Chapter 32
SCOTTIE
My head swam. The strange insurgent standing on the hood of the truck, shielded by his right-hand man, Rashid, was unrecognizable as the world swirled around me. But the one thing I had recognized, the one thing that I knew for sure, were Mikey’s ocean eyes locked onto me. He’d tracked me the entire way, pain and desperation twisting his features in a way I’d never seen before.
And all I wanted was him.
Pressure shoved my head toward the sand. My knees burned, grating against the dune floor.
“She doesn’t know where it is,” Mikey’s voice permeated the air.
I shoved back against the pressure, throwing off the hand that forced me to look at the ground. What was he doing? Why wasn’t Dom speaking instead of Mikey?
“No? And I’m assuming you do?” the man on the hood of the truck asked, and as the fuzz in my brain finally cleared, it dawned on me who he was.
“Yes.” Mikey climbed out of the buggy. “I’ll trade places with her.”
“Stop moving. Right now, or I pull this trigger,” Karim demanded.
Mikey threw his hands into the air, surrendering his palms. This was not part of the plan. We had known this was a possibility, but this was not how we’d agreed to go about this. We were supposed to fight.
“Everyone, show me your hands and get out,” Karim quickly added. His soldiers raised their rifles, pointing them at my team.
I no longer had my radio in my ear, so I had no idea what Dom was saying, but I could see his mouth moving. So, why was no one fighting? What was going on? This felt exactly like a damn movie, happening as everyone always predicted it would.
Fight, damn it!
Slowly, as fear laced heavily through my body, the rest of my team exited the dune buggies. They cautiously crept forward, putting space between our only mode of transportation and themselves.
“Alright, stop,” Karim hissed. All five of them paused, standing in a straight line, vulnerable to every bullet that might come their way.
“A simple trade, Karim, that’s all I’m asking,” Mikey spoke again, taking a single step forward. “Me for her.”
“Prove you know where it is,” Karim hissed.
“I knew the man who stole it from you in the first place,” Mikey replied.
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
“I’m going to reach into my pocket and show you how he relayed the message to me before dying. It’s not a weapon,” Mikey explained and slowly lowered his hands.
“Remove your gear first. Drop your weapons, your vest, radio, everything first,” Karim instructed.
No, don’t do it!
Mikey’s blue eyes slid to mine. His brows flickered, tightening together as he slowly raised the strap of his rifle over his head. The click of a buckle. A plunk of heavy metal against a rocky floor. Tears swelled in my eyes as he slowly removed every inch of equipment meant to protect him and save his life.
I wasn’t worth it. Why the hell was he negotiating? We’d already discussed this in the meeting. This was not what Dom had meant as a bargaining chip. Just the information. Not an actual person.
Why was no one fighting? We could have a fucking shoot out and win.
“Alright, show me,” Karim instructed as Mikey stood up straight in nothing but his combat uniform.
He stuffed a hand in his pocket and slowly pulled out a pair of dog tags. My brows stitched together as he pinched them between his fingers. They unfurled with a simple tink. “This is how you figured out who he was, wasn’t it?” Mikey asked.
A hiss slipped through Karim al-Jabari’s lips. I glanced behind me in time to catch a single nod from him. Massive hands clamped around my shoulders, ripping me from the ground. Stabbing pain shot through my legs and nausea curdled in my throat. My head swam; my ears rang as two men dragged me forward.
“Don’t,” I choked out as Mikey walked past me.
“Don’t!” I screamed again and whipped my gaze back to Dom. “Why aren’t you stopping him?”
Dom didn’t even acknowledge my plea.
A few yards away from my team, the two men holding me threw me to the ground but kept my sniper rifle and helmet. My knees rammed against the hard rock, sending a wave of agony up my legs again.
Ford rushed forward, quickly hoisting me from the ground, and he dragged me backwards to rejoin the group. “You okay?” he whispered, brushing some sand from me.
“I’m fine,” I hissed and shoved his hands away. Unusual shadows caught my eye and I glanced over at our buggies. The smell of gasoline coated my nostrils as a few insurgents emptied containers all over the sand rails.
“No,” I silently gasped, placing a hand over my mouth as flames ignited, quickly engulfing our way out of here.
Raising my gaze to my teammates in order to alert them, a chill swept through the air. All four of them were standing completely still, unmoving, unblinking. Spinning around, I forced myself to my feet and froze.
“Mikey!” I quietly cried out, tears swelling in my eyes. With his hands tied behind his back, Mikey knelt on the sandy floor. al-Jabari stood behind him, still shielded by al-Farouk, inspecting the dog tags with a furrowed brow. His dark hair accentuated the shadows on his face.
A smile slowly spread across the terrorist’s lips. “I’m going to show you some mercy even though I assume someone else in your little group knows where the box is. I’ll get there long before you will, seeing as now you’ll be traveling on foot. You have five minutes before I tell my men to start shooting.”
Dom nodded and a hand suddenly snapped around my arm. Ford dragged me backwards towards the dying flames of the buggies that no longer would afford us a quick escape. “What are we doing?” I exclaimed, staring at Dom.
But the commander didn’t acknowledge me as we slipped toward the other side of the burning buggies, in order to provide cover from every insurgent except for the six behind us.
“You know, I am surprised, though,” Karim shouted. Dom paused, raising a fist. Everyone stopped moving at the side of the buggies, and I ripped my arm out of Ford’s hands.
“Surprised by what?” Dom snarled. My gaze slid to Mikey who remained kneeling on the ground.
His eyes lifted, meeting mine.
Not an ounce of fear swirled in the pools I longed to get lost in. Nothing but gentle desire and tenderness stared back. A silent message, a whisper across the threads that intertwined us came my way, telling me that he cared about me in a way no man had before.
That he loved me.
“I’m surprised with how easy this was since I thought Americans don’t negotiate with terrorists,” Karim answered.
“We don’t,” Dom snarled, raised his gun, and squeezed the trigger.
A small smile of relief lifted on Mikey’s lips; his eyes never left mine as the bullet slammed against his chest.
Wait, what?
Chaos erupted around me. Ford dragged me behind the burnt sand rail for cover. The team ducked out of the way of return fire. Cracks of gunshots deafened the quarry we were in.
Duncan began peppering the six men behind us with a rain of bullets. Bernie turned around and threw hand grenades at the buggies, explosions rippling throughout the canyon. Debris rumbled, and a crack ran up the side of the ravine.
Karim roared in frustration as Dom aimed and fired a second shot at him.
Dom’s bullet ripped through Karim’s right-hand man’s head. He fell backwards into Karim.
Secondshot.
The reality of what had just happened blazed through me as jolting as the bullet that took Mikey. My ears heard nothing. No longer did I register the whizz of gunfire through the air or the danger that surrounded me.
Sand flew into the air as I lunged forward. “No!” I screamed, my throat hoarse as uncontrollable tears rushed hotly down my cheeks. Calling into the afterlife to return Mikey to me.
I had to tell him. I needed to apologize.
“You promised!” I cried out. “You promised!” We were never going to have that conversation. And I wanted to tell him that he was worth risking my career for.
Ford scratched for my arm but missed me as I sprinted forward.
There he lay.
There his body lay, slowly disappearing in the mix of sand flying up behind the tires of the three armored trucks quickly fading away. The insurgents were headed to the Black Box now that they had the location, but I didn’t give a damn.
Red stained the front of his shirt as I tripped, crashing to my knees still a few yards away. Just in time, too, as a couple bullets whizzed past my head. “Mikey!” I screamed, my heart shredded. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it! Please!” I begged, crawling forward, trying to reach him.
It was all over.
Everything was done.
He was gone.
By Dom of all people.
“You promised me!” I begged again, my vision hazy as the ground rumbled, vibrating violently. The sand clouded my vision, so dense that I could barely make out the outline of Mikey’s body ahead of me.
“Mikey, please. Please. I need you,” I whispered, my voice choking. Hands clamped down on my arms.
I dug my fingernails into the dirt, but it was useless as Ford dragged me away. “We’ll come back for him, okay?” he said. He kept repeating it over and over as Mikey faded in the distance even though I knew it was a lie. We couldn’t. We were technically never here.
“Scottie, we have to go,” Ford said.
“No! I won’t leave him!” I thrashed about, ignoring the pounding in the back of my head. My body collapsed to the ground again as a new face appeared above me.
“Scottie, let’s go. That’s an order,” Dom stated.
Hatred, searing, red hatred swelled in me. “You fucking killed him! How could you kill him?!” I screamed. Rising from the ground, I balled my fist up as Duncan joined in the restraint. His hand wrapped around my arm, pinning it behind me.
“We have to go, Scottie,” Duncan softly encouraged.
Guilt overwhelmed me. The last thing I’d told Mikey, the last thing I shared with him was that he wasn’t worth the risk to my reputation. All for something selfish, and he lost his life to protect mine despite what I’d said.
What I should have done no longer mattered. There was no coming back. There was no reset.
No, this wasn’t happening. There was another way to go about all of this. We could do this again and I wouldn’t get out of the buggy this time. I’d stay near Mikey. Or I’d just shoot Karim without waiting for Dom’s command. Something had to go differently.
He wasn’t dead.
He couldn’t be.
Because if he was…
There was no stopping the absolute, numbing guilt and pain overwhelming my body. My veins ran cold. Not a sound registered around me. My feet followed the team as we raced away from the implosion and collapsing canyon wall.
How was I supposed to move forward with this?
Mikey was nothing but a memory now. I would never hear his laugh again. I would never see that cocky-ass smile of his.
I would never have the chance to tell him that I loved him.
He was a ghost.
In one wrong turn, he no longer existed in this world. And because this entire mission was off the books, he really didn’t exist. His story was done.
The only way I’d ever feel him close to me again was in my own mind. In the memories left behind.
Mikey was dead.
And so was my soul.