Page 28 of The Wild Charge

Fox had his phone out. “The girl’s mother lives about a quarter mile from here.” He showed them the screen, and the map pulled up there, their destination illuminated in green. “We’ll get rooms, clean up a little, and head to the house; park a few houses down so she doesn’t see the bikes.”

Tenny nodded absently, and fished out a cigarette. Reese tried and failed not to watch the quick, deft movements of his fingers; the way his lips pursed around the filter.

“Reese,” Fox said, sharply, and Reese realized that it wasn’t the first time he’d said his name.

“Yes?”

“Do you remember what we talked about? The role you’re playing.”

“Yes.” Though he still wasn’t sure if he’d be able to pull it off. That was a novel, and not at all pleasant sensation: going into an op with uncertainty. He’d never doubted his skills like this before – though he wasn’t usuallyacting. That was Fox and Tenny’s game: havingrolesto play.

Fox stared at him a long moment, gaze inscrutable, then shrugged and swung off his bike, pocketed his phone. “Alright. Let’s rinse off the road dirt.”

They’d decided on their tactic in the dark that morning, standing beside their parked bikes, while Eden delivered a few final instructions. Reese had thought she was going, but she’d pulled back at the last minute instead, and instructed Fox to record their conversation with the victim’s mother on his phone. She’d looked pale, and like she hadn’t slept in the blue-white glow of the security lights, eyes smudged with shadows, face sagging with fatigue. She’d shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket and told them she thought going with the truth was the best bet.

Or. Well. A version of the truth.

“Alright.” Fox dug a ballcap from his backpack, crammed it down over his head, and said, “I’m going to book a room.”

Tenny sent him a contemptuous look.

“Rooms,” he amended, giving the same look right back. Then he smirked. “Two beds for you boys, right?”

Tenny lifted his middle finger.

“I’ll get rooms,” Fox repeated, back to business. “Do notmove, anddo notinteract with any civilians. Wait for me here. Understand?”

“Understand that you’re a prick?” Tenny asked. “Yeah, I do.”

Fox aimed a warning finger at him, then turned and headed for the sliding lobby doors.

Tenny took a slow drag on his cigarette and turned to blow the smoke toward the road. “God, this is dull,” he said. “We could be halfway to New York by now.”

Reese knew a rebuttal wasn’t wanted or needed, so he said nothing, and surveyed their surroundings. The intersection just past the hotel looked like every other intersection Reese had seen in his trek across most of America: swinging traffic signals, too many lanes, cars of all shapes, sizes, and colors lined up and waiting their turn. Two gas stations, a McDonald’s, and a strip-mall built in the eighties, if its architecture was anything to go by, graced the four corners. Someone dressed up like a sandwich stood by the crosswalk, spinning a sign listlessly.

Before he could check the impulse – or even examine it, really – he said, “This is what almost all of my ops were like. Before.” Before Dartmoor; before Tenny. Before he’d been able to even put something like that into words.

He heard Tenny take another drag. “Like what? Shitty?”

“No. Like…” He gestured to the intersection, where the lights had changed and a new lane of traffic was crawling forward; to the hotel behind them, its parking lot full of minivans and SUVs and a few dusty sedans that doubtless belonged to traveling business people. “I didn’t ever execute a hit on a sheikh, or whatever.”

“Not likewhatever. An actual sheikh, idiot.”

“I worked for a handler,” Reese continued, without acknowledgement.Idiotnever felt like an insult when it was directed at him, lately. “But not for the government. I didn’t do political ops.” He glanced over at Tenny, whose brows had drawn together a fraction, lips pensive around the filter of the cigarette. “Only personal ones.”

Tenny still wore his shades, but Reese could sense the way his gaze slid over, even without his head turning. His lips quirked, his smirk nasty as he pulled the cigarette from his mouth and exhaled smoke through his nostrils. “Sounds like a real important guy, your handler.”

Sarcasm. Reese could detect it now, easily, even if he couldn’t deploy it all that well. He lacked the emotion that spawned that sort of response in other people, he supposed. “What doesimportanthave to do with it?”

Tenny’s smirk became an outright sneer. He dropped the last of his cigarette to the pavement and ground it out beneath his heel. He’d been in a mood all morning, ever since they woke. They’d slept in separate beds the night before, both wanting time to themselves to sort and pack their gear, but Reese had hoped – stupidly, he thought now – that Tenny’s good mood, his post-coital congeniality, might carry over on today’s op.

No such luck, apparently. He’d been short and prickly all day, responding with sneers and lifted middle fingers. And he was back to mocking and picking Reese apart again, angling for a fight with every offhand comment.

A few months ago, Reese might have taken the bait. But now he knew better. Now, he knew that Tenny got like this when things grew dark in his head.Insecurity, Kris had called it, nodding sagely when Reese mentioned it to her a few nights ago.

He’d blinked at her.

She’d shrugged. “My therapist says insecurity can make you anxious and nervous like me – or it can make you lash out, too. No two people have the same reactions to trauma.”

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