Liar.
But maybe—just maybe—the beginning of a…
truce.
Half an hour later, the freak storm hit harder—rain slamming the roof in steady, punishing waves. Wind forced water through the cracks, spraying the walls and pooling across the concrete floor. The air turned heavy, thick with that metallic tang storms dragged out of the desert.
Titus could taste grit and damp dust on the back of his tongue—the cold working straight through his shirt and vest. His black utility pants were already soaked past the knees.
Viper still sat beside him—close enough that Titus felt the faint warmth each time their shoulders brushed.
Desert storms were mean—came fast, hit hard, buried the unprepared. Staying put made sense. Getting swept down a wash in the dark wasn’t on the agenda.
They’d both gone quiet.
Not comfortable quiet, not hostile quiet—just… charged.
Rain and breath and something else threading the space between them.
Viper retied another loose knot—Titus recognized the military style. The rope came from the wrecked truck, dry-rotted and stiff. Rain slicked grit across his palms, but Viper didn’t seem to care. He worked the line with practiced precision, forcing it into a clean bowline—steady, exact, the kind that held even when everything else fell apart.
Okay, the silence was driving him crazy—and something was really bugging him.
“Why me?” Titus asked, not even sure Viper could hear him over the rain hammering the tin roof.
“You follow orders.”
Ah. So, the man had heard him. But that was not the answer he expected.
“Do I?” He smirked, shifting his weight. Viper turned his head—slow, deliberate—eyes catching on his mouth before meeting his gaze. That held a beat too long.
Viper broke it first, finishing the knot, then leaned back against the siding. “You’re a smartass about it,” he said, voice low, “but yeah, you do.”
Titus huffed a quiet laugh. “Can’t let you get too full of yourself, Colonel.”
“It’s just Viper out here.” He didn’t look away as he said it—tone even, but something in the way he held Titus’s gaze felt heavier than protocol.
“I know,” Titus said. Field rules—never name rank in the open. He dragged a thumb along the grip of his pistol to keep his hands busy.
“You were Army.” Viper’s eyes cut toward him, pale and sharp in the dim.
Titus shifted, uncomfortable under the weight of it. The man saw too much. Understood too much.
“You read my file,” Titus said, flicking the rock that had been digging into his leg. It clattered off the wall, lost in the rain.
“What little there was of it.” Viper gave a slow nod, like the redactions hadn’t surprised him.
Titus turned away, glancing through the opening.
The storm eased—tapered off—but water still ran down the walls in thin, steady streams. The roof leaked in three places now. Titus adjusted his position, boots scraping concrete.
“You think the others are okay?” he asked, partly to fill the noise, mostly to read him.
“Law will have them stashed someplace safe by now. Waiting for dawn,” Viper said. “He doesn’t miss.”
“None of you do.”
A short grunt from Viper—almost a laugh. “We try not to.”
