Page 63 of What I Should Have Done

“Eh, I’m pretty sure you let me.” Mikey grinned even wider.

“Man, you’ve grown,” Jacob’s voice softened, his hands falling from Mikey, and a pass of shame washed briefly across aged features. His longer hair billowed against his sweaty forehead. “I’m sorry, kid,” he whispered.

Mikey’s smile faltered briefly before disappearing behind joy. “Nothing to be sorry about.”

“I should’ve at least told you I decided to change my career path instead of just up and disappearing.”

“This is a far cry from recruiting, that’s for sure.” Mikey chuckled and stepped away, falling in line with the team once more, and tossed a thumb at Jacob. “He used to train me back in the day. Jacob Thompson was the best fighter, taught me most of what I know.”

Wrinkles creased in Dom’s forehead. “So, you’re the motherfucker that turned Mikey into the feral shithead he is.”

Thompson threw his head back and bellowed. “Nah, I helped tame a little of that. Though, I bet it’s come in handy out here.”

“You have no idea,” Bernie quipped, grinning from ear to ear.

“So, since we’re out here, why don’t we swing by and snatch up the Black Box and bring it home as a surprise for the colonel.” Dom redirected the greetings before they could go any further down a terribly irrelevant path. We could share war stories later, the priority was returning to base safely, considering we were already behind schedule after the sandstorm.

Thompson inhaled, his face falling. “Sorry to disappoint, but I have no fucking clue where it is. It disappeared the moment that they figured out who Powell really was.”

My stomach plummeted to the dune floor below us. As night crept its dark tendrils closer toward us, the heaviness of gloom replaced the flicker of hope that Thompson’s presence had provided.

“You’re saying that the only person who knows where that damn thing is, is a man back in the US, in a hospital, in a fucking coma?” Dom growled. “I feel like we’ve been nothing but one fucking step behind this whole damn time!”

There it was.

Not a word was spoken from anyone else. Dom voiced exactly what we’d all been thinking for a while now—he definitely said what I’d been tossing around in my head.

Thompson clamped a hand on Dom’s shoulder. “You’re making Karim al-Jabari panic, though. He’s lost a lot of shit thanks to you guys, and he also doesn’t know where his Black Box is. So, there’s that.”

Mikey shook his head, looking down at the ground as he crossed his arms over his rifle. “What the hell is on this Black Box anyway that’s so important to the guy?”

Thompson sighed. “From what I gathered, not only is there a map to his compound, but he records all of his business transactions on there. Meaning everyone and anyone he’s done business with, what that business was, all of it, is on there. Which is information I need to get back to the higher ups, including some classified shit that I wish I could share with you but can’t.”

Ford exhaled loudly, kicking at the sand. “We know Powell’s identity was compromised, but was yours?”

“They were getting suspicious of me. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, I would’ve been dead within a week for sure.”

“Let’s get you back before someone else shows up and ruins our first successful mission,” Mikey stated.

“Hold up,” Dom quickly said, raising his palm to us. Pressing a finger to his ear, he stepped away from the group for a moment.

This lull in my perfectly timed distraction snapped every emotion back into my body like a rubber band. I glanced to the right of Thompson at Mikey, his blue eyes swirling with thoughts that I didn’t think were of me. He wasn’t looking at me. His buddy said something that seemed far away, and Mikey smiled, chuckling in response.

Yet the words and banter that flooded the dunes as we waited for Dom were a foreign language to me. Not an intonation was recognizable. I couldn’t shake my absolute consuming desire to simply wrap myself back up in Mikey’s arms.

None of this failure, none of this impending possible danger and death existed within his embrace. Every violent turmoil boiling within me had settled like a hot tea kettle removed from the stove. Peace unlike I’d experienced before waited within his gentle yet fierce hold on me. I didn’t feel the need to hide, to be anything but alive when he was around.

He wasn’t supposed to have been that way. He wasn’t supposed to have been the freedom, the person to shatter the stone wall surrounding my heart.

And I hated that it left me more confused than ever before. Until now, I had been in control. I had found power and strength in solitude and closing myself off to any sort of romance. Love was weakness, and I couldn’t afford to be weak.

Except now… I felt more fragile keeping him at bay.

My bottom lip, still swollen from his aggressive kiss, now turned sore between my teeth as I frantically chewed, mindlessly fighting a war within my own mind. I shouldn’t even be toying with the idea of letting him back in, in accepting more advances from him. But the importance of my reputation was quickly flitting away.

“Alright,” Dom’s commanding voice sliced through the most debilitating thoughts weaseling through my mind. He inserted himself back into the group, silencing the casual banter. The final rays from the sun disappeared behind the tops of the dune, blanketing us in unexpected and sudden darkness. But there was a sense of reassurance and peace in the black surroundings. Maybe because I much more preferred being a crow of the night, blending in with the background than standing point in the day.

Dom’s eyes briefly met mine, a flash of curiosity breaking across his face before it washed away and he spoke. “That was a message from the colonel. Looks like we are taking a brief detour on our ride back home.” He tipped his head toward Thompson. “Hope you’re good with that, Lieutenant?”

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