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His tail thunked on the floor as he gobbled up the piece of freeze-dried chicken. To her ears, it sounded like a drum, and she winced.
“Shh. We have to be quiet.”
The driver’s side door opened, and a border collie launched into the cab, followed by Donovan Scott sliding into the driver’s seat.
The big, heavily tattooed former Marine met her gaze in the rearview mirror, then his mouth tipped up in a smile. “Zak will not be happy.”
She straightened up in the seat. “That’s too bad because I’m going. I know the compound. You guys don’t, and neither do those mercenaries Zak hired. No matter how good they are, they’ll appreciate not going in blind.”
Donovan shrugged and started the engine. “Hey, I’m fine with it. You probably have a better understanding of cults than any of us, and I’d prefer not to go in blind myself. I want to get home to my wife and kid tonight.”
Ellie nodded, relief washing over her. A tiny sliver of guilt pricked at her for roping Donovan into her plan, but she pushed it away. It was Cal’s life on the line, and dammit, she’d do whatever it took to bring him back, even if it meant facing Zak’s wrath later.
They pulled out onto the road, and neither spoke for several minutes. She felt Donovan’s eyes on her in the rearview mirror. “You scared?”
She took a deep breath. “Terrified.”
“Nah, you’ll be fine.” He gave his border collie, Spirit, an ear scratch, then returned his attention to the road. “What’s it like up there at the commune? There’s been rumors about it as long as I can remember. In school, kids used to say they did twisted shit up there, like animal sacrifices and kinky blood magic sex rituals.”
She exhaled the breath caught in her throat on a short laugh. “If they do any of that, I didn’t see it.” But she wouldn’t put the sex rituals past Hopeful. “Honestly, it was all very tame at first. Lots of meditation and yoga and group therapy sessions where everyone talks about their feelings until you want to puke rainbows. But then they started talking about crystals and auras, and it just got… weird.”
“So, basically, it’s a New Age RWCR.” He made a face. “Rylan has us all doing yoga during our group therapy sessions now.”
All of the members of Redwood Coast Rescue had their demons. They had all faced war and came back in pieces, but they had found healing in each other and their dogs. Their weekly group therapy sessions played a huge role in that healing process. She’d seen first-hand what it had done for Shane. Her new brother-in-law was an entirely different man now than when they first met.
“Yoga isn’t so bad,” she said.
Donovan grumbled. Then, after a beat, he muttered, “No. It’s not.”
By the time they reached the outskirts of the commune, dawn was beginning to paint the sky a deep, rich blue. Ellie peered out of the window, her heart pounding like a drum as she looked at the familiar landscape. She squeezed Puzzle’s collar in her hands, drawing comfort from his warm presence.
Donovan pulled onto a narrow track off the main road. He turned off the engine and took out his radio.
“Spirit in position,” he said in a low voice. Whenever they communicated on a mission, they used their dog’s name like a callsign— something Ellie hadn’t gotten used to yet and often messed up during training exercises.
There was a brief silence before Zak’s voice crackled over the speaker. “Copy that. HORNET entering into enemy territory via airborne insertion. ETA: fifteen minutes. Stand by.”
Donovan set the radio down and settled back in his seat.
“Wait, we’re just going to sit here?” She stared at the radio, then at him.
Donovan shot her a side glance, amusement in his eyes. “Ellie, we’re not knights storming a castle. We’re a K9 unit. We go in later, not first, so the best thing we can do for Cal and Pierce right now is give HORNET the space they need to do their thing.”
He was right.
She clenched her fists in her lap and scowled out the window at the pale yellow light brightening the horizon behind the mountains. Puzzle nudged her hand with his snout, and she absently scratched his ears.
Of course she knew Donovan was right, but it didn’t make waiting any easier when Cal was just right there up the road in that godforsaken commune with a man who was likely, certifiably, a lunatic.
She settled back into her seat, trying to ignore the quiet hum of nerves below her skin. She took slow breaths, counting them out in her head, attempting to calm her racing heart. “I’ve never been very good at waiting.”
“Yeah, me either.”
“This sucks.” She’d never been good at waiting.
Donovan chuckled softly. “When I was in Afghanistan, we had this saying—‘Embrace the suck.’ It meant that some situations were just going to be hard as hell, but resisting it, fighting against it, only made it suck more. So we just... embraced it.”
She glanced over, a frown creasing her brow as she considered his words. “So you’re saying I should embrace the fact that this... waiting sucks?”
