A Risk Worth Taking

by Brynn Kelly

  Was that why she’d gravitated to Latif? They were both geeks, both loners, both Ethiopian, both navigating American culture. He understood her because he was the same in so many ways. How could Jamie understand her when he was so different? Hypothetically speaking, of course, because the offer was not on the table. The only trait Latif had in common with Jamie was his embrace of risk—and that was the one thing that had terrified her, justifiably, as it turned out.

  Maybe Latif’s risk-taking and her aversion to it would have pulled them apart, eventually. What was that saying her grandmother was fond of? Only a fool pairs an ox with an elephant?

  Only a fool paired a gregarious adrenaline-junkie soldier with a shy scaredy mouse. Hang on—not mouse. Cat? Maybe she did need sleep.

  Somehow I have a knack for dragging people into trouble. Consider yourself warned.

  Yet here she was, taking an almighty risk in kissing him, in letting herself get a thrill from his company, in being seduced by the safety and warmth of his protection. He had so many qualities she lacked. Maybe she was attracted to him for exactly the opposite reasons she’d been attracted to Latif. Yin and yang.

  Stop it.

  Jamie sang the chorus in a bassy undertone, the murmur mixing with the hum of the car under her cheek and the rumble of the tires on asphalt. Despite all that was or wasn’t happening between them, his company was a relief. His jokes were a relief—had she laughed even once since France? She should enjoy that while it lasted and refuse to regret what could not be.

  At least when she woke—if she slept at all—it would be to a sexy, solid and oh-so-tangible man who knew her real face and her real name, and genuinely cared what became of her, even if he was an elephant to her ox.

  * * *

  AS JAMIE HEADED NORTH, detouring in wild arcs to avoid traffic cameras, night swallowed the feeble attempt at day. The local wore off and the dull ache in his shoulder grew to a scalding pain that surged with every inhalation. In the footwell of the passenger seat, the rucksack practically glowed. A red pulsing light of temptation. One fentanyl capsule, or maybe an oxy, just enough to take the edge off.

  But it wouldn’t end there, would it? Damn Andy for putting the fucking things in front of him.

  No. Nobody to blame but himself. Like always. He’d only wanted the sedatives, since he was seriously short of firepower—and they’d indeed come in handy. He should have said no to the rest. Should have chucked them out. Still could. And would, soon as he got the chance.

  He turned a sharp corner and the pain soared. He was a fucking princess. Flynn had once let Jamie stitch up his scalp without giving more than a mumbled curse. Jamie had watched people die of gaping, sucking, pumping wounds—not many, thank God, and may he never see that again. The pain was probably psychosomatic, on account of his location. An internal GPS.

  He adjusted the mirror. Even in sleep the dark, curled shape of Samira’s body seemed tense.

  Jamie, I’m not ready for... I can’t go there.

  He winced, and forced his focus back on the dark road. Aye, he was a prime jerk to make a move on her. It didn’t take a psych consult to conclude she hadn’t advanced far in the stages of grief. No matter how often he made her smile or laugh, he couldn’t ward off her ghosts for long. He could pinpoint the moment of counterattack as they curled their fingers around her heart and pulled her back into the shadows. Her eyes would retreat into her skull, her jaw would tighten, her shoulders would slump. But she would come back to life when he said something that fired her up—and, wow, did she come to life when they kissed. The kiss of life.

  Maybe that was his problem—one of his problems. After spending so long in the business of saving lives, he had an instinct to breathe life into somebody who was ailing—CPR of the soul.

  In the back seat, she groaned. She sat up in the darkness and rolled her shoulders, arching.

  “Morning, sunshine,” he said.

  “It’s morning?”

  “No. But we’re basically in our own time zone, so it can be anything you want it to be.”

  “How’s your arm?” she said, clambering to the front seat.

  “Fine. Completely forgotten about it.”

  “You still look pale.”

  “It’s because we’ve crossed into Scotland. I’ve gone all pasty and grumpy and miserly.”

  She twisted her torso one way and then the other. “Where are we?”

  “We’ve just come through the Borders, closing in on Edinburgh.”

  “Wow. I slept a long time. Shall I drive?”

  “I’ll push through.” Trying to sleep would just focus his attention on his arm. This would be over soon enough. How soon could they catch a flight to France?

  Hang on. Would Samira’s fake passport get her back to Europe, now she was officially wanted for extradition? Would Hyland have clued in the UK authorities on the method of her arrival, and thus her false identity? If Jamie couldn’t get her out he’d have to stay with her—and he wouldn’t take the easy way out this time, wouldn’t let her push him away.

  And was that prospect intriguing or terrifying?

  Both.

  Samira grunted as a new song came over the radio—a soul-shriveling a cappella group cover of “Born in the USA.” “Ugh,” she said, diving for the radio.

  “I think the antenna is broken. There’s not much of a choice.”

  She dug around in the rucksack and pulled out a cord and an iPhone.

  “You have a phone?” he said. “I thought we didn’t trust phones.”

  “It’s not connected to a network. Really it’s just an expensive iPod.”

  She plugged it in and a throaty voice wafted from the speaker. Dionne Warwick? Samira screwed up her face, and swiped past. He mentally sang through the lyrics until he reached the chorus. “I’ll Never Love This Way Again.” Ah. Clearly unsuitable for the situation.

  Samira glanced his way as another familiar voice came on. Gloria Gaynor, “I Will Survive.”

  He grinned. “Appropriate.”

  “I thought so.”

  She picked up his phone and opened the browser. “The BBC’s reporting that the senator has arrived in Edinburgh, with his daughter. They’re staying at the Balfour Hotel. Do you know it?”

  “One of the grand old ones, near the castle. How close to him do we need to get?”

  “As close as we dare but we don’t have to be in the same block.”

  She tapped and swiped some more. He slowed for a village. Stone church, headstones sprouting from a graveyard like crooked black teeth, ivy-coated inn, humpbacked stone bridge over a burn, faded sign advertising a Sunday farmers’ market. The kind of market his mother had dragged the family to for the same fruit and veg they could buy at the local grocer.

  The music cycled through “Because the Night” and “Gloria.” He followed the green signs out of town. The countryside closed in around them again. Edinburgh had never felt this far away before—but then, he wouldn’t usually choose the scenic route.

  How had he ended up willingly returning to Scotland? After taking leave for his father’s funeral three years ago, he’d vowed never to come back. By then his mother was floating into the oblivion of dementia. Six months later she was in a secure home and his sister knew just who to blame. And who was he to argue?

  Whenever he was forced to use up his leave, he’d forgo the traditional Legion drunken blinder in favor of staying on base and schooling up on emergency and military medicine. Also mind-numbing but nowhere near as fun. Life on the level was so goddamn dull. Not that alcohol had ever been his thing. Too messy, too uncontrolled. All that liquid going in had to come out again, in none-too-pretty ways. He did envy his buddies that escape, that off switch, but the temptation to succumb to his own personal demon required vigilance.

  “Laura’s on social media asking for the best place to buy whi
skey this evening, and for recommendations for a local designer to visit in the morning,” Samira said. “She wants to buy a dress for her book signing.”

  “She doesn’t know how to use Google?”

  “Who needs it when you have millions of followers only too happy to do your Googling for you? She’s getting a lot of replies. And she’s only doing it to promote her event. If it was just about the whiskey she could just send a concier—Oh my God.”

  “What?”

  “Look,” she said, holding the phone up. A gray, grainy photo filled the small screen.

  “Some kind of security footage?”

  “You and me at the hospital. Police want us to ‘help them with their enquiries.’ It’s pixelated—too pixelated for facial recognition, especially with the caps and my sunglasses—but it’s definitely us.”

  Fuck.

  “They’re not linking us with the wanted woman but...”

  A matter of time. Somebody would recognize him from that photo. He rubbed his cheek—shaving might help. How far would Harriet, Mariya and Andy go to protect him if the authorities started asking questions? They could at least honestly deny they knew what he was up to. He’d turn himself in if he got wind they were in trouble. But then what would become of Samira? And what of the Legion? He couldn’t lose another job, another career.

  “It doesn’t change anything,” he said, gripping the wheel tighter. “We get this evidence and everything we’ve done is justifiable.”

  She pressed a hand to her chest. “God, I hope you’re right.”

  Really, he had no idea. Through the speakers, Tina Turner cranked up the chorus of “What’s Love Got to Do with It?”

  “What’s up with the music?” he said, forcing lightness into his tone.

  She slipped his phone back into the console. “You don’t like it?”

  “There are no songs by men in this mix. Don’t get me wrong, they’re good songs, but it’s sexist, do you not think?”

  “It’s not sexist. It’s...empowering.” Her voice hit that exasperated edge. Distraction accomplished.

  “Why is it that discriminating against women is sexist but discriminating against men is empowering?”

  “Maybe because women are emerging from several millennia of being unempowered? Does it emasculate you, listening to such empowered women?”

  “Not at all. I like empowered women. I love empowered women.” Especially when they’re fired up. “Do you harbor secret rock-star ambitions?”

  She relaxed into her seat with a harrumph. “Would that mean I’d have to go out in crowds, and people would look at me?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Then no, I’m pretty much the opposite of a rock star.”

  “You certainly are.”

  Her head flicked to face him. She’d turned that alluring mahogany. “Just what do you mean by that?”

  “Oh, so you can say you’re the opposite of a rock star but when I agree I get in trouble?”

  A reluctant smile. “Believe me, I don’t need any critic but myself.”

  “What I mean,” he said quietly, “is that you’re far too levelheaded.”

  “Just what every woman dreams of hearing. And if what we’re doing here is your idea of levelheaded, you’re a danger to society.”

  “Nothing at all wrong with levelheaded... They make you feel braver, these songs.”

  She blinked, frowning. The music hit dead air, and then an acoustic guitar started strumming, joined by an electric guitar. He figured it out as the singing began—4 Non Blondes.

  “I guess. Charlotte got me hooked on women rockers at university. Joni Mitchell, Janis Joplin, Joan Osborne, Joan Jett—we called them the four Js... They got us through many a late night of cramming.”

  “Ah, hence Janis and Jagger... You don’t strike me as the cramming type. More the one with a long-term revision plan. On spreadsheet.”

  “Spreadsheet? Pfft. I created a scheduling app.” They laughed, hers a husky sound he hadn’t heard nearly often enough. “I needed it because I spent too many hours gaming. The thing is,” she said, drawing her feet up and resting them on the glove compartment, “I don’t feel like a coward when I listen to these songs. These women are powerful, passionate, confident...all the things I’m not.”

  “For starters, I don’t believe for a second that you’re not those things. And anyway,” he continued, raising his voice over her objection, “I imagine their cool-girl image covered up a lot of insecurities. Look what became of Janis. And there’s plenty of heartache and vulnerability in those songs. That’s what makes them so good. Not to mention, it doesn’t get much braver than taking down one of the most powerful men in America.”

  “For a beautiful minute there I’d forgotten about that.”

  He mentally head-desked.

  “Anyway, this is not about being brave,” she continued. “It’s about being forced to do what it takes to survive.”

  “That’s what most bravery is.”

  “I disagree. I think bravery is about putting yourself in a situation like this just because it’s the right thing to do or purely to help others—even when it’s not in your own best interests. Like what you’re doing.”

  His eyes widened. His motivations weren’t nearly as pure as she gave him credit for. “Me? No. I only came because it sounded like fun.”

  “We have a very different idea of fun. Does this not scare you?”

  “Right now, no. And you know why? Because I’m not thinking about it. Because I’m having a lovely drive with good company and good music and I’m not about to ruin it by thinking about what’s going to happen next when there’s nothing more I can do to prepare for it. Because I’m not talking myself into feeling fear. Later on, if the shit hits the fan—”

  “Yes! That’s what it is,” she said, to herself.

  “Huh?”

  “Just something that was annoying me. Go on.”

  “If the shit hits the fan, maybe I’ll be scared, but that’ll be around the time the adrenaline strikes, so there’ll be no room for fear.”

  “And in the meantime, denial is your defense against fear.”

  “Denial is my defense against most things. Whatever gets you through the day, I say.” Right. Like that philosophy had never got him into strife.

  “But shouldn’t we be thinking through the possibilities of things going wrong?”

  Ah, he should never have brought up the senator. “Like what?”

  “Like we get arrested for stealing a car and demolishing half a London block and trespassing and breaking and entering and having an illegal weapon and illegal drugs and carrying a false passport and entering the country illegally—well, that last bit is just me—and I get extradited to America and locked up next to Tess and we’re found guilty of some fictitious charge, on top of all the real ones, and jailed for twenty years and you lose your job and wind up with a criminal record and Hyland becomes the American president and appoints the most corrupt government in the history of—”

  “Whoa. Stop. Wow. Jesus. Is this seriously what goes on in your head?”

  “I’ve...been alone a lot lately.”

  “You must have burned a lot of calories just thinking about all that. How do you ever get to sleep at night?”

  “Is this not normal? Is this not what you’re thinking?”

  “Normal? There’s no such thing as normal and I’m most certainly not it, but before you dumped all that on me I was just grateful that it’s not raining and that the traffic’s mostly going the other way.”

  She shook her head.

  “And now you’re looking at me like I’m the crazy one. Not that I’m calling you crazy,” he added, quickly. “Far be it from me...”

  “No, this is me looking at you in awe. I wish I could feel that relaxed.”

  �
��Okay, so I’m thinking you’re the kind of person who needs to work through every scenario of what could go wrong before you can have confidence that things won’t go wrong.”

  “I guess.”

  “So, let’s go back to the start of that train of thought. How will the authorities catch us?”

  “I don’t know—a hundred different ways.”

  “Give me a scenario. You’re evidently good at scenarios.”

  “Okay. That cop in Putney puts out a description of us and someone links it to my wanted picture. Or the cop who caught us...you know.”

  Oh, he did know.

  “Or they both do!” she said. “Shit.”

  “Well, the cop in Putney will have everybody chasing a couple from Essex, if she noticed us at all, which I doubt, and the cop who caught us you-know-whatting would have written you up as a Scot—if he’d written us up at all, and he didn’t seem the type to want to burden himself with the paperwork. You’re giving the system too much credit for intelligence.”

  “But what if—?”

  “What if, what if...? Two words to drive anybody crazy. But, okay, it’s all highly unlikely but let’s take that scenario to its natural conclusion. How would they find us?”

  “They...catch us speeding.”

  “I won’t speed. What else?”

  “Someone we meet recognizes me from the wanted photo or you from the security footage and calls the police.”

  “So we don’t show our faces until this is over and you’re exonerated and no longer wanted. Next?”

  “The car. The hospital discovers it missing and a cop spots it.”

  “Samira, it’s a white hatchback, like all the other white hatchbacks. You know how many are in the UK?” He swept a hand in front of them. “I can see one up ahead right now. Oh, and look, one’s just passed us. It’s basically an urban camo car. Every cop from Land’s End to John O’Groats is not going to be checking the plate of every white hatchback they see—we’d have to be doing something suspicious for them to bother. And we’re avoiding traffic cameras. Besides, we’re operating on a pretty sound theory that the hospital won’t discover the theft in a hurry. But just to keep you happy, we’ll ditch the car and hide as soon as we’ve done this hack. What else?”