Kyler #2
My blood goes cold. I raise my weapon. No clean shot yet.
“Cipher 4, hold,” Jackson murmurs behind me.
I nod, barely. My sights don’t leave the bastard’s face.
Then I speak, low and even, every syllable deliberate. “Jy is klaar. Laat haar gaan.” It’s over. Let her go.
He jerks the weapon tighter against her skull. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t scream. But her fingers twitch, it’s barely visible as her golden eyes finally lock with mine. A signal. She’s telling me she’s ready. So I take the shot.
The second guy rushes toward her with a machete. I cross the room before he can even shout, slam my shoulder into him, and drive him into the wall so hard the plaster cracks. He claws at my vest.
I twist, pin him, and shove my blade into his side. Deep. Fast. Surgical. His breath hitches. I twist the knife. “Wrong fucking girl,” I growl into his ear.
He slumps.
“Cipher 4 to all teams. Room clear. We have eyes on all hostages,” I say, falling to my knees in front of Ivy, blade shaking as I cut the ropes. “Ivy.”
Her head jerks at the sound of my voice. Not much, but enough. I see her blink, slow and foggy.
“It’s me,” I say, already cutting through the layers of duct tape and filthy rope around her arms and chest. “It’s Ky. I’ve got you, baby.”
The tape gives way with a rip that makes my stomach roll. Her wrists come free, but her arms drop like dead weight into my hands.
Fuck.
I catch her gently and ease her forward, one arm wrapped around her back, the other brushing the matted blonde hair from her face.
She flinches.
My chest caves.
I faintly hear Jackson over comms confirming the perimeter is clear.
“Ivy.” I soften my voice, every instinct I have screaming. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. I promise.”
She tries to lift her head, eyes fluttering open. But they’re dazed, unfocused. She’s here, but not really.
I start cataloguing.
Her face is bruised along her left cheekbone. Her jaw is swollen, possibly broken. There’s a cut just below her eye, scabbed over, and a deeper one slicing through her eyebrow. Her lip is split in two places, one already crusted with dried blood.
I peel her forward gently to see her back. The shirt she has on is stuck to her, stained in a mix of dark, dried blood and fresh bright red blood, like whatever wounds she has are still actively bleeding. I wince.
Rope burn slices across both shoulders. Red, angry, blistered in spots.
Her wrists are the worst that I can see. Deep, raw grooves are carved into her skin from being bound too tight, too long. There’s dried blood, cracked and caked around her chipped pink fingernails.
Her hands shake when I touch them.
She’s wearing clothes that don’t belong to her. Oversized cargo pants, filthy and ripped at the knees. A man’s T-shirt hangs off her like a sack, stained dark under the arms, torn at the hem.
Her right ankle is swollen.
But it’s her expression that guts me the most. There’s nothing behind her eyes. No fire. No light. Just...quiet. A kind of quiet I’ve never seen in her.
I press my forehead gently to hers, grounding myself as much as her. “I’m here,” I whisper. “You’re okay now. I’ve got you.”
Her fingers twitch, like she’s trying to hold on to something.
So I give her mine.
I lace our hands together, careful of her skin. “Can you squeeze my hand?”
It takes a second.
Then pressure. Barely there. But it’s her. “Good girl,” I murmur, kissing her temple. “You’re doing so good, baby.”
She leans forward suddenly, collapsing into me with no warning. Her face buries into my shoulder, body shuddering. But she still doesn’t cry.
I hold her tighter, one hand on the back of her head, the other steady around her waist.
“All teams, secure. Exfil in three mikes,” comes through my comms.
I tap mine once to acknowledge but never take my eyes off her. “Ivy, we’re getting out of here. Helos are on the way. I’m going to carry you, okay?”
No answer.
I don’t need one.
I lift her into my arms like she weighs nothing, one arm under her knees, the other around her back. She shudders in pain, but I don’t know how else to hold her. I drop a kiss into her dirty hair as her head falls against my chest, eyes shut again.
She’s breathing, but too fast. Like her body doesn’t trust stillness yet.
I jog toward the extraction point, heart pounding. Jackson gives me a nod as he passes, leading one of the other hostages, another young ballet teacher I recognize from Ivy’s photos, limping and wide-eyed. Another woman with a busted arm follows closely. The last is unconscious in Novak’s arms.
Talon and the rest of Cipher surround those of us with hostages in our arms, spreading out in formation. The perimeter is clear.
I climb into the bird with Ivy still in my arms, rotor wash deafening as the two Black Hawks kick up dust and debris.
I cradle her against me as the medic inside starts shouting vitals requests and injury assessments. I hold her through it all, when he cleans the wounds on her face and shoulders, when he wraps her wrists, when he gives her a mild sedative to calm the tremors.
I gently turn her around so they can assess the damage to her back.
The medic works to gently loosen the shirt that’s affixed itself to her raw skin using blood as the glue.
He cuts the shirt along her spine as I hold it to her chest. I watch his eyes widen when he finally sees what they did to her.
I’m scared to look. Scared that it will light a fire inside me that will never be soothed.
He glances up, making eye contact with me and gives me a look that says you need to see this.
I gently move to stand, leaning around, but never taking my hands off her.
Her dazed eyes meet mine just before I see the horror of raw flesh and blood.
All the breath leaves my lungs. In my nine years with the Army, I have seen things I will never unsee.
Tragedies of war they call it. But this.
This is something else entirely. I don’t know if it’s because war has never been this close to home or because this is maybe the most gruesome thing I’ve seen, but it leaves me with one thought: they’re fucking lucky they’re already dead.
“What did they do to her?” the medic whispers so only I can hear.
I can’t take my eyes off her mangled skin. “I have no fucking idea.”
They tortured her. But why? What did they think she knew?
“Does someone have it out for you?” he asks.
“What?” I can’t hide the surprise from my voice.
He meets my eyes before continuing. “It’s just that four girls were taken. But she’s the only one who was…like this.”
I don’t respond. I don’t know how. Have I made enemies? Probably, but no enemies who knew my name and lived to tell about it. I move to sit back with her. Pulling her gently into me as they attempt to clean and dress the wounds covering her small back. She doesn’t cry. Not once.
And then when he finishes, when he asks her if she knows who I am…
She turns her head, slow, like it takes effort. Her gaze meets mine. And she nods. Just once. “Kyler,” she says, voice broken.
My throat burns. My eyes sting. And I nod back. “Yeah, baby. It’s me.”