Miller was an odd case of equal amounts of roots and wings. She loved to travel, to see new places, to eat new food, to pick up local curse words to add to her dirty dictionary. But when she was home, she settled in deep. She wasn’t like me and Smith and Gunner who had places that were just barely decorated, a bug-out bag always at the ready beside the front door. She had carefully chosen the paint in every room, had painstakingly chosen each piece of furniture and art. And she covered her shelves in her memories of other places.
“No, I don’t,” I agreed, voice a little cutting, not wanting any other follow-up questions. Because, quite frankly, I was trying not to ask them in my own damn head; I didn’t need them from outsiders.
Obviously, I did not need a music box topped with colorful Russian cathedrals. So every one of my team knew exactly who it was for.
Christ.
“Did you see what Kai got?” Miller asked, letting it slide, something I was incredibly grateful for as we settled in deep inside the woods after carefully splitting up into teams and entering it at different points. I shook my head. I had been a little too invested in my own purchase to pay attention to every member of the team. I had almost – almost – been able to convince myself that friends bought each other gifts from time to time too.
“A snow globe. With hand-painted cathedrals on the outside. And inside.”
Snow globes were not a traditional Russian souvenir. It wouldn’t have been found on the main street of the market. He would have needed to dig deep for that one.
But of course he did.
Because Christmas was coming up.
And Jules collected snow globes.
“Of course he did,” I said, voice a little faraway. Maybe, for the first time, somewhat understanding the shit that Kai did. Jules was, after all, just his friend as well. Even if his feelings were more than that. But he still did shit like that. Got her stuff he knew would make her smile, not just the cash or gift cards the rest of us often threw at her for holidays.
About an hour and a half later, we came upon the cabin. It was, well, what you would expect from an old, abandoned hunting cabin. It had one room, a bathroom, though there was no running water, and a massive fireplace to keep warm. And cook. And a giant pile of dry wood stacked up one wall.
“Don’t worry,” Smith said, moving past Miller toward the bathroom. “I’ll get started on the composting toilet now.”
Miller didn’t have many rules. She would be okay with sleeping on a floor next to six men with only a fire to keep warm in the Russian winter. But she would not be copping a squat outside in December. Or ever.
And since none of us were too fond of the idea of an outside toilet either, there was always the option for Smith to throw together something inside that would be a fuckuva lot less disgusting than going in the woods.
“There are some buckets out back,” Lincoln added as he moved toward the fireplace to start it up. “I’ll scoop some snow into them and bring them in to melt.”
Our bathing would be makeshift like that for a while.
But we had all dealt with worse.
We would get by.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, the burner I had picked up on the street to contact a local former spy about weapons, knowing those fucks were sneaky and trained enough to trace my number back to me, and then likely demand money to keep my name secret. “Yeah?” I paused, listening to the man ramble off times and dates. “You’re serious? Yeah, no. Alright. I still want them. Alright. Yep.”
“What was that?” Kai asked from where he was piling the food we had all gathered on a table in the dining room. Canned meat, beans, and rice. I had a feeling we were all going to drop a few pounds simply not wanting to choke much of that down.
“The spy. He wants to meet tonight. About a three-hour walk from here,” I told them, going into my bag, getting a fresh set of socks, dry gloves, and two other hats to stick into the pockets of my fleece-lined snow jacket.
“You can’t be taking a trip like that alone,” Smith called from the bathroom.
“I can’t risk the whole team on something like this.”
“Then let me go,” Kai suggested, always eager to walk into danger, whatever form it might take.
“You know how these guys are,” I said, shaking my head. “They get squirrelly if someone shows up in your place or even with you. He will want to see me. And me only.”
“Don’t like this, Boss,” Lincoln called as the fire sparked to life. It wouldn’t take long to warm up the frozen space.