Page 15 of Reset

“You mean, you haven’t? Didn’t you have to take one before you were offered your job?”

Now, that made Ryan laugh. Which he did, long and loud. “Uh, no,” he said when he’d calmed. “The closest I ever came to a personality test was when Callum asked me if he had to hide the weaponry to ensure I didn’t shoot Rachel.”

“Rachel? Was she the one who left to run a pharmaceutical company?”

It was very strange talking to someone you thought was a stranger but who knew things about your life. “That’s her. She has a mean streak, and without Callum around to act as a buffer, she can get on your nerves. Trust me, it takes a lot to make me mad—unless you’re Rachel. She has a gift for it.”

“And Callum calms her down?”

That was hilarious. “No. He naturally attracts most of her ire, which spares the rest of us.” He started laughing again. Callum calming? Priceless!

“What’s so funny?”

Ryan wiped his eyes. “The thought of the world’s grumpiest Scottish man calming anyone down.”

She seemed wistful when she glanced back at him. “You’re really close to your team, aren’t you?”

“Don’t know what I’d do without them.” Which was one of the reasons he’d worked hard to get back in shape and was jumping through hoops to take the tests he needed to rejoin the team.

“Must be nice to know you aren’t alone.” Now, that was definitely wistful.

“They’re like family to me. You don’t have that with your work friends?”

“I work in insurance, Ryan. Most of my colleagues are fifty-year-old men.”

“Good point. What about family? Do they have your back?”

She didn’t answer immediately. “Sometimes, I forget you can’t remember all the things I’ve told you, then you say something like that.” She shook her head. “It’s no big deal. My dad drank himself to death, my mum isn’t far off doing the same. No brothers, sisters, or other family. Just me, a few friends I see socially, and a whole bunch of middle-aged men in the office.”

There was no self-pity in her tone, which somehow made her description of her life that much more brutal.

“It sounds lonely,” he said.

“It’s no big deal. I’m used to it.”

The way she spoke made Ryan think there was a lot in Sarah’s life that she dismissed just because she was used to it.

“Well, you aren’t alone right now,” he said, his voice echoing through the corridor. “We’re in this together.”

She flashed him a smile. “That’s sweet, and trust me when I say, I’m glad I’m not here alone. But you have to remember, I’m not like you, Ryan, and I’m not sure that you’re better off having me here. I don’t have military training or special security experience. There’s a good chance I’ll only slow you down.”

“Don’t say that—”

“But it’s the truth. I work in an office and spend my days trying to figure out the odds of random events happening. If someone came to me asking if they’d survive a situation like this, I’d tell them their chances were low and that our company couldn’t insure them. The odds are stacked against us, and the chance of us getting out of this alive is slim. The truth is, your odds are significantly better if we take me out of the equation. Of course, if this discussion was taking place in my office, now would be the point where I’d whip out the graphs and talk statistics until your eyes glazed over.”

The humor was a chance for him to joke his way out of the conversation. He didn’t take it. “You keep talking about the odds of something happening. Only, the truth is, for every situation, there are always people who make it out.”

“Yes, and they’re so far in the minority you’d need a magnifying glass to spot the number.”

“That’s not my point. I’m trying to tell you that we’re going to be one of the minority. We’re the people who make it and screw up the data for folk like you.”

“You can’t know that.” Big eyes caught his as she glanced back at him.

“You can’t know it won’t happen.”

They fell silent as they carefully made their way along the uneven floor of the corridor. There were cracks in the ceiling above them that concerned Ryan. After seeing the cave-in blocking the other end of the tunnel, he had to wonder if the structure of the mine would hold long enough for them to escape.

He wasn’t sure what was worse—facing their abductor and whatever he had planned for them, or being crushed to death under a mountain of rubble.