Chapter Twenty-Two
The CS soldiers kept a contingent of five guards on Cam as they marched him down a couple of corridors with the leader bringing up the front. Obviously, they weren’t willing to take any chances after he’d taken three of the bastards down in the holding room when they’d threatened to strip Bren.
He might still be pissed as hell with her—she had defied his orders and gotten them both caught, just like her brother had done to him all those years ago. Just as he’d feared, she’d proven to have the same selfish judgment that put other people in jeopardy. The entire fate of the rebel movement and the whole damn war with the CSS hung in the balance simply because she hadn’t followed his directive.
Nonetheless, when that soldier had put his hands on her with the intent of stripping her naked in front of half a dozen men, he’d seen red. His instinct had taken over, pure, unadulterated rage boiling in his veins. It wouldn’t have mattered if it’d been three or thirty men standing between the two of them, he would have put all of them down to get to her and stop her from being violated.
They had a few short hours until the rebels attacked. All he needed was for her to keep her head down until then, and they might still get out of this alive.
The soldiers around him came to a halt as the leader opened a door and then stood back.
“After you, Colonel.”
His heart thumped against his ribs, but he set his shoulders and walked forward, as if he wasn’t worried about what was going to happen inside. They could do whatever they wanted to him. He’d endure anything as long as he knew Bren was safe. Yes, she’d betrayed his trust. And he’d been fooling himself if he’d really thought their relationship had any substance to it, that it would be sustainable once they got back to their usual lives. These things happened sometimes, when soldiers were thrown together and emotions ran high. He’d just never expected it to happen to him. And not with Jordie’s sister, of all people.
But maybe that was the crux of the issue—this thing with Bren had been more about what had happened with her brother and his need to work out his demons or some psycho-babble bullshit. He hadn’t wanted her to be anything like Jordie, had wanted this mission to turn out differently, had kept believing it would, even as things got more and more screwed up. But in the end, history repeated itself, and yet again, he was left to pick up the pieces.
The CS soldier stepped into the small room after him, none of it what he expected. There were a couple of chairs and a desk, with one wall entirely taken up by tinted glass. On the other side, Bren stood talking to Seb, while the rest of his men sat or stood around the room. Though they all looked liked they’d been worked over, none of them appeared seriously injured.
“What is this?” he demanded when the door closed, leaving him alone with the CS soldier, who seemed to be higher ranking.
“You said she wasn’t UEF,” the soldier said, perching on the edge of the table and clasping his hands.
He didn’t reply, since the familiar way Bren and Seb were talking spoke volumes. And at this point, he assumed the CSS knew Seb and his men were also UEF.
“Your men weren’t very forthcoming about their reasons for being in CSS territory, or why they were meeting the rebels,” the soldier said when Cam didn’t answer. “I’m not stupid. I can put a picture together without all the pieces.”
“And what kind of picture do you have?” he asked, deciding to play the game, knowing that’s what the soldier wanted from him.
The soldier clasped his hands behind his back as he stepped forward. “The UEF was going to make some kind of deal with the rebels. Maybe I don’t have the details, but I’m sure you could fill me in. What did you have to offer them? Weapons? Men? Technology?”
He clenched his jaw, keeping his gaze trained straight ahead to where Seb was giving Bren what was no doubt a sanitized version of what he and the other men had endured in the past few days.
“After dealing with your men, I’m guessing that torturing you will be just as pointless in extracting information.”
“Then I guess we’re done here.”
“Far from it.” The CS soldier came to stand next to him, staring into the room beyond the glass. “See? I got this idea, when you were so determined to protect that woman in the holding room.”
His guts started churning, but he kept himself from outwardly reacting. Shit. He’d revealed his weakness, and now this bastard knew what it was.
Bren.
The door to the other room opened, and the five men who’d escorted him down the corridor stepped in, weapons raised, ordering his men to get back and on their knees. When Bren started to go with them to comply, one of the soldiers grabbed her, keeping her apart in the middle of the room.
“We’re a lot alike, you and I,” the CS soldier next to him said, leaning in as if they were buddies discussing a football match. “You have the respect of your men, and you hold yourself to a higher standard to keep that respect.”
“And you learned all this from ten minutes of me not answering your questions?” he taunted, trying to think of a way to distract the man out of whatever scheme he’d come up with.
“No. You aren’t an open book. But I can tell from the dealings I’ve had with your men. And the way you reacted to protect her? Well, I think we both know she’s more than just another one of your soldiers.”
His stomach felt heavy, his body hot, like his insides were turning to lava. His mind was rushing. There had to be some way out of this, but he couldn’t catch a single thought.
“Nothing to say?” the CS soldier asked, not sounding particularly surprised. He grabbed an old-fashioned radio from his belt, holding it up to his mouth. “Go ahead.”
The soldier standing in the middle of the room closest to Bren backhanded her without warning, sending her to the floor.
“Hey!” Seb yelled, shooting to his feet in fury. “What the hell was that for?”
The soldier standing over Bren reached down and grabbed a handful of her clothing to roughly pull her up. But only so he could hit her again.
“Stop, damn it!” Seb started to surge forward, but one soldier intercepted him as another pointed a gun in his face. “We don’t know what the rebels are planning. You grabbed us before we met with them!”
The rest of his men joined in, every one of them furious. And Bren, hell, she hadn’t been cowed by the assault, she looked just as pissed.
“Hit me all you want. They’re not going to tell you anything. And neither will I.” She wrenched out of the soldier’s hold and stepped back to stand tall, blood trickling down her chin from a split lip.
His insides were tearing, right down the middle, duty splitting apart from instinct. He couldn’t stand here and watch them hurt her; it was making his entire body ache with fury. But he couldn’t give the CSS what they wanted when the fate of the whole damn war was at risk.
“Now I know what you see in her.” The CS soldier next to him moved closer to the glass separating the rooms. “She’s got some fight in her. And that hair. It must look spectacular when it’s untied.”
He took the radio in hand again, half turning away to murmur a command too low for Cam to hear. But something in the husky tone of the man’s voice started to ignite the fury into wild, uncontrollable rage.
In the next room, the soldier who’d hit Bren pulled out a knife. As he stepped closer to her, she tensed, as though debating whether or not to fight. When the soldier reached up and grabbed a handful of her hair, she began to struggle and Cam couldn’t breathe.
The soldier brought the knife up and flicked it, slicing the tie that’d been holding back her hair, sending it tumbling to her shoulders. He then wrenched her arm so that she was forced into a turn, her back to his chest and the knife at her throat. The soldier walked her forward until she was pressed against the glass. So close, but no way he could get to her. He clenched his fists, barely resisting the urge to smash through the glass.
Though her expression was still furious, he could see the fear in her eyes. In the background, the other soldiers were having trouble keeping Seb and his men contained. Until a shot exploded loudly in the room, and one of his men fell to the floor. Seb had been shoved face down on the floor, leaving Harlow and Bartlet to rush to their companion’s aid. But it was no use—Cam could tell even from here that the bullet had gone through his heart, and there was nothing they could do to stop him bleeding out.
“Well, that’s unfortunate,” the CS soldier next to him commented, totally blasé. “If you don’t start talking, things are going to go much further with the woman, and it’s probable the rest of your men will be killed in their pointless attempts to stop it.”
Even as the soldier next to him spoke, the man holding Bren wrenched her head back, pressing the blade against her neck until a rivulet of blood dribbled down to the neckline of her shirt.
The sight snapped the last thread of his sense of duty tethering his instincts. With a cry of fury, he slammed himself against the CS soldier, putting him against the glass just like Bren.
“Order him to let her go,” he said, his voice guttural with rage as he shoved more of his weight against the soldier.
The bastard actually laughed. “Then tell me what I want to know.”
His gaze was drawn back to Bren. She’d started struggling against the soldier, who was clearly enjoying the way she writhed against him.
“They’re going to attack the Holy City.” He couldn’t keep quiet any longer, not when they were threatening Bren and had already killed one of his men. But if he could misdirect the CS soldier’s forces, then maybe when the rebels attached the camp, there’d be less CSS forces to hold the ground.
He released the CS soldier and stepped back, letting his shoulders slump as if he was defeated. “The rebels are going to attack the Holy City in a few hours, and the UEF planned to give them weapons.”
The CS soldier pulled his clothes straight and shot him a cool smile. “That wasn’t so unpleasant, was it? I’m glad we could come to an agreement.”
“Screw you,” he muttered darkly.
The soldier shoved him toward the door, sending him stumbling a step. They left the room again, but only took the three short steps to the next door, where he was pushed through to join the others.
One of the soldiers paused to uncuff him as the rest filed out the door, leaving Bren and the others free.
“Colonel.” Harlow came over and clasped his forearm. “Glad to see you’re in one piece, sir.”
Bartlet was still crouched next to their fallen man. “We just lost—”
“I know. I saw everything.” He nodded toward the mirror.
“I thought they were playing that game.” Seb shrugged out of his shirt and handed the garment over, leaving him in only a tank top.
“Thanks.” He pulled it on and fastened half the clasps, shifting over to where Bren was dabbing the sleeve of her jacket on the cut on her neck. She’d also made an attempt to wipe the blood away from her mouth, leaving a streak.
“Are you okay?” he asked, resisting the urge to tend her injuries himself. He didn’t want her to be his responsibility, his concern, his weakness. Not after what she’d done. But he couldn’t get his damned emotions to disengage.
“Fine,” she muttered. “What did you tell them?”
“Tell them?” Seb repeated in confusion.
“I’m guessing that’s why they suddenly stopped and left. Because you gave in and told them what they wanted.”
Harlow scoffed. “No offense, Bren, but he’d never—”
“He did,” she cut in with quiet intensity, crossing her arms.
“Why?” Harlow demanded. “Because they killed—”
“Because they threatened to hurt me.” Bren’s announcement dropped into the room, creating a heavy silence.
“Oh shit,” Seb muttered.
Maybe he should have been embarrassed by the show of weakness, at the fact Seb, Harlow, and Bartlet now knew exactly how he’d let himself become compromised by her. But he’d never been one for regrets, had always owned his actions, good and bad. While things between them had turned out exactly how he’d feared, he’d walked this path, and there was no point wasting time being ashamed or wishing for different choices. He’d simply face up to now like he always did and continue forward.
“What did you tell them?” Bren asked softly.
“I told them what the rebels had planned. That they were going to attack the Holy City in a few hours.”
Bren’s reaction was almost imperceptible, and if he didn’t know her so well, if he hadn’t spent every hour of the last few days with her, taking in every nuance of expression that crossed her face, he wouldn’t have noticed the change.
She understood what he’d done, but without knowing whether they were being watched, neither of them could inform the other three men that he’d misled the CSS forces.
“It doesn’t matter.” Seb clasped him on the shoulder in a show of solidarity. “Hell, I would have told them myself if I’d had any information to give.”
Bren’s expression tightened. “None of you should have said anything, no matter what they did to me.”
There was no mistaking the pissed off tone lacing her voice. But what the hell did she expect? He’d bet his last dollar that if their roles had been reversed, she would have said or done anything to save him.
Or maybe she wouldn’t have. Christ, he didn’t know. She’d already proven to be selfish in not following his orders and landing them here in the first place. Maybe she would have been more interested in saving her own skin or found it easier to put duty before her feelings because she didn’t care about him in the same way he cared about her. Or, like her brother, she was just that shallow kind of person.
Whatever the case, he was done with it.
“Noted. Next time I’ll let them rape you and then slit your throat.” Ignoring the shocked hurt that flared in her features, he brushed past her and stalked over to the far wall.
“Cam, what the hell, man? That was harsh.” Seb glanced between the two of them.
He didn’t reply as he sat, putting his back to the cool concrete behind him.
Bren crossed her arms, glaring at him. “I know you’re pissed that we got caught, but don’t take it out on me.”
“I’m not pissed at you. I’m pissed at myself for being stupid enough to trust Jordie Brenner’s sister for even a second.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” She closed the distance between them, her short steps revealing her anger.
“You’re just like him. Selfishly disregarding orders and getting people killed.” He could help glancing over at where Bartlet had covered their brother with his jacket.
“I can agree with the stupid part, but only because you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Jordie told me everything, even the classified parts. So don’t pretend like you’re the victim here.”
He shoved back to his feet. Damn it, when was Jordie’s ghost going to leave him in peace? When could he finally put that damned assignment to rest?
“Oh, he told you, did he?” He took a menacing step forward. “He told you how I ordered him to bunker down with the rest of the team, but he had some idiotic idea about sneaking up on our target to listen to their conversation for intel, even though there was no way to get close without being seen? He told you how he disregarded my orders, and when he snuck off, revealed where we were hiding to the patrolling CS soldiers? How, when he got pinned down and I went to help him, the rest of our team were ambushed with grenades and slaughtered? And finally, when we eventually got clearance for a new assignment months later, he committed suicide by walking straight into the CSS line of fire?”
Judging by the look on her face, the version he’d just given her was vastly different to the one her brother had supplied. Not that he’d helped. As Jordie’s commanding officer, he hadn’t been able to shake the guilt of his own choices, and had somewhat covered up the guy’s actions. Or at least fudged them, taking some blame that shouldn’t have been his to bear. He didn’t have to go after Jordie—he could have ordered the rest of the men to move and left the young soldier to his fate. And he didn’t have to accept Jordie back into action on his new team, but he’d stupidly thought maybe out of tragedy, he could help him become a better soldier, a better man. Instead, he’d helped the guy end his own life.
“That’s not true,” Bren whispered.
“Isn’t it? Then tell me different.” The past didn’t matter so much anymore. It was his own lack of judgment when it came to her that stung him now. “Tell me how you’re any different. I told you to head for the shuttle. I gave you an order. It was imperative you reached the rebels, even if I didn’t. But you let your feelings for me cloud your judgment. You came after me and ended up getting both of us caught.”
“That’s what you think?” There was an incredulous note to her voice, underlaid with anger.
“Cam, that’s not—” Seb started, but Bren cut him off.
“Just forget it, Seb. Cam has it all figured out, and now I know the truth.”
Now Seb was looking pissed as well. “But Bren—”
“No, Seb, leave it.” She turned her back on him and went to sit against the adjacent wall, staring at nothing, gaze almost vacant, like the light had extinguished. An uneasy feeling rocked him, and suddenly he felt like he’d jumped into a lake, seen the rocks just before he hit the water, but couldn’t change the fact that he’d already leaped. He was going to hit those rocks, and there was nothing he could do about it.
“I never thought I’d say this, but you’re an asshole,” Seb muttered before walking over to join Bren. When he sat down beside her, he looped an arm around her shoulder, and she leaned into him, leaving a smoldering in Cam’s guts.
“Shit,” he muttered to himself, tilting his head back against the wall and closing his eyes. Why did he just feel like he’d made the biggest mistake of his life?