Roman remains concealed in his hiding spot, but his voice crackles through our earpieces every few minutes with an update.
“Perimeter secure.”
“No movement detected.”
“Clover, you’re going to see Johnson at your two o’clock in about thirty feet. Don’t react. He’s one of ours.”
Sure enough, there’s a man in tactical gear partially concealed behind a tree. He doesn’t move as we pass, but I feelhis presence. Feel the weight of a rifle barrel tracking us, and I’m thankful that Roman had the wherewithal to warn her.
Fuck, I needed the warning too. I’ve never felt so ill-prepared for a mission in my entire goddamn career.
The only mission that truly matters.
Get your shit together, Stone.
Having visuals on our men should make me feel safer, but it doesn’t. If anything, it brings our reality into stark, terrifying color.
“You’re approaching the break point,” Roman says in my earpiece. “Thirty minutes and counting.”
The break point is where I’m supposed to leave Clover, but it might actually be where I lose my mind.
How am I supposed to let her walk into a potential ambush all alone?
Sterling and Chase move into the trees on opposite sides of the clearing. Chief positions himself behind a fallen log that gives him a clear sightline to the tree. Grant stays with us, but far enough back that he isn’t immediately visible.
Pulling out binoculars from my cargo pocket, I scan the clearing, our tree, the space around it.
It’s exactly the same as it was two days ago. Massive. Ancient. The Y split clearly visible even in the dark. If I squint, I’m sure I can make out our initials carved into the bark—a promise we made when we were too young to understand what promises cost.
“Positions,” Grant says quietly, but I can’t quite get myself to move because it means leaving her alone, unprotected, exactly as we’ve so meticulously planned to do.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” I say, not to scare her, but because I’m too terrified not to say it.
She squeezes my hand once, then lets it go, and my heart twists violently in my chest. “You need to move back into the trees,” she says. “Terra has to think I’m alone.”
“I—” I scan behind every tree, every log for a second time. “I don’t think I can.”
“Valen.” Grant doesn’t move from his spot, but I know he wants me to stick to the plan.
“No.” I can’t fucking do this. “I’m not hiding while she stands out there like bait. I can’t do it.”
“The deal was that I face her alone,” she says, showing a sudden stubborn streak I’d be proud of in any other scenario. But here, it just makes me want to toss her over my shoulder and run.
“And I’m changing the deal. There are too many unknowns out here. I’ll face her with you.”
We stare at one another, each of us determined to see a different outcome. Her jaw is set in a hard, stubborn line that probably mirrors my own.
“You two done?” Sterling’s voice crackles through the earpiece. “Because you’re wasting time arguing about something that has already been decided. Valen, stand the fuck down. End of discussion.”
Roman’s air-hissed chuckle filters through next. “Valen’s right. Something’s…off, and we don’t have time to recalibrate our plan. Clover, if Valen being visible spooks Terra, that’s her problem. We have a man stationed at all four corners of this property, and I’m still not comfortable sending you out there alone.”
We’ve learned that sometimes you go with your gut instinct, the one that kicks in to keep you alive.
Clover’s head is on a swivel, seeking the danger of Roman’s premonition.
“We don’t see any threats,” Grant clarifies. “It’s just a gut feeling, but?—”
“What if she doesn’t come because she sees you?”
