Page 33 of Dozer

Something tightens behind my ribs. I know what it's like to go unnoticed, to have people assume that because you can carry the weight, you should, to have someone look at a capable man and decide capability means he doesn't need anything. I've lived most of my adult life that way. Maybe that's why I noticed her. Maybe that's why it bothers me that she thinks being cared for has to be requested.

"Somebody should," I say. I don't look up when I say it. I don't want to see whatever is on her face when it lands, because I have a feeling it will be something I won't know what to do with, and there's a whole mission still ahead of us. We have a leak to figure out, a conspiracy, a dead man, and people who just tried to kill us. None of that has room for whatever this is starting to become. And, I’m certain, it’s starting to become something. After only a day with this woman, and it feels like so much longer, I’m feeling things I haven’t felt in years. That could spell distraction and distraction means danger.

I hear the wrapper open. She takes a bite, then another. The room stays quiet. A few minutes later, the pen picks back up, slower now, less urgent, like the food has done exactly what I hoped it would.

I glance over. She's drawing again. This time, she adds something to the bottom of the page. It’s a vehicle, our vehicle with two tiny figures inside. I don't ask why. She doesn't explain. Maybe she doesn't need to. Maybe that's the point. Some things are easier to put on paper than say out loud.

I go back to checking my weapon. She goes back to drawing. Neither of us says anything else for a long time, and I don't mind it. In fact, I find myself wanting to stay exactly where I am. That's new. So is the fact that I don't feel the need to question it.

Outside, a car rolls through the parking lot. Headlights sweep across the curtains. My body reacts before my brain does, my hand goes to the weapon, my eyes on the window. Kenzi stops drawing. We both wait.

The vehicle keeps going. I lower my weapon. She exhales.

"Was that your version of relaxing?" she asks quietly.

I look at her. "Yes."

She smiles, it’s a small, tired smile but it’s real. "You're terrible at relaxing."

"So I've been told."

She looks down at her drawing. And maybe because she’s actually smiling again but the silence that settles around us doesn’t feel empty or uncomfortable. It feels right.

CHAPTER 8

Kenzi

I wake up because the light under the door changes.

Not much, just enough, a shadow passing where no shadow should be passing, at whatever ungodly hour it is, in a Best Western breezeway that should be empty of anything except the vending-machine hum, the occasional trucker looking for ice, and maybe one guy in pajama pants questioning every life decision that brought him to a roadside motel.

My brain doesn't care about any of that. It has already flagged the anomaly. I've spent enough years staring at crime-scene photographs, security footage, digital timestamps, and things people desperately wanted me not to notice to develop an eye for what doesn't belong. It's not a skill I can turn off just because I'm technically asleep in a motel bed with a legal pad full of half-finished sketches sliding off my stomach. Apparently, my subconscious runs the same background processes as the rest of me. Catalog. Compare. Flag. Repeat.

The shadow passes again. I hold my breath. There it is, a second movement, not random. My heart kicks once, hard enough to hurt.

"Dozer." I don't sit up fast. Fast movement in the dark is how people get shot by their own paranoid teammates, and I learned a long time ago that panic is just adrenaline without a job. "Someone's outside the door."

He's already moving before I finish the sentence, which tells me two things. One, that he trusts my read enough not to ask for evidence first, and two, that some part of him probably clocked that something was wrong a half-second after I did, if not before. He rolls off the chair with the kind of controlled speed that makes me briefly question whether he ever actually relaxes, even in sleep. One second he's still, the next he's standing, weapon in hand, body positioned between me and the door.

"Which side?"

"Right of the peephole." My voice is quiet, but steady. Mostly. "Shadow crossed twice, not once. Somebody's pacing or two people."

He doesn't check the peephole. That surprises me, until I realize why. Looking through the peephole would give whoever is outside information, too. Instead, he moves, one step, then two, putting himself between me and the door in the same motion, like the geometry of protecting me is something his body does without consulting the rest of him first. Something about that should make me feel safer. It does. Something about it should also make my pulse go faster for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with fear. It does that too. I hate that my brain can apparently multitask at the worst possible times. I mean, I should absolutely not be thinking about how sexy the man standing in front of me, holding a gun to confront potential danger, is. That is completely asinine in this situation. Apparently, being primed for danger and lust at the same time isn’t mutually exclusive.

The door comes in a half second later. Not kicked, but hit. Something heavy slams into it, splintering the frame near the lock in one clean motion. The sound is enormous in the small room, the kind that makes every nerve ending in my body stand up and start screaming at once. Whoever is on the other side has done this before, and they don't plan on doing it twice.

Dozer moves before the door finishes opening. Everything after that happens too fast for me to narrate it properly, even to myself, which is saying something because narrating things to myself is basically my whole personality.

Two men. The first comes through hard and fast, weapon already in his hand. Dozer meets him before I've even gotten both feet onto the floor. It's not like the movies. It's not clean, it's not slow motion, there's no dramatic pause where everybody gets to admire the choreography. Instead, it's ugly and fast and brutally efficient. A forearm block, an elbow, the weapon hitting the floor somewhere to my left. Dozer drives forward, using his weight and leverage with the kind of practiced violence that tells me this isn't anger, it’s his special forces training. This is muscle memory to him. This is a man who has spent years learning exactly how much force it takes to stop someone and has no interest in using one ounce more than necessary.

The first man hits the floor hard. Dozer is already turning. The second one comes around the doorframe, and he's coming directly for me. For one frozen fraction of a second, my brain supplies a completely useless observation.

That's a gun.

Excellent, Kenzi. Outstanding forensic analysis.

I grab the only thing within reach, the water bottle, the one Dozer brought me hours ago because apparently, in the middle of an ambush, a dead body, and a conspiracy, this man has decided hydration is a tactical priority. I throw it. It hits the guy in the chest. It does absolutely nothing, of course it does nothing, he's a grown man with a gun, but it buys me half a second. Half a second is apparently all Dozer needs.