiny green globe nestled under the leaves.
“This is fabulous. What’s this?” Stina looked at the tiny leaves emerging from the soil. “Lettuce?”
“Yes! It was a lot easier to grow than I thought. The tomatoes are the ones I’m most worried about but even they’re doing better than I expected.”
Stina moved slowly, touching leaves, reading the small markers Jolie had pressed into the soil, already thinking about how to use the ingredients for dishes and how the rosemary would be wonderful in bread.
Suddenly, she stopped, throat tightening.
The tomato plants—and that tiny one the size of a marble—were weeks away from becoming food. She looked at the lettuce leaves, which would also take weeks to be usable in a salad.
The salt on the back of her tongue had nothing to do with her feelings about Jolie’s little project.
It was the possibility that she wouldn’t be here to see any of it grow. To use it.
To be with Rome.
She could leave tomorrow. She could leave at daylight, and damn the threat and the photo.
No promises had been made between her and Rome…but she let her guard down and pulled him straight into her heart.
“Stina?” Jolie’s voice wavered with concern.
“I…” She pushed a loose curl off her face. “I think I need to tell you something.”
Jolie watched her face closely. “I’m here for you.”
She nodded and then looked at the lettuce leaves, then back to Jolie. “How do I know if I’m in love?”
In the dim light, she saw her friend’s expression soften.
“I dated too many bad guys to know what’s real anymore.
Like, an embarrassing number of bad guys.
Guys who were emotionally unavailable or selfish or just—wrong in ways I kept ignoring because at least wrong felt familiar.
” She shook her head. “What if I’ve been doing it so long I wouldn’t recognize a good one if he was standing right in front of me? ”
A vision of Rome filled her mind. Strong. Shoulders thrown back. That look on his face when she got sarcastic with him.
Her eyes had adjusted enough to see her friend’s tender smile.
“Not one man in this base is a bad guy.”
She stared at her.
“I mean it. These men gave up everything to be Blackout. Entire lives—relationships and ties to their families. You don’t do that if you’re the kind of man who takes without giving back.” Jolie held her gaze.
“But Rome hasn’t said a word to me. I don’t even know if he likes me beyond…sex.”
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you. Have you ever considered that he doesn’t open up easily because opening up costs him something real? Not because he doesn’t care.”
Stina was quiet for a moment, mind working through what she said. “This is easy for you to say. You can stay. You’ve already established yourself as being part of Sierra. What if I have to leave? What if whatever threat is keeping me here gets resolved and I go back to Chicago and that’s it?”
“I’m here for the same reason you’re here. The man from the restaurant with the voice. He has something he’s trying to hide.” She pitched her voice lower. “And it’s probably related to Cipher.”
A shiver rolled down her spine at the name. Everyone in the world had been afraid of his reign and rejoiced when he was captured. But if someone was still connected to him, continuing to do his work…
They shared a look. “So we’re both stuck here,” she said.
Jolie gave her a small smile. “Depending on how you see it.”
She looked at the plants again, putting down roots in soil, small and stubborn, but encouraged to grow.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs and they rushed over to see Rivers staring up at them, his face a mask.
“Order just came in. We have to move you. Both of you. Now!” he barked.
“What? Why? Where—”
He cut her off. “No time.” He waved for them to come with him, and they rushed down the stairs in the dark behind him.
When they reached the bottom, Rivers whirled to them. “Get your coats. There’s snow coming down. Two minutes.”
“But Rome—” Stina stopped and started again, words tumbling over each other in her rush to get them out. “I need to leave him a note—”
“No time. I’ll let him and Monk know. Get your coats—now!”
They ran. When Stina returned, she was puffing for air and Jolie’s eyes were wide with fear.
She swung to face Stina. “We have to go.”
They clasped hands and rushed after Rivers.
He loaded them into a black SUV and drove. She and Jolie didn’t ask questions—they could tell by the rigid set of his shoulders that he wouldn’t tell them anyway.
When they took a road leading down the mountain, Stina’s stomach knotted in terror.
“The rendezvous point’s not far.” Rivers gripped the wheel hard. The sky had begun to lighten, but it was still too dark to make out anything but snow.
He braked at the end of the road. Pine trees lined either side, closing them in.
She gripped Jolie’s cold hand, waiting for whatever was to come.
Only heartbeats passed before headlights broke through the pines.
“This is it.” Rivers jumped out and reached for the back door.
The crack came before she understood what it was.
Sharp. Final. The kind of sound that rewired her brain the second it rang out.
Then Rivers was shoving her and Jolie down hard and the world became noise and movement and the floor rushed up and she didn’t know which direction was safe because none of them were.
More shots. All close enough that she felt them vibrate her teeth.
She lifted her head.
Rivers was on the ground.
One hand pressed flat to his side, his jaw locked and his expression doing something she couldn’t find words for. He was breathing. She could see it.
But he wasn’t getting up.
The scream stayed locked in her throat because making noise would get them killed.
A figure emerged from the dark—large, and moving with certainty.
She saw the gleam of the barrel in the dark.
“Get out of the vehicle.” His voice was cold. Clipped. The voice of a man who didn’t expect to be argued with.
She looked at Rivers on the ground.
She looked at Jolie.
Jolie looked back at her.
“Get out! Now!”
Her mind ran through their options.
Refuse and die here on this road in the dark with Rivers bleeding out feet away, and Rome on an op, not knowing any of this was happening.
Or obey. Stay alive. Buy time.
Find a way to fight.
She reached for Jolie’s hand and gripped it hard.
Then they climbed out.