But it was too late.
The girls came out running like bullets from a rifle—heading straight for the Rangers, who immediately assumed they were being used as human bombs, as girls are twice as likely to be used than boys are.
Both were gunned down in the blink of an eye. Their small bodies pierced and torn by multiple rounds before crumpling to the ground like paper airplanes.
Team Specter all yelled in unison. All of Abe’s men—except for Oli. His scream got lost in the effort of pulling himself from Aberlour.
“Fuck!” Abe growled, as he grabbed for Oliver again and then shoved him towards JD, who caught Oli like a rebound ball.
“Get out!” he yelled at his men. They had to move before the Rangers launched a search to locate more enemy insurgents and raided the whole fucking house.
As one, with heavy hearts, they moved out into the thick brush and towards the desert. Fleeing like burglars in the night—hands empty but their consciences weighed down with guilt.
“How is he?” Aberlour asked Marcus, as he caught the man walking out of their assigned quarters. They’d been transported back to a Navy ship for a few days of debriefing while sailing back towards to the US. Aberlour had been pulled to attend meetings, leaving his men behind to unpack and clean their gear. As they’d gotten off the helo, Oliver had been withdrawn. Pissed off and angry—it was hard for Aberlour to know exactly who the target was.
“Moping,” Marcus said. By the way he was refusing to meet Abe’s gaze, he was also taking it hard. “What did you tell the commanding officers?”
There had been no discussion of the children on their trip back to the ship. Abe had simply ordered all of them to just keep their mouths shut for now and that he’d deal the brass.
Abe sighed.
“The truth,” he shrugged. “They weren’t—pleased we kept them in the dark, but they agreed we handled it well. I think they were just relieved with the outcome,” he admitted, and it was one step too far for Marcus whose jaw locked with tension.
“I just mean—” Abe backtracked hastily.
“I know what you mean,” Marcus said, tone clipped.
But Abe doubted that very much. He gently placed his hand on Marcus’ shoulder.
“The brass are full of shit—we both know that. What happened—” he broke off, shaking his head, refusing to acknowledge the image that burned behind his eyelids when he closed his eyes. He swallowed against the grief stuck in his throat.
Marcus deflated slightly. He nodded and sighed as he met Abe’s gaze, understanding shining in his dark eyes.
“I’ll give you a few minutes,” Marcus said with a faint smile as he nodded towards the stateroom he’d just left.
Abe smiled gratefully in return.
Abe found Oliver on the floor with his shirt off, doing sit-ups, most likely attempting to burn off the anger that had been simmering since they’d left the village. Aberlour remained silent as he moved around him, sitting down on his own bunk bed and watching his best friend blow off steam, content to just watch.
Oliver eventually gave up and just laid there, staring up at the ceiling as he panted with exhaustion.
Aberlour considered various ways of broaching the subject, unable to predict how Oli would react to his overtures. Would he shut him out? Pretend to be fine? In the end, Oli took the choice out of his hands.
“I can’t unhear it,” Oliver confessed, sounding just as broken as Aberlour had expected him to be.
“The gunfire?” he guessed.
“Her screaming for her father,” Oliver corrected. He turned his head to look at Abe, and there were tears pooling in his baby blues.
“I was too fucking slow—” he said, voice tight and low. “If I’d just—”
But Aberlour wouldn’t let him go down that road.
“She’d have gone to him either way—we were strangers to them. Kind strangers who fed her and her sister. She’d have chosen her father at every turn,” he argued. There was no way to rid themselves of the guilt completely. Aberlour knew that much at least but shouldering it as a team wasn’t the same as carrying it all.
“If we’d gotten out when the gunfire started like you’d told us—”
“Then one of us would be dead. The Rangers had to change their approach to the rat’s nest when we called in about the technical with the Dushka. They weren’t supposed to come from behind our hideout. If you and the others had headed outthe door as I had ordered you to, we’d have all been gunned down.”
