“Hey,” he said, picking up the mug by his hand and taking a sip. “They settled?”
She nodded.
“Hell of a thing,” he said, the toll of seeing his teammate reuniting with his sister had shaken him. He met her gaze. “Bailee, the bone?—”
“I know,” she whispered. “They’re Taryn’s.”
“I’m so goddamned sorry.” He took a breath. “They’ve identified three other sets of bones from Cheyenne River. All Indigenous. They’re waiting on guidance from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Victim Services.” He hesitated. “They want to know if you’d like to inform the families…return personal effects and their bones. If not?—”
“No,” she whispered, Bear’s words penetrating down to a deeper level, a place where clarity had eluded her. “That’s my privilege. It’s time I went home.” She met his gaze. “I’ll speak to BIA. I’ll take the remains home.”
He nodded. “You square with the big man?”
“I am.” She looked away at his knowing look.
He rose. “I’ve got a team to wrangle back to Coronado and a young lady to welcome back to her home country. You staying here?”
“Yes. For now.” She went to him and wrapped her arms around him in a hard hug. “Working with you has been an honor, Elias.”
“You leaving us?”
“I think I am, I just don’t know yet. Trying to get my feet beneath me.”
He hugged her back. “Fair enough. I always like to keep track of my team. You let us know where you land, and don’t leave Bear in the dark. He doesn’t like that.”
“He’s already told me as much.”
After Elias left, she spoke with the FBI team, picked up the remains, and headed back to the hotel. Bear, Ayla, and the team had boarded their C-130 already and had been in the air for three hours. Bailee went back to her old room, stored her belongings. Then she slipped out and made her way to the pool deck. It was empty this time of night, and she looked around, remembering the day she’d fought and almost died here.
Then she took the stairs down, her heart caught in her throat, her gut churning. She paused at the door that led out into the food court. Taking a breath, she pushed it open, and her breath caught. Flashes went off in her head. Gunfire, now distant, echoed in her ears. Bear fighting, surging forward, getting hit, and still covering Zorro’s nieces with that big, gorgeous, wounded body.
When she came back to herself, she was on her knees right in that spot where he had fallen. She looked at her hands covered in his blood, remembered her plea for him not to die. She curled in on herself as that locked place in her mind opened like an explosion. She might love him, but she didn’t feel worthy of his love. That and that alone was keeping her from him.
His courage astounded her, not only at that moment, in that firefight, but every moment since. The way he’d taken those boys and molded them into something lethal and sharp, the way he had found his voice, not only in teaching them, but in speaking his truth to her. Every step of the way, Bear was authentic in himself.
Maybe her perspective had been facing in the wrong direction. Maybe it was time for her to be authentic in herself. Time for her to speak her truth, own her life, and settle on the path the ancestors had always meant for her to walk. Not as a healer, but as a seeker.
Dulles Airport, Dulles, Virginia
It had been a long and tiring journey, especially for a woman who, until recently, had lived in an isolated Amazonian village without even running water. Now she was walking back into civilization. The Office of Overseas Citizens Services out of the State Department handled all the paperwork. They were assigned a tribal liaison, officially repatriating her under federal protection.
Bear couldn’t stop staring at her. This marvel who had been returned to them, not as if from the dead, but full of life, and full of sass. Still, every so often, a noise too sharp or a crowd too close made her shoulders stiffen, a quiet echo of years lived in silence and open air.
They had landed in Coronado with the team, whose support had been nothing short of phenomenal, especially LT and Zorro. They had then gotten on another flight to Joint Base Andrews in Camp Springs, Maryland, near DC, with proximity to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where Ayla’s medical and psychological evaluations had been conducted.
Her doctors loved her. The medical lead told him she was strong, bones, skin, muscles, resilient in ways most people never would be. The jungle hadn’t broken her. It had built her. Then came the psyche lead, which he was dreading more than her physical, but the psychologist had smiled when she’d faced him. “You have a remarkable sister, Mr. Locklear. She has trauma, that is something she will have to deal with, but her outlook and her mental health is excellent. I would recommend she see someone to help with reintroduction back into the tribe, and for her to work through the loss of her childhood and absence from her family and the daunting realization that she now has a future out of isolation and captivity.” She paused and shifted. “She is also grieving the family she had to leave behind.”
Bear was aware of that sorrow that lived in her eyes sometimes when she was quiet. He could only feel gratitude to them for taking in his sister and giving her a chance at coming home. He had to wonder if they ever thought the day would come when they had to let her go.
After four days at Walter Reed, they had been taken to the J. Edgar Hoover Building and the FBI’s Office for Victims of Crime with a quick stop in the Office of Overseas Citizens Services at the State Department, who had been instrumental in coordinating Ayla’s return. Most of their time was then spent with Tribal Liaison Services and the Bureau of Indian Affairs to ensure culturally appropriate reintegration.
Now they were at the airport waiting for a flight back to South Dakota and their final destination, Pine Ridge Reservation, and her family reunion. He wasn’t under any illusion that she was the same girl who had been taken from them. She had straddled two worlds…still was. Whenever doors opened automatically, she flinched, just once, then breathed, grounding herself.
“You look at me like you think I’m going to disappear, brother. Hiding has its merits, but I stopped hiding the moment I realized I was safe in that village. I don’t want sympathy or platitudes. I want to get started on where I’m going.” She took a breath as her eyes filled, her voice hitching. “I left a whole family behind down there,” she added softly. “My second mother. The healer. The boy who followed me like a shadow. I’ll miss them…every day. But that’s not where I belong.”
“Ayla…we’re going home.”
“I know that. I’m talking about afterward. Taryn Thunderhawk saved my life and lost hers. I didn’t speak for days after she died,” Ayla whispered. “Not a word. The village thought I had lost my voice. Maybe I had. For a while.” Bear brushed a tear off her cheek, and she smiled with watery sorrow. “I’ve had three long years to remember her sacrifice, to pay homage to her fierce memory. She was amazing. So, I won’t shrink. I won’t disappear. I will honor her loss by honoring a life well-lived.”
