Chapter 2 #3
But Chloe pressed forward with the kind of determined stupidity that got journalists killed. And apparently got former Navy SEALs killed too, because here he was, following her into a combat zone to check on a man he’d never met.
Next time he would definitely throw her over his shoulder.
Chaos engulfed the village. Free Burma Rangers moved between houses, helping families load belongings in bags onto motorcycles and pickup trucks. Children clung to their mothers, wide eyes reflecting the smoke-tinged sky.
“There.” Chloe pointed toward a stilted teak house near the village center.
It was like a target, daring artillery to take it down. Swell.
They climbed the narrow wooden stairs, the entire structure swaying with each step. Another artillery round exploded somewhere beyond the western tree line, close enough to make the place shiver.
Yeah, him too. “Okay, seriously,” Skeet said, checking his watch. “This is officially the worst vacation spot I’ve ever visited. Let’s go.”
“Five minutes,” Chloe said. “I promised him I’d try the plants.”
She pushed into the room. “Oh no, he’s worse.”
Skeet didn’t know what better had looked like, but indeed, the man looked as if he was on death’s door.
He lay under a mosquito net on a pancake mattress, his dark skin a grayish pallor and his entire body shaking.
An older woman knelt beside his bed, trying to bathe his sweaty head, but he kept twitching so hard, she couldn’t keep her hand on his head.
“Dr. Tobias.” Chloe dropped to her knees beside him, pulling the plants from her rucksack. “I found them. The plants Mrs. Nu Paw mentioned.”
He seemed to struggle to focus on her face. “Chloe.” The word came out slurred, barely recognizable. “Too late.”
“No.” She turned to Mrs. Nu Paw. “How do we prepare them? Tea? Poultice?”
The older woman’s expression answered before her words. “Miss Chloe. Plants help early sickness. Not this far.”
Skeet studied the dying man. He’d seen alkaloid poisoning before—usually from soldiers who’d eaten the wrong berries or drunk contaminated water. This was advanced. Way beyond what jungle medicine could fix.
Tobias’s hand moved weakly toward his phone, still propped against the water bottle. “Voice notes,” he whispered. “Everything . . . documented. Take them.”
The booms echoed across the valley. Closer than before.
“We need to go,” Chai said from the doorway. “Now.”
“I’m not leaving him,” Chloe said softly.
“Well, that’s noble and all,” Skeet said, moving into the room, “but dead journalists don’t write very good stories.”
Her blue eyes blazed at him. “He’s still alive.”
“Barely. And we’re all going to be significantly less alive if we don’t move. Right now.”
The frustration of eighteen hours of hiking through hostile territory finally bubbled over. Here he was, operating on negative sleep, living on protein bars, dodging Tatmadaw patrols and Karenni checkpoints, all to pull her stubborn hide out of a war zone she had no business being in.
And she was arguing with him about it.
“Listen, Chloe.” He kept his voice level, tried to remember what talking to his own sister had sounded like when she’d been beyond reason. “I know you want to help. I get it. But staying here isn’t going to save him, and it’s definitely going to get us killed.”
“So we just abandon him?”
He ignored the look she gave him. “We take what he’s giving us, and we make sure his story gets told. That’s what he wants.”
Dr. Tobias pressed his phone into Chloe’s hands. “Take this. Don’t let this story die.”
The sound of automatic weapons fire bulleted the southern edge of the village.
“That’s not just artillery anymore,” Chai said. “That’s ground troops.”
“Chloe,” Skeet said softly. “Decision time. We leave now, or we don’t leave at all.”
She looked between Dr. Tobias—pale and shaking but still conscious, still fighting—and the phone. Shook her head.
Another tank round hit, and the house shuddered. A picture fell from the wall, crashed into a thousand shards of glass.
“Go, Chloe.” Dr. Tobias’s voice was barely a whisper. “Don’t make me guilty of your death.”
Chloe swallowed. Nodded. “I promise. I’ll find answers.”
But she didn’t move. Couldn’t move. Skeet recognized the look—he’d seen it on the faces of soldiers who couldn’t leave wounded comrades behind, civilians who wouldn’t abandon family members.
“Miss Silver!” A man’s voice cut in from outside. “Tatmadaw forces are here!”
On the heels of his words, a tank round hit the house directly across the narrow lane, exploding in a shower of bamboo splinters and corrugated metal. The concussion wave slammed into their building, cracking support beams and filling the air with dust and debris.
Skeet slammed into Chloe, tackling her to the ground as the house shook.
And he was done asking for permission. He grabbed Chloe around the waist and hauled her toward the door as the house groaned around them. She fought him—clawing at his arms, trying to twist back toward Dr. Tobias—but he was made for this.
“Let me go!”
“Not happening, sweetheart.” He pulled her through the doorway as the ceiling beam above Dr. Tobias’s bed cracked.
Chai pulled the older woman with him from the house. It collapsed behind them just as they burst out into the chaos of the street. Free Burma Rangers herded families toward the forest paths as buildings burned around them.
Chloe still fought Skeet, weeping, shouting. She possessed some decent strength.
The older woman took off with the others.
“Chloe, calm down!”
Chloe stopped fighting him, Dr. Tobias’s phone clutched to her chest, tears streaming down her dirt-streaked face. She rounded in his arms, looked back at the house—now partially collapsed, smoke rising from the debris.
“Move,” he said. “We have to move now.”
The rumble of the tanks hammered the air.
“Follow the path!” Captain Wong gestured toward the northern tree line.
Nope, not that way. That way meant the army would follow.
“This way!” Chai said. “Back through the forest.” He took off down the street, heading away from the chaos.
The first tank crashed through the tree line at the northwestern edge of the village, its cannon swiveling toward the fleeing civilians. Behind it came the dark shapes of armored personnel carriers and the scattered forms of infantry advancing in tactical formation.
“Chloe.” Skeet stepped in front of her, blocking her view of the destruction. “Look at me.”
Her eyes slowly focused on his face.
“We’re going to run now. Fast. And we’re not looking back. Understood?”
She nodded again, this time with something approaching awareness.
“Good.” He took her hand—not roughly, but firmly enough to guide her. “Stay close. Do exactly what I say. And whatever happens, don’t stop running.”