My head hammers. My mouth feels dry as I look up at him, just waiting for the catch.
“Then we found out you’re a liar.” He jerks something from his pocket. It’s a Polaroid picture—one that shows me stopped beside a man who’s lying on a winding mountain road beside a banged up motorcycle.
“Do you know this man?”
I blink, my blood rushing in my ears.
“Is this fellow a friend of yours? Someone you had to try and come and help you?” My mouth opens. He grits his teeth and glares down at me, glaring me to interrupt in self-defense.
“You deviated from your assignment on the field navigation test to help this man and even wandered down the way to one of the road’s emergency phone booths. You made a call to local law enforcement. A Good Samaritan.” Wentworth laughs derisively and shakes his head. The look on his face tells me I’m an idiot, and I don’t even know why.
“You didn’t do the humane thing, Drake. You didn’t stay with him, even though he called behind you as you walked away.”
My face must show some quiver of surprise, because his tightens as his neck and cheeks flush deeper red.
“Did you think we weren’t watching? You think you can do whatever you want? You were not to deviate from the mission!” Spittle flies down at me. “You think you can jeopardize what you do as an Operator for a stranger? Play Good Samaritan and call for help for the guy? You didn’t stay the course! You didn’t even stay with him. He was bleeding, and you left him.” Shame flares through me. “That motorcyclist you came across—the one you threw the nav test away for—he died. You could have saved him, but you half-assed that, too.”
My stomach rolls as he holds his hand up, ticking my sins off on his fingers. “First you leave your course. You use a phone and call police. And then you lack the balls to even follow through and stay with this man as he suffers. He was an innocent civilian, not a war criminal. You have the conscience to help him but you’re too big of a pussy to abandon your mission and stay to comfort this man in his time of need.” He shakes his head. The guilt I’m feeling lessens as I realize he’s rambling. “You have no morals. You’re worthless!”
The insult makes my head feel hot, my fists clench up. Instead of jumping up and throttling the asshole, I hold still, the wheels in my head spinning.
“I wouldn’t have thought a Ranger would be worthless, but that’s what you are, sergeant.”
I take a slow breath. Exhale as he scowls down at me.
I get this. They’re trying to rattle me. Why else would Wentworth chastise me for not staying with the injured biker I came up on during the nav course? My actual orders were not to deviate for anything, so it makes no sense that I’m being chastised for not sitting with the injured stranger long enough.
I take another deep breath. Ride it out. This is a test.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” His voice booms, echoing faintly in the near-to-empty meeting room. “You let a stranger die when you have medical training as an Army Ranger. You lied to us—to the cadre members who assumed you had done nothing but chart and travel your route. On top of that, you barely met your check-in time!”
I grit my teeth to keep from barking back. I arrived at the RV in time for check-in, despite having wandered miles out of my way to reach the pay phone that I used to call for help. I made the time cut even though I’ve got a hairline fracture in my ankle.
I inhale again, the
n exhale and peer up at him.
“What do you have to say, Drake?” His jaw is tight; his cheeks are ruddy; forehead shining. “You think you’re too good to give an answer? Too good to be accountable? You think because you’re a sniper for the Rangers you’re big shit? Do you?”
“No sir.”
“No sir,” he sneers. “You sound like such a brownnoser, such a little pansy-ass. I heard you’re a real do-gooder, Drake. I heard that about you. Stuck-up brownnoser. Son of a doctor. Little kiss-ass. I heard from your boys in Benning that you’re good with a gun but not much else.”
I feel my head throb.
“You think because you’re a Sergeant, because you’ve got the best record for a Ranger sniper at this moment in time, that you’re better than me? That’s what you’re thinking right now, isn’t it? Look at that fat-ass Wentworth, I’m better than him! You think you should be able to determine people’s fates yourself, don’t you? I heard your mother died when you were just a boy. What happened?”
My mind blanks. I have to struggle to work past my shock at the abrupt change of subject and draw in another breath.
“C’mon, tell me, pussy. You want to be an Operator, you want a spot on one of my teams, you will tell me anything I ask.”
I’m shaking my head before I realize what I’m doing. “I don’t have to talk about that.”
“No?” His folds his arms. His upper lip curls. “You do if it’s an order.”
I look up at him, gritting my teeth. Who the fuck does he think he is, bringing my mom into a fucking test?
“Tell me about your mother, Sergeant Drake. Tell me how she died.”