Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
RHYS
The storm breaks just after midnight. Thunder cracks hard enough to shake the cabin walls while rain lashes the roof in brutal waves. Wind screams through the pines outside like something alive, tearing its way across the mountain.
Sloane jerks awake on the floor.
I’m already standing. I can never sleep through weather like this anymore. Not after the city. Or the dust clouds swallowing streets, radios screaming over gunfire, and buildings collapsing faster than men could run.
Lightning flashes white through the windows.
Sloane pushes upright immediately, her sleeping bag falling from her delicate shoulders. “What was that?”
“Thunder.”
“That sounded close.”
“It was.”
Another crack splits the sky almost instantly after. Closer. Too close. I light a kerosene lamp, watching its golden flames flicker in the dark.
Sloane rubs sleep from her face, chestnut hair tangled around her shoulders. Her gaze finds me standing near the window. “You ever sleep?” she asks quietly.
I don’t answer because the truth is ugly. Every time I close my eyes lately, Phoenix dies differently. Sometimes because I let go. Others because I don’t.
Lightning flashes again. For a second, the room glows stark white.
And Sloane sees it… whatever slips across my face in that moment. Her expression changes instantly. Suspicion and anger replaced with understanding, sharp enough to cut.
“Tell me,” she says softly.
I look back toward the storm. “No.”
“Rhys.”
“Not tonight.”
Thunder rattles the windows again.
She rises from the floor slowly, sleeping bag rustling. “You keep saying that.”
“Because once I say it…” My voice roughens slightly. “There’s no undoing it.”
Rain hammers on the roof.
Sloane steps closer carefully, like approaching a wounded animal. Maybe she is. Maybe I am, too. “You said he knew something was coming.”
My jaw tightens.
“You said he wasn’t really operating under your command.”
I stare out at the mountains disappearing beneath sheets of rain.
“And this part… acceptable damage.”
My eyes meet hers. “Cost of doing business,” I say.
The way she looks at me finally does it. And I’m too damn tired to hold the line anymore. I exhale slowly. “Whatever his mission was… we were expendable.”
The room goes still. Sloane doesn’t move... doesn’t breathe. “But he was recon.”
“He wasn’t recon,” I continue quietly. “Not after.”
“After what?” It comes out strained.
“After he disappeared for a while. No explanation. I was told by the top brass not to ask. Intel re-attached him to us three days before deployment.”
She asks more carefully now. “And you don’t know why?”
I laugh once under my breath, humorless. “That’s the problem.” I glance at her finally. “Nobody ever gave us the full picture.”
The sky crackles. The floorboards shake.
I lean both hands against the windowsill, staring into the darkness. “We were supposed to secure a section of the city while another operation moved through farther east. Standard containment. Hold the line. Watch the streets. Keep movement controlled.”
The memory starts seeping through before I can stop it. Always the same…
Heat. Smoke. Concrete dust coating the inside of my mouth.
Phoenix standing too still beside the Humvee while everyone else checked gear.
Watching buildings instead of people.
“He kept disappearing off comms,” I mutter. “Getting information nobody else heard.”
“Did command know?”
“Yes.”
“And they let it happen?”
“They expected it.”
She shifts, exhaling through her nose.
I continue before I lose momentum. “Something changed the morning of the ambush.” My throat tightens slightly. “I could feel it. Intel got messy. Timelines shifted. Phoenix looked…” I shake my head once. “Focused.”
Sloane steps closer. “What happened?”
I close my eyes briefly. Then let myself fall back into it.
Narrow streets. Laundry hanging between buildings. Children gone. Too quiet. Always too quiet before something bad.
“We held position outside an apartment block,” I say. “Watching an intersection. Waiting for movement.”
Electricity flashes violently outside. And suddenly I’m there again. Phoenix moving beside me. Fast. Deliberate. Wrong direction.
“He broke formation.”
Sloane’s breath catches softly.
“I saw him cross the street.” My voice roughens. “Didn’t call it in. Didn’t ask permission. Just moved.”
“Why?”
“He saw something.”
“What?”
“I still don’t know.” That’s the truth nobody understands. Not her or command. Not even me.
I turn away from the window finally. Sloane’s standing only a few feet away now, eyes fixed completely on me.
I continue before I lose nerve. “I went after him.”
The storm rages outside. I have to raise my voice to be heard over it.
“By the time I reached him, we were already outside the perimeter.” My jaw tightens. “He was trying to get inside the building.”
“What building?”
“I don’t know.” Frustration bleeds sharply into the words. “Could’ve been a contact point. Informant. Surveillance target. I never got answers.” Because the dead don’t explain themselves.
“And then?” she whispers.
I look at her. And for one horrible second, all I see is Phoenix staring back at me through her eyes.
“You’re going to blow it.”
The memory slams into me hard enough to steal breath. I grip the edge of the counter. “He fought me.”
Sloane blinks. “What?”
“I grabbed him.” My voice lowers. “Tried to pull him back into position.”
Dust in the air. Radio chatter exploding. Phoenix wrenching hard enough to break my grip.
“‘You don’t understand.’ He kept saying that.”
The sky glows again, and suddenly I can smell blood. Concrete. Burned wiring.
“I told him we were exposed.” Something pulls tight behind my chest. “Told him whatever this was, it wasn’t worth losing the team.”
Sloane watches me silently.
I laugh again. Broken this time. “He looked right at me and said it already was.”
The room tilts slightly under the weight of the memory.
I swallow hard. “He knew.”
Sloane’s face pales. “Knew what?”
“That something was coming.” I drag a hand down my face. “Maybe not the exact ambush. Maybe not the timing. But enough.” The next words scrape on the way out. “And he never said a word. No warning. Nothing. Led us right into the snake’s den.”
Silence crashes down.
Sloane’s voice shakes slightly when she speaks again. “The explosion?”
I nod once. “IED first.” My gaze unfocuses. “Then gunfire from the rooftops.”
Everything after that exists in fragments.
Screaming. Smoke. One of my men missing half his leg. Phoenix shoved against concrete, blood soaking through his vest. My own hands slick red trying to drag him upright.
“I called extraction,” I say quietly. “Tried to move him.”
My throat locks hard. Because this is the part that never leaves me.
Phoenix gripping my vest weakly. Pulling me closer. Not afraid. God, that’s the worst part. He wasn’t afraid.
“He told me to leave him.”
Sloane’s eyes shine now. “No…”
“He said if I stayed, more of us would die.” My voice breaks slightly for the first time. “Said I’d already done enough damage.”
Lightning flashes violently across the room. And there it is. The truth sitting naked between us.
“I could’ve disobeyed,” I whisper. The confession tears something open inside my chest. “I could’ve stayed.”
Sloane stares at me motionlessly.
“But then what?” I ask roughly. “More dead Marines? Three already in the dirt.” My jaw tightens painfully. “He made the call for me.”
The room goes completely silent.
“He didn’t die because I left him.” The words land hard enough to shake me. “He died because he wouldn’t come with me. And because he knew before we did.”
Tears slide silently down Sloane’s face now. I hate myself for putting them there. But not enough to lie anymore.
“I can’t believe that. I just—”
“You don’t think our lives get measured. Discussed in boardrooms. Acceptable risk, collateral damage. Whatever Phoenix was after was deemed worth more than all of us.”
“But you fought like hell to get out,” she says quietly, eyes meeting mine. “Because nothing was worth your men… or even my brother.”
I nod, looking away. “I still don’t know what he was trying to do,” I say quietly. “Maybe he was right. Maybe he would’ve stopped something bigger.” My throat thickens. “Or maybe none of it would’ve mattered.”
“That’s not true.”
“How the hell would you know?” The sharpness in my voice shocks both of us. I look away immediately.
Sloane wipes at her face hard. Neither of us speak for a long moment. Because there’s nothing left to say.
No clean ending. No clear villain.
Just dead Marines. A failed mission. And two people left trying to pick up what remains of the truth.
Finally, Sloane speaks softly into the storm. “You forgave him.”
The words hit harder than everything else combined.
“Still.”
I close my eyes. She’s right. That’s the part I never got over.
Because forgiving someone doesn’t stop them from choosing something you can’t follow them into.