“How close are the rebels?”

He shrugged. “If they give up on trying to take out a bird, they could be here in twenty minutes. Best guess—we’ll have a forty-minute head start.”

“Listen,” Max said, “I want to get back to the civilians. Get them ready to move out.”

“Water and ammo. We’re traveling light and fast.”

“Roger that.”

She crawled on hands and knees back to the foxhole, whispered, “It’s Max,” and rolled over and in.

“What’s happening?” Rachel asked.

“Four SEALs are here to get us out,” Max said. “We’re leaving.”

“Where are the helicopters?” Amina asked.

“They can’t get here. We’re walking out.” Max kept her tone upbeat. A forty-minute head start might be enough for trained navy SEALs, but they’d be walking out with two civilians and a wounded man on a litter. If the rebels moved on the camp soon and picked up their trail, the rebels would catch up to them before they’d gotten a mile. “You up for that?”

Rachel gave a short laugh. “I’ll walk from here to Mogadishu if I have to. What should we do?”

“Grab a light pack from the pile of gear and fill it with water and some MREs.” Max stuffed her pockets and pack with ammo.

“How far will we have to go?” Amina asked.

“I don’t know—far enough away so the birds can get to us.” Max climbed back out, reached down, and helped first Amina, then Rachel out of the foxhole. “Stay close to me.”

She led them quickly to the point where the SEALs had emerged from the jungle. Two men in combat gear seemed to materialize out of the air.

“We’re Jones and Adeen, your escorts this evening,” one of them said with a wide grin and a Texas twang. “Are you ladies up for a stroll?”

“Can’t wait,” Rachel said.

Hernandez and the last SEAL, a tall thin African American, jogged up with Grif on a litter between them. Hernandez said, “Let’s rock and roll.”

The SEALs sandwiched Rachel and Amina between the first two men and the litter bearers. Max slid in beside Rachel. “How are you doing?”

“Happy to be moving. I just wish it wasn’t so dark.”

Max rested a hand on her lower back. “Don’t try to see—just follow the man in front of you. Your feet will know what to do. After a while, your eyes will adjust and it will get easier.”

“I can’t imagine anything ever being easier.”

“I’m sorry,” Max murmured, wishing she could rewind the clock to the moments before Grif was shot and Rachel and Amina still had a chance to get out. Wishing she could undo the horror and fear that followed.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Rachel said softly. “Without you we might have tried to make it out on our own—and who knows where we’d be now. I know you kept me sane.”

She shivered and Max instinctively slid her arm around her and pulled her close. “You were amazing. Just hang on a little while longer.”

“No choice.” Rachel sighed. “Do you need to check on Grif?”

“Yes, for a minute.”

“Go. I’m okay now. Just a momentary pity party.”

“You’re entitled.” Max didn’t want to let her go but Grif needed her. “I’ll be right back.”

Rachel’s smile was visible even in the murky light. “So you keep saying.”

Max grinned. “Limited repertoire.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Ask Grif sometime—he’ll tell you.”

“I just might.”

Still smiling, Max slipped back to the side of the litter. Grif’s face was tight with pain. “Doing okay?”

“Better than I was.” Grif grunted. “Fucking leg hurts like a mother.”

“I’d rather hold off on the pain meds unless it gets really bad.”

“Yeah. I don’t want to be knocked out if things get hot either.” Grif coughed and took a minute to catch his breath. “How are the women doing?”

“They’re tough,” Max said with a rush of pride. “Smart and resourceful too. They’ll make it.”

“You done good, Deuce.”

“You just hang in there.” She squeezed his shoulder. “I won’t be far away.”

He nodded and closed his eyes. Max worked her way back up to Rachel. “Everything okay?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been happier in my life.” Rachel’s voice was tinged with bitterness. “And isn’t that a sorry statement.”

Max rubbed Rachel’s shoulder. “You’ve just been through a hell most people can’t even imagine. The shock is setting in. Once you get out of here and get some rest, life will make sense again.”

Rachel’s fingers touched hers, warm and soft. For a heartbeat, the jungle, the battle, the insanity of life in the balance disappeared. Max shuddered, glad for the cover of darkness to hide the wanting she couldn’t control.

“Will it?” Rachel said. “Once you’ve seen this madness, can you ever go back?”

Max didn’t answer. Her truth was not one she would wish on anyone, especially not Rachel.

Chapter Fifteen

Rachel would never be frightened by shadows again, not after discovering what true darkness was really like. Time in this disorienting blackness lost all meaning. Once they’d left the encampment, the canopy completely blocked out the sky for long moments that might’ve been hours or minutes or days. When even the shadows died and she stared open-eyed into utter blackness, she stumbled along blind, following the soldier in front of her by instinct and senses she’d never known she had. Maybe she was drawn to his body heat, like some ancient creature pulled to the surface of the ocean by the primal call of the sun. Maybe she crept along in his wake out of a primitive drive for self-preservation while he became a human shield, pushing aside the clawing branches and vines that grasped at her from either side.

Her heart raced wildly and panic bubbled in her throat. She couldn’t relax enough to capture a full breath, afraid the instant her hypervigilance ebbed, she’d be attacked. She doubted she’d ever relax again.

Amina was nearby, being guided by another one of these phantom rescuers whose faces Rachel had never seen and on whom she relied completely. Every now and then she caught Amina’s scent, still as sweet and light and undaunted as Amina’s spirit. She clung to that elusive reminder of the life she’d known before the nightmare until the pungent jungle smells finally pressed in from every side and obliterated it.

Isolated in the dark, her only touchstone was a faint pressure in the center of her back from Max’s fingers. The entire endless time they’d been walking—stumbling, in her case—Max was always there, just beside her, never letting her get lost. Every now and then, like a gift made all the more precious by its sudden appearance when she’d given up hoping for it, a bit of moonlight filtered through the trees. When her eyes grasped it in a desperate attempt to right a world gone mad, she’d catch the outline of a helmet and a darker shape against the other shapeless forms. Max.

Some of the choking heaviness in her chest lightened, and she centered herself in the light press of Max’s fingers, a reminder, silent and strong and unwavering, that she was not alone in this terrible madness. She reached into the dark and found Max’s arm. Gripped it.

“You’re doing great,” Max whispered.

Rachel choked back a disbelieving laugh at the bald-faced lie. How did Max know what she needed when she’d refused to admit needing anything even to herself? Could Max feel her panic—read her mind? Or had she always been so transparent and just been fooling only herself all these years? Max was so very good at seeing what she’d always managed to keep from others. She’d always worked so hard to maintain the façade of courage and control, from pretending she wasn’t terrified to go to bed as a child to convincing everyone, including herself, she didn’t need anything more than a meaningful career and casual, convenient physical relationships to be happy.

Maintaining any kind of façade out here was impossible. They were all naked, reduced to their most basic needs and desires and fears. From the moment Max had stepped out of the dark and looked into her eyes, she’d seen beneath her mask.

“Thanks for lying,” Rachel said, finally free to let the mask drop away. “I’m scared witless.”

“Nothing to be ashamed of.” The fingers against her back became a palm, pressing a little more firmly, gliding down and up. A comforting caress. No, not a caress. Max, doing what she did so very well. Taking care of people.

“I’m sorry,” Rachel whispered, feeling selfish for wanting the comfort, for asking more of Max when Max had already done so much. She should be stronger than this. Just like the child whose parents left her in the dark to face her fears, she had to be stronger if she wanted to be loved. God, what was next—begging Max not to leave her again? Max was just being Max and reading anything else into her actions was a mistake. She released Max’s arm. “I’m fine. You don’t need to—”

“Maybe I need to.” Max’s voice was rough, urgent. “Maybe I want to.”

Rachel shivered. I want to…what? Help you? Protect you? Touch you? She didn’t need that. Didn’t want that. Did she?

“Hold up,” a low male voice ordered.

Rachel stopped on command, feeling like a soldier of sorts.

The SEAL leader said, “Over this ridge there’s a nomad camp. All indications are it’s deserted. There’s room enough for the bird to set down. Two minutes. We’ll make a run for it.”

Max said, “Roger that.”

Two minutes. Two minutes and it would all be over. A million thoughts crowded into Rachel’s head. Was this it? Was she about to die? Had anything she’d ever done really mattered? She’d arrived in this place so far from home filled with purpose and passion, determined to make a difference in a way that really counted, not, as her father wished, in the marble halls of government where greed and personal appetite distorted the higher purpose of the office, but here on the front lines where people put their beliefs into action. She’d chosen a life completely the opposite of everything she’d grown up with to prove she was capable of banishing the monsters all on her own. To prove to her parents?—to herself?—that she was not afraid. She’d committed her time and energy, and sacrificed her comfort and her personal life, in pursuit of her goals. She hadn’t anticipated she’d have to risk even more—that she’d have to put her life, not just her ideology, on the line in the most fundamental of ways. Max had shown her what true bravery was. She had become part of a new team, a new cadre determined to survive, and she would give her life for any one of them—for Max, for Amina, for Grif, for these nameless, faceless men who had risked their lives for hers.