1. Zach

ONE

Zach

Classified Location

The routine extraction had started like any other mission, with adrenalin coursing through my veins and the buzz of excitement tempered with nerves. We were in the middle of hostile territory to rescue a 427 Special Operations Aviation Squadron crew of three, plus two civilians—five Canadian souls in all. Deep in the ruins of a bloody coup, our team was way behind enemy lines where the hostages and the original extraction team were being used as bargaining chips.

Five hostages, twelve insurgents, easy in and out.

Nothing we hadn't done before.

Until friendly fire pinned us down.

"Sit rep," Lieutenant Commander McKenzie ordered .

I waited for my space, "Bravo three," I confirmed, and hunkered down next to Oz—Bravo four—SEAL teammate, friend, and the best person to be next to in this shit.

This was never meant to be a balls-to-the-wall fight. The job was supposed to be silent extraction, not fucked-up-bullets-flying-everywhere, but that had gone to shit as soon as one hostage had managed the unthinkable and gotten himself free.

He was free with a weapon, using it on the bad guys to block them from entering the remains of a building where he and the four others were imprisoned, but he impeded our rescue op. Something about how he held himself and advanced with confidence—or idiocy—told me he wasn't just another grunt caught in the crossfire. There was a spark in him, a flicker of defiance that resonated with me viscerally. He was a lone figure with his back to the shattered door, his expression determined despite the odds stacked against him.

"Two civilians at the rear," Oz confirmed and motioned to the left of us. Were the hostages getting out? So, our guy with the gun was laying cover for the others to escape? How far did they think they'd get? They were in the middle of nowhere, but red tape had delayed extraction, and I could only imagine the erosion of hope that anyone would come for them. No wonder they were hobbling away barefoot to god knows where. I weighed our options with a sense of urgency bordering on desperation—Oz and I were closest, but to get them all out safely and to exfil, we needed to get the prisoner with the weapon to get out of the damned way.

"Who the fuck is that?" I muttered, staring at a scrap of human in torn and bloody camo, shorter than me, with dark hair, skinny, his back to the broken bricks of the ruined building, nothing to shelter him, spraying bullets like he was the freaking terminator.

Oz slithered close to the edge of our vantage point. "Has to be 427 crew."

By a process of elimination, this was Henderson, Andrews, or Milner, decimating the assholes who'd taken them captive but aiming right at us as collateral.

Bullets tore through the air, kicking up dirt and debris dangerously close to where Oz and I crouched. The sharp cracks of gunfire echoed in my ears, drowning out all other sounds except for the pounding of my heart. The crossfire had us pinned down between opposing forces.

"Bravo three, four, pinned," Oz confirmed, so at least the rest of the team would know how vulnerable our position was.

"Someone get that 427 to back off," I said, gritting my teeth as a bullet came so close it grazed my face and burned like a fucker. I cursed, pressing a hand to the wound, and my fingers came away red. "Fuck!"

I scanned the tree line to our left for any sign of movement, ignoring the injury, my finger poised on the trigger of my weapon. Every instinct screamed at me to keep moving, to find a way out of this trap, given we were the closest to the hostage with a weapon, but I knew any sudden movement would only draw more fire on us. I pushed at Oz and gestured to the trees, five fingers up, my message clear—if we could get there, then we'd have a way of getting behind the guy and wouldn't be in the middle of this crossfire. Oz nodded; his expression was grim but determined as he braced himself for the dash across the open ground. I counted the seconds in my head, waiting for the perfect moment to make our move. Watched the spray of bullets from the hostage with the gun, seeing the pattern. Five.

"Stay low!" I shouted over the chaos, my voice barely audible above the cacophony. "Go!" I shouted, breaking into a sprint as bullets whizzed past us, kicking up dust and debris in our wake. Every muscle in my body screamed with exertion as we raced towards the relative safety of the trees. When we reached the tree line, relief shattered as Oz stumbled to his knees and gripped his side.

Hurt.

He's hurt.

I dragged him to cover. "Bravo four down," I announced, searching for the wound, finding a through-and-through and a lot of blood. I tore open the QuikClot and slapped it front and back, and only then did I pull Oz deeper into the trees as he cursed up a storm .

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

His pulse was steady, and he blinked at me, pain carved into his face.

"That fucker shot me!" Oz snapped as he tried to push himself upright, succeeding on the third attempt. I didn't correct him because I didn't know whether the bullet had been friendly or enemy fire.

"Head to exfil," I ordered, using my six-month seniority on him despite us both holding the same rank. "I'm stopping him."

I slipped away before Oz could stop me, glancing back to see him torn between following me and understanding that, injured as he was, he'd hold me back.

The two hostages who'd made it out, one in a 427 uniform, both broken and covered in blood, stilled as I drew closer. I gestured for them to keep walking toward the trees, hoping I could emote enough that they would understand we were there to help. I received a nod from the civilian, but the injured 427 pilot could barely walk, and their progress was slow.

Approaching the damaged building from the rear and keeping low to the ground, I ended up four feet behind the wall where the hostage-turned-gunslinger was raining fire on the insurgents and my teammates. As I advanced with caution through the chaos, I stumbled across two more hostages, both shaky and hurt, trying to get out. I thumbed behind me, and they helped each other over rubble as I stole a look through an open window, focused on the man outside, immersed in the firefight, running out of ammunition, and holding a death wish.

He was laying down protective fire in controlled bursts, but what did he think was going to happen when the bullets ran out? With grim determination, he fired his weapon, each shot aimed at the enemy, but stopping my team from getting close. How had he not gotten himself killed yet? I closed the distance between us, moving swiftly and silently. A body lay behind the man with the weapon—a captor in flowing white, blood in a pool under him, his eyes wide and vacant, his throat cut. I jumped over the crumpled heap of man, reached out of the door, exposing myself to bullets, and gripped the gunman by the scruff of his neck. He whirled on me, his knees bent, already pivoting to take me down as we fell backward into the gloom. His eyes widened in recognition as his fist met my eye socket, but he was exhausted and beaten. I shoved him down with a knee to his lower back, holding him away from the line of fire and then dragging him into the relative safety of the darkened interior of the house.

"Stay down," I ordered. Despite his exhaustion, evidenced by his hollow cheeks, dulled eyes, and blood-covered body, I recognized him from the pre-mission briefing—Kai Henderson, 427 co-pilot. His clothes hung loose on him, evidence of the weight he had lost during the three weeks' captivity. Dark bruises and scrapes marred his skin, showing the physical toll of imprisonment, but there was a defiant glint in his eyes, and he gripped the stolen AK-47 tight as he rolled to stand.

"Get the fuck back," I snapped.

He didn't move a freaking muscle, just tipped his chin.

"My crew, my responsibility," he summarized and shifted to the other side of the door.

"Bravo three, clear, hostages to the rear," I said as I stared at the scrap of man who thought he could be a human shield to the people behind us. "Fucking idiot!" I cursed at him, but he didn't waver. Brave or stupid? I couldn't tell. Maybe torture had caused him to lose his mind? He glanced at me, focus in his startling blue eyes, and despite the chaos unfolding around us, he didn't move. It wasn't until the rest of the SEALs breached the door and flooded into the house that he relaxed, albeit for a millisecond. When they reached us, they began to secure the area, and half the team split for the hostages.

McKenzie, a twenty-year SEAL veteran and our team leader, faced up to Kai and tried to take the weapon. Still, Kai wasn't letting go, his eyes flashing with defiance as he moved between the SEALs and the hostages, torn between his instincts to protect and the authority of a ranking officer .

"Stand down, airman," McKenzie said, firm and commanding.

Kai's grip tightened on the weapon, his jaw clenched, his eyes unfocused, and it was then I noticed blood dripping from his hand. I inclined my head towards the evidence of his injury, and McKenzie nodded. Henderson was losing blood, oblivious to it in his attempts to save his crew and the hostages. For a moment, it appeared he might defy the order—his gaze locked in a silent standoff with our leader. I held my breath, ready to step in, but then, with a resigned sigh, Kai lowered the weapon, his shoulders slumping and adrenalin draining away. McKenzie took Kai's weapon and then placed a hand on his arm.

"You did good, kid," he said.

"Not a kid," Henderson snarled. A myriad of emotions swirled in his blue eyes, just beneath the surface—defiance and a fierce determination to hold his ground. Although his features showed signs of exhaustion, he was all raw energy, prepared to confront any challenges, and pissed at the kid label. "Not. A. Fucking. Kid."

"Okay," I said, giving him the respect he deserved.

Somehow he'd survived three weeks of being held—obvious torture in the ligature marks around his neck and dark bruises marking his pale skin—he'd disarmed a guard, killed said guard, and then gone trigger-happy on his captors, all to keep his team and the civilians safe.

Nope.

Kai was certainly not a kid.

He had a warrior's spirit, and like knew like.

His knees buckled, and being closest, I caught him as he fell. He didn't weigh enough to drag me down, and with McKenzie assisting, we carried him out of there to exfil. Back on the MH-60 Seahawk, rotors spinning in a sapphire sky, we worked to stop his bleeding, and through it all, he gritted his teeth and never let out a single whimper. Instead, he rambled on about the MH-60, weapons systems, crew, and airspeed, as if the helicopter was the most precious thing in his world. He focused on me, and I grasped his hand as he fought to stay awake, as he stared at me with bloodshot eyes. He closed them, and I nudged him to keep them open.

Stay with me, Henderson.

Stay with me.

"You have such pretty eyes," he babbled, between gasps of pain, "so green, so pretty." Oz snickered next to me, and I gave my friend a death stare. If the pilot needed to ramble to handle the pain, then that was okay with me. "Your hair is on fire!" Henderson added and attempted to poke at me, although his hand was slippery with blood, and he couldn't lift it high enough .

"On fire?" Oz asked and leaned over me to stare at our rescued hero. "Is he talking about your hair, Red?"

I elbowed Oz, and he fell back to his position, still smirking. I didn't hate my nickname. Jeremiah Osborne had become Oz for his last name, and I'd become Red for the color of my hair. It was a rite of passage, but listening to him messing with me wasn't funny.

"Hey," Henderson tried to talk. "Hold my hand? Okay?" I only made out some words, but something about him got inside my head when he gripped my hand and told me I had pretty eyes and hair that was on fire.

The brave, stupid, gorgeous hostage made me feel things: regret we hadn't met in a smoky club instead of a destroyed building where he'd been a prisoner, and the impulse to go to the hospital with him just to make sure he was okay.

Dangerous.

I never followed up on what happened to the rescued people, but I did check that Henderson made it out of the hospital okay. Allegedly, he'd disobeyed orders to stay with the hostages and put his crew in danger because he refused to leave people behind.

Some said brave, some said stupid.

All I knew was that he was still a 427 helicopter pilot and had survived the ordeal.

That was all any of us could hope for.