Twisted-Games

The words slid over my skin, leaving a trail of tingles in their wake. I let
myself soak them in for a minute before I changed the subject, painfully
aware of who and what we were.
No tingles allowed.
“Are you enjoying the trip?” I asked. “It’s nice to be out of the city.”
His smile faded. “It’s fine.”
“Just fine?” Perhaps I was biased, but Eldorra was beautiful, and we’d
visited some of the country’s most stunning regions.
He lifted those broad shoulders in a half shrug. “I’m not the biggest fan of
Eldorra. Almost didn’t take this job so I wouldn’t have to visit.”
“Oh.” I tried not to take offense. I failed. “Why not?”
Eldorra was like Switzerland or Australia. Not everyone loved it, but no
one hated it.
The silence stretched for several long beats before Rhys replied.
“My father was Eldorran,” he said, his voice flat and emotionless. “He
promised my mother he would bring her here and they’d live happily ever
after. She never quite gave up on that dream, even after he left and it became
clear he wasn’t coming back. She kept talking about Eldorra, how she was
going to leave our shit town and move here. She had postcards and magazine
articles about the place all over the house. That was all I heard growing up.
Eldorra, Eldorra, Eldorra. She loved the fantasy of the country more than she
did me, and I grew to hate it. It became a symbol of everything wrong with
my childhood. Still, I might’ve gotten over my hang-up eventually, but…”
Rhys’s hand clenched and unclenched around his knee. “One of my last
deployments was a joint mission. Both the U.S. and Eldorra had agents
who’d been caught by the terrorist group they were tracking, and we were
supposed to retrieve them. For diplomatic reasons, we had to keep our
mission under wraps, which meant no air support. We were deep in hostile
territory, outnumbered and outgunned. Our biggest advantage was the
element of surprise.”
Cold foreboding trickled down my back.
“The night of the mission, one of the Eldorran soldiers—a brash,
hotheaded type—strayed from the plan. We’d clashed from the beginning,
and he hated we were using my plan instead of his.” Rhys’s expression was
bleak. “Instead of waiting for my signal like we agreed upon, he fired when
he saw one of the group leaders leave the compound. The one in charge of
torturing the prisoners, according to our intel. It was a high-profile kill…but