Time, at least for her, had eventually lost all meaning. For Declan, who kept checking his oversized military wristwatch, time had all the meaning in the world. She supposed he had a right to be obsessed with it, checking and rechecking. But Sophia measured out her time in footsteps, one a little more painful than the other. Right, ouch. Left, not so ouch. But even the left, the untwisted left ankle, had begun to ache. Likely a result of her putting the extra weight on it, making the left do the work the right should have been doing for the last twenty miles.

Twenty miles?

“Declan?” she said.

“Fifteen miles,” Declan said, already knowing the request. She had made it quite clear where her mind was. Not on time, but on steps, feet, miles. Walk, rest. Walk, rest. Through the night. The following morning . . . would they make it to the pickup point, the rendezvous, or whatever they called it in time? Were the people who’d been on the other end of the radio waiting, or were they long gone?

She felt . . . nothing, at least at the moment. Tired. No, way beyond tired. She felt mechanical, as if her brain had disconnected from her body. Numb.

“I was hoping—”

“Twenty? Me, too.” By now he was walking as slowly as she was. “But at least we’re making good time.”

“I just wish we were making better distance,” she said.

“That’ll come.”

“With more time,” she said. “More pain. I’m not sure if my ankle can stand it.”

“But how about you, Sophia? Can you stand it? That’s all that counts.”

It sounded like some desperate pseudo-intellectualism. But at this point, she might as well listen to him and try to believe in his military jingoisms. It got them this far, at least. And they must have gotten Declan out of some major trouble at some point. But suddenly her feet felt as if they couldn’t walk another step.

“You know,” she said, “I couldn’t help but notice you’ve got a pretty nasty scar.”

“The one on my back?”

“Where else? Have you been in that much action?”

“You can get the kind of scars I have in two days, driving around Iraq. It’s not the number of scars, or how deep they are. All that counts is that you live to tell about them.”

“Show them off?” she said, “like tattoos? Er, I guess, battle scars?”

“Or live to have some cute redhead ask about them,” Declan said, giving her a little poke in the side.

“Oh? You had some cute redhead ask about your scars?”

“I had a redhead feeling them with her hands last night,” Declan said. “That’s a little better than asking.”

“See, I know it’s me when you drop the ‘cute’.”

“How about gorgeous?” he said. “Drop-dead gorgeous.”

“How about you pick me up and again and carry me until we’re at mile twenty?”

“Really?” His voice sounded almost grave. Definitely not joking anymore. Then he grabbed her arm and said, “Just kidding. Hop on.” Sophia hopped on, with his help.

“I really don’t mind,” he said, his voice strained again.

“How about your back? Does that mind?”

“My legs are a bit sore, to be honest.”

“Just another five miles to twenty,” Sophia said, in a singsong kind of way, hoping to tease some energy into him.

“So, you were just doing some favors?” he said, his voice having changed to a deeper register, something serious sliding up to the surface.

“What do you mean?” She glanced at him, saw the serious expression. The frown. The questions.

“For that general? Have you been thinking about him very much while we’ve been out here, trekking the desert, sleeping in caves?”

“Fucking in caves,” Sophia said, hoping to lighten the conversation. She couldn’t deal with getting too real about the context of her nightmare. She just needed one foot at a time—well, Declan’s feet. Left and right. Isn’t that the sort of mentality that he’d taught her? “No . . . I haven’t thought about him.” A lie? Sort of. She hadn’t thought as much about him as she did her own stupidity for agreeing to this mission. She wanted to act the spy. Well, look where that had gotten her. And Declan. She was a fool to have thought of the mission as nothing more than a lark. It had gotten serious, fast. Deadly serious.

“Just curious,” he said, “if you’ve come to any conclusions about him.”

“I’m curious, too. But I just . . .”

“You just what?”

“I just want to live,” Sophia said, fighting the tears, ashamed already that she’d let the emotion creep back in. Declan’s questions about the general were fair and by now even she sensed there was something rotten with some of her father’s friends. Sophia tried to stop thinking, and instead rested her head against the side of his neck, feeling the sway of his walk. She tried to listen for his pulse.

“I heard them mention his name back there . . . they know the general.” Declan’s voice was casual, as if he wasn’t dropping the bombshell he was.

She said nothing. She didn’t know Ironside at all. Not really. He was an acquaintance of her father’s. Not hers. God, she’d been a total fool.

The clunking of their heads took away a chance to listen to his heart beating, but she knew it was there. Strong as ever. He had such a great heart. She had thought similarly about a few men, up to a day ago.

“We’ll live,” Declan said. “We’re living right now.”

“Think for very much longer?” she said.

“I bet we’ll make it to mile twenty.”

“And beyond.” She could feel it, too. They would get beyond, and go home.

She had to think of it that way. Every step was one step closer to freedom. To escape. To home.

The sky ahead was lightening; a deep and dark blue radiated from a distant mountain range. It would have been so beautiful, like the stars, if only they weren’t being chased by a small army of killers. And whoever else back home that she thought were her friends.

“We’ll get there,” Declan said. “Let’s stop to rest a minute now.”

She slid off his back and tumbled, her leg refusing to take her weight. She reached out to break her fall with her hand—pain shot through her wrist . . . the wrist that held the makeshift crutch. When would it end? This struggle to live, to just get back home? Did Declan feel this way every day? How did he deal with it?

She couldn’t hold it back. She tried biting her lip, then pushing on her eyelids, pushing her sobs back into her head, and her tears. But they came out hot and flowing, her face tight and soundless with crying.

“Sophia?”

She couldn’t answer.

“Come on,” he said, making his way over to her. She felt his hands. “Where are you hurt?”

She was shaking with the cry until it surfaced into a wail.

He held her tight, holding his head against hers, their cheeks together. For a long while, he didn’t say anything, but she felt the words. Finally, he just stopped talking, stopped the advice and the slogans, and simply held her like she’d needed.

She closed her eyes and focused on the feeling of his body. This guy. Her guy. Her warrior, and she’d gotten him in so much trouble.

Back in New York, her life was safe and privileged, lived often through abstraction, a work of art. Middle Eastern art. She studied these paintings, artists like the ones clustered around at the parties of Mr. Abbas, thinking she knew something about the other side of the coin. The other side of the canvas. But now that she had actually stepped through and lived it, she could see how much she had been deceived. A deception somewhat by her father. That stung. But it was nothing compared to the murderous deception by General Ironside.

Who the fuck did she think she was? Stomping through Afghanistan, punching through the painting like a child’s hand through canvas. Now she was getting the slap for it.

“I don’t want you to be the one to pay for it, for me thinking I could be this undercover spy . . .”

“It’s the general’s fault, putting you in that position with absolutely zero experience. Inserting listening devices like that . . . I still don’t understand it, unless it was a fuck-up on purpose.”

“On purpose?” Sophia said.

Declan looked down, stared at his boots, and shrugged. Sophia could almost feel what he’d meant to say; it emanated off his body, a shared regret. A deep disappointment. She knew now more than ever, just by how Declan shook his head, still speaking nothing, that Sophia had perhaps ultimately been used. The real question now was if the general had other reasons for planting the bugs in the first place.

But her biggest regret, still, was that she’d gotten Declan into this mess in the first place.

Sophia leaned away from Declan, room enough to see his face.

He cocked his head slightly, waiting for something.

“Sorry,” she said, her voice almost a whisper.

“What?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to say that. You don’t have to be that.”

“I got you wound up in all this bullshit,” Sophia said, “so I should just cut you loose.”

“Cut me loose?”

“With my ankle, and my wrist, and you having to carry me, neither of us is going to make it.”

“That’s not—”

“You know it’s true. I know you know; you’re a logical man. You know it’s either one of us or neither, and that one can’t be me.”

He was shaking his head.

“I’m slowing you down,” Sophia said. “Without me on your back half the time, you’d already be there by now.”

Still shaking.

“You could come back for me,” she said. “Just think about it. At least you can try. That’s better than both of us dying out here.”

“Sophia,” he said, “that’s not going to happen.”

“That we’ll die?”

“That might happen,” he said. “But the part about me leaving you . . . ?”

She buried her head in her hands. “God, I just feel so guilty.”

Calmly, Declan said, “I understand how you could feel that way, but . . .”

He continued talking to her while Sophia sat in a daze of fatigue and confusion, feeling her mind uncoil just ever so slightly. “Who were you two days ago?” she said. “What were you doing? What kind of life did you have? It’s crazy how I came along and took that and—”

“You didn’t do anything to me.”

“Oh? Nothing?”

“Sophia . . .”

“What?”

“You’ve listened to every one of my commands so far . . .”

She waited.

“I had you marching here, hiding here, doing something in a cave . . . and this whole time you trusted me and soldiered on like pro, even though you’ve never done anything like it before. And what good has it done for you?”

Her mind was still uncoiling, the feeling of her consciousness beginning to float over her body.

“You followed orders and got your ankle fucked up, now your arm.”

She was no longer crying.

“You are the expert. And you know your stuff, everything. I’ve been watching you so closely . . .” she paused, trying to find the right way to put her thoughts into words. “Why is it that you think I so blindly follow your orders?”

He shrugged.

“Oh? What? You think I just do that for anyone? Any handsome face?”

He stared at her.

“I follow your orders,” she said, “and I follow you, because I know you’ll do what’s right and get us through this.”

“I will,” he said, his expression staying the same. Two small fires burned in his eyes where the sunrise reflected back at her, lighting her up with a distant promise.

“I know you will,” Sophia said. She’d known from the beginning she could trust him, but now, somewhere along the dunes, her feelings for Declan had evolved from mere rescuer to something deeper.

If they had only met under different circumstances . . .

Declan got up from where they’d fallen, moving to her slowly, his boots kicking softly through sand until he plopped down in it next to her. Then inching sideways closer to her until their shoulders touched, then faces turning in until lips met in a soft kiss. His hands curled around the back of her head, holding her in place as he carried out, softly and slowly, what he needed to do. And what Sophia needed now was to feel herself relax through his kisses, through his embrace, to know that it would be possible for her to reset the disappointment. He’d been so attentive like that, through all his guts and brawn and logic, to know when they both needed a break. She was happy to break with him, kissing him deeply in return. She indulged in the feel of his hard body pressing against hers, the soft warmth of his tongue outlining her lips and then delving inside, exploring, eliciting nothing but pleasure. Her pain and fear forgotten . . . 

But there was also a part of her that wanted to show Declan that she needed fewer of these breaks. That she knew, more so by the minute, that they’d be getting all the breaks they’d wanted after this hell storm was over. After they survived Afghanistan, together.

Sophia wanted to move forward with him in every way.

So she pulled back, staring at his face made even more beautiful by the brightening morning.

He raised his eyebrows.

“Ready?” she said.

“For?” A smile crept over his face.

“For getting the hell out of here.” Sophia tapped him on the shoulder with her good hand, tapping firmly like a fellow soldier. Like she could also be a grunt, digging deep and moving like one despite her multiple injuries.

“Let’s do it,” Declan said.

She stood first, and was first to reach for his hand. She grabbed hard and leaned back, pulling him off the sand with a quiet grunt. They stood together, taking another moment to admire the brightening sunrise and their brightened faces, before dusting each other off and getting on with their journey home.