Chapter 13 #2
She laughed, but it had an edge of hysteria.
"Sarah—"
"I'm fine. Totally fine. Just bought clothes at a truck stop while professional killers are hunting me. This is completely normal. This is—" Her breathing was getting shallow. "I can't—pull over?"
Griff immediately pulled into a rest area. Sarah stumbled out, made it three steps from the SUV before her legs gave out. She sat hard on a picnic bench, head between her knees.
"I can't breathe—"
"Panic attack." Griff sat beside her, careful not to touch. "It has to come out."
"This is so stupid. We don't have time for—" She stopped, throwing her head back as she struggled to pull air into her lungs.
"We have time for this.” He took her hands. “Eyes on me. Breathe with me. In for four, hold for four, out for four."
She tried to match his breathing, but another wave hit. "Someone sent me to the middle of nowhere. Alone. They were going to—" She couldn't finish.
"But they didn't. You survived."
"Because of you. If you hadn't been there—"
"But I was. And you fought. You didn't freeze, you fought back." He grinned. “I’ve got the burns on my face to prove it.”
She laughed. Sort of.
It took ten minutes for her breathing to steady. Another five before the shaking stopped.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"For what? Being human?"
"For being weak."
"Sarah." He waited until she looked at him. "You've been hunted, nearly killed, discovered massive corruption, and haven't fallen apart once. You're not weak. You're not a machine."
"You don't fall apart."
"I've had years of practice. And I do fall apart. Just... differently."
"How?"
He thought about the nights he couldn't sleep, the times he'd punched walls until his knuckles bled, the bourbon he'd used to drown the ghosts. "Destructively. Your way is healthier."
She managed a watery laugh. "Hyperventilating at a rest stop is healthy?"
"Processing trauma instead of bottling it up? Yeah, it's healthy."
They sat for another few minutes, Sarah's breathing finally evening out. When she stood, she seemed steadier, more grounded.
"Thank you," she said quietly.
"For what?"
"For not treating me as if I'm broken."
"You're not broken. You're adapting."
“Thanks for that.” She pressed a hand to her throat and closed her eyes. “Dear Jesus, fill me with your strength.”
“Amen.” The word slipped right out of his mouth, rusty and disused. How long had it been since he’d been able to bring himself to pray?
They got back in the SUV, and this time when Sarah put on music, she chose something softer, less aggressively cheerful.
She pulled out one of her laptops. "These routing numbers from Arlington," she said, clearly needing to focus on work, on something she could control.
"Some of them repeat in patterns. A signature. "
"Meaning?"
"Meaning whoever set up the payment system has a style. A fingerprint. If I can match it to other known financial crimes..."
"You can identify who inside the FBI is running this."
"Exactly." She watched the flat scenery speed past, then glanced at him. "You really don't believe in using the interstate?"
"Too exposed. These back roads add time, but they're safer."
"And more scenic, I suppose." She gestured at the endless rangeland. "Very... brown."
"You have something against Wyoming?"
"I'm from Connecticut. We have trees. And hills. And things that aren't brown." She was trying for normal conversation, he could tell. Grasping for something that wasn't about death and conspiracy.
"Give it time. It grows on you."
"Like a fungus?"
This time he did smile. "Sure. Like a fungus."
As the sun set, they stopped for gas in a town that barely qualified as a dot on the map.
While Griff filled the tank, Sarah stretched her legs, testing out her new boots.
She still checked every car that passed, still positioned herself with clear sight lines to escape routes, but she was managing her fear better.
She looked younger in the casual clothes, less like a federal agent and more like someone's daughter or sister. It made the protective instinct he'd been fighting even stronger.
"Meal break?" she asked when he finished with the gas.
"We eat in the car. Keep moving."
"You really never stop?"
"Stopping gets people killed."
She studied him. "That must be exhausting. Always being on alert."
"It's necessary."
"But exhausting."
He didn't answer, but she was right. He was tired down to his bones, had been since Tank died. Maybe before that. The constant vigilance, the inability to trust, the weight of keeping everyone safe—it was grinding him down.
Griff pulled back onto the road. "We need to focus."
"On what? We have thirty more hours of driving. We can't be on high alert every second."
"Yes, we can."
"No, Griff, we can't. Humans aren't built that way. Even you need to occasionally act like a person instead of a weapon."
The words hit harder than she probably intended. Is that what he'd become? A weapon? Point and shoot, no humanity left?
"Tell me about Tank," she said suddenly, shifting the conversation. "Not how he died. How he lived."
Griff's hands tightened on the wheel. "Why?"
"Because we have a long way to go, and I want to know about the man we're risking everything for." She paused. "And because talking about good things keeps the bad things from taking over."
For a long moment, he considered shutting down the conversation. But something about her honesty, her admission that she needed this, made him start talking.
"He loved to cook. Weird thing for a demolitions expert, but he said it was all chemistry anyway.
" The memory came easier than expected. "He'd take over whatever kitchen we were near, didn't matter if it was a base in Afghanistan or a safe house in Detroit.
Always trying some new recipe he'd found online. "
"Was he any good?"
"Terrible. Absolutely terrible. But he never gave up. Kept experimenting." Griff found himself almost smiling. "One time he tried to make Thai food in Kabul. Set off the smoke alarms, evacuated half the building. The Afghan guards thought we were under chemical attack."
Sarah laughed—a real laugh this time, not forced or brittle. "I think I would have liked him."
"He would have liked you. Had a thing for smart women who could put him in his place."
"Did he have someone? Family?"
"Parents in Iowa. Sister in Seattle. No wife, no kids. Said he wanted to wait until he was done with the dangerous stuff." Griff's voice went quiet. "Guess he waited too long."
"I'm sorry."
"Yeah. Me too."
They drove through the evening, trading stories. Sarah told him about her father, the Army Intelligence officer who'd taught her to see patterns in chaos. Her voice only shook a little when she talked about losing him to cancer. The cross at her throat was his last gift to her.
Griff found himself sharing more than he'd intended, stories about his team, the close calls, the victories nobody knew about.
"Why Knight Tactical?" she asked as the sun started to sink toward the horizon. "After the military, why private security?"
"We work best together. Choosing our missions, protecting people who need it. Being the good guys."
"You weren't the good guys in the military?"
"We followed orders. Sometimes those orders were good. Sometimes..." He shrugged. "Knight Tactical missions are cleaner."
"But?"
"The shadows follow you no matter what uniform you wear."
Sarah was quiet for a moment, fidgeting with the hem of her new flannel. "Maybe the shadows aren't following you. Maybe you're carrying them."
Before he could respond, she pointed to a sign ahead, clearly needing to change the subject. "We need to stop soon. Unless you're planning to drive straight through without sleeping."
"I can go another few hours."
"When did you last sleep? Really sleep?"
He couldn't remember. Three days ago? Four?
"There's a motel about fifty miles ahead," she said, pulling up something on her laptop. "Small place, takes cash, according to the reviews."
"You researched motels?"
"I research everything. It's what I do. Control what you can control, right?"
Fifty miles later, they pulled into the parking lot of the Wagon Wheel Motel, a line of rooms that had seen better decades. The security camera outside the office dangled uselessly from its mount. Perfect for staying invisible.
"Two rooms," Griff said to the clerk, paying cash.
"Only got one left," the old man replied without looking up from his newspaper. "Tomorrow's the rodeo. Everything's booked."
Griff looked at Sarah. She'd gone very still, processing this complication.
"We're adults," she said finally, voice carefully neutral. "We can share a room without it being weird."
But as they stood at the door of room twelve, bags in hand, Griff wondered if that was true. Something had shifted since that first moment in her cabin. She wasn't just a witness to protect anymore. She was...
He didn't know what she was. And that was dangerous.
Because caring about people, really caring, was the surest way to lose them.
And he'd already lost too much.
Sarah eyed the stained carpet and grimaced. "So we're clear here, you get the floor."
"I've slept on worse."
"I was kidding. There are two beds." She paused. "But I might need... I mean, if I have nightmares..."
"I'll be here," he said simply.
She nodded, something easing in her shoulders. They were two broken people trying to survive something that might kill them both. But for tonight, at least, neither of them had to face it alone.