Sam Sisavath - The Isles of Elysium

“You’re waiting for them,” Keo said. “The soldiers. You’re trying to lure them up the road and into an ambush.”

She gave him a quick, sharp look.

“Wyatt gave it away,” he said.

She nodded, relaxing. “We have men planted along the roads. If they’d followed us like we had hoped, we would have had hit them back. We’ve done it before.”

“But they didn’t bite this time.”

“No…”

“Still, pretty gutsy move.”

“Yeah, well, it takes guts to run around out here. But you probably know a little bit about that.”

“Just a little bit, yeah.”

Jordan opened the last door into a small office. There were two people already inside, and one of them-a woman, even though Keo only saw her from the back-was busy wrapping fresh gauze around the thigh of a man with short blond hair. The man’s pant leg had been cut away, and a pool of fresh blood was gathering on the floor under him. Like the men outside, he looked haggard and on edge.

The man looked up when they entered. “This him?”

Jordan nodded. “Keo, this is Tobias.”

Tobias eyed him. Jack wasn’t far off when he described the man-the steely blue eyes, square jaw, and the six-three frame. Early forties, though he could have passed for a man five years younger with a shave and a decent haircut.

The woman working on Tobias was in her fifties and Hispanic, and the gun belt around her narrow waist looked awkwardly strapped on. She swiped at some gray hair and gathered up the bloody rags and bandages and tossed them into a nearby trash bin that hadn’t been emptied in over a year.

“I’ll get Denver to make you a crutch,” the woman said.

“Thanks, Pita,” Tobias said.

“Try not to break the stitches, if you can help it.”

“That’s the trick, isn’t it?”

“Yes, well, do your best,” she said, and left the room, leaving the door open behind her.

Tobias picked up a black jacket and slipped it on before hopping off the desk and making his way to a chair in a corner. He sat down and drew his sidearm-a dull black revolver-and placed it in his lap before looking across at Keo again.

“What kind of name is Keo, anyway?” he asked.

“Matt was taken,” Keo said.

“What?”

“It’s…just something he says,” Jordan said, shaking her head. “He thinks it’s funny.”

“You guys know each other,” Tobias said to her. It wasn’t a question.

She nodded. “We met a while back.”

“He set us up.”

“He says he didn’t.”

“Let’s hear him say that.”

“I didn’t set you up,” Keo said.

Tobias didn’t take his eyes off Keo. “Convince me.”

“Convince you of what? Your guys tried to kill me. Why don’t you convince me why I shouldn’t be pissed off right now?”

Tobias narrowed his eyes, and Keo almost smiled. Almost. He bet they didn’t expect that response from him. It was a risky approach, but at the moment he didn’t think he had very much to lose.

What was that old saying? Ah, right. “The best defense is a good offense.”

“What were you doing out there?” Tobias asked.

“It’s a free country,” Keo said.

“Not anymore.”

“I was never very good at following rules.”

“He’s not wrong,” Jordan said. “Ron shot at him first, then Mack and the others chased him into the warehouse. I know him. He wouldn’t set us up like that.”

“Maybe…”

“I can vouch for him. Keo and I have been through a lot together.”

“Are you willing to bet your life on it?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation.

Keo couldn’t help but glance over at her. She stood calmly next to him, facing Tobias. He remembered the first time they had met-in a cabin in the woods, pointing guns at each other. Things got better after that initial encounter, but even so, Jordan was the last person he expected to find out here, giving her word to the man he was supposed to kill.

“People change, Jordan,” Tobias said. There might have been a little warning in his voice. He pushed back up to his feet with a grimace, then holstered the gun. “He’s going to have to answer a lot more questions. Like what he was doing in T18 in the first place. But all that can wait until we get back to base. Until then, he’s your responsibility.”

She nodded.

Tobias pushed past Keo and Jordan and hobbled out the door.

Jordan looked after him for a moment, then over at Keo.

“Thanks-” he started to say.

“Shove it,” she said. “He’s got a point. We know you came from T18, so you better have a damn good reason.” He opened his mouth to answer, but she cut him off again. “I said shove it. You have a couple of hours to come up with a better answer than whatever you were about to say, because I can’t protect you forever.”

“I was just going to ask about what happened to Mark and the others,” Keo said.

That was a lie, but he needed her back on his side, and the best way to do that was to remind her of their mutual experiences…and friends.

“A lot,” she said quietly.

*

“What happened?” Keo asked when they were back outside in the strip mall parking lot watching Tobias and his men pack up their gear to move.

Keo counted four wounded men being helped out of the buildings, including two that had to be carried outside. They had hidden Jeeps and trucks in the back of the lot and were now carefully loading their wounded onto them, with Pita standing by giving instructions.

“We made it to Santa Marie Island about two weeks after we left you at the cabin,” Jordan said. “But they were waiting for us. They were already on the island. Of course, we didn’t know that. They shot Mark and brought us to T18.”

“I saw Gillian, but I didn’t see Rachel and her daughter.”

“How long were you there?”

“A few hours.”

“Why?”

He shrugged, and she gave him a suspicious look.

“Whatever, Keo,” she said. “You’re going to have to tell Tobias everything later anyway. I just hope you come up with a better story than that.”

I’m working on it, he thought, but said, “What about Rachel?”

“She didn’t make it,” Jordan said.

“Christine…?”

Jordan shook her head. “When the soldiers first showed up, things got messy. Mark and I fought back and…”

She stopped and didn’t say anything for a while.

“We can talk about it later when you’re ready,” he said.

“They’re gone. That’s what happened. They’re gone. Only Gillian and me made it off that island alive.”

He thought about the little girl, Christine, and her mother Rachel, and all those months in the cabin with him and Norris and Gillian. The mother and daughter were easy to like, even though he had done his best to keep his distance. A part of him always doubted they would all make it to Santa Marie Island, but to finally get there, only to lose everything…

He looked over at Jordan. She was staring at the men, but he knew she wasn’t really seeing them. It was easy enough to guess where her thoughts were at the moment. Back at Santa Marie Island, back to that day…

Keo felt suddenly very guilty about making her relive it.

“Is this everyone?” he asked, hoping to draw her back.

Tobias had hobbled into the Jeep’s front passenger seat while two of the wounded were being loaded into the back. Pita climbed in after them, along with two other men. The others were piling into the truck, a beat-up gray Honda Ridgeline.

“No,” Jordan said. She looked down the road. “The others will follow us later, when we’re sure T18 isn’t going to press their attack.”

They watched the two vehicles turn into the road and pick up speed as they went.