Read Story: SEASON 2 EPISODE 60

I didn’t know what she needed to hear, so I simply said, “You did what you had to do.”

“I know,” she said, looking back toward the little flame. “Tanaka and two of his men came out a few minutes later. He was looking for me, screaming about how I had about a minute to come out. His guys were holding a third man and put him on his knees. Tanaka put a gun to his head and repeated himself.

“After about a minute,” Chloe continued, raising her hand to mimic a gun, she mimed shooting the soup cup. “He pulled the trigger. Point-blank range. Didn’t hesitate.”

“Jesus,” I said. It was hard to imagine some brat of Tanaka’s could have that kind of resolve… especially after what Chloe and Astrid had told me about him. Tanaka seemed like the type who wouldn’t hesitate to kill, though. Maybe his son was cut from the same cloth.

“Ryo Tanaka’s got ice water in his veins,” Chloe agreed with a single nod. “Pissed me off, so I sent him another message and blew up the second chopper.”

I cut the stitches, returned the scissors and the line to the box, and grabbed the glue. “You didn’t want to take Tanaka out?”

“I couldn’t hit him where he was at. It would’ve risked damaging too much of the cabin, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to get out in the open. I couldn’t get a clean shot with a rifle. Hitting the second chopper felt like the right move.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because he doesn’t get to leave unless it’s with us,” she said, glancing over her shoulder again. The look in Chloe’s eyes suggested that she wasn’t simply stating a wish. She was preaching gospel.

“Even if Tanaka didn’t send his kid to kill you, the old man would love to see you die. Maybe he’d have a change of heart if it meant getting his son back alive.”

“How are we gonna get out of here, though?” I asked.

“We’ll make a call at the cabin,” Chloe said. “If communications are down, then, at the very least, there are more supplies there. Someone will show up in a couple of days. Either they’ll figure out how to reach Psalter, or more of Astrid’s people will come out here to check on the first crew.”

“One problem,” I said, putting the finishing touches on the glue and capping it. “Can’t he just call for backup, too?”

“He can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because Ryo Tanaka went rogue when he tried to kill us. He wasn’t supposed to move on us, but I think he wanted to do something to surprise his dad. Hiro’s been trying to reach him for the past couple of days, and Ryo’s been stalling. I don’t know if it’s because Hiro would disapprove of what Ryo’s trying to do or if he’s just trying to postpone talking to his dad until he can report progress, but he can’t access his money or get any more men without Hiro becoming suspicious.”

Wait… how did she know that Ryo was afraid of talking to his dad? It wasn’t like he just strolled out into the yard and monologued all his thoughts. I could feel the disbelief on my face as I stared back at her.

Chloe must have seen the confusion on my face because she slunk to the other side of the hut to reach her pack and pulled out a walkie-talkie. She tossed it to me.

“Finally got my hands on a couple of these. His men talk a lot when they think Ryo isn’t listening. I was able to put enough of it together to figure out that he’s too afraid of talking to his dad to ask for anything. I think he’s stuck here until he kills or captures us.”

I turned it on and saw the number twenty-three pop up on the display. “Chloe, you’re amazing!” I looked back up at her, “Do they reach all the way to the cabin?”

Chloe shook her head. “Not quite, but I think it’s close. These will be useful, though. Tanaka’s men are clustered on channels four through five. I’ve set yours to twenty-three. Keep it there. I’ll take the other one with me tomorrow in case we need to communicate. Keep transmissions short—less than five seconds—and don’t say anything unless necessary. If you do have to say something, say ‘Vegas’ before anything so I know it’s you.”

I set the radio down while listening to the rest of her instructions and tended the soup. It was warm enough, so I took it off the small flame and handed it to her. “So, you’re going back out tomorrow?” I asked.

“Yep,” Chloe said, eyeing the soup hungrily as she took it. “They expect it, and I’m gonna give it to them.”

I wanted to protest, but that hadn’t gotten me anywhere with her.

“What they won’t expect,” Chloe said around a mouthful of food, “is that you and I are going to hit them tomorrow night.

That got my attention. This entire time, I thought we would try to take it the day after tomorrow. “Tomorrow night? Why?”

“Like I said… they won’t expect it. We’re breaking the pattern, which should help us catch them by surprise. We’ll also have the dark to our advantage.”

“Shooting people in the dark sounds risky,” I said. “What about the rest of Astrid’s people? You know… the ones Tanaka didn’t kill?”

“You’re right. It’s risky and not something I’d usually go for, but in this scenario, it’s better than doing it in the daylight. As for the hostages,” Chloe said, her face growing more sober, as if that was even possible, “I’m still working through that one, but I promise you, Marcus, I’m doing everything I can to make sure no innocents get hurt.”

Something about the way she said that gave me pause. There was a thickness to her tone that suggested complete conviction—not that I doubted she lacked it with anything else she’d said, but this just sounded that much more sincere.

Running my hands through my hair, I blew out a long breath as I mulled over her plan. “You think it’s gonna work?”

Chloe looked away from me, spooned another mouthful of soup, and shrugged. "It’s the best plan I have. We’re running low on supplies, and there’s no telling when Henry or more of Astrid’s people will show up. Waiting until we’re completely out of supplies is a bad idea. We need to do this before our back is against the wall.”

“How many men are left?”

“I count seven, including Tanaka,” Chloe said.

I balked. “And this is doable?”

“I’ve taken out six by myself. Taking a few precautions and with your help, it’s doable.”

“What about Astrid?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Chloe said as she turned back to eating her soup. “That’s a problem. We can’t move her, so after we’ve secured the cabin, I’ll come back out and sit with Astrid while you rest up. In the morning, I’ll switch with you, and you can keep an eye on her during the day.”

Again, I wanted to bring up all the ways this could go wrong, but Chloe knew the score way better than I did. She had been out there for the last several days. She knew their habits and the holes in their defenses. She had killed half a dozen of them on her own, and was still in one relative piece. I’d trusted Chloe this far. I could trust her to take us the rest of the way, so I swallowed the rest of my concerns and let my bodyguard do her damn job.

Some of those concerns weren’t related to her job, though. Chloe and I hadn’t even addressed what was going on between us, and whatever switch had flipped was still firmly in place. She was sitting across from me, entirely in the nude, looking incredible despite the exhaustion in her eyes and the many bruises and abrasions. Yet, it was like nothing happened between us, and she wasn’t even acknowledging all the times she kept catching my wayward glances at her body.

My default emotional state was to blame myself for whatever was going on, but I wasn’t a child, either. The past several days had been hell for me, but it’d been a cakewalk compared to what Chloe had to do. I took on a handful of people once and had Chloe to back me up for most of it. Chloe had taken out an entire squad of mercenaries and blown up two helicopters by herself. Not only that, but she also felt responsible for my safety and Astrid’s. I wasn’t naive enough to assume that all of her sudden detachment was because of something I’d done or because of our relationship.

Still… minutes after having sex, she announced she would resign once we returned to the States. Our relationship had to play some part in whatever was going on with her, and I was desperate to know what that was.

But I couldn’t bring myself to mention it. Not right now… not like this and with everything else going on. She had too many more important things to worry about, and she was already stretched thin—the last thing she needed was me insisting that we define the relationship.

So, I did something profoundly difficult—I sat back, nodded, and continued going over Chloe’s plan for tomorrow. After a while, some of the tenseness in her shoulders seemed to drain, and I suspected it was because she thought she was in the clear… that I wouldn’t address our conversation from last night or this morning. All that did was make me more uneasy, but if Chloe could compartmentalize, so could I… no matter how much it killed me.

Eventually, she finished her food, and we both ended up under the blankets. Naked.

Apparently, huddling together for warmth was much more effective without clothes on, which was unfortunate, given the current circumstances.

The temptation was there. Chloe may have looked tired, battered, and a little on edge, but she was still a beautiful woman. However, I managed to keep my libido in check, for once, and kept it to spooning, with her as the little spoon. She didn’t seem to object, nor did she have a problem with me running my fingers through her stringy hair, trying my best to comfort her as she settled into me for a night’s sleep.

Silence had become a refuge in which I was just starting to retreat when Chloe cut through it. “That man died today because of me.”

It took me a moment to realize who she was talking about—one of the men working for Astrid. Ryo shot him after Chloe had blown up the first helicopter.

I recalled Ray and how he’d been killed while protecting me on that rooftop in Vegas. The guilt I felt after my rescue had been one of the worst things I’d experienced in my life. Having to face his husband at the funeral had been almost unbearable. It didn’t occur to me that Chloe might feel the same way about someone who had been killed because of her direct actions. It also made me realize that she might have been struggling with the loss of Ray as well. Hell… she might feel more responsible than I did.

It reminded me that underneath all that bravado, Chloe was a simple human with all the same emotions I had.

Wrapping one arm tighter around her waist—careful to avoid any action that could have been deemed sexual—I squeezed her into me and ran my other hand across her hair. “He died because Ryo Tanaka,” I said and then instinctively kissed the back of her head. “This isn’t on you, Chloe.”

Chloe didn’t respond. There was no shift in movement to get away from me or to try to look at me. There wouldn’t have been any point… it was too dark. She simply lay in my arms and let me hold her. I ran my fingers through her hair once more and then slid them along one wayward strand that fell across her cheek, tucking it behind her ear. As I did so, my fingertips passed through something damp along her cheekbone… just under the corner of her eye. Something that had nothing to do with rainwater.

Neither of us said another word to each other for the rest of the night. We just lay in the dark, trying to fall asleep, lost in our thoughts and silent fears of what awaited us tomorrow. I wanted to have hope in Chloe’s plan… that I would see all my friends again… that Chloe and I would be okay.

But it was impossible to find hope in any of it. So, eventually, I found sleep instead.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To Be Continued...