Page 20 of Promises in the Dark

I gritted my teeth, trying not to lose it. She wasn’t wrong, but damn if I was gonna admit it.

“Look, I’m sorry I held a penknife to your throat,” I hissed with anger. “Next time, I’ll bring a gun.”

Red’s lip curled into a snarl as my comments hit a nerve with her. “You should be happy I didn’t report you to my superiors for threatening my life. You wouldn’t be so smug if you had a court marshal hanging over your head!”

I turned to her, dead serious now. “Why didn’t you?”

She went quiet, shutting down like she was trying to block me out. I glanced at her from the corner of my eye and saw her fidgeting with the hem of her shirt, her shoulders hunched like she was shrinking into herself. She wouldn’t look at me, and it was clear she didn’t want to talk anymore.

That’s when I saw it—the ugly bruise on her wrist. My brows furrowed as I stared at it, my mind spinning. Was it an accident? Or was someone hurting her?

I couldn’t shake the feeling something was seriously fucked up.

But then, it landed on me like a ton of bricks. The bruise, her dodging my questions, the way she scrambled to get out of that camp—it all made sense. Red hadn’t reported me because sheneededme. She’d played me, used the threat I made to her as leverage to escape whatever messed-up shit was going on back there.

“You used me,” I stated coldly.

She knew it, and she didn’t bother apologizing. Not that I expected her to. I was the one who put her in that situation, not the other way around.

The silence between us stretched, heavy and uncomfortable. Red didn’t deny it, didn’t explain herself, didn’t even flinch. I figured she’d at least try to argue or throw some excuse my way, but nope. She just sat there, like she knew she didn’t owe me a damn thing.

“You expect me to take you as my responsibility? Just like that?” I asked incredulous.

She shrugged, like it didn’t matter one way or another. I didn’t know whether to be confused or annoyed by her confidence.

“Yes,” she said with a straight face.

I snorted involuntarily. “What makes you believe I’ll do that?”

She seemed to realize that I wasn’t going to budge, so she changed her approach. “I have a little something that might persuade you to do just that,” she answered confidently.

“Really now?” I asked, not falling for her little game.

She was trying to blackmail me. Plain and simple.

But what she didn’t understand was that I didn’t respond well to threats.

“Threaten me again, and I swear to—” I started, speaking with an air of authority. But before I could finish my sentence, she cut me off with a smile.

“I won’t have to,” she said, her voice a simple statement of fact. “Because I could always report that you ran out of the medical camp, threatened a doctor and stole a car.”

She was right—she could make it hell for me with one call. Normally, I wouldn’t give a shit. Protocols, orders, all that red-tape crap—I’d made it a habit to ignore them when they didn’t suit me. I got the job done, sure, but I did it my way, the way that kept me alive, even if it didn’t exactly sit well with the higher-ups. And that approach had gotten me into hot water more than once.

My captain tolerated it, maybe even respected it to some extent, but I knew I was pushing the limits of his patience. One more infraction, especially something as blatant as blowing off the med camp, and I might be one step closer to getting my ass kicked out or reassigned to some backwater detail.

She had me by the balls.

And she was squeezing them hard.

If I pushed her, she’d follow through, and then I’d be dealing with a mountain of crap I didn’t need.

Damn it, what had I gotten myself into?

But here’s the thing—I kinda liked it. It’d been a long time since anyone had me cornered, and weirdly, it felt good.

“How do I know you won’t just report me as soon as we get back to base?” I asked, still skeptical.

She didn’t flinch. “You don’t,” she said calm as hell.

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