Page 64 of Unmade

I shrugged.

He nodded with a dip of his chin. “Ecuador, to be more precise. It’s why every applicant is required to have a valid passport.”

Made sense. No matter where it took place, I was going to be there. Tanner and I had made a pact to push each other toward graduation. Like me, he’d struggled to see his future for a long time. Then his brother had joined Hillcroft, and Tanner had wanted to follow in his footsteps.

“Tanner and I will be there,” I said firmly.

Beckett tilted his head. “You two have gotten closer, huh?”

I shrugged again. “Kinda.” The truth was, we’d bonded over two lame-ass attachments. Tanner had loosened me up with three drinks, and I’d stupidly admitted to being hooked on Beckett. Tanner, in turn, had lit up like a Christmas tree and confessed he felt the same about Operator Riggs. “You were right, I guess. I need friends.”

He smirked faintly. “Even friends who put you on lists?”

I exhaled a laugh. That was funny. Tanner and I were so incompatible that it was crazy. We literally wanted the same kind of man—evidently. We were great at bitching about it too.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” I replied.

He narrowed his eyes a fraction, then nodded once and pulled out his phone. “I’m just gonna go check in on Alex. I’ll be back in a bit.”

“Okay.”

* * *

September 18th, 2024

Thank fuck, he was here already. I walked into the classroom and aimed for Tanner. As always, he’d snatched a desk in the back, and he’d saved me the middle desk next to his.

Our Cold War class was about to start, so I only had a minute or two. And I really liked our teacher; he was some old-timer—an actual professor who’d been to Vietnam—who everyone called Leg or Legacy. I kinda wanted to impress him. He knew so damn much.

“Hey, can I just double-check something with you?” I asked, keeping my voice down.

“Sure, what’s up?” Tanner leaned back against his desk, so I came to a stop next to him.

With our backs to the rest of the class, I opened my notebook to the dog-eared page about today’s test.

“All of his tests end with the same question—what we can learn from whatever situation,” I said. “And I’m racking my fucking brain. If this whole thing—the recovery of the Soviet sub—is the opening for the decoding class, the only link I can come up with is the Soviet’s radio transmissions when they tried to figure out what we were up to near the wreck site.”

Tanner scratched his nose. “I don’t think it necessarily has to be the decoding. They said intel is next,includingdecoding. But also, like, withholding information, resistance to interrogation, how to handle the public if shit blows up, and?—”

“So, the Glomar response,” I deadpanned. “This whole fucking project about a sunken submarine just so we can learn how to say neither confirm nor deny?”

He grinned and tapped his nose. “That’s what I’m going with anyway.”

All right. Well, that made shit easier, but?—

“Recruits Watts and Kelley!”

Jesus Christ. Beckett’s booming voice caused me to go rigid, and my heart jumped up into my damn throat.

“Holy fuck, sir,” Tanner blurted out shakily. “You don’t have to yell!”

I turned around and quickly walked over to my desk, and I caught a glimpse of Beckett’s less-than-happy expression.

“Evidently, I do,” he replied irritably. “I asked you to sit down twice already.”

Fuck, shit, fuck. I hadn’t heard him. “My bad, sir.” I sat down and dropped my notes and book on the floor. They weren’t allowed on the desk during a test.

Beckett unclenched his jaw and peered out over the class. “For those of you who aren’t busy flirting, you can tear out one page from your notebooks. The end of the test will come with an essay prompt, and I don’t wanna see another piece of paper without a name on it. It’s not fuckin’ rocket science to add your name. Do that now.”

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