Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
SLOANE
Come prepared.
Rule one of being an investigative journalist.
But how do you prepare for rivers of mud swallowing entire vehicles?
I rub my hand over my face, trying not to panic. I have to remain calm.
But the cabin feels smaller by the minute. I’ve never been claustrophobic before. Now my skin crawls every time I look at the walls.
Pull it together, Sloane. Come on. You’ve been through worse.
I have. Bombings. Ambushes. One kidnapping. There was always a way out. I just had to stay open to it.
It’s the same with this.
“You worried yet?” he grumbles from across the room, where he heats water over a camping cook stove.
“Should I be?”
He shakes his head. “Might take a bit to get a bird up here. Only way now the road’s washed out.”
“A helicopter,” I huff. “You’re not serious.”
But he is. Deadly.
“You’re not leaving,” he says, face grim.
“Not yet.”
He nods once.
My eyes snag on his chest. Pure muscle, angular planes. A black and gray First Recon insignia on one pectoral and coordinates on his left biceps. Different from the numbers that brought me here.
Still, this man lives by them.
His hand comes up, rubbing his chest. “Something you’re looking at?”
“The coordinates on your arm.” I’m already memorizing them. I raise an eyebrow, shooting him a questioning look.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. So, this is how it’s going to be.
“I’ll be staying for a while then.”
His face hardens. “Close quarters. No comfort.”
“As you said yourself, I’m a war correspondent. Seen and been through worse.”
But he doesn’t look convinced anything’s worse than standing here with me.
“Warm up.” He nods toward the hearth. “Coffee coming.”
I didn’t ask for that. For any of this. Still, my treacherous feet move toward the flames, skin prickling, teeth chattering.
I raise my hands, rubbing them together, soaking up the heat. It feels like a luxury in this place.
Minutes pass. I don’t know how long.
The floorboards creak. He hands me a chipped white mug of coffee. My hands curl around it, hungry for the heat. I breathe in the steam, staring into the greasy black.
“You bring cream?” he asks.
I nod toward one of the paper bags I placed near his small, makeshift pantry earlier.
“Just powder.”
“It’ll do. Want some?”
“Yes, please.” The last two words slam into me. Too polite. Too soft for this moment.
Our fingers brush when he hands the mug back, and I feel it far longer than contact should last.
He looks away, Adam’s apple working.
I blow on the hot liquid, then take a tentative sip. It’s what I need. I feel the heat go all the way down.
“Better.”
He barely reacts.
I don’t know how long passes. The place feels timeless. Birds chirp outside. Hens cluck and fuss.
Never thought he’d want cream. Never thought he’d have chickens. Or make small talk.
Or seem so damn… human.
God.
I don’t like this.
Sympathy creeps in. Dangerous. “Let’s cut to the chase.” My voice comes out hard, cold as the post-rain air. “He was under your command.”
Rhys eyes me hesitantly. “Yes.”
“And you were the last man to see him alive?” My eyes narrow, logging every micro-gesture. Every tell.
Nothing.
Maybe the graveness. The calm surface is a tell all its own. I clock that.
“Don’t know.”
My mouth goes dry. “How do you not know?”
He stares at me blankly—blinking steadily, pulse point at his neck even. Not flustered or nervous. That unnerves me.
“Because I don’t.”
I’ve had interviews like this before. Every word measured and weighed.
His face looks guarded. That’s the only thing I can read. But there’s something in his eyes I can’t name yet. Maybe guilt.
“You were supposed to extract him.” I lick my lips.
“Yes.”
“But that’s not what happened.”
He nods, eyes narrowing. He swallows, and I wait. There has to be more. When he looks at me, anger flashes behind his gaze. “Those are your hard-hitting questions? Why you risked your neck to come up here?”
I step back, stunned by his words. Only away from the fire do I realize my cheeks are glowing along with the front of me. “You could stop wasting my time. Tell me what I need to know.”
“You don’t need to know anything,” he says, voice hollow.
And there it is. The end of this conversation.
I’ve interviewed enough subjects to know. War lords. Criminals. Human traffickers. All reticent. All trying to control through language.
“Just so you know,” I say, though I’m likely wasting my breath. “I haven’t decided what you are yet. That’s why I’m here. To get your side of things.”
That stops him cold. He glares at me as if he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. “What makes you think I care?”
I step closer, straining to get a good read on him. “Because I’m the only one still asking questions. The only one who wants to hear it from you.”
He shifts back on his heels, a muscle feathering in his jaw. “And what happens when I can’t give you what you want?”
That’s my worst fear. The one question I don’t want to consider. It’s as if he sees right through me.
Maybe he does.
“For Phoenix,” I say.
He laughs darkly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“Enough talk,” he says, setting down his coffee and heading for the chest of drawers. He slides into a gray Henley and a green flannel. “I’ll be back.”
He doesn’t ask if I’m staying. Because he doesn’t have to. He knows I’m here until I get answers.
No matter what those answers reveal.