5. A Big First Step
a big first step
Solomon
I think about stab wounds and blown-up body parts until my hard-on subsides.
Fucking Scarlett. I cannot figure out where her head is at. One second, she nearly takes my head off with a machete. Then she tells me the backstory I couldn't get out of her with any amount of liquor, cunnilingus, and fucking. She makes it crystal fucking clear I'm not touching her. Don’t call her Scarlett. Don't act like we're “us.” Like I have any right to her body or her emotions.
Fine, I get it.
But then she flounces out of the shower in a tiny little towel that covers precisely nothing. Follows me into the shower and looks at my dick like it's her next meal. Acts sultry, confused, aroused, emotional…
What am I supposed to do with any of that?
I finish my shower and shut off the boiler and generator. Towel off and wrap it around my waist. Go back out to the chair and try not to think about Scarlett.
Or her body.
Her tight little pussy. Those lovely little tits, just barely a handful.
I resist the urge to have another smoke—that way addiction lies, and I'm not about to let that happen. Instead, I sit and breathe.
Avoid thoughts of Scarlett. Resist the urge to take a trip down memory lane—all the many ways I've made her scream my name.
God, she can fuck.
No, no, no.
Violet comes to mind. She's Scarla's polar opposite. Curvy, soft, gentle, and sweet. She doesn't have a violent bone in her body. She's been through her own personal hell, but she never let it make her bitter. I suppose that's why I'm drawn to her—she has a maternal, nurturing manner about her that speaks to something I needed at the time. But the last time I visited her, she gave me a look. A long, searching, emotional look. And I just knew—I had to stop seeing her. I could never give Violet what she wanted and deserved.
My heart has always belonged to another, even if I knew I'd never see her again.
Yet here I am, in the middle of the Colombian rainforest, pursued by terrorists who didn't seem to want anything specific from me, with Scarlett.
She’s lean, whipcord thin, hard, lithe, quick, violent, closed off…a stone-cold killer and one of the most naturally talented and highly skilled operators I’ve ever known. I'm one of the few, if not the only one, who knows that she has another side. A softer side. A side that likes to be held after sex. A side that wants long, wet kisses and whispered conversations. A side that is needy and greedy and perpetually horny. A side that may not ever speak of love but shows it in every action in private. I saw that in her before, but very rarely.
Right now, all I see is Scar, the operator. That other side, Scarlett, the woman, the lover…there's no sign of her. For a brief moment, I caught a glimpse of her. But I knew that if I touched her, I'd have her naked and I’d be inside her within seconds. Sex would take over, the way it always does with us.
And I knew—I know —that she's not there. She's not ready. We still have deep, dark, difficult shit to discuss before we can go there.
But god, that was hard. Turning away from her, not touching her? She wouldn't have stopped me. I know the look in her eyes when she wants me. She had that look. I could have done anything I wanted.
But she'd resent it later. The deep shit we've never discussed, her anger and resentment toward me, all of that would still be there. But sex would distract us from it. We'd fuck instead of sorting out the issues.
And for the first time in my life, I'm ready to face the hard emotional shit. I have a second chance with Scarlett. I'm not about to fuck it up by thinking with my dick.
Even if my dick is mad at me for it.
Irritated by the whole stupid situation, I put my wet clothes back on. Which sucks, but it’s far from the first time. Plus, it’s hot enough that they’ll dry soon.
The property is a veritable junkyard of useful shit, so I scrounge up a few items and set about cleaning our firearms. I disassemble, clean, and reassemble the AKs first, and then my handgun. Without a word, I trade my cleaned pistol for Scar's and clean hers. With nothing better to do, then, I kick my feet up in the chair and doze off.
It's late evening when José and Anna return—together, despite having left at different times and in different directions.
José looks freaked out and has a conversation with Scarla in Spanish so rapid I have trouble following it.
The gist is that my enemies are on their way here. He offers to hide us, but Scarlett and I both refuse. Scar shoves a wad of pesos and dollars into his hands, and then we rip the tarp off and get the old Nissan going.
Jose gives us a ragged section of a paper map with a route traced in red marker; Anna, meanwhile, has packed a dirty old Styrofoam cooler full of food and a milk carton full of bottles of potable water. We have three five-gallon gas cans tied down in the back, as well.
So much for sleeping indoors tonight; at least I got a shower.
I drive this time, and Scarlett navigates. I drive as fast as I safely can, putting as many miles behind us as possible.
After an hour or so of switchbacks and turns, we reach a stretch of the route without any turns for several hundred miles—our route is taking us to Bogotá…more than halfway across the country.
Scar dozes, then. I drive until the gas tank is on fumes. When I pull over and refill, Scar takes the wheel, and I sleep.
Several hours later, the sun is coming up and we're on the last gas can. As the gas gauge is nudging the E, we come to a decent-sized town. This one has an actual gas station, where Scar fills up the tank and all three gas cans. She also finds us hot food—spicy as fuck, and delicious. Then it's back on the road.
We haven't spoken two words to each other since the shower incident. She has to break the silence—she has to decide how this is gonna go.
So I wait.
We switch every time we refill the gas tank.
No sign of pursuers, but we both know they're behind us. We both know they'll catch up to us in Bogotá.
Afternoon on the second day out from Jose and Anna, Scarla finally breaks the tense, rigid, uncomfortable silence.
"Thank you for not pushing, Sol," she says, her voice barely above a whisper. "Back there. The whole…shower situation."
I'm driving. I regrip the steering wheel and upshift as we reach the bottom of a long, shallow hill and begin another ascent.
"I haven't forgotten who you are, Scar. Or who we are. If we start down that road, it'll take over."
"I know," she says.
"We have shit to talk about. But you have to be willing to go there. If you're not, okay, I'll accept that. But in that case, we're gonna have to stay former teammates and nothing else."
She was looking out the window as I spoke; when I say that, her head whips around. "Solomon, come on."
"Come on, what?"
"It's all or nothing?”
"Fuck yes, it's all or nothing, Scar. You're confusing me. Either you want to move past what happened and do what you gotta do to get past it, or you don't. You're two different people with me and I never know which version of you I'm gonna get."
She shakes her head. "I'm just me, Sol."
"Bull-fucking-shit. There's two distinct sides to you. There's Scar, or Scarla, the operator. Stone-cold, badass, tough as nails, take no shit. Walls a million miles high and a million miles thick. Nothing gets in, nothing gets out. Scar is locked down tighter than Fort fucking Knox. There's no mercy. Not an ounce of hesitation. And that's what makes you the best motherfucking operator I've ever worked with."
A smirk touches the corner of her mouth. "The best? Ever?"
"Fuck yes. On a purely professional standard, no personal or emotional bias, I'd take you at my back in any situation in the field, anywhere in the world, at any time, over any other entire squad. Hands down."
She swallows hard. "Means a fuckin' lot, coming from you, WindWalker."
I snort. "WindWalker is dead. But I mean it."
"Well, thank you." She hesitates. "And the other side?"
"That's the human being. Scarlett. The woman. The sexual creature. The lover. The friend."
She stares out the window as the jungle slides past. A monkey screeches somewhere in the distance and a parrot of some kind answers.
"I'm not sure who that is anymore, Sol."
"I know. That's the problem."
She shakes her head slowly. "I think she died in Caracas along with you." A bark of laughter escapes, earning me a death glare from her. "Something funny about that, Solomon?"
"No. Well, yes. Not funny, it's just…fuck, I don't know. I'm not making fun of you. But Scar, babe, that version of you was barely alive before Caracas. She was on life support."
She stares at me silently for a long time. "I guess I don't know what you want me to say."
"I was no better. Honestly, I didn't find that part of myself until after Caracas. I had to have my career taken away to understand that I'd made it my entire personality. I had to figure out who the fuck I was if I wasn't an operator."
"And who is that?"
I shrug. "I'm Solomon Cabot. Former CIA operative. Combat veteran. I like good whiskey and bad action movies. I hate running for exercise. Cheesy rom-coms are a guilty pleasure, and if you tell anyone, I'll cut your fucking tongue out. I feel guilty for abandoning my brothers. I'm not sad my dad is dead, and I honestly wish my mom had shot his ass a lot sooner. I wasn't surprised she killed herself. I'm not good at being friends with people—I'm still learning how to open up and let the other guys in."
She blinks at me a few times and then looks away, thinking. After several long minutes of silence, she looks back at me. "Yeah, I don't know the fuck Scarlett is."
"I know that. You never have."
"And how the fuck am I supposed to know?"
I laugh, then. "What do you do in your downtime?"
“Go to bars and get blackout drunk. Find some dumb soft civvy to fuck. I dunno."
"When you're with a guy, what are you like? Not me, other guys."
"Sol, we're not talking about this." She drums her fingers on the outside of the door, not looking at me.
"Why not?"
"Because it's awkward and uncomfortable. We're…I dunno. Exes?"
"We’re not exes. We didn't break up."
She barks a laugh. "Then what the fuck are we?"
"Complicated. And we've shit side by side, Scarla. I think I can handle the conversation."
"Shitting in the jungle because you have no choice is not the same as talking about fucking other people with someone you were romantically involved with."
"Were we, though? Romantically involved? Or we were just fucking?"
Her gaze goes shocked, and then hurt, and then angry. "Fuck you, Solomon."
"For real. What were we?"
"You meant something to me, Sol, and you fucking know it."
"You meant something to me, too."
"Then what the fuck is your point?"
"We never went deep, that's my point. I've learned more about you as a human being in the last three days than I did in all the years we worked together, lived together, and slept together."
She huffs. "Fuck you," she says again, but this time without any real venom to it.
"Scarlett."
"Don't call me that."
"Why not?"
"I don't like it."
"Why not?"
"Because."
"Not an answer."
"Because I'm not Scarlett out here, Sol! I can't be. Scarlett is soft and weak and she’ll get me killed. Scarlett is a fucking liability." She turns back to the window.
I grab a knife and surreptitiously palm it, lay it against my thigh where she can't see it.
"Scarlett."
She ignores me.
"Scarlett."
Ignore.
"Scarlett!"
"What?" she snarls, whirling on me.
I slice at her with the knife, driving it at her face. Her hand flashes up in a blur and catches mine before the blade comes within six inches.
“The fuck, Sol?" she snaps, wrenching the knife out of my hand.
“Proving a point."
"Maybe prove your point without trying to fucking kill me?"
"Says the woman who damn near took my head off with a goddamn machete."
"Shut up."
"My point is, your skills don't go away."
She rolls her eyes. "It's a matter of focus."
"No, it's not. That's an excuse."
"Fuck you, no it's not."
"Fuck you, yes it is."
"I don't know what you want from me here, Sol."
“I want the real you. I want honesty. I want you to be vulnerable with me. I want to talk about what happened and how we both feel about it. I want to have real, adult, meaningful conversations about shit that fucking matters without you literally trying to take my goddamn head off. I think you think you can put it off till we're not out here, like, ‘I have to focus on the mission, so I have to stay frosty.’”
"Exactly! We have a whole fucking lot of very bad dudes after us. We're in the middle of the fucking Amazon. There's no backup, no extraction waiting at a nice cozy little L-Z. We have to stay fucking frosty or we fucking die, Solomon!"
"Wrong." I swing a hand behind us. "Look back there. You see anyone?”
"We have a head start. If you think that means jack shit, then you've been out of the game too long."
"You think I've forgotten how shit works?" I glare at her. "I took a vow not to kill. Doesn't mean I forgot how the game works. My point is I'm not your fucking mission, Scarlett . Your skills and talents and instincts don't dry up and hibernate because we have a fucking conversation."
"Sol—"
"No. Just no. You're scared of opening up to me, so you're hiding behind Scar, the operator. You've hidden behind her for a very long time. So long you don't know who Scarlett even is. I get that. You went through hell. But you survived it. You got out. You're allowed to have a life, babe."
"I'm not your babe."
"Yes, you are."
Her hand twitches, and she clenches it into a fist. "Taking a lot of self-control to not put a knife through your fucking eyeball."
“I know. But you're doing it—good job."
"Don’t fucking patronize me, asshole."
"I'm not! I'm being serious."
"What the fuck do you want , Solomon?"
“I want to know why you’re so angry at me.”
"Because you abandoned me! You left me behind! You died and I didn't! I watched you fucking die ! But then it gets worse! You didn’t die, and you never fucking told me !” Her voice shakes, and her eyes haze over with tears I know she won’t let herself shed; she shakes her head harshly, fighting them off tooth and nail. "I would have walked through fucking fire with you. I spent four and a half days in this goddamn jungle based on a single fucking email hinting that you were alive, Solomon. Just to find out if it was really you. So yeah, I'm pissed at you. You chose life without me."
“I did it to protect you!"
" I DIDN'T ASK YOU TO PROTECT ME! "
Silence.
"I know you didn't. I just…" I squeeze the steering wheel until my knuckles hurt. "What was I supposed to do? Ask you to give up your entire life? We weren't even…" I trail off, not ready to go there.
"We weren’t even what? Say it, motherfucker."
"What we were, Scar?" I ask rather than answer.
"Together," she whispers. "We were together."
"It was a secret from everyone we knew, everyone we worked with. And again, we both kept each other at a distance. You never let me all the way in, and I never let you all the way in."
"I don't even know what that looks like, Sol—letting someone all the way in. How do you do that?"
"Ask me anything."
She goes silent, watching the jungle rather than face me. Finally, she looks at me. "Did you love me?"
Fuck.
"Yes."
"You never said it."
"Didn't know how."
She shakes her head. "But you're on my case about not opening up."
"Have you not heard a word I’ve said? I've said multiple times that I know I was no better. This isn't easy for me, either.” I venture my hand across the space between us and rest it on her leg, just above her knee. "Ask me something else."
"Tell me about Violet."
I groan. "Why?"
"Because I'm jealous."
“How does hearing about it help?"
"I don't know. Maybe it doesn't. But you said anything. That's my question."
"What do you want to know?"
"Did you love her? Or do you?"
"No. I didn't and I don't. That's why I pulled away from her—she was falling in love with me and I knew I'd never be able to give her that back."
"Why not?"
"Because she's not you."
"But you cared about her."
'Yes."
"So tell me about her. Tell me everything. Why her? What was it about her?"
"You won’t like the answer, Scarlett."
"Probably not." She looks at me long and hard, and then at my hand on her knee; she makes a fist with her left hand, opens it again and shakes it out, and then rests her hand on mine. "But I'm asking anyway."
"She was everything you aren't. And I don't mean that as a dig or an insult, it’s just a neutral fact. Physically, emotionally, she's your opposite. She's…soft. In every sense of the word. Curvy. Soft-spoken. Gentle. Sweet. I'd never been around anyone like that before. Even the women I hooked up with before you were…not like that. I had a type: women who could, in some capacity, understand the kind of man I am. Violet…she didn’t have it easy by any stretch of the imagination, but violence wasn't part of her life."
I space out as I drive, thinking of her. Assessing what drew me to her so I can explain it.
"Being around her felt like a departure from who I was. There were other girls I could’ve spent my time with, girls who would get me, to some degree. But Violet… Didn’t. She didn't have to."
"What was the sex like?"
"You really want to know?"
"Yes."
"Crazy woman. But okay—if you're sure."
"I am."
“It was…healing. It wasn't rough. It wasn't aggressive. It was soft and sweet. That was her whole thing, what made her in such high demand. She had a year-long waiting list to get time with her. Because she had this way of making you feel…I don't know how to put it. It didn't feel transactional. With me, at least, she made me feel…fuck, I don't have the words. It was what I needed at that moment. A total one-eighty from everything I’d been, from the kind of relationships I’d had, such as they were.” I pause again, thinking. “I thought you were…behind me. I missed you. I wanted you back. I nearly emailed you a million fucking times, but I couldn't. I couldn't stomach the idea of dragging you into something that would get you killed. I couldn't ask you to give up everything and come live in a fucking basement with me. I like it. It's what I need and what I want, and I don’t think I'll ever leave. But how could I ask that of you?”
I look at her, waiting for a response, but she just stares right back at me and says nothing.
"But at the end of the day, two things always kept me from letting myself think it could ever be more than what it was with Violet. One, I was paying her. She would have given me her time for free. She told me as much, and I think she was hurt that I insisted on paying her. The other problem was that she just wasn't you. She'd never know the real me."
"The real you?"
I gesture at the world around us. "This. Being downrange. That will always be the real me. To a degree, at least. WindWalker will never die. But…I don't want to be WindWalker anymore. That's what I eventually realized, being with Violet and working at the club, being around the guys. And then watching the guys find these women who…who see them. Who accept them for all the nasty, gnarly shit they've done and been through. I want that. But…how can I have it? Who can ever know me? You can't know me without knowing WindWalker. And He’s dead."
"I thought you said he'd never die.
"What's dead can never die, right?"
She laughs. "That makes no fucking sense."
"I know."
"I'll never be Violet, Solomon. My body will never be soft. My tits will never be triple Ds. I'll never have a big juicy ass. I'll never be soft and sweet like you’re saying she is. Any part of me that was soft and sweet died somewhere between Panama and that whorehouse in Mexico—it was dead long before that recruiter ever found me."
"Your body is perfect exactly the way it is, Scarlett."
"You're saying you don't like big titties bouncing in your face?"
I laugh. "Sure I do."
"And I'll never be that."
"I don't need you to be that."
"Then what do you need?"
"Scarlett—I need Scarlett. I need you to let Scar, the operator, rest beneath the surface sometimes. I need you to trust yourself. Trust your skills and your instincts. When shit hits the fan, I have no doubt you'd do what needs to be done. Even if you and I are having a deep conversation or if we're fucking. Making love. Whatever. You're not going to suddenly forget who you are because you let a softer side of yourself come out."
"I don't have a fucking softer side, Solomon!" she shouts.
“Yes, you do!” I shout back. “You just refuse to let her out. You keep her buried under a layer of ice."
"Because the ice is all that's keeping me alive." She drops her voice to a whisper. "After Caracas, I went looking."
"For what?"
"Someone to replace you. To fill the gap you left inside me."
"And?" I ask.
She shakes her head. "I found a lot of self-centered assholes. A lot of weak fucking pussies. A lot of macho, wannabe tough guys. And a lot of dicks that just weren't… yours ." She blinks hard. "I found a lot of men who just weren't you. They didn’t see me. They didn't understand me. They couldn't handle me."
"How so? How couldn't they handle you?"
"I tend to take over. I’m way too alpha for most men. Give me an inch, and I'll take over. They like it at first. They like it when I throw them on the bed and fuck them till they can't move. But they don't like it as much when they discover I'm not about to give control to them under any fucking circumstances, and they're all too fucking pussy to take it from me. They all think they can find that part of me that you're talking about, but they can't because it's not fucking there —it’s not there to find. I'm not soft. I'm not sweet. And I don't know how to be. They never got Scarlett. They only got Scarla."
"The in-between. Not quite Scarlett, but not Scar, either."
A nod. "Pretty much. It's as close as I could come."
"Who came closest?"
"Tom Daughtry, Sergeant First Class, USMC. A Raider. He’s a lot like you, actually, but the Walmart version. Tall, blond, built, hot, and a pretty damn good operator. We worked together on an op. Had a few drinks together after the op was over. A few drinks turned into a few rounds in the sack."
"Was he good?"
She grins. "Very good." The grin fades. "He thought he could…conquer me, I guess. He couldn't let me be me. He couldn't accept that I just couldn’t give parts of myself to him."
"That didn’t turn out well, I bet." I eye her, watching her.
She snorts softly, shaking her head. "Not at all. He got in my face about it, got all aggressive on me. I put him on his ass and damn near cut his fucking throat. And that was the end of that."
"Because you couldn't give him what he wanted or because you bested him?"
"Both. His ego couldn't handle either one, let alone both."
I let out a sigh. "I can see that."
"And I…I guess I'm afraid that…that even if I did try with you, it'd end up the same way."
"You think I'm threatened by you? Scar, babe, you know how hot it gets me when you put me on my ass.”
She laughs. "You're a twisted fuck like that, though.”
"Exactly. Especially now, out of the game, my skills aren't what they once were. I know that. I have no problem with the fact that you're a better operator than me, now. I just need you to give me a chance. Give us a chance."
"How?"
“One step at a time, Scarlett, that's how. Don't shut me out. Let me in, one little bit at a time."
"And assuming we get out of this jungle alive, then what?"
"Fuck if I know. But that's down the line. I can’t answer that right now. All I can do now is what's in front of me. We get out of the jungle. We figure out who ordered the snatch. We figure out us. We figure out what then…then."
"And you want me to soften up out here? Let you in, out here? When our lives are on the line. When I have to be on my A-game every moment?"
"You don't have to be on your A-game every moment. When we get to Bogotá, yeah, we'll have to lock our shit down. Someone catches up to us, we'll handle them. But in the meantime, in the moments like this when it's just us, you can set Scar aside and learn how to be a little softer with me."
She looks at me. "Fucking terrified of that, Sol."
"I know."
"What if…" she swallows hard. "What if you don't like the softer me? What if soft me gets us killed? What if I give you soft me and I never get my edge back?"
"What if I love the softer side of you?” I shoot back. “What if I can handle everything you are? What if I can love the badass as much as I can love the woman in you?"
"I'm always a woman, Sol. Just because I'm not soft doesn’t mean I’m not a woman."
“That's not what I meant."
"Sounded like it. You know how often I get that? How many people assume I'm a lesbian or act like I’m less of a woman because of who I am and what I do?”
I wince. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I know you're a woman."
She sighs. "I know what you meant. Scar is one of the guys."
"I've never lost sight of who you are, you know." I turn my hand so our palms touch. Tangle our fingers together. "I see you. I just…I think you can be more without losing who you already are."
She looks at our hands. Then at me. "Maybe…" she swallows hard. "Maybe I can try."
I squeeze her hand. "This is you trying, Scarlett. This is a step—a big first step. I'm not asking for everything all at once."
"This is scary enough as it is." She squeezes my hand back. Rubs her thumb against the knuckle of my index finger. "But I'll try. Be a pussy if I didn’t, and I'm no pussy. Just…" her voice drops to a whisper. "Just don't drop me, Sol."
"I lost you once, Scarlett. I won't ever let that happen again."
She just nods.
But she doesn’t let go of my hand.