I take my phone out of my pocket and send him a text. It’s not much, but at least he’ll know I’m here for him even if his family and old teammates aren’t.
Neither of us has to be alone anymore.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Saint
Hey, I thought I’d let you know I have this job I need to go away for. It should only be a week, but you know me, it might be longer. I’ll be sure to let you know when I’m on my way home because you’re my person. You’re the one I have who will care about me while I’m gone.
When I get to my locker, I stare at Iris’s text for way longer than I should. Which is why the next text makes me laugh.
This is where you’re supposed to say, I’m your person too.
With a goofy grin on my face, I text back: You’re my person too. And what a coincidence, I’ll be going away for a week or possibly longer too. It’s lucky we don’t have any plants to water or pets to feed.
There’s a ding of a phone behind me. “You know, I once contemplated getting a puppy so I could hire a pet sitter for all those times I’m gone? Because guess what, then I’d have someone to text when I got a job.”
I didn’t even hear Iris come down the steps.
I spin to face him. “Why didn’t you go through with it?”
“I’m gone too much. It wouldn’t be fair to the dog. It would be all right if I hired someone to look after him at home instead of dropping in to feed him and take him for a walk, but could you imagine letting someone roam free in my house? They might do something crazy like snoop and then lay out all my hidden weapons on the dining room table.”
“Mm, good point. I hear pet sitters can be sketchy.”
“And ex-black-ops military men, it seems.”
“Them too.” I lean in. “Actually, they might be worse.”
Iris quickly glances around to check the room is empty. Then he kisses me, soft and sweet, but when he pulls back, he’s suddenly so much more serious. “How do you feel? About the job.”
“That’s a loaded question.”
“Loaded how?”
I cock my head. “Are you asking as a teammate or as my … uh … person?”
“I’m asking because I care. Because this might be too much for you.”
I don’t have a right to be pissed because he has a point, but maybe that’s why it angers me—because it could be too much. I might panic like I did the night I went to Danyal’s hotel room.
“I’ll be fine. I won’t even be on the ground. I’ll be safely tucked away in a hotel room, worrying about you being out there.”
“You don’t need to worry about me. I saved your ass, remember?”
“That’s not going to make me stop.”
Iris hesitates and looks uncomfortable as he says, “Are you going to be okay with being on the same mission? Watching from the sidelines? What if something goes wrong? Are you going to be too distracted to do your job if something happens to me? There’s a reason Trav doesn’t want us on the same job.”
“I’ll be fine. I can worry about you and be productive. I’m good at multitasking like that.”
A commotion from the stairway pulls us apart as feet thunder down the steps. Everyone grabs some last-minute things from their lockers, we go to the weapons room and load up on our choices, putting them in a large crate and then wheeling it outside to a waiting truck to take it to the airfield.
Then we all head out at the same time to meet Trav.
The nerves don’t really begin to hit until we’re somewhere over Morocco, which is about two hours away from Udoola.
The Boeing C-17 has a lot of excess space seeing as there are only twelve of us, so some of the guys have stretched out on the floor and napped along the way, but Iris has nonstop talked to me the entire time.
In a way, it’s been good because I haven’t had the chance to think much about what we’re about to do, but the closer we creep to our destination, the more my brain tunes his babble out.
The loud roar of the engines fills my ears instead. The rattle of everything on board when we hit turbulence is amplified.
This is the mission I was supposed to carry out. It was my responsibility.
The guys who are awake all look pumped and ready to go. There are easy smiles, and I can remember feeling the exact same way when we got sent in.
Parson’s laugh still haunts me. Webb’s bright blue eyes as she made a snarky comment to Gillard is all I can see when I think of her, followed by the hollow emptiness of the coldness in them when she lay dead next to me.