Riggs’s eyes went unfocused as he stared at something over my shoulder, and I was pretty sure he was mentally back in that shack.
“What did you do?” I whispered. I rested my palm on his knee, just a light touch to let him know I was there, and he set his larger hand atop mine, squeezing gently.
“I gave up. I focused on the fear and let it become bigger than me. Let it fill my head and push aside all my training, everything I knew to do in that situation. I started thinking all sorts of desperate shit about how these were my last hours. I figured maybe I’d lie and pretend I had intel in exchange for them getting Champ medical help. I deluded myself that once the guards were in the room, I’d jump them, get their weapons, and escape before frostbite got me.” He snorted. “Calling that plan a Hail Mary would be an insult to Hail Marys.”
“Oh my God,” I breathed, leaning into his space further, trying to remind myself that he was alive. “Did you do it? Tell me you didn’t do it.”
He smiled ruefully. “No, fortunately, or I’d have been dead for real, and you’d be here with some other idiot.” His eyes darkened. “And I don’t even wanna contemplate that, Carter.”
I swallowed hard past the lump in my throat. I didn’t either.
“What happened was that Champ woke up—really woke up—for the first time since we’d been taken. When the guards came back, he actually listened carefully to what they were saying, even though he didn’t speak their dialect, and heard them mention Elvo, who hadn’t been taken with us. Champ realized how weird it was for them to know E’s name, which is something I should have realized, myself, but my logical processes had switched off.” He tapped his temple and shook his head in disgust. “So Champ yells out that he’s Champion, and they dragged us out of the cell… then gave us a hot meal and some coffee.” Riggs rubbed a hand over his face and groaned in embarrassment. “It turned out Elvo had gotten away, and since he couldn’t exactly mount a rescue on his own, he’d been offering these guys bribes for two days to set us free, but they couldn’t figure out which two prisoners they were supposed to be freeing. Two days I sat there, Carter. Two days when Champ could have died. And all because I’d let the fear get so big it paralyzed me.”
“It’s not your fault.” I pulled his hand away from his face and held it in both of mine. “You didn’t know how it all would end, and being cautious is a good thing—”
“But I wasn’t proceeding with caution, I was lying there thinking it was all over,” he corrected. “That’s the problem. Fear is very real. And it’s smart, to an extent. Healthy. It’s what makes you run away from wild hyenas and think twice before you run into a burning building. But when you let it consume you—when you start to believe a problem is bigger than your ability to conquer it, bigger than your team’s ability to work through it or get around it—it can destroy your life. Literally. Back in Gelada, when the capybaras almost got us, you said you trusted me. I need you to trust me now, Carter. Because trust is—”
“Essential on a mission?” I quoted his words from earlier.
Riggs gave me a half-smile and threaded my fingers between his. “Aww, that’s so cute. You hang on every word I say, don’t you?”
“You wish,” I scoffed, rolling my eyes. But honestly… yeah, I kinda did. Especially at that moment, when he’d shared something so important. It made me feel like we were part of a team, stronger together than we were apart.
“I was gonna say, trust is the opposite of fear. So, believe me when I tell you that Champ and Hux are on their way. And they’ll find us and save us, if we don’t find a way to save ourselves first. Okay?”
I nodded and sucked a deep breath into my lungs, which finally felt like they were working properly again. I believed in Riggs. I couldn’t explain the logic of it, but that didn’t make it any less true. Something in me recognized something in him and trusted him implicitly. Even when we’d first met, when I hadn’t liked him at all, I’d trusted him.
But then something about his story occurred to me, and I frowned. “Um, so… What happened to the others?”
“The others?”
“The other prisoners being held in the same facility. The ones you heard.”
Riggs’s grin split his whole face, and he cupped my cheek in his palm. “You’re one of exactly two people I know who’d think about them, Carter Rogers. Most guys in the security business would focus on saving the ones they could. The ones it was their job to save.”