Chapter Eleven

Ciaran

“Are you in this?” Kai grips my shoulder and I can feel the pull of muscle under his touch. We’ve been in the bowels of the desert in Nevada for almost a month now. Reed and Mila were able to pull information on a couple who were operating as a family, and seemingly offering shelter, food, or basic directions, to men. These men eventually are reported missing by their family members. There is no pattern to age or race of the men who go missing, which has stumped us so far. All I know is my body aches, my skin is fried, and my eyes feel like sandpaper. My gut tells me we’re missing something, but the prospect of losing targets is keeping me in the game. It’s a long shot that we’re in the right area. Somehow we always seem to be two steps behind a new disappearance. The events are spread so far apart between when the men are taken and when they are reported missing. This has caused us to be here longer than I would have liked. I welcome the distraction though.

Two days after Saylor’s speech by the lake, we were contacted and headed out. Besides a few random texts here and there, Saylor and I haven’t talked. She’s getting the space she needs to think, and I’m sitting in a desert wondering where things went wrong. What I could have done differently. How do you convince someone that you can give them their happily ever after if they don’t believe it? That was the hardest pill to swallow; that she didn’t trust me. She didn’t believe we could overcome Rogue, that we could have all the things we wanted, or that I could give it to her.

“Everything is fine, Kai,” I brush him off, my less than warm attitude flowing off me. I’m trying to be the guy they need right now, even while I feel like my soul is being ripped from my body. My worst fears about love and family brush the surface every time I think too much about the situation Saylor and I are in. The memories of my dad walking out, of never having him around as I grew up, are all I can think about. He couldn’t be part of Rogue. He didn’t understand the lifestyle. And soon my mom started to leave, a little at a time. Always taking on more jobs, further and further away. Matt raised me. He gave up a life with the woman he loved to be a stable family member.

“Saylor isn’t like your dad,” Silas juts in, and my teeth clench so hard they might break. My best friends all know about my past, my family, it’s what has cemented us all these years. Right now though, I want to kick both of their asses for even mentioning it.

“Didn’t say she was,” I shrug off his comment and keep packing my bag.

“Why haven’t you called her then? This mission out here isn’t our usual, everyone knows this at a red level,” Kai prods more at me. I’m real fucking close to snapping on him.

Methodically, I check my weapons, strap my vest, and work on cooling the anger in my chest. I can’t answer his question. I’m mad at her. I feel hopeless about the situation. I’m having nightmares about my past and present colliding. All I can think about is Saylor leaving because I pushed too hard. Maybe the mistake was begging her to stay in Minnesota all those years ago. Maybe I’m suffocating her because I didn’t let her go free and live her life back in Manhattan like she had planned. I should be the bigger person this time, and give her the space she needs. I can’t get out of Rogue, and more importantly, I won’t.

“I’ll call her when it’s over,” I finally give my answer. They’re both silent. This impasse Saylor and I are at is starting to affect more than just us as a couple.

“I’m going to the tent. I want to look over intel one more time. We need to make this airtight. Reed thinks this is our only shot,” I remind them. Our heads need to be in this. Kai needs the reassurance that I’m present.

Without a backward glance I head inside to the smallest barricade we call a tent. My skin basks in the shade for the first time in hours. I quickly run some water over my face, and then take a drink, gulping it down. Nothing feels right, but I have a job to do. This team is depending on me. Rogue is depending on us. There are innocent lives at stake. No matter what I’m dealing with in my personal life, I can’t fuck up a mission with the potential to save people. Mila managed to find an informant who knew what was happening to the missing men when the couple was done with them. Unfortunately, Mila’s guy is in deep with a group tied to the Cartel. We need him separated from them in order to find this couple.

“Get it together,” I whisper to myself before inhaling the dry, desert air.

“Reed is calling,” Silas pops his head in the tent and hands me a phone.

“Reed,” I answer and hear static from his end.

“They’re clocked at three miles out. Get your team mobilized. Remember, Sebastian Provo gets out alive. We need him to get to the holding place.” His voice is choppy, and I assume he is channeling all this information from his dungeon in Arizona.

“That’s your little friend right?”

“Technically, he’s Mila’s friend. For now,” Reed answers and the line goes dead. A second later my phone buzzes and a grainy, black and white image comes through. It should be enough to identify our guy though.

“Let’s move,” I say into my mic’d up head piece. Within minutes our team is mobilized to the locations that we marked yesterday. Everyone is in position, and dressed in tan to blend into the sandy area. My arm is raised, ready to start directing the strike.

An engine hums in the distance. It’s loud, too loud for one vehicle. I grab my binoculars, scanning the horizon. My gut clenches while I count five moving objects coming our way. “There’s five separate vehicles approaching.”

“Shit! How are we going to know which one Provo is in?” Kai’s hushed voice says harshly in my ear.

My brain scrambles with different possibilities and outcomes.

We’re losing our window.

We can’t let them get away.

“Meyer and Silas, take out the leader. Hollis and Grant, I want you to take out the tail. Kai, aim for the tires on the other three. Somewhere in the middle is their leader. Provo isn’t high enough up the chain to be with him but he isn’t a grunt leading, or a tail. Everyone engage,” I order, and shots start firing off. I watch as the leading vehicle flips in the air, a ball of fire surrounding it. The middle three vehicles swerve, scattering sand and dust into the air. Their tires pop from the bullets and low grade explosives. The tail vehicle careens into the lone brush pile, causing the fire to spread.

Everything settles, quiet fills the space around us. I hold up my hand, my heart beating steadily in my chest. Then it happens, the door of the middle car flies open, and a man dressed all in black leaps out, his military-grade weapon aiming all around. Silas takes a shot and the man goes down. He’s soon replaced by another. I lower my hand and point forward, we attack in formation. I manage to find Provo in the mix, watching as he pretends to shoot while holding his hand up, exactly as he was told. I make my way over to him, running through the thick hail of bullets. I grab Provo and shove him behind me. Kai has my six, and I feel bullets glide past my head as he takes out the threats behind me. My helmet falls off but I keep pushing Provo along, needing to get him covered.

A flash of silver glints in the sun in the corner of my eye.

“Traitor!” An angry voice calls. My head whips in the direction of the burning brush, where a kid, who can’t be more than sixteen, half hangs out of the vehicle. He aims at Provo.

My arms fly forward, pushing the man as hard as I can so he’s down. “Si!” I call into my mic, right as a burning pain blasts through my side. My head spins, trying to comprehend what happened. The smell of burning flesh and gun smoke fills my nose. My hand touches my hip and I hiss in pain. One look at my hand that is painted red, tells me all I need to know. Black dots dance in my vision. Time slows. The noise and yells around me start to fade. I shake my head, fighting for consciousness. I just have to stay covered. I need to get home from this mission.

Purple hair flashes in my mind.

I fall to my knees.

The ground rises closer and my head hits something hard on the way down.

Everything goes black.

I should have let her go…