Don’t be ridiculous.
He’ll be back soon.
I wished so much that Axe could at least communicate to me somehow that he was okay or that he was on his way back. No. I knew he couldn’t do that. It was too risky. But why? Where was he? I shook my head and scolded myself for going in circles like that. Axe needed me to stay calm and in control. He would be back and everything would be okay. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was how my life was going to be from now on… just waiting for Axe to come back from missions. It’s not as if I was going to relocate permanently to The Green Zone. I had a life back in California. A job. A family. But… I didn’t have Axe there. Suddenly my mind flooded with questions again.
Would Axe join me in California? Could he ever leave the Elite Force Protectors? Did he want to? I had tried to be enthusiastic when he said that after this mission there would be plenty more but the truth was, I wanted him to leave with me. Oh God that is so selfish! He loved the EFP’s, those guys were his family, and he would never leave. I had to accept that. Still, he did say he loved me. I wondered how we would work this out—I mean, could we ever have a family?
I lay awake that night spiraling out of control with thoughts of Axe: of course I wondered how we could make a life together in “the real world” but mostly I just worried for his safety.
I’m sure he’s fine, I said to myself as I finally drifted off to sleep.
Little did I know…
Twenty-Three
Axel
There was nothing but emptiness surrounding me. Total blackness completely devoid of sound yet deafening silence that was almost over powering. I had definitely hit my head, that much I knew. I had a painful pounding on my left temple but the rest of me felt numb. As though I couldn’t feel any part of my body. The pitch blackness made it impossible to try and get my bearings. And the sound, or lack of sound, was completely disorienting.
Dammit, I thought.
What the hell happened?
Axe, I thought to myself, calm down.
The last thing I remember was taking out three, no maybe four, members of The Fear Division. One of them stuck out to me in particular, he had only gold teeth. They were done in chop shop fashion, the furthest thing from skilled dentistry, and it looked like shards of jagged gold jutting out in every direction from his mouth. It was revolting and I almost lost focus. But I took aim and shot him in the shoulder, he didn’t move after that.
There were shots ringing out everywhere. I easily took out the other members of the gang. Yes, I remember now. There was screaming. A little girl. Hannah was locked in a small room, thankfully no harm had been done to her, but she was terrified, and surrounded by guards.
Right. Now I remember. There were four more members of The Fear Division: low level guards. I remember taking them out too, one, two, three, and then the last one—he had been tricky—but yes that’s right, there had been four of them and I got them all. Eight in total. Not bad. But then everything went black. The earth shook. I grabbed Hannah and ran for cover but I remember thinking, where can we run? Not only are we on the tenth floor of a heavily guarded Fear Division apartment building, we aren’t even supposed to be here. There is no team on the outside waiting to extract us, no one out there, waiting to take us to safety. The building started to rumble and shake and I remember thinking, is this an earthquake? Are we under attack? From who though? No one even knows were are here.
No sense in trying to figure out how this happened, I just needed to focus on getting out. I tried to look around me but felt blocked in every direction. Was I in a cell? Was I in a cave? I couldn’t even tell if I was indoors or out. For some reason I felt as though I was underground. I breathed in the air around me—it didn’t feel damp or outdoorsy, it wasn’t a cave I decided. But where was I? Why couldn’t I hear or see anything? Where the hell was Hannah? I let out a sigh and blinked a couple times, maybe my eyes would adjust to whatever strange place I was i
n.
“Axe?” a little girl’s voice called out from the not too far distance.
The girl.
That’s right!
I had extracted the girl successfully and then the building we were in collapsed around us. I blinked again and shook my head as though I was trying to shake some sense into myself. Was it an earthquake? Were we attacked?
Doesn’t matter, I told myself.
We have to get out of here.
We have to get back to The Green Zone.
“It’s okay sweetie,” I said as calmly as I could while I tried to get my bearings despite being in complete darkness. “Hannah?”
“Yes,” the little voice said.
“I need you to be really brave, okay?”
“Okay,” she said shakily.
I continued, running my hands along what I guessed were huge pieces of collapsed wall, “Hannah can you reach out and grab my hand?”