“You jumped to the conclusion I was up to something.” Romeo glares down at me, jaw tight. “Same way everyone assumes we’re up to something. That’s exactly why we have to hide out here. I’d rather die than trust myself to TerraDyn’s laws or the military’s idea of enforcing them.”
“I may have assumed, but I wasn’t wrong. And I’d rather die than let you or any of your terrorist friends hurt anyone on my watch.” My mouth twitches to a smile, humorless and cold. “Looks like one of us will get our wish, at least.”
“I’m not a terrorist.” Romeo steps back, lit once more as he stoops to retrieve his lantern. His handsome face is hard, his voice thick with hostility. The humor, the wry sarcasm—completely gone. “All we want is what belongs to us. I was only after information about that hidden facility. If I wanted to blow up your stupid bar, I wouldn’t have wasted time flirting with you.”
“For all I knew you were flirting with me because you’d been sent to kill me.”
He’s silent, breathing hard in and out through his nose. I don’t have much power—I don’t have any power, tied down like this—but at least I can make him angry.
“This is getting us nowhere,” he says, his voice low.
I try to lean forward, constrained by my bonds. “All I did was my job. You’re the one who got us into this. And if you stop and think about it, I don’t really think I’m the one you’re mad at.”
He makes a show of thinking about it, then snaps, “No, I’m pretty sure it’s you.”
And then he’s gone, stalking back up the tunnel and taking the light with him. I was right—he doesn’t have the stomach to kill me. He’s going to make someone else do it. So much for having some company before I die.
I should keep trying to work the post free, but I know I’m not going anywhere until they decide I am. I know it like I know the truth: they’re going to kill me. Romeo might not know it yet—he might think the military will give these people something in exchange for my safe return. But Base Commander Towers follows procedure to the letter, and that includes captured soldiers. We don’t work like that. We don’t make deals.
And they’re not coming for me.
I’ve just managed to doze a little, chin dropped to my chest, when the scrape of footsteps and a light playing against my eyelids rouses me. I push away the flicker of warmth it brings, the sudden stab of relief that he hasn’t left me here to rot alone after he left so angry.
Romeo, can’t you see I need my beauty sleep?
I open one eye, and my heart sinks.
It’s not Romeo. It’s someone I’ve never seen before, a tall, burly man twice Romeo’s size. Most of his face is covered by a kerchief, which is the only good sign I’ve had since I woke. Concealing his face means he isn’t here to kill me—or he hasn’t made up his mind yet.
“So it’s true.” The man is staring at me with a burning intensity that lifts the hairs on the back of my neck in warning. He steps into the cavern from the tunnel slowly, deliberately. “Captain Jubilee Chase.”
His voice is quiet, almost genial—yet on his lips my name sounds like a curse.
I draw myself up slowly and say nothing. I know how this plays out, and there’s nothing I can say that will change what’s about to happen.
Romeo, where are you?
“Hard to believe our resident pacifist thought he could capture an enemy officer and keep her hidden in our base.” The man paces to one side and sets his lantern down on a shelf of rock. He pauses there, eyes scanning me slowly, raking over my body, dwelling on the bruised, welted flesh beneath the ropes binding me. “And I thought it was too good to be true.”
Despite his calm voice, his eyes carry a fevered hatred in them that freezes my blood. Whoever this man is, he’s not entirely sane. I’ve seen that look on other planets, in other rebellions. This is the kind of person who walks into a school and blows it up to make a point. This is what keeps me awake at night—what keeps me questioning every strange face, enforcing every new security measure. Men like this are why I’m here.
My gut tightens with dread, and I look away, fixing my eyes on the ceiling and running over my training like a litany. Don’t engage. Don’t give him what he wants.
“Perhaps you can settle an argument for me,” the man murmurs, crossing over toward me and dropping to a crouch not far away. “My wife used to say the military doesn’t open its hospitals to civilians because it’ll remove the motivation to develop our own. I always told her it’s because you’re a bunch of sadistic bastards who want to watch us die.”
We don’t let civilians into our hospitals because these “civilians” are as likely to walk in with weapons as with wounds—but it’ll do no good to explain that to him. I’m not sure he’d hear me if I did.