“You’re the best, Soldier Girl,” I said as I started to get up, still suffering badly from the effects of a head wound and multiple fractures in my leg from where the concrete had fallen. But I said nothing about it to Hannah. I had to keep her calm and focused. I still had no idea how long we’d been down there… my guess was two weeks, three maybe… we’d run out of rations at least four days ago, or was it five? It didn’t matter. It was all over now. We were going to be back in the Green Zone in a matter of hours.
Ty finally appeared at the top of a huge pile of rubble. Beside him stood two local soldiers—the good guys—they were young but much more serious looking than Ty, which was not all that hard to be, to be honest. Ty was as wild as they came.
Guns, women, explosive devices, that’s pretty much all Ty cared about. He was the most experienced detonation expert I’d ever met. And he was completely nuts. Which I think probably came in handy—you’ve got to be a little crazy to want to diffuse bombs for a living.
“Walker you stupid fuck why did you fall down that hole?” Ty yelled again, “We’re going to have to get a helicopter over the site, drop a rope, then air lift you out, k?”
“Language, Powers!” we always called each other by our last names.
“Fuck, sorry,” Ty shrugged and winked. “Hey princess, we’re going to get you out of there.”
“I’m okay,” Hannah waved.
“I was talking to your dumb soldier friend,” Ty said and laughed as he pulled out a walkie-talkie and started barking commands. He motioned to the two local soldiers to follow him.
Hannah burst out laughing and turned to me, “I told you everything was going to be okay.”
I smiled back, “you were right, Soldier Girl.”
Twenty minutes later a helicopter hovered high above us and I could see a yellow ladder slowly lowering down towards where we stood. Ty held on tight to the ladder as he approached us and smiled a huge “I’m never going to let you forget that I rescued you” smile. I chuckled to myself. Yes I had been a warrior and a ruthless soldier at one point, hell I just took out eight Fear Division rebels so I think that stands for something. But I was done. I was ready to go home and wrap the woman I loved up in my arms and walk away from this life. It was time to head back to the ranch and rebuild what my family lost. Time to start my own family, too.
“Well hello there,” said Ty as he jumped the last four or so feet down to meet us. He gave me a bear hug and whapped me on the back, then he turned to Hannah, “what do you say I take you back home?”
Hannah giggled, “I’d like that!”
“Okay, kiddo,” said Ty, “now you just hold on to me tight and we’re going to go up, up and away.”
Hannah’s smile immediately faded, “what about Axe?”
Ty dropped to one knee and looked at her square in the eyes, “Hmm do you think we should take him too?”
Hannah nodded sweetly.
“Okay here’s the deal, Hannah,” said Ty as he picked her up easily and put one foot in the lowest rung of the ladder, looping his free arm around another rung. “We are going to get you in that helicopter and then I’m going to throw the ladder back down to Axe, sound good?”
Hannah seemed nervous to leave me but I nodded that it was okay so she conceded and wrapped her arms around Ty, “sounds good.”
Ty gave the thumbs up to the pilot and the two local soldiers, who were now on board the helicopter, began to heave the ladder up to safety. I couldn’t help but stare at the local soldiers as they frantically pulled the ladder up… something was off.
And then it hit me, just as Ty and Hannah approached the helicopter, one of the soldiers smiled at me, his mouth full of jagged shards of gold. He was The Fear Division kidnapper I had shot in the shoulder when I rescued Hannah!
“Ty!” I screamed. “Abort!”
Even from fifty feet below I could see the blood drain from Ty’s face as the realization of what was happening washed over him.
Twenty-Eight
Honor
“Walker, come here!” I ran with my arms outstretched to my man, he smiled as he ran towards me too, “oh my gosh I love you so much!”
He just smiled in return. It was our little morning routine. And it was all I needed.
“Now,” I started to say as I softly released myself from his embrace and turned towards the kitchen to fix my coffee. “What do you think we should get up to today?”
Again, he smiled in return. That smile melted my heart but of course it was bittersweet. We had been through so much together. So much had happened. I couldn’t believe we’d made it “out” okay. Our life together had been an adventure, that’s for sure, a wild ride. But the hard times were over now, hopefully, and sunny days were ahead. I had to believe that. I looked out over the kitchen towards the beautiful California ocean.
It was May and the weather was warm and breezy, perfect beach temp. I loved this time of year because I could open all the doors and let the fresh air flow through. This of course made it very tempting to indulge in lazy afternoons under the lattice awning in a hammock with my man. But I felt as though we should be more adventurous that day.