That someone has set up an operation on an old mine on company ground is concerning. Even if it isn’t a site that is being actively investigated, I know it is on Ashely’s timeline.
The closing of the mines had been one cause of the previous trouble. I pray this isn’t the start of a new round, and that Reed, Colton and Hargrave make it back alive.
CHAPTER18
Colton
I lift my rifle,ready to peer through the scope at the area where I saw a light. I creep forward until I see it more clearly. I push up my goggles, not wanting to ruin my vision. I start above the light and sweep down, letting my eyes adjust to focusing further than six feet away.
Hargrave is close and my voice is no louder than the rain. “Camp site. Three vehicles, one with the high beam on.” I take a moment to locate what the light is shining on. Then I close my eyes and hope that was a trick of the light, and shadows, and my own sense of doom. I open them and check again. My heart tries to split in half. “Reed is strung up in the light.”
“Dead?” Hargrave asks, as though the fact that it’s Reed doesn’t matter. He won’t let himself feel until later. He stuffs it all in. I don’t know how. Maybe I feel too much and that’s why I got kicked out. Punching an officer has that effect.
“I don’t know.” I hear the break in my voice, but I can’t look away. “Held up by his hands, naked.” His back is to me, but I note the damage already done to him. Had they been trying to convince Ashley to return?
Return and we’ll stop hurting him until next time? Until we hurt you? I have no idea why abusers think the promise of them stopping is a good reason to go back. Like, I’ve left and I’m free. Why would I go back? Why trust their word when they’ve broken it a dozen times before?
“Hostiles?”
I make a wider sweep of the site to see if I can get eyes on how many armed men are waiting for us. “Two hostiles visible. Headlights at twelve. Hostiles at ten and three. Could be more behind the light.” That’s where I’d put them. But then I’d have let Reed run, and let him lead me to the priority target, the geologist.
My gaze returns to Reed. He’s not moving, and his head is bowed. Attempting to escape must have pissed them off. What did they think was going to happen? That Ashley and Reed were going to be good little hostages and do what they were told?
He doesn’t deserve to be strung up like that where he’ll be caught in any crossfire. Not that they are expecting us…unless we’ve been betrayed. Which is possible. The promise of emeralds and wealth can make people take stupid risks.
If Reed and I switched places, he’d already be picking them off. He’d trust himself not to shoot me because he was a sniper. In that moment I want to trade with him, because he’d get me out alive.
Hargrave gets down next to me to view the situation for himself. My thoughts churn while he makes his own assessment. My brain rattles through everything, from leaving the army to getting this job and the first time I met Reed. I wouldn’t say it was lust at first sight. It never worked that way for me, although no one would guess that. But as I got to know him, I started to like him. As it usually happens, we were a few beers in when the topic turned to sex.
“I think we need to walk around and see it from another angle.”
“Agreed.” We scramble up, the mud washing off us within seconds. I don’t think I’ve ever been so dirty and so clean at the same time.
Ashley caught my eye for the simple fact her accent is the same as Reed’s, and she has an ass made for grabbing. Watching them talk and laugh about drop bears made me want to be a part of that. While she put up walls, Reed let me in.
Now those walls had been brought down, and I didn’t know what to do.
I wanted.
But did I dare?
I follow Hargrave around the edge of the cruddy little camp. It’s half wooden shacks and the other half appears to be tents. I pity anyone in the tents tonight. “You ever had a three way?”
He’s silent. I’m not asking twice.
“I’m not joining you and Reed. I like women.”
“I wasn’t inviting you, smart ass,” I hiss.
The rain drowns out the sound of our feet and words. We’re about a hundred yards from the edge of the camp, and still in the tree line of the jungle. With the light in the camp, they won’t be able to see anything out here, but we aren’t being careless in case they have a man in the jungle. As much as I want to rush, that will only get us all killed.
“Yeah. But it was the kind that’s paid for.”
“Huh.” I didn’t think he was that kind of man.
“And it was years ago. I was a recruit. First time in the big city.”
“So you wouldn’t do it again?”
