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“It’s a tiny dot.” He made the symbol with his hand. “Not intrusive.”
“I plan to get indignant about that tracking device later. Mostly about you hiding it from me.” For some reason the fact that something like that existed made her twitchy.
He shrugged. “It worked.”
“And that is why I will thank you. For now.” She looked at his face and saw the strain there, tugging at the corners of his eyes and mouth. Every time he moved he let out a small gasp as if his body constantly fought off the pain. Not that he let her see that. No, he tried to bury it. “So, what’s the plan? Are we going to sit around and wait to get rescued?”
Holt straightened his back even more. Pressed away from the wall and tried to turn his head side to side.
His eyes slammed shut. “Does that sound like me?”
His stubbornness was going to be the death of both of them. “No, but last I checked you couldn’t walk through walls.”
“So little faith.”
Since they had nothing but time left to wait and see what this Simon Falls creature wanted with them, she kept babbling. “Come on, this has to be the worst situation for you so far.”
She expected an agreement. She got a scoff.
He started to shake his head, then stopped. “Not even close.”
She looked around at the walls. Air seemed to be pumped in from somewhere, making the spot extra cold, but there were no windows and there was very little hope here. “How is that possible? We’re trapped in here, just waiting for our turn to die.”
The last part of the sentence ripped out of her. The words scratched against her tongue. She refused to believe this was her day to die, but the evidence kept pointing her to that conclusion.
That was why she wrote and sent that text. She hoped it said what she wanted it to. She didn’t throw the word love around easily or decorate her mail with little hearts, but there was no question each day she fell a little further in love with him.
“I’ve been left for dead. That was much worse than this.” Using the wall for balance, he slid up until his back was plastered to the wall, and his face went pale. His body seemed to close in, as if the memories proved too much to handle more than in small pieces.
She knew pain when she saw it. The squinting of his eyes and the weight of it pushing on his shoulders. She wanted to rush in and comfort, but she didn’t understand his comment. “What are you talking about?”
At first he didn’t say anything. His eyes half closed as he stood there. His palms flattened against the wall behind him. She couldn’t tell if he was holding his body up or stopping to rest.
Just as she was about to ask, he started talking. His rich, deep voice rang out in the small cell. “In Afghanistan. I figured out a friend, not Shane, was dealing drugs over there. Getting some of our men high at dangerous times. Selling to the locals. Basically, making a lot of money.”
He stated the facts in an almost remote voice. As if he’d separated what happened from his real life. She guessed this was a defense mechanism or a way of releasing the poison, but she wanted the thinking and feeling parts of him. Dealing with awful things by using both was the only way to move on.
“I have a feeling I know where this is going.” And she feared the story was not going to end with this random guy, whatever his name, remaining one of Holt’s lifetime friends. At least she hoped not or she might have to go find him and punch him.
“We were friends, so I gave him a chance to come clean.” Holt lifted a hand and pinched the bridge of his nose and then rubbed his eyes. Did the whole uncomfortable guy routine. “I’d missed the drugs and felt responsible. I couldn’t help thinking if I’d seen it coming I could have stopped the train.”
“I don’t think it works that way.”
“When confronted with two options—turn yourself in or go home—he picked a third option.” Something in Holt’s eyes said he was reliving the entire thing as he described it. “He decided to shoot me instead. Left me to bleed out in the desert.”
The words shocked her. Everyone read and heard about the horror of war in a distant way. This was personal. A painful memory that appeared to plague him. “How did you survive?”
“I crawled to a hiding place. Kept pressure on the wound.” Holt made a noise akin to a short hum. “It’s under my hairline, by the way.”
He acted as if everyone possessed his survival skills. As if people got shot at and moved around without help for hours all the time. The idea of him making it out alive made her shake her head in awe.
But none of that compared to the betrayal that lingered in every one of his words. “Your friend actually shot you in the head in order to save himself?”
