Page 43 of My Forbidden Commander

“You did good work out there,” I tell him. It’s true, but he also earned hearing it before the drugs pull him under again.

“Gun jammed. Should’ve caught it faster.” It’s the most words I’ve heard him string together at once since he arrived at Kestrel.

“You caught it fast enough if you’re still here to complain about it.”

He doesn’t answer, just closes his eyes, so I let him rest.

Callahan comes by an hour later, still in his patrol kit, mud dried up to his knees. He stands at the foot of my cot with his cap in his hands like he’s paying respects at a funeral instead of checking on a colonel with a bandaged shoulder.

“Sir.” He doesn’t sit. “Wanted to say… If my team had stayed on that cache instead of moving on, we’d have had eyes on it when they set the ambush. Might’ve caught it before you walked in.”

I shake my head. “You didn’t know it was bait, Sergeant. Neither did I.”

“Still.” His jaw clenches. “We should have gone back and checked it ourselves instead of calling it in and letting you walk into it blind.”

“If your team had gone back in, you’d be the ones bleeding on this cot instead of me,” I say. “There’s no iteration of last night where somebody doesn’t pay. I’d rather it was me than four more men I just met.”

Callahan looks at me like he wants to argue but doesn’t have the ammunition for it.

“Wilder’s already reworking his position on the ridge,” he says instead. “Says if he’d had eyes on the gully instead of just the trail approach, he’d have caught the flankers before they set.”

I nod as he speaks. “Tell him I want to hear the new plan by tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.”

He leaves quietly, carrying a weight I recognize. I’ve carried it plenty of times myself, usually after watching men bleed on ground I picked for them. Maddox comes in not long after, still smelling like the cold air outside, Walker trailing behind him with none of his usual noise.

“Thanks for lending a hand with exfil,” I say.

Maddox nods. “With four fresh bodies on the trail, you cut the carry time in half.”

“Appreciate it.”

“Wasn’t a favor, sir. I wasn’t going to listen to the fight on the radio and do nothing.” He glances at Spencer’s cot, then the bandage on my shoulder. “We’ll be ready faster next time. If there’s a next time.”

“Well, it looks like the Wolves aren’t done with this base,” I say. “That’s the only thing I know for certain right now.”

Maddox nods like that’s the answer he expected. Walker says nothing the entire time, just looks at Spencer’s cot, then follows his team leader back out into the cold.

I watch the corrugated ceiling and think about the one visitor who hasn’t been by yet. He was fine. I saw that with my own eyes, checking him over before my brain caught up that I’m doing it like a mother hen in front of Okafor. Not a hit, not a scratch.

So why won’t my chest unclench? It hasn’t since he screamed my rank into the dark like it hurt him to see me fall.

It’s smart that he hasn’t come by the med hut. Careful, for once. And it shouldn’t disappoint me the way it does.

Ainsley clears me at 1900 after all, on the condition that the sling stays on and someone checks on me before midnight.

“I’ll live,” I tell her.

“You’ll live if you keep the sling on,” she counters. “Otherwise you’ll tear the stitches, and I’ll be doing this again in a worse mood.”

Okafor walks me as far as the door of my own hut, which is as close to an escort as I’ll tolerate, and leaves me there with a look that says he’ll be the one checking before midnight whether I want him to or not.

The hut is dark when I let myself in. I fumble for the lantern with my good hand, and when the light turns on, I go still in the doorway.

Reyes is sitting on the edge of my bunk.

He’s not lying back with his boots up like he owns the place. He’s sitting, spine straight, elbows on his knees, watching the door like he’s been watching it for a while.