Page 38 of Red Marked

Him: You don’t need it. You learned from the best. Go and save them.

I send him a laughing emoji. Followed by:

Me: I will.

I pray I get this right. I have to. I put the night training document together in no time. Then I log it into the system where Pryce will find it, and push print.

The printer hums. I lift the page while it is still warm, read it through, and sign it at the bottom.

I am head of security. It’s still worth something.

The others are where I left them, drawn in tight against the depot wall. I join the huddle.

We walk across the yard to the gate. The duty guard steps out of the gatehouse.

“Dr. Pryce cleared us to finish the exercise.” I hand him the form. “There is the entire plan, signed and authorized. We’re clear to leave.”

He reads it, and his eyes flick once toward the residence wing, where the last window recently went dark. I watch him weigh the paperwork in his hand against the prospect of waking that man twice in one night.

“I guess you’re good, sir.” He hands it back and keys the gate. “Stay safe out there.”

“That’s the plan.”

I move us through before anything more can come of it, out past the floodlights, down the gravel, onto the open ground with the ridge rising black ahead and the jungle waiting beyond it.

We shift and take off without concern for anyone seeing us.

We fly hard because we’re seriously fucking late.

14

Star

Where is he?

Where the hell is he?

Was I wrong about him?

I stand at the lookout point above our settlement, watching the black of the ravine. He said that he would be here at the same time. The moon says he’s well past it.

“You’re going to wear a groove in that rock,” Scarlet says from behind me.

“I like to keep moving.”

“I think it might be because that male is late.” She climbs up next to me. For a while, she watches the ravine with me, and I can feel the words stacking up in her before she lets them out. “You know what I’m going to say next.”

“I do, so you don’t have to say it.”

“Maybe this is for the best,” she says anyway. “If he doesn’t come back, nothing will change, and we’ll be safe. The Draig females too.”

I turn to her. “Do you really believe that?”

“Yes, Star.” She widens her eyes. “We’ve been out here for years, and we’re doing okay. We’ve made a life here…a home. We’re fine.”

“We are not fine.” I turn to face her. “We survive out here. That is not the same thing as fine or happy or even okay.”

Her mouth thins, but she doesn’t argue, so I keep going, because it’s been sitting on my chest all night and I’m tired of carrying it alone.