Chapter Seven
The desert outside Pahrump stretched flat and endless, a sheet of dark sand and shadows rolling toward the mountains.
They’d been on foot for miles, moving fast and quiet across the flats, keeping low through the scrub and dry washes. Too risky to take a vehicle—too easy to track.
Now the world was quiet. No headlights. No engines. Just wind and the faint hiss of grit against metal.
Too close once already. They’d been skirting the road, walking the sand flats a few hundred yards off the shoulder—close enough to hear engines, far enough to vanish if they had to.
A cartel truck crawled past, two men in the bed, rifles out. Titus could almost taste the diesel when it rolled by, the sound grinding low across the flats. He and Viper had gone still behind a rusted tank, waiting it out.
Another hour passed.
This kind of shit reminded him of the Army—long nights, bad odds, engines in the dark. He didn’t miss it, but the rhythm felt familiar in a way that sat too easily.
Viper found the shack a mile or so later.
Sheet-metal roof half-caved, sand drifted knee-deep inside. Looked like an old pump shed or water station—four walls and a miracle.
“Better than nothing,” Titus muttered.
The warrior gave a short grunt—maybe agreement, maybe nothing—and swept his light low, the spare Titus had handed him. Clean, practiced motions, cutting through the dark. Viper started dragging debris into a pile, clearing space near the back wall.
Efficient.
Unbothered.
Like this was just another night.
Titus figured maybe it was. The man moved with a kind of cold steadiness that mirrored his own. No panic, no wasted effort. Control like that only came from too many fights.
They worked in silence, clearing enough room to stretch out, patching a leak in the roof with a tarp they’d torn off a wrecked truck not far from the shack.
“You get some sleep first,” Viper said, dropping onto the ground in the tight quarters, weapon resting on his lap. His shoulder brushed Titus’s as he settled—solid heat through soaked fabric.
Titus was too tired to argue. He slid down a foot from Viper, close enough to feel the man’s presence at his back, and closed his eyes.
It was dangerous to let anyone sit that close.
But some part of him—bone-deep and instinctive—trusted Viper to keep watch.
Thunder rolled low over the Nevada sky and snapped him awake.
He checked his watch—an hour gone. Rain hit a moment later, soft at first, then harder, drumming the metal like static. The scent of dust and wet iron filled the air—sharp, clean, cold.
Viper sat next to him, back to the wall, tightening a knot on the tarp. Broad shoulders, sleeves rolled to the elbows, hands steady even in the dim light.
All control.
All order.
The rain hit harder, a steady hiss rolling across the roof.
Viper dipped his head as he worked a piece of brush into a crack in the siding. His dark hair slid forward. He’d let it grow since Titus had last seen him—better for blending in. Titus had done the same once or twice.
He raked a hand through his own short hair, a careless motion—then froze.
Viper was watching him.
Not the casual glance of a teammate. Not the quick assessment of a commander.
The man’s gaze held, tracking from Titus’s mouth to his eyes, lingering a beat too long.
Heat pricked the back of Titus’s neck.
He broke eye contact first.
Just rain and exhaustion.
Nothing else.
Liar.
But maybe—just maybe—the beginning of a…
truce.
Half an hour later, the freak storm hit harder—rain slamming the roof in steady, punishing waves. Wind forced water through the cracks, spraying the walls and pooling across the concrete floor. The air turned heavy, thick with that metallic tang storms dragged out of the desert.
Titus could taste grit and damp dust on the back of his tongue—the cold working straight through his shirt and vest. His black utility pants were already soaked past the knees.
Viper still sat beside him—close enough that Titus felt the faint warmth each time their shoulders brushed.
Desert storms were mean—came fast, hit hard, buried the unprepared. Staying put made sense. Getting swept down a wash in the dark wasn’t on the agenda.
They’d both gone quiet.
Not comfortable quiet, not hostile quiet—just… charged.
Rain and breath and something else threading the space between them.
Viper retied another loose knot—Titus recognized the military style.
The rope came from the wrecked truck, dry-rotted and stiff.
Rain slicked grit across his palms, but Viper didn’t seem to care.
He worked the line with practiced precision, forcing it into a clean bowline—steady, exact, the kind that held even when everything else fell apart.
Okay, the silence was driving him crazy—and something was really bugging him.
“Why me?” Titus asked, not even sure Viper could hear him over the rain hammering the tin roof.
“You follow orders.”
Ah. So, the man had heard him. But that was not the answer he expected.
“Do I?” He smirked, shifting his weight. Viper turned his head—slow, deliberate—eyes catching on his mouth before meeting his gaze. That held a beat too long.
Viper broke it first, finishing the knot, then leaned back against the siding. “You’re a smartass about it,” he said, voice low, “but yeah, you do.”
Titus huffed a quiet laugh. “Can’t let you get too full of yourself, Colonel.”
“It’s just Viper out here.” He didn’t look away as he said it—tone even, but something in the way he held Titus’s gaze felt heavier than protocol.
“I know,” Titus said. Field rules—never name rank in the open. He dragged a thumb along the grip of his pistol to keep his hands busy.
“You were Army.” Viper’s eyes cut toward him, pale and sharp in the dim.
Titus shifted, uncomfortable under the weight of it. The man saw too much. Understood too much.
“You read my file,” Titus said, flicking the rock that had been digging into his leg. It clattered off the wall, lost in the rain.
“What little there was of it.” Viper gave a slow nod, like the redactions hadn’t surprised him.
Titus turned away, glancing through the opening.
The storm eased—tapered off—but water still ran down the walls in thin, steady streams. The roof leaked in three places now. Titus adjusted his position, boots scraping concrete.
“You think the others are okay?” he asked, partly to fill the noise, mostly to read him.
“Law will have them stashed someplace safe by now. Waiting for dawn,” Viper said. “He doesn’t miss.”
“None of you do.”
A short grunt from Viper—almost a laugh. “We try not to.”
Silence again. This one settled deeper, heavier. The kind of quiet that pressed against his ribs.
“Genesis always run ops like this?” Titus asked.
“Like what?”
“Tight. No hesitation.”
“You saying it’s a problem?”
“No,” Titus said. “Just an observation.”
“Just follow my orders, and we’ll be fine.”
That did it. The irritation flared hot.
He got to his feet fast, motion sharp, restless energy cutting through his movements. His shoulder brushed the wall as he straightened.
The man was impossible. Smug. Controlled. Aggravating in all the wrong ways.
But underneath it, something else flickered.
He didn’t mean to say what came next, especially not to Viper.
“Orders I can follow,” he growled. “Family’s where shit gets messy.”
Viper’s eyes narrowed, locking on him.
The weight of that look hit harder than the storm.
Titus felt it slide under his skin—steady, unflinching, pulling at things he’d rather leave buried.
He looked toward the exit. He didn’t look back. Couldn’t.
The rain cut off sharply, leaving only the trickle of runoff along the floor.
Outside, wind picked up—cold downdrafts rolling fast, pushing against the shack until it creaked. Storm ending. Air clearing.
His words echoed in the tiny space between them, too loud.
Fucking hell.
He shoved off the wall.
“Where you goin’? We move at first light,” Viper drawled, voice low—almost lazy.
But there was something coiled under it. Something watchful.
Titus didn’t turn around. If he did, he wasn’t sure what he’d see on Viper’s face—or what Viper would see on his.
“Just getting some air.”
He stepped outside, wind brushing cool against his skin, the air sharp with rain and desert sage. Titus pulled a bandana from his pocket and tied it over his mouth and nose.
The storm-washed desert waited—silent and endless.
And for the first time all night, the space between them felt too tight.
Too much storm. Too much silence.
Too much Viper.