Page 63 of Wounded Hearts

He adopted the same look as the other men, noticing two from his old unit who looked straight past him as if he wasn’t there. While he’d been under the control of the Watchers, he’d been their commander and he wondered if he could pick it up and they would listen to him again.

Sweat made its way down his back as his pulse increased again at being with them. He fought the memories that tried to drag him under. Men he’d killed, women he’d killed, all the while not knowing what he did was wrong. He jerked seeing blood on his hands as he looked down. He blinked and it was gone. The distant sound of screams and the beeps the machines made coalesced in his head, and he fought to push the darkness away.

He couldn’t fail them, he had to carry out this mission to pay for all his sins. He knew it would never be enough, nothing would ever be enough for what he’d done.

Lizzie came to his mind and he walked past a soldier he didn’t know and nodded, receiving a nod in return. Her limp, the screams he’d listened to every day as she’d been forced to recover from her injuries, alone in a room with no family, no friends, just him as her guard tortured him. The doctors had helped her, but he knew what she’d needed was her family, her son.

It had been that grief that had brought him from his drugged fog, allowing the human to finally break free. Self-loathing gripped him as he remembered carrying her from the rubble, broken beyond what any one person should survive, and yet she had. With her strength and character, she’d lived and now she was living her life. Not the one she’d had but she was striving forward and making a new one for herself and Mateo.

A picture of Lizzie and her son formed, and he straightened his shoulders and approached the first soldier with confidence born of years in the SAS. “Soldier, you need a vaccination. Go to the last room on the left and wait for me.” Smithy didn’t explain or justify it, he just ordered it.

“As you wish, sir.”

Smithy relaxed as the man did as he’d asked without question. He did the same again and again, including his two men. Men he’d fought with, laughed with, who were now robots. When everyone had gathered in the room, he uncapped the syringes that held the trackers and moved in. “Remove your shirts,” he commanded, and they did as he asked again.

Smithy administered the injections into the crease of their arms, the tiny needle barely leaving a scratch. When he finished, the soldier he’d known lifted his hand. Smithy paused and cocked his head. “Soldier?”

“Let me administer yours, sir.”

Smithy paused and let the man administer his injection, not wanting him to become suspicious. Despite his reassurance to Zack that this was safe, there were many unknowns and a tracker on him wasn’t the end of the world.

“Back to your stations.” The men stood and filed out and Smithy let the breath he hadn’t realised he was holding, go.

Maybe he could do this, maybe he could make a go of healing and having a future. Whether that would include Lizzie and Mateo he didn’t know. She hadn’t spoken to him since before the mission to rescue Mara. He hoped he could bring her around, as she was his only reason to try.

As the clock struck the hour the men moved towards the main doors. He followed behind wanting to get as much information as he could. The ten men headed to the roof and Smithy ducked his head and faced away as a large chinook helicopter descended. The men ran towards it and Smithy realised his mistake. They wouldn’t enter the helicopter until their commander had done so first. As Smithy looked back towards the door to the hospital and thought of the innocents below, he knew he had no choice but to get on the chopper.

Smithy climbed aboard and as the helo lifted off he knew he was fucked. Lizzie would never forgive him for this. She’d think he’d given up and was taking unnecessary risks because he didn’t value his life. Six months ago, that would have been true, but he’d realised he wanted more, he wanted her and just when the realisation came to him, he was lost and heading back to hell.