Page 411 of Lodestar

“Related to Conor, yes.”

“I’m like you, Lodestar.”

So, it was gonna be that way. “Whistler, we can switch off.”

“You’re inactive.”

“Not by choice,” I retorted.

“I’m active and that’s not by choice,” he countered.

“We make a pair, don’t we?”

He grunted. “A pair of morons. What the fuck were we thinking of? Playing at goddamn life when we were kids. I remember you back then. You were so fucking young.”

“And you weren’t? You’re, what? Four years younger than me? We were babies with weapons. That’s how the world works.”

“It shouldn’t,” he snapped. “It shouldn’t be this way.” Tension rippled through him. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to lose my temper.”

“You don’t have to apologize.” I cleared my throat. “You ever need to talk about those times, Eoghan, I’m here. We went through some of those shitshows together.”

“Kembesh,” he said with a shudder.

“Yeah.” I released a breath. “I thought that was going to be the low point of my life. I didn’t realize worse was yet to come.”

“That happened when…?”

“A year before I was taken.” My grimace said it all. “We both watched as a unit was skewered in place and left to fend for themselves then witnessed our government try to cover it up. That’s the kind of crazy that sticks with you.”

“I have nightmares about it,” he admitted.

“Kembesh stars in some of mine too.” My gaze tripped over the scene in Yosemite National Park as I cast him a look. “How did you get involved in MI6?”

He hitched a shoulder. “Seemed like my only opportunity to get out. Didn’t realize?—”

“It’d be more of a trap than ever? No one knew about Jorgmundgander?”

“Hell, I don’t think my handler in MI6 knows about those snakes.”

Because I could believe that, I hesitantly touched his arm. “Conor worries about you.”

“He’s right to.”

“There are things you can?—”

“Take?” His laugh was bitter.

“Might help.”

“Did it help you?”

“No,” I admitted, returning my focus to the mountain range and the play of contrasting light that made a beautiful panoramic scene so much more evocative. “Doesn’t mean drugs won’t work for you and if they don’t, then maybe we can talk about the shit that keeps us awake at night, hmm?”

Eoghan’s jaw worked. “You ever wonder why you?”

“Why me?”

“Why do some people come out of it free and clear and some don’t?”

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