She nodded. “Got it.”
Ghost studied her a moment longer. “But you learned. That matters.”
Rachel blinked, almost surprised. “Thanks.”
He stepped away and crossed to where his rifle rested against the wall. His hands went through the cleanup without thought, checking the mag, clearing the chamber, settling his gear in neat lines. Routine took over, but it did nothing to clear his head.
He had seen embedded reporters burn out fast. Some were overeager, some were careless, some were too numb to realize they had become a liability. Most needed constant correction and constant watching.
Rachel did not. She had not panicked. She had not waited for someone to drag her out of trouble. She had adjusted. That was rare.
Ghost glanced back toward her without meaning to. She sat alone near the fire, staring into the flames instead of checking herequipment. Her shoulders were drawn tight with tension, and he could tell she was replaying the slip in her head.
He registered the feeling before he could shut it down. She wasn't part of his unit, but somewhere along the line she'd stopped being a burden, and he was noticing. That was a complication he didn't need.
9
F.O.B. Kilo -Eight Days In Country
Eight days into the embed, and Rachel still hadn’t earned more than a grunt from most of the team. There were no nods over morning coffee or shared glances in passing, just the unyielding wall of silence that came with being the outsider, a barrier these men had no intention of lowering.
It wasn’t about orders. It was trust, and trust here felt like a locked gate she had to try and pick. Each morning started with stiff muscles and the weight of her vest biting into tender shoulders. Her legs carried the dull ache of miles climbed on uneven ground. Her palms had toughened. She had honestly never been this tired and sore before in her life.
She kept moving. Kept photographing. She hadn’t come here to be comfortable. She came because she knew she could do this.Someone had to tell these stories to the world and she needed it to be her. This is what she chose to do with her life, so no matter how badly she wanted a hot bath and a massage, she was in it 110%.
She had documented the aftermath of war for years. The mass graves, burned-out villages, women digging through rubble with torn hands while gunfire echoed in the distance. She had stood in craters still warm from explosions.
This, however, was different. She’d never been embedded with a SEAL team before. The rhythm these men moved with didn’t leave room for outsiders. You had to sync to the rhythm of the team without disrupting its shape.
The days stripped her down. Sun that scalded and pushed heat through her vest. Nights that dropped cold fast enough to sting down to her bones. Dust clung to everything.
When the team moved, she followed. Over ridgelines. Through narrow valleys. Pack heavy. Sweat cutting lines down her back. Her steps never faltered. She asked for nothing and expected nothing. Praise wasn’t part of the deal, and she knew it.
And even by day eight, the silence around her held firm. The SEALs weren’t impressed.
***
Day 10 In Country
They stopped along a narrow rise just off the trail, where the desert rolled out in flat, colorless waves. The quiet settled into the dust with them, thick as the heat, leaving every breath hanging too close to their skin.
Exhaustion was setting in. Ghost saw it clearly, Rogue's slumped shoulders, Reaper working stiffness from his hands. Torch wiped sweat away and forced a grin for Rachel that didn't nothing to hide how wiped he was.
Rachel lifted her canteen and finished what little was left before clipping it back to her belt. Dust had worked its way into every crease of her gear, her lashes, vest, the line of her jaw. Her shirt stuck to her back, boots swallowed in sand, but she kept her stance sure.
“She’s still upright,” Rogue muttered.
“More stubborn than smart,” Reaper said.
Brick adjusted the sling on his rifle. “Thought she’d have tapped out halfway through yesterday.”
Ghost watched her from behind mirrored lenses, the glare off them hiding the fact that he was studying every small tell. Ten days under a sun that normally chewed people to pieces, and she still hadn’t given him the signs he expected. There was no hesitation, no slack in her step, nothing that said the desert was too hard. Most civilianscracked early, but not her.
A strand of hair stuck to her cheek, catching a dull flash of copper under the grime. She should’ve looked rough, all of them did, but somehow she didn’t. Her cheeks were flushed, a slow shine of sweat gathering along her collar, and Ghost looked too long. Let the thought drift elsewhere, imagining that same flush in a different context entirely.
He shut it down hard. Wrong place, wrong timing, too dangerous in more ways than one.
Rachel turned and caught him watching. “What?” she asked, voice steady, not giving him room to sidestep it.
