18. Diego

We'd been hiking through the woods for several hours, and I was already fed up with Roni. In those few hours, she had managed to complain about pain in every single part of her body, and when she wasn't doing that, she was mumbling under her breath—insults at me I was sure.

I was at my wits' end. I didn't understand how we went from what I thought was a connection and mind-blowing sex in the woods to barely speaking in such a short time, but I didn't like it. We didn't have to be best friends, we didn't have to be lovers, but I didn't want to go back to enemies, either. I wanted us to at least be able to work together. She asked me to trust her and then not even thirty seconds later put herself—us—in danger. How was I supposed to trust her when she did something so reckless?

"Can we stop now?" She looked back at me as she put her hand on her lower back. "Seriously, I think I might snap in half, and my feet feel raw."

We had to be at least ten miles from the beach we'd camped out on, and we followed the coastline instead of making a beeline for the road as those possibly tracking us might expect. I knew eventually we'd make it to Anchorage, and when we did, we could take a small break in town before heading to the cabin I purchased. After all, I needed to pick up the key from the real estate office. By now I was sure they would have received the check I mailed, and all they'd need was my signature.

I sighed. We just needed to make it to the cabin in one piece and then remain hidden. Roni didn't have to like me between now and then; she just needed to keep walking and not go rogue again. If she could do that, we could make it without an all-out war between the two of us. No pressure. No big deal.

I looked up at the sky to make an assessment of what we were up against. There were dark clouds on the horizon, the type that could easily turn into torrential downpours. It was a deep gray, almost black in some places. The clouds could catch up to us within the hour with the right winds. I could feel the pressure around us changing, and it worried me. This wouldn't be a tiny storm. This was the one the captain mentioned wanting to avoid. "Yeah, let's set up camp somewhere hidden. Preferably with some tree cover to help protect us from the rain it looks like we are about to get."

Roni made a hard righthand turn and limped across the beach to the tree line. We made it fifty yards in before she collapsed onto a large rock and started to remove her boots with a whimper.

"Shit, shit, shit…" she muttered under her breath as the first boot came off. Her white sock was stained with blood. I felt for her. I'd had my fair share of bloody heels from new boots and long missions. It would get easier once her skin got tougher.

Her other shoe came off, and she bit back another whimper. She looked up at me and pinned me with a glare. She clearly thought this was my fault.

"I'm going to get a camp set up before the rain rolls in. Can you bandage those up yourself?" I asked. I'd help if she wanted, but I had a feeling she preferred to lick her wounds privately, and I had things to take care of while she did.

"Do I look like a child?" she asked.

No, but you're acting like one.

I merely shook my head and dug into her backpack for a small first aid kit. I handed it to her and then got to work digging through my own pack for the tent.

I set it up as I raced against time; the breeze that drifted across my shoulders was all the encouragement I needed. I didn't want to spend another night cold and wet. At least we were in an area with decent drainage, so we shouldn't wake up camped in a puddle in the morning.

When the tent was set up and our bags safely stashed inside, I turned back to Roni. Her feet were bandaged, and she wore her socks over them. Her boots were abandoned on the rocks. In her arms was a large pile of dry brush.

"I don't think a fire is going to survive the rain we've got coming," I commented.

She shook her head. "No, but what if we need to start a fire in the morning? Everything is going to be wet. If we gather some wood and kindling now, at least we could start a small one in the morning."

I felt my eyebrows raise in confusion. I was impressed that she'd thought that far ahead but pissed at myself that I hadn't thought of that. I should have stuffed what light kindling I could fit into my bag back at the last campsite. Maybe I was all wrong for this assignment. Maybe I was losing my edge—or even worse, I didn't have one. Maybe I was always mediocre without my friends. My biggest fear was finally realized.

Instead of commenting, I followed Roni's lead, collecting several larger branches and stepping on them to snap them into smaller pieces. Our tent wasn't very large, and even if we carefully piled all the wood inside the tent, we still wouldn't have much room. It would be cramped quarters for sure. Even still, I'd spent nights in worse shape—although my enemies had been outside hunting me, not cuddled up next to me.

Was Roni actually my enemy? No. But it sure felt like it as we slipped back into old ways, determined to make a jab at the other that left a mark.

I placed the last of the wood I'd collected in the tent when the woods became silent. The birds stopped singing, and the owls stopped hooting. Instead, the sounds of the tree leaves rubbing up against each other got louder—and suddenly the sky opened up. A loud clap of thunder vibrated the forest floor beneath our feet, and lightning flashed, nearly blinding me.

I held the flap of the tent open so that Roni could join me inside. Our bags were already tucked away in the corner on top of the kindling pile. The large pine branches I used to help camouflage our tent rubbed against the thin material in the wind. The water the branches didn't repel pattered against the top of the tent.

Roni sat on the floor with her back leaned against her bag, and I sat against the opposite wall, with nothing to do but look at her. It didn't take long for that same energy we felt earlier to spark between us again. It was there, just simmering under the surface of her attitude and my anger.

This was going to come to a head one way or another, so we might as well get it over with.

"You look like you have something you want to say. Go ahead." I crossed my arms as I waited for her to unleash on me.

"I was just trying to help," she muttered, her anger seeming to dissipate. "You said you wished you could have your friends' help. I recognized the barrier and removed it. I don't understand why you aren't thanking me."

I sighed. I knew she had good intentions. It wasn't like she did that because she wanted the Geneva Project to find us. "I know you were. It's just that every action has consequences. Enlisting my friends' help comes at great risk. It endangers them, and the way you contacted them made us traceable for a small time. The Geneva Project might have spent hours questioning if we even survived the night floating out in the Pacific. That doubt might have bought us a lot of time, but that cover's gone. The text could be like a homing beacon to our last location. Once we've given them that, it's only a matter of time before they start looking in the right place."

"How do you know for sure? Maybe they thought we didn't survive and stopped trying?" she questioned.

"Groups like that will surely be tracking the use of their name. They probably have an ego—especially if they go after big targets like Nina, and now you. If you send a text stating Geneva is looking for you, you might as well have drawn a red X on a map for them. It's not that difficult to trace cell phones these days, even texts from burner phones. Now they probably know we are alive and where we were when that text was sent. They know who that message was sent to. They have options to pursue now."

Her eyes were wide. "I didn't even think about what danger it could put your friends in…but I read all about your group's adventures. They can take care of themselves, can't they?"

I scoffed. "Of course they can, but I didn't want to drag them into this, and legally I couldn't anyways…"

"But now that they are in this, maybe they'll figure this all out faster than the Secret Service or FBI could. They operate in a gray space, right?" She wasn't wrong. They likely would figure it out faster, which could be good for us in the immediate future, but bad for my friends later on. If Geneva wants to lure us into a trap and make us come to them, the best way would be to go after Roni's family or my friends or family.

I shook my head because it was abundantly clear that we weren't dealing with a simple-minded group. They'd go after anyone and everyone they could if it brought them what they wanted. Roni.

"Maybe. Right now we can't worry about what they are or aren't doing. Right now we need to focus on our own survival and staying off the radar. No more going rogue. We need to be on the same team and watch each other's backs. Okay?"

She nodded.

I rubbed my hands across my face as I let out a sigh of relief. Our fuck out in the woods seemed to change something in me, hell, in our whole dynamic. I didn't want to go back to fighting or barely tolerating each other. Roni and I could actually be friends during this experience and work together as a team. I just needed her to trust me, and I needed to be able to trust her. "Good, I know our past may suggest otherwise, but I like you better when we aren't fighting."

She grinned at that. "Is that so?"

"Yes." I paused to shoot her a grin. We were officially in truce territory. "You know, I've been thinking about what you said while I was following your grumpy ass through the woods. I think on some level we've both acted out to get the other's attention. Now we're finally old enough, and possibly mature enough, to recognize that. But there's a problem…" I swallowed hard, because she really wasn't going to like what I had to say.

"My stick-in-the-mud father?" She laughed, and her shoulders relaxed. The light in the tent seemed to dim because of the dark clouds overhead, and the setting sun, but it was still light enough to see the way her eyes sparkled with amusement. "Yeah, I know, he's an asshole. He wasn't going to send me off on a camping trip alone with a hot guy without ensuring that he did what he could to cockblock me in the process. The man is even more infuriating than you are." She scoffed at the end in amusement. She really didn't seem to be worried about that clause in the contract. If she was, she'd be more visibly frustrated than I was, wouldn't she? Or maybe all I was to her was a one-time fuck, so nothing for her to worry about…

"I don't care what my father says. Or what agreement you assigned. He can't sign away my free will. He's studied law; he knows better. What he proposed would never hold up in court."

I studied her while waiting for her to elaborate further. Finally my raised eyebrow had the effect I wanted. She bit back a smile as she added, "I studied law, too. He's way out of line, and he knows it. He's just trying to scare you. He's testing you to see what you'll do."

"How can you be so sure?" I asked. It's not that I didn't trust her, but she's talking about a legally binding document she'd never seen. Even a lawyer wouldn't comment on a legal document they'd never laid eyes on—or at least not one worth their weight anyways.

"I may have looked at the contract when he wasn't looking."

I shook my head, confused, and my heart rate increased. "I don't understand. How?"

She scoffed again, and for some reason it gave me a bit of confidence in her. She was sure of her assessment, and I'd have to trust her. "The man is not nearly as good as he gives himself credit for. He left it laying out on the kitchen table in the Residence. I walked right by it and picked it up. Guess he left it for my mom to read and didn't think I'd bother with it."

I stared at her as her smug expression continued to grow. Her white teeth slowly showed from behind her full lips as they stretched into a grin. "So you looked at it and you're confident it won't hold up?"

"It wouldn't. First things first, no notary signature. Rookie mistake. Second, he can't exercise any control over me as a non-signer to the contract. I'm an adult. There's also a major loophole—if I were to come onto you and take away your choice in our…activities, there's nothing pertaining to that. Also, the wording in the contract leaves much to be desired. I don't know if he wrote it himself or not. If he did, he's very rusty. And the consequences, it's just a fine per occurrence. A civil matter, not criminal."

"So you're saying he's using my lack of legal knowledge to keep me in line with a half-assed legal document?" I clarified.

"Absolutely."

There was a loud clap of thunder, and she jumped at the sound. The rain on the tent fabric became louder, and she stared at the nylon with distrust. Her hands began to nervously fidget again, and I noticed her toes wiggling in her socks.

"Then by all means, I'll forget that the agreement exists. You can take the bar and defend me if worse comes to worst," I teased her. Her eyes snapped to mine—the distraction worked.

"You didn't know that I already passed that?" she questioned, her eyebrow raised.

I shook my head. "No. Should I?"

She smirked. "No, I guess not. It didn't make the news, just figured you would have done your homework on me after accepting the assignment."

"I did do some homework—I admit. But I also draw the line at invasion of privacy. I was going to protect you, not hunt you down. Everyone is entitled to their own secrets and to share things with those close to them when they are ready."

She stared at me with a mix of amazement and disbelief. "You've become a different person, haven't you?" The question felt like the turning of a page or the shedding of an old skin for a new one.

"More than you could ever know. I imagine the same goes for you. Below the surface you're probably very different from that girl just trying to make her way through high school without being bullied." Didn't life change everyone? I had my life in the military that melted me down and twisted me into something new—a weapon. She had her life in the spotlight that caused her to really live in the shadows.

"Yeah," she breathed out. She looked like she wanted to say more, but instead I moved my arm and gestured for her to come join me. She crawled across the little bit of space between us and sat between my legs, her back pressed against my chest.

It was there that we listened to the sound of the rain and the thunder. The world crashed around us as we did our best to hide from its wrath. If only we knew what we were really up against.