Come To Me (Owned 3)

We were supposed to shoot.

I was tired, though. I was tired of shooting people I didn’t know. I was sick of anonymous death.

I think maybe he was sick of it too.

When I looked into his eyes, I didn’t see the enemy. I just saw another person going for a walk. It was happenstance that we were alone. You don’t go alone on patrols; you don’t go alone period. But there we were, in the middle of a battlefield, alone. We didn’t smile or anything, but I guess it was what we didn’t exchange that mattered. We didn’t exchange bullets.

We passed each other like two ships in the night.

The next morning I was on aid and litter. I saw him again, except that time his eyes were closed and he had bullets in his chest.

I crumpled up the photo and shoved it into the trash. When Grace had first arrived, she’d talked about being plagued by memories. I was starting to feel like I’d caught the infection.

Memories were hitting me like bullets. With no rhyme or reason I bled the recollections. I used to believe I’d forgotten my past. Now I was starting to think that perhaps I’d only built a dam and the waters were seeping through.

I glanced at my watch. Only twenty minutes left and still no clue what to do.

“Lennox?” I called out, ready to at least apologize. When she didn’t respond I walked from the room, still calling her name. At first I figured she was giving me the silent treatment, however out of character that was. When I reached the overlooking balcony, my eyes swept the first floor. It was empty, her coat and keys gone. I looked from the ticking numbers on my watch, back down again to the empty apartment.

“God fucking dammit.” I grabbed my keys and headed out the door.

I was officially one hour in the red. When doing a hit there are certain protocols you follow, certain timelines you need to stick to. I’d already missed checking in on the plane, and now I hadn’t checked in at Mexico City.

Red flags were rising.

Growling, I turned down the next street in my search for Lennox. Rationally, I knew I had no right to be angry with her. She hadn’t forced me to take the job. She didn’t even know I had taken the job. It wasn’t her fault at all; it was mine. Maybe that was why I was so angry. I’d made the cleanest break I could from GEM and the minute I felt something was wrong with Lenny and me, I fell back into old habits.

I’m always accusing her of being the fuck up…

Once I’d enabled Lenny’s GPS, it led me right to her. She was holed up in a bar—our bar—a few miles down the road. I drove at least twenty over the speed limit trying to reach her. Maybe it would have been faster to walk, or run, considering she was less than five miles away.

It felt good to grip the wheel; it felt good to punch the acceleration. It felt like I finally had control over something. I needed Lenny by my side. I needed to know she was safe. At least when I was with GEM, I knew no one would touch me, and by association, her. Without GEM’s protection, it was like walking through a lightning storm holding a metal pole.

I was always putting her in danger. If I had been a better man, I would have cut her loose. I would have stuck to my guns years ago when I said I was no good. Nothing had changed since then. I was probably worse for her now. At one time I’d been tough as steel, but Lenny and I were so hot and cold I was made brittle. I was weakness masquerading as strength.

I can still remember the moment everything changed, the moment she tore her shirt from her body. It was game over then. Sure, I acted unaffected for a few more weeks, but that moment a part of me snapped. An integral, raw part of me broke free. I ran a red light just as my phone began to ring.

“What?” I yelled, picking up the call.

“Tell me you’re in Mexico right now.” Dom’s nasally voice came loud and clear through my car’s speakers.

“I think you know the answer to that, Dom,” I said, turning into the parking lot of the bar.

There was a long silence on the other end of the line before Dom said, “What the fuck, dude?”

“Something came up.” I glanced out at the bar doors. Inside Lennox sat, probably drinking until her liver shriveled. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was talk to Dom Weathers.

“Fuck, Vic…” Dom sighed audibly before continuing, “I’m only telling you this because I like you, but you need to get out fast. These people don’t fuck around.”

“I can handle it.” I turned off the Bluetooth and grabbed my phone.

Dom laughed. “You always were a cocky sonofabitch. Listen to me, Vic. You don’t want these guys on your ass.”

“Who exactly are ‘these guys’?” I slammed the car door behind me, making my way toward the bar. During basic there’s an infamous exercise: the gas chamber exercise. You and your troop have to go into a gas chamber simulation, take off your mask, and recite some bullshit to prove that you can handle the gas.

Compared to the shit I’d had to deal with in life already, it was cake. For Dom, you might as well have thrown him into hellfire. He dropped his mask and was holding his neck, looking around for Jesus. When our DI wasn’t looking, I reached down and shoved the mask back into his hands. It was risky and broke protocol. I probably should have just let Dom fail, but I believed it was because of that act—and a few others—that he was now about to shove the mask back into my hands.

“Remember Algiers?” Dom asked. Years ago Dom, Charlie, and I, along with a group who would later be known as The Boogiemen, worked an Op in Algiers. It was supposed to be an easy by-the-books mission.