I can hear their shrieks. Their pleas. They won’t quit screaming and crying. And I can’t stop the bleeding.
Flash and fade.
I’m outside, wrapped in a charcoal-colored blanket. It’s night andcold, and bright white lights sting my eyes, swirling reds and blues obscuring the trees and houses and silhouettes of people. How did I get here?
“Where are they?” I murmur.
“You’re still in shock, honey. You keep coming in and out. Give it a minute before you ask questions.” She’s young, not much older than me. A paramedic.
I’m in an ambulance.
My body trembles as nonsensical rambling flows out of me. “Ella. Did I see Ella? Did you? Where is she? Audrey’s gone. No. No. No. No. No. I mean … I heard her screaming. She was crying. Or I imagined it. Was it in my head? It wasn’t coming from their mouths. And bloody. They were bloody. Sticky. But Mom … I don’t think she … Where’s Ella?”
The EMT pales. She looks stricken. Lips quivering. Red-rimmed eyes creasing.
My coach steps in front of me, a hand curled over my shoulder. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, Andrew.”
Why is he here? He said he’d see me tomorrow. Someone called him because no one else is left. No. That’s not right.
“Ella. I didn’t see Ella. Did I? Take me to Ella.”
Flash and fade.
I’m in the village, perched on an elevated mound. We succeeded in our SEALs mission and uncovered the terrorist camp, but they seized the town in defense. There’s nothing but desecrated buildings and trash and death. Heaps of concrete. We’re clearing civilians the best we can. Ricci carries up a little girl. She’s about eleven or twelve. Sobbing. Shaking. A lady follows behind—must be the girl’s mom by the resemblance—and both tuck in close to me.
“Best I could do,” he shouts over the booming crashes of bombs. “They have to stay with you.”
This isn’t the safest place to corral them, but we’re under fire. So, anywhere is better than down there.
I mutter a few calming words to them in their native tongue while I stay zeroed in on my marks, announcing my kills into the comm. The woman and her daughter are silent, quivering from fear, until the littlegirl starts squealing. There’s a man her eyes are set on, but as I line him up in my sights, her mother screeches that he raped her daughter. Blood stains the girl’s thighs. I didn’t notice.
Flash and fade.
I’m on top of the motherfucker, stabbing and stabbing and stabbing.
“Stand down, Michaels!”
“Michaels, enough!” Petrovsky wrestles me away as Chief seizes my knife.
Fuck, I snapped. “I don’t … I mean … he … sorry, Chief, I—”
They can’t hear me. Is my mouth moving? I don’t have a voice.
“Get him out of here,” Chief orders, scanning over me. “I’ll be—”
The building we’re in front of explodes, blasting the three of us backward. Ricci too.
Fire and dust and rubble.
Injured.
Caught.
Prisoners.
Tortured.
Flash and fade.
