Page 14 of Duty Devoted

Lauren

“Hope you’re good at hiking.”

As the helicopter’s rotors faded completely into the distance, the reality of our situation settled over me like a crushing weight. We were alone in enemy territory with no viable options for escape. This was my doing. If I’d just agreed to leave…

My legs felt unsteady, and I had to grip Logan’s arm to keep from swaying. The adrenaline crash was hitting hard, and with it came the flood of images I’d been pushing away—Carlos’s body hitting the dirt, the spreading pool of blood, Diego Silva’s casual indifference as he holstered his weapon.

“Since our van is out there with the cartel, we’ll have to go on foot,” I managed to say, though my voice sounded distant to my own ears.

Logan was already scanning the tree line with that hypervigilant awareness I’d noticed before. “The good news is they probably think everyone got out on that helicopter. If we’re lucky, they don’t know we’re still here.”

The sound of engines rumbling in the distance made us both freeze. Through the trees, I caught glimpses of black SUVs moving slowly along the main road—patrol patterns, searching.

“Down,” Logan whispered, pulling me behind a grouping of plants. “They’re still patrolling. Making sure the area’s secure.”

We crouched there in uncomfortable silence as the first vehicle passed. I could hear men’s voices through the open windows, speaking in rapid Spanish, but it sounded more like routine patrol chatter than urgent searching.

Logan’s hand found mine, squeezing a warning to stay silent. The vehicle moved past our hiding spot and continued down the road without stopping.

“How long will it take to reach Puerto Esperanza?” I asked when the engine sounds faded.

“Under normal circumstances? Two to three days through terrain like this.” Logan kept his voice low, his eyes never stopping their sweep of our surroundings. “But with cartel patrols and us trying to avoid populated areas…could be four or five days.”

Four or five days. The number hit me like a sledgehammer. Four or five days of hiding in the jungle. Four or five days until we might— might —reach safety.

I felt something crack inside my chest. The careful control I’d been maintaining since Carlos’s death was starting to fracture.

“I can’t—” I started, then stopped myself. I could. I had to.

Logan’s expression softened as he studied my face. “You’re in shock. That’s normal after what you’ve witnessed today.”

“I’m fine.” The lie came out automatically, but even I didn’t believe it. My hands were shaking again, and I couldn’t seem to make them stop.

“No, you’re not. And that’s okay.” He checked his watch, then peered through the foliage toward the road. “We need supplies before we attempt this trek. Food, water containers, something to carry everything in.”

I thought about the village, about the people I’d been treating for six months. “There are a few houses that have been abandoned since families moved away. And there’s a small store?—”

“No stores. No contact with anyone.” Logan’s voice was firm. “The moment someone spots us, word gets back to Silva. We stick to abandoned places only.”

“But…”

He shook his head. “I know you want to think these people are your friends. And hell, Lauren, maybe they are. But in my experience, when push comes to shove, survival trumps casual friendship almost every time. We can’t put them in a position where they have to lie for us.

We have to stay hidden and get what we need. ”

“You mean steal.” The word felt heavy in my mouth, adding to the weight of everything else pressing down on me.

“Right now, I mean survive. Our survival.” His tone brooked no argument. “We cannot let the Silva cartel know we weren’t on that helicopter. Right now, they think the problem is solved. If they find out we’re still here…”

Another engine rumbled past, and Logan pressed deeper into the foliage. I followed, thorns catching at my scrubs. The efficient way he moved told me this wasn’t his first time hiding from people who wanted him dead.

“You’ve done this before,” I said. “Been stuck behind enemy lines?”

“Not in this exact situation, but yes.”

I nodded absently, eyes locked on his, considering everything he’d said.

“Everywhere is behind enemy lines if you don’t trust anyone.” His voice was carefully neutral. “It’s all about patience and avoiding contact. Let the enemy waste resources looking for you while you move slowly and carefully toward your objective.”

“What was your objective then?”

Logan was quiet for a moment. “Usually extraction or intelligence gathering. Sometimes target elimination.”

The casual way he said “target elimination” sent another chill through me.

This man walking beside me had killed people—professionally, deliberately.

Part of me understood it was necessary in his world, but another part couldn’t reconcile the way he’d escorted and guarded me through Lucia’s delivery with the cold reality of what he was capable of.

“Does it bother you?” I asked. “The killing?”

“It bothers me when it’s not necessary.” Logan glanced at me, and I caught something vulnerable in his expression before he looked away. “But sometimes it’s the only way to protect innocent people. Sometimes it’s the only choice that matters.”

Another engine rumbled past, closer this time. Logan pressed even deeper into the foliage, pulling me with him. The offhanded way he moved told me this wasn’t his first time hiding from people who wanted him dead.

“For now, let’s just stay right here. We’ll wait for full dark,” he said quietly. “Then we’ll move through the village outskirts, find what we need, and get out.”

He kept watch, but I slid numbly to the ground.

Every sound made me jump, even ones I should be used to—birds calling, branches creaking, the distant hum of vehicles.

The shock of watching Carlos die kept replaying in my mind like a broken record.

I kept seeing Diego Silva’s cold eyes, hearing the gunshot, seeing Carlos crumple to the ground, the pooling blood.

My hands started shaking worse, and I had to clench them into fists to make it stop.

“Hey.” Logan’s voice was soft. “Stay with me. Focus on breathing.”

I barely heard him. The walls I’d built to function through the crisis were crumbling, and everything was flooding back at once. Six months of building relationships, helping people, making a difference—and now I was hiding in the jungle like a criminal. People were dying because of me.

By the time darkness fell, I felt like I was holding myself together with willpower alone. And doing a piss-poor job.

Logan led us through the jungle in a wide arc around the village, moving with silent precision while I stumbled behind him, crashing through undergrowth like a wounded animal. Every step seemed too loud, every breath too harsh. Thankfully, no one was nearby.

As we reached the village outskirts, voices drifted through the humid air. People were still awake, still talking about the day’s events.

“The doctors all left,” an elderly woman was saying in Spanish. “The helicopter took them away after those men came.”

“Good,” a man replied. “Better they’re safe. The Silva cartel has been getting worse.”

“Dr. Lauren was supposed to check on my Mario tomorrow,” another voice said sadly. “The baby’s been fussy, and I wanted her to listen to his chest.”

That was Carmen Vasquez. Her three-month-old son had been showing signs of a respiratory infection when I’d seen him last week.

“She helped deliver my grandson,” an older man’s voice added. “Stayed up all night when the cord was wrapped around his neck. Saved both their lives.”

The words landed like punches. They were worried about me. Grieving. And I was skulking through their village, planning to steal from them. The gap between their compassion and my betrayal fractured something deep inside me.

Logan must have seen something in my expression because he steered us away from the voices, toward the darker edges of the settlement.

“There,” I whispered, pointing to a small hut that sat apart from the others. “Old Tomás used to live there, but he died last year. His family moved to the city. No one’s claimed it.”

The structure was little more than four walls and a tin roof, smaller than most village homes. Weeds had grown up around it, and one window was boarded over with scrap wood.

Logan approached carefully, checking for signs of recent habitation before gesturing me inside. The door hung open on rusted hinges.

The interior smelled of dust and abandonment. A single room with a dirt floor, a broken table, and a narrow cot that had seen better days. It wasn’t much, but after the day we’d had, it felt like sanctuary.

“Rest here,” Logan said, setting down his pack. “I’m going to scout for supplies. Stay quiet, stay hidden.”

“I should come with you?—”

“No.” His voice was firm but not unkind. “You’re exhausted and in shock. You’ll make noise, attract attention. Let me handle this.”

Before I could argue, he was gone, melting into the darkness with that unnerving silence I was learning to associate with his military training.

And then I was alone.

The silence pressed in around me, interrupted only by the distant sounds of the village settling down for the night. I sat on the edge of the broken cot, staring at nothing, and felt something inside me finally crack completely.

The tears came without warning—great, gasping sobs that I’d been holding back all day. Carlos was dead. I was trapped in hostile territory. Everything I’d built here was gone, destroyed in a single afternoon by a madman’s nonchalant violence.

I thought about Miguel, probably wondering why I hadn’t checked on his surgical site today. About Mrs. Rivera, who needed her insulin levels monitored. About Lucia’s baby, who should be nursing peacefully while her mother recovered.

All the people I was supposed to help, protect, heal—and I’d abandoned them all.

I didn’t know how long I cried. Time seemed to stretch and compress unpredictably. One moment, I was aware of every sound from the village; the next, I was completely lost in my own spiraling thoughts.

When the tears finally stopped, I felt empty, hollowed out. I sat there staring at the dirt floor and felt nothing at all.

That was how Logan found me when he returned—sitting exactly where he’d left me, tear tracks dried on my cheeks, staring at the wall with empty eyes.

“Lauren.” His voice was soft, concerned. “How long have you been like this?”

I blinked, trying to focus. “Like what?”

“You didn’t even hear me come in.” He set down a small collection of items—I couldn’t make out what they were. “That’s not good in our situation.”

He was right. I’d been completely unaware, lost in shock and grief. In a hostile environment, that kind of mental absence could get us both killed.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“Don’t apologize.” Logan knelt beside the cot, his expression caring. “You’ve had the worst day imaginable. Your body is protecting you the only way it knows how.”

With surprising tenderness, he reached out and brushed a strand of hair from my face. The simple gesture had me longing for comfort, and I found myself leaning into his touch without thinking.

“Did you find everything we need?” I asked, trying to focus on practical matters.

“Some of it. Not much available without breaking in to occupied homes, and I won’t risk that.” He gestured to his small pile of supplies. “What I really need is a cup or something that can hold water. We’ll find something before we leave.”

Logan opened my medical bag, spreading the contents on the broken table. “We need to go through this, take only what might be useful for the trek.”

I watched with detached interest as he sorted through the supplies. Surgical instruments went into a discard pile—likely unnecessary. But gauze, antibiotics, pain medication, and basic wound care supplies went into the keep pile.

“We’ll need to leave the obstetric equipment,” Logan explained as he worked. “Too specialized, too heavy for what we might encounter.”

“And this bag is too bright,” he said, holding up the yellow canvas. “Might as well paint a target on our backs.”

He stepped outside and returned with a handful of dirt and dead leaves, which he began rubbing into the bright fabric. I watched him work, systematically destroying the cheerful yellow that had made the bag easy to spot in any medical emergency.

Now, it would blend into the jungle, invisible to searching eyes. Like we needed to be.

“Lie down,” he said when he finished, his voice carrying calm authority. “You need rest before we start our journey. It’s going to be hard going.”

I wanted to argue, to insist I was fine, but exhaustion was pulling at me like a tide. The narrow cot creaked as I settled onto it, using my folded spare scrubs as a pillow.

Logan continued organizing supplies in the dim light filtering through the broken windows. There was something hypnotic about watching him work—the careful way he checked each item, the quiet competence in every gesture.

“Logan,” I said softly.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. For not leaving me behind when I’m…like this.”

He paused in his preparations, meeting my eyes across the small space. “I don’t leave people behind.”

“Even when they’re falling apart?”

“You’re not falling apart. You watched a man get murdered, delivered a baby and saved two lives today, then escaped armed pursuit. Most people would be completely nonfunctional by now.”

“I feel nonfunctional.”

“But you’re not. You’re here, you’re talking, you’re still thinking about your patients. That’s not falling apart—that’s being human.”

He returned to his organizing, moving with silent efficiency. “Try to sleep. We’ll need to leave before dawn, while it’s still dark and most people are asleep.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll keep watch for a while. Make sure we weren’t followed, that no one noticed us settling in here.”

As fatigue finally began to pull me under, I watched Logan settle into a chair by the window, positioning himself where he could see both the door and the village beyond. Even in this abandoned hut, even when we were supposedly safe, he was still protecting me.

“Logan?” I said drowsily.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think we’ll make it? To Puerto Esperanza?”

He was quiet for a long moment. “We’ll make it.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because the alternative is unacceptable.”

The simple certainty in his voice was more comforting than any elaborate reassurance could have been. As sleep dragged me down, my last conscious thought was of Logan’s steady presence in the darkness, standing guard between me and a world that had suddenly become infinitely more dangerous.