Free Left For Dead (The Guarded Secrets Series Book 3) by Sara Schoen

time you’re sent out. Please don’t let me lose two friends.”
    The truth in her words filled me with dread. I feared what would happen if I didn’t straighten up. While it hadn’t affected me greatly on the mission to Russia, I knew that it came out in my tone and actions toward Demon and Katya. I had been harsh to Demon more than usual when he brought up Renegade. I know he did it to try to get information out of me, but it wasn’t something I was ready to share yet. Only Rum and Fire Fox knew he left me behind because he called Fire Fox after he left to ask what to do next. No one else did, and I wasn’t fully ready to tell Rum or anyone else what I was feeling so they could dissect my feelings further than I already had.
    “Night Stripe,” Rum called quietly to pull me from my thoughts. “He did what he was ordered to, but you need to be prepared in case someone else leaves you behind again. I need to know you can get out of there alive. All that matters is you getting out so you have the chance to come back and kick their asses for leaving you.” A smile curled at the ends of my lips, and she smiled back at me before continuing. “Most relationships here, whether in a romantic sense or as partners, fail because one of the agents die before they have a chance to see it out. I’m not telling you that you can’t have a relationship, but you need to be aware of the consequences if you attempt to have one.”
    I nodded in response as I pulled myself from the floor, taking Rum’s outstretched hand for help. I tried to brush off the dirt from my clothes, but it was useless. The sweat I had worked up during the training had seeped into my clothes and let the dirt stick to me. I sighed in defeat and tried to relax. Between drama with Renegade, Katya taking up more time and patience then I predicted, and the looming issue of having to explain to her and Renegade about Ash Crest, I wasn’t prepared for relationship advice from Rum. I mostly expected her to beat me with the stick she carried around. It had something to do with the monks she worked with for years, but I think she kept it around just to punish me.
    As if she could read my mind, she slapped the back of my legs with her khakkhara to get my attention. “You’re already overthinking everything again. I can see it on your face.”
    “I wasn’t thinking about anything,” I lied. I knew it was useless to lie to her, she had taught me how to look for small ticks to see if someone was lying to me, but I wasn’t ready for another lecture, either.
    Rum scoffed, and put one hand on her hip as if to intimidate me into blurting out the truth. When I didn’t, she gave me an abbreviated lecture since she couldn’t pin point what was on my mind. “Don’t let Katya get to you. She’s not after something; she’s trying to come to terms with what happened. You don’t have to tell her how you knew her before. She probably doesn’t want to know or has already assumed that her father tried to get rid of her before. And as for Renegade, Hess had a saying about men—they are all stupid and nothing we do will ever change that. He knew he needed your trust to figure out what happened to Ash Crest. Everyone here is keeping their mouths shut, and you’re the only one with the whole story. He’ll have to deal with that, but if you want to move forward you’ll have to tell him straight out what you want because that’s the only way he’ll figure it out. He doesn’t seem to take hints very well.”
    I smiled at her before wiping it off my features. “As you said, one agent gets distracted and ends up dead. I need to focus on the mission, not on him. It’s for the best that he and I don’t discuss that yet. I will need to tell him eventually because one day someone’s going to slip up, and he’s still out for revenge. He’s out for blood, actually.”
    “Much like you were,” she pointed out. “You two may have more in common than you think.”
    A breathy