Page 61 of Worshiping Faith

“Are they waiting in range?” Dax asks, focused.

“Range for who?” Zachs smirks. “If I say not many, does that mean I don’t get to play on the boat?”

“You can’t,” Faith interjects, grabbing Dax by the arm and pulling him aside.

I don’t hear what she says, but whatever it is makes Dax stiffen.

“Are they close enough for backup fire if we need it?” Dax asks, his voice tight. “Grip? Rhett? Anyone else?”

Zachs lights up like Christmas. “Shit yeah. Maybe one or two others. Would they pop us on accident? On purpose? Maybe.”

“Wilkes,” Dax says, turning to me. “Help me get groups together. Everyone who isn’t on the wall, set them on every possible entry point. We don’t need any dumb motherfuckers slipping through.”

Now we’re talking.

“Fast,” he adds. “Trip, get the boat going. Zachs, grab what we need and meet us at the dock.”

“You can’t,” Faith interjects, grabbing Dax’s arm and yanking him back a step.

Dax barely moves, but he turns to her, his jaw tight.

“You are not doing this,” she says, her voice low, trembling with anger.

His eyes darken. “Faith.”

She shoves at his chest. It’s not enough to move him, but enough to make a point. Her hands fist in his shirt, knuckles white, and for a second, she looks like she might hit him. She’s shaking. Not afraid. furious.

Dax doesn’t grab her, doesn’t force her still. He just stands there, letting her hold onto him, letting her fight with everythingbut words. “I’m not sitting in a fucking tower,” he says, voice steady but just a little softer now.

“Wait,” she snaps, stepping closer like she can force the world to bend to her will if she just gets close enough. Her glare could melt steel.

“Wilkes,” she turns to me, eyes burning. “Tell him. You don’t want to die.”

I exhale, shaking my head. “I told you to stay in the block. No one listens to me.”

She lets out a frustrated breath, her grip still tight on Dax’s shirt.

Dax turns to me. “Put her in the block. Lock it.”

She goes still. Too still. And for a second, I wonder if she’s about to cry or kill him.

Then she laughs. Sharp, bitter, humorless.

“That’s your plan?” she breathes. “You want me locked up like some helpless…”

Dax leans in, close enough that it looks intimate, but it’s not. It’s a battle. “I want you breathing when I come back.”

Her throat works like she wants to swallow down the argument, but it won’t go. Her fingers tighten in his shirt, then release, slowly.

I should step in. Say something useful. Practical. But Zachs beats me to it.

He leans in beside her, grinning like this is the funniest shit he’s ever seen. “Let me have my fun, Doc,” he murmurs. “If I don’t come back, carve my name on your thigh, yeah?”

Faith whirls on him, ready to murder.

But Dax takes her hand, leading her away.

“Meet me at the dock,” he says to me, his voice all steel again.

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