THIRTY-FOUR

Zarek

My ears were ringing and I let fear consume me again. Leora was lying there, unconscious and bleeding. The remnants of the blast still lingered in the air.

I looked back at the place where the manhole should've been. Nothing but a big gaping hole, concrete slabbing off. Rebars poking out of the concrete.

No Logan.

My chest constricted.

I got off Leora and moved her away from the fallen debris. Glancing towards Kabir, it didn't take long for him to understand.

He whipped out his tablet from his backpack and tapped away.

His face contorted and his brows turned with pain. He looked back at me with unsure eyes.

No.

This couldn't be happening. I strode towards him and snatched the tablet. It showed five dots huddled together at our location. Five . Not six.

I zoomed out and searched a larger area. No Logan.

With trembling hands I clicked on the list of all RLM device holders.

Leora, active.

Kabir, active.

Zarek, active.

Amelia, active.

Dylan, active.

And then, the inescapable truth in cold, unfeeling text: Logan, inactive.

I refreshed the screen in desperation.

Logan, inactive.

He was gone. Logan was gone.

I frenetically looked around. Dylan and Amelia were swapping glances between me and Kabir. Amelia grabbed the tablet off my hands but my arm didn't move.

Delara was crouched beside Leora checking her vitals.

There were three officers that helped us in the tunnel firefight, two of whom were cuffing the mercenaries.

Sebastian was crouched beside a panting Officer Grayson who was shot in action. They were alive.

All of us were alive and moving.

Where is Logan?

I shook my head and tried recounting the last few minutes. Logan was trapped, Leora rescued him, she made it to the tunnel. Logan didn't and then the charges went off.

What did I do after that? Fuck .

Why couldn't I remember?

I looked at Amelia. She had Kabir's tablet in her hand.

Tablet.

RLM.

Logan, inactive.

He was gone. His heart had stopped.

"…Zarek!" Sebastian shook my shoulders. How did he get to me? Wasn't he just near Officer Grayson?

I turned around, painfully slow, and glanced at the hole in the tunnel ceiling. Flames licked the warehouse floor. I kept repeating a chant in my head so as to not forget again.

Logan is gone.

Logan is gone.

Logan is gone.

"Rivera, look at me," my unfocused eyes were suddenly filled with Sebastian's frame. His hands on my shoulders. He unclipped my helmet and took my goggles and balaclava off.

"Breathe, man," he said and I did as I was told. Suddenly, the air rushing through me cleared my vision. Was I not breathing?

Panting, I watched as Leora regained consciousness and I ran to her.

"Logan?" She asked expectantly.

My whole body trembled. I immediately pulled her into my embrace and I felt her head frantically moving.

"Where is he?" She screamed.

"Baby," I whispered in her ear, "He's—"

"No. No. No. No !" She cried.

She got out of my hold and stood up, swaying a fraction as I held her.

"Find his location! We have to get him back," she said. Her voice was shaky and uncontrolled.

"Leora—"

She cut me off, "No! Kabir, find him."

Kabir looked at me, pleadingly. Suddenly, Dylan collapsed to his knees and let out a painful roar.

That's when Leora caught up to where we all were. She took off her helmet and balaclava as she ran to Amelia who had the tablet. One look and her face changed. Her eyes turned lifeless and she turned to Dylan, now crumpled and broken, then her gaze shifted to me. I couldn't bear the sorrow in her eyes and instead, watched Dylan.

He removed his helmet, holding it close to his chest in a silent tribute to the lost comrade.

???

"Hi, I'm Logan Carlton," the man in front of me introduced himself with a grin that seemed to stretch for miles. His eyes sparkled with a hint of mischief, as if the CIA's Special Operations Group was his personal playground rather than a serious assignment.

I shook his hand, "Zarek Rivera. And this is Dylan Desmond."

Dylan nodded, his towering presence and stoic expression contrasting sharply with Logan's vivacious demeanor. Dylan and I had started a comfortable camaraderie. Despite only knowing him for a few weeks since joining the CIA, Dylan became the only person I didn't distrust. Now, with our impending deployment to Afghanistan, AD/MS had added to our troop. One Logan Carlton and a former detective, Maxton Prescott .

"What do you think they're gossiping about?" Logan pointed at Maxton and another officer who were talking and laughing.

I frowned slightly at Logan and said, "Not our business."

We were mingling at the CIA's closing dinner party in Washington DC, where formal attire and whispered secrets were the evening's main courses. Logan's gaze roamed, clearly appreciating the elegant dresses and the allure of the female associates, while Dylan remained an unmovable fortress of calm.

Logan smirked at me, "You're not a man of many words, I see. Trust me, once we're all brothers, you won't shut up about yourself. I have that effect on people." He took a sizable gulp of his drink.

I gave him a mock smile and nodded, "I'd rather get to know you first before starting on our said brotherhood. But let's focus on getting through our assignment without killing each other, shall we? I don't want any animosity amongst us."

"Animosity?" Logan's eyes widened animatedly, "Brother, we're going to be best friends."

With a wink, he excused himself, sauntering over to a lady whose arm seemed to need his immediate attention.

What a douche!

???

We were back at the Blackthorn office. Sebastian had gone to the hospital with Officer Grayson while the rest of us hovered near the Blackthorn private clinic.

All of us were checked and Leora was understandably under observation after being shot. Dylan's gaze was fixed on some unseen point, his usual stoicism replaced by a hollow emptiness. Kabir and Amelia communicated in silent glances, a private world of shared grief. Booth stood there, with her arms crossed over her chest. Zane was downstairs in the command center, tying up our loose ends.

The doctor arrived, her expression unreadable.

"The patient is stable, awake and responsive. She needed a few stitches, but overall she's not showing any adverse physical symptoms," she looked at me then, "Which one of you is Logan? She's asking for them."

My heart constricted, a knot of dread tightening. I nodded, feeling the weight of impending reality as I stepped through the clinic's doors into her room.

Part of me worried that I'd have to recount everything to her and watch sorrow wash over her. But there was another part, a more irrational one, that hoped that Logan would suddenly appear in the doorway and save me for the twenty-first time.

She looked so small in those white sheets. The patient gown was too large on her and with her sagged shoulders, she looked helpless.

She looked up at me with those beautiful eyes and I saw the only thing I hoped to never see.

Utter devastation.

"I remember. For a second I forgot, but I remember now," she nodded to herself, "He's gone. You don't have to repeat yourself. I tried to rescue him. Fuck, I did rescue him. And then that ass shoved me into the manhole and let himself die anyway. I failed my rescue. I failed—"

"Leora—"

"No, I did. I failed him. I failed the squad. I couldn't fucking protect him," she continued to frantically ramble as I sat down near the foot of the bed, "I don't deserve to be a part of this squad. I failed Lo. He's gone. He's fucking gone. Poof."

A laugh rumbled in her chest and her sagged shoulders shook with hysteria. Shit . She's going to have a psychotic breakdown if I don't bring her back.

"Baby," I shifted closer to her and cupped her cheeks as she kept laughing, "Look at me. You didn't do this. He died protecting you. He loved you."

Something I said made her laughter snap off.

She fixed me with her piercing gaze and whispered, "Love. Do you still love me? I killed your brother. You should hate me, Zarek."

This beautiful, amazing woman, who tried to save my brother, thought she could do something to make me hate her? But all I saw in those eyes in that moment was surrender and acceptance.

"Baby, I could never hate you. But you didn't kill him. You tried to save him. You're my hero, Leora. You did something that someone in your position wouldn't have. They'd have been too scared. But you did it. You made it your mission to save Logan."

I dropped my head on hers and felt her shivers and uncontrollable sobs.

"But he died anyway," she started wailing then.

Even though Leora was falling apart, I found her vulnerability drawing mine to the surface. So, I finally let go.

With a deep breath, I surrendered to the emotions. My body trembled with sobs, and I let myself face the harrowing truth: Logan was gone.