Page 8 of Saint

I hated to command her with fear, but I didn’t know the woman or her affiliation with Javier. Our lack of acquaintance had me yet to assess if she would be a threat. Though she cringed, her movements were swift as she planted her frame inside the vehicle.

From the backseat, I kept my gun trained at the base of her neck.

“We don’t want to hurt you, but what were you doing by that rock, love?” Supreme probed as he maneuvered the truck with haste toward the airstrip twenty minutes out from where we’d been.

“I won’t tell anyone anything. Please just let me go.”

His eyes connected with me for a fleeting moment, speaking things I didn’t need vocalized.

“That was the wrong answer, Beauty,” I voiced raspier than intended.

“What’s your name?” Supreme asked, issuing a glance in her direction.

Keeping my pistol trained on her, I sighed at the brazen truth of her fate. Unable to foresee her future, I pulled a silencer from my bag. The army had trained me for this. Locate the threat, subdue the threat, exit the area, mission complete.

But this woman didn’t strike me as a threat. She was –

“Victoria.” She swallowed hard as her attention turned toward Supreme.

“You from here, Victoria?” Again, he hunted for information from the beauty clothed in a threadbare dress.

“No… Just visiting,” she revealed.

“From?” Supreme snipped, audibly frustrated.

“I… I’m from Paramour. South Pointe, Paramour.”

My brother and I exchanged a pained look but said nothing. I simply kept my gun trained on Victoria. My mind was working overtime to find her a solution to the current predicament. One that didn’t include a bullet lodged in her temple.

When we arrived at the airstrip, I scavenged my pockets, reaching to locate the earplugs that would assist me in tuning out the hum of the plane’s engine. Only after placing one plug and then the second did I remove myself from the truck. The beauty was shuffled from the front seat and ushered up the stairs into the jet’s main cabin, where I motioned for her to have a seat.

“Bro, you know I got you if the noises are too much. Pop your Ambien. You don’t have to stay awa–”

“–I’ll be fine,” I interjected.

Supreme was always looking out for my well-being, aware that certain experiences –like plane rides– overwhelmed me tremendously. In this peculiar instance, however, I wouldn’t dare miss a thing. Telling myself it was for our protection, I couldn’t.

Victoria took to staring out the window, inching as close as humanly possible to the cabin wall. I’d gotten a myriad of things wrong, but I knew fear when I witnessed it. The small-framed beauty was terrified, and rightfully so. She’d seen me commit a monstrosity and was trembling out of her pretty skin.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t comfort her.

Comfort wasn’t my strength. Uncannily, I knew how to seek it out for myself, but in others? You may as well have been speaking another language.

Graduating high school at sixteen afforded me the world as my oyster. Opportunities boundless, I was sought out by some of the most prestigious universities. My family always encouraged me to pursue a higher education. Gifted, genius, virtuoso, they called me. From my parents to my siblings, everyone urged me to stay focused on my studies as if not doing so would attract me to the lifestyle they lived. Against my father’s wishes, I joined the army when I was seventeen. I was the golden child.

It came as a shock when I revealed I wouldn’t be heading off to college as they expected. My response to their disappointment was impassive. I’d already made up in my mind what I wanted from life. Positioning my nose in a textbook wasn’t going to obtain it.

I passed the ASVAB with the highest overall score available. It arrested the attention of several high-ranking officers for special ops, but my sights were set on becoming a sniper. In my youth, I assumed it was the most exciting and powerful position I could obtain as an enlisted member.

How wrong I was.

The five-week sniper course taught me how to be one of the deadliest marksmen in the field. It also triggered everything that disturbed me mentally, rankling my sensory processing like an itchy ass crack. The clamorous firing of a gun, immersion in mud, being exposed to various climates… It was all torturous to my senses.

A reverse psychological occurrence of triggers, it was intended to make me stronger and assist in seizing control of my narrative. In many ways, it worked. I could anticipate the piercing sound of a gun before it hammered into the air. The forceful integration of me firing the gun made the sound less triggering. It offered me a sense of discipline I hadn’t mastered under my father’s rule.

Eventually, I grew tired of overstimulating myself. It hadn’t made me less sensitive to sound. It hadn’t made me more receptive to touch. It hadn’t done anything but incite anger. My pursuit was for something less gnawing to my senses. Something soothing. I located that in the mammalian diving reflex.

So, I finished my final years in the army, walking away with a Master’s in marine biology. I loved the ocean. I loved the perfectly imperfect lull of the tide. I loved aquatic life. I loved the peace woven into the beach.

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