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“Not anymore.”
“I ask you to reconsider, sir.”
“And I ask you to know your place.”
She falls silent, crushed and vulnerable, and it pisses me off.
“Sir.” Fox steps forward. “I can vouch for Fawn. She has a right to be here.”
“The decision has already been made. And you.” Paxton shifts over to me and stares with black eyes. “Who the hell are you?”
I throw on my best, shit-eating grin. “I’m Boxcar.”
His lips twitch. “Boxcar?”
“Yep.”
“And just what do you do here, Boxcar?”
I look at Caleb. Her head is down, her eyes just barely open to hide her sadness.
This fucking guy.
“I’m a civilian intelligence freelancer,” I answer.
He laughs hard. “What the hell is that?”
“I monitor security.”
“Is that all?”
“I also run and maintain the satellite system surrounding this camp for twenty miles, which means nothing drifts in and out of that radius without me knowing about it — including the truck that transported you and your boys here tonight.”
“Is that right?”
“You entered that radius at about seven-fifteen,” I point out. “Made it here in record time.”
“Well, the loss of a leader like Rhys hits an operation like this fairly hard,” he says. “I came out here the second I heard from camp.”
“Except that Caleb didn’t make that call until seven-eighteen.” His amusement drains from his wrinkled face. “You were already on your way here by then.”
Paxton blinks once and leans in closer, using every inch he has on me to his intimidating advantage. “You’re out of here,” he whispers. “I don’t need civilian intelligence freelancers clogging up my camp.”
“Or monitoring your calls, right?”
“Boxcar…” Fox warns softly.
“Get out of this tent.” Paxton spins around and fires another look at Caleb. “Both of you. Fitzpatrick, you stay here and brief me on what happened out there tonight.”
Caleb immediately turns and steps outside, but I linger behind, drawing close to Fox’s ear.
“Watch your back,” I whisper.
He flexes his jaw and gives me a subtle nod as I pass by him.
“Caleb!” I pick up my pace to catch up with her. She doesn’t turn around and keeps her quick stride toward the barracks. “Hold on…”
“Not now, Boxcar.”
