Page 102 of The Bodyguard

Killing is killing.

It does the same thing to your soul.

Taking a life is far more impactful than people know. All these randoms walking around armed, they have no fucking idea what they have in their hands. Not really.

I spent years watching children in the Middle East walking around with machine guns, playing. But they aren’t toys.

No gun is a toy.

Whether you rationalize it for war or protection.

It is designed to kill.

The fucking end.

How many people could look at themselves in the mirror every day if they killed someone?

It’s easy to say you could.

The reality is far different.

“For reasons I can’t share, I turned up at our meeting place just days before the mission was going to take place, and...”

I roll onto my back.

Fuck.

It’s hard to think about let alone talk about, but now I’m back there watching it happen like a movie in my mind.

Worse few seconds of my life.

The horror on her face. The pleading in her eyes. The knowledge that there was nothing I could do and that I may have betrayed her.

I didn’t.

But I never got the chance to tell her because in seconds everyone was screaming, and I knew he was going to detonate.

“He had a suicide vest on and a gun held at her temple. She was holding her little girl in her arms.”

Aleaha Mahdi and her daughter Saarah.

“Oh, god.” Savannah's hand flies to her mouth.

What the fuck am I doing? I can’t talk about this, and no one needs to relive it with me. I brought Savannah here to celebrate, not load my war wounds on her.

I turn my head and see tears have filled her eyes. I reach out and pull her against my chest, rolling us so I can hold her tightly.

“Enough.” I reach for the remote and turn the TV off as her tears leak onto the tattoos I burned into my skin so I’d never forget.

We fall asleep in each other’s arms, our pains somehow less heavy because we shared them tonight.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

SAVANNAH

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We pull into my driveway and sadness fills me. I don’t want to be home. Which is not a feeling I’m used to.

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