“That’s not our mission,” Jude argues.
She desperately keeps pointing at the kid and then forward. Her eyes pleading with all of us.
“Fuck,” Miguel swears. His eyes find mine and I see the tortured expression on his face. “If there’s more kids we have to save them.”
“This isn’t the time to have a hero complex,” Jude snaps back.
Darius argues, “And now isn’t the time to be a fucking dick.”
Jude fumes, his eyes swinging furiously over to me. All their eyes fall on me. They always do. “We did our job, Ethan,” Jude says to me. He only uses my name on missions when he’s trying to get through to me. “We don’t know what the fuck lies ahead.”
“You’re comfortable letting children die?” Miguel asks him.
“I’m not comfortable with a lot of shit. How many times have we had kids shoot at us?”
“They don’t know any better, Jude.” Miguel bites back.
“You don’t think I know that?” Jude explodes. “I very well fucking know that! But we had to leave our morality back at fucking home! A group of militia children lured our men just a month ago and had them murdered. Our brothers murdered by kids.”
Miguel swallows. The tension in the air is enough to be cut with a machete.
We have all seen too much. And the sad part is that Jude isn’t wrong. We could be headed towards a trap.
“But they could be innocent, Jude. Trapped and scared innocent kids waiting for someone to save them.” Miguel tries to tug on the humanity Jude has left in him. The humanity that we are supposed to just turn off. Except Jude isn’t budging andMiguel sees that. So he goes for the jugular. “What if it was your baby girl, Blair? What fucking then?”
Jude goes still.
One of the reasons he joined the Marines was for his baby girl. Jude and his girlfriend, at the time, got pregnant young. Their families didn’t approve and kicked them out. By joining the Marines it gave them enough money financially to raise their girl.
“And you, Ethan,” he acknowledges me, “what if it was Nora in there?”
No one has to ask me that fucking question twice. I would go in there charging like a mad bull and tear through every motherfucker in there to save my baby sister.
“But it’s not them,” Jude argues but his voice sounds choked.
“But to someone else it is,” Miguel stresses. “Don’t you understand? That’s someone’s sister in there. Someone’s brother. Someone’s son and daughter. And we are what? Just going to leave them for fucking slaughter?”
“Well, whatever we do we have to decide quick. We’ve been in this spot for longer than necessary,” Darius lets us know.
“So, what is it, Sarge?” Isaac asks me.
My eyes fall on all of them. The one person who has stayed quiet through all of this is Roman. Besides me he’s the most level headed one. The most analytical.
“Roman?”
“I told myself that I would save as many lives as I can,” he begins, eyes a dark chocolate brown settled with determination, “and if there are more to be saved then that’s what I’m going to do.”
His selfless words choke us all but they suffocate Jude.
“Motherfucker,” he chokes out. And it’s with that word that I know Jude has thrown the white flag and surrendered.
“We do this,” I start, my eyes falling on all of them, “we do this as a team. No brother left behind.”
“No brother left behind,” all but one echo.
We all wait for Jude, who stands there with a torn expression. His lips twist and then he sighs heavily. Closing his eyes he hand signals the cross before kissing his wedding band. His eyes open and with new clarity he says, “No brother left behind.”
Nodding my head at all of them I signal for us to push ahead.
