Page 61 of My Forbidden Commander

Okafor exchanges a look with Gabriel.

“Maddox’s element caught up to the trail a few klicks past where Wilder lost it,” Okafor says. “Exchanged some fire with a rear guard. Nothing like what you ran into last night. A few rounds, nobody hit on either side.”

“They push through?”

“Didn’t get the chance.” Okafor clenches his jaw. “Light was going, and the Colonel gave the order to break contact by nightfall if they didn’t have eyes on him. They didn’t. They’re on their way back now.”

My stomach drops. “So they just left him out there?”

“They left because four exhausted men chasing a trail gone cold in the dark get themselves killed instead of getting Callahan back,” Gabriel says, his voice low and even. “I wasn’t going to lose another element to that mountain in the same twenty-four hours.”

I want to argue with that, but I can’t because he’s not wrong. I hate that he’s not wrong.

“What about the drones?” I ask instead.

“Up in the air again,” Okafor says. “Nothing yet.”

“They’ll have taken him down off the ridge by now.” Gabriel traces a finger over the map in front of him, down the contours of the mountain and toward the tree line. “Into the forest. Across into Dravosk proper.”

I look at where his finger stops, at the thin blue thread of a river marking the border, and the green shading past it. Once they’re across, Callahan could be anywhere. A cell in some border outpost nobody ever put on a map. A truck bed heading toward one of the cities, Veygrad maybe, or further, into whatever building has bars on the windows and men who ask questions for a living. Or south, into that dry scrubland where nothing grows. The Wolves have a whole country to disappear into, and we don’t even have a direction that isn’t a guess.

“They could take him anywhere,” I say out loud.

“They could,” Gabriel agrees grimly.

I rub a hand down my face, then look at Okafor. “You wanted my report, Sergeant?”

Okafor nods, and I lean back and launch into it. I start at the wire and end at the wire, a day and a half later. I don’t gloss over details, but I don’t embellish either. I try not to look at Gabriel as I speak, because every time I do, I find myself losing my train of thought. He looks exhausted.

Okafor listens without interrupting, arms crossed, occasionally jotting a note on the pad in front of him. When I’m done, he closes his notebook.

“That’s consistent with what I got from Wilder and Liu,” he says. “Good work, Specialist. You shot straight and got an injured man down a mountain.”

“Wasn’t just me,” I object.

“Wasn’t asking you to share the credit.” He stands, tucks the notepad under his arm, and looks at Gabriel. “I’ll get this typed up for command in the morning.”

“Thank you, Sergeant,” Gabriel says, sounding distant.

I turn to him, look at the stubble, the dark shadows under his gray eyes, and I can’t keep my mouth shut anymore. “If I’m allowed to speak freely, sir, you look like you need a bunk and twelve hours of sleep.”

Okafor grunts. “Didn’t wait for permission to speak freely,” he says. “But for once I agree with him.”

Gabriel clenches his jaw. “I want to be here if the drones catch sight of anything.”

“I’ll have a runner wake you the second something comes in,” Okafor counters. “You falling asleep from exhaustion doesn’t help Callahan.” He looks at me next, and speaks matter-of-fact, like he’s just assigning a detail. “Reyes. Escort the Colonel to his hut. Make sure he doesn’t fall over on the way.”

For a second I just blink at him. Then the heat crawls up my neck at the subtext.

I clear my throat. “I’ll make sure the Colonel gets to his hut safely, Sergeant.”

Gabriel grumbles something under his breath and pushes up from the table. The motion pulls on his shoulder, and he hisses through his teeth.

“Should we swing by Doc Ainsley first?” I ask, concerned.

“You’re acting like a pair of mother hens,” Gabriel mutters, already moving for the door.

I follow him out into the cold, the two of us walking the short distance across the compound without a word between us, gravel crunching under our boots. When we reach his hut, he pushes the door open and steps inside. I hesitate for a second, not sure if I should come in or turn around, my escorting duties complete.