Page 62 of Irons

We both crawled into the bed, then he pulled me into him. “Now it’s like old times.”

He yawned and that was the last thing I remembered before his phone went insane.

Stay

Travis

She groaned when my phone rang then my alarm went off. I shot our air traffic controller a text and let him know I’d be out in a minute. I then set my phone down and shut my eyes. Neither of us moved as we slept, so she was still in my arms.

I remember those moments from years ago. How she was always scared when she first came back after her mom died. It wasn’t Clint she wanted to hold her, it was me.

I think back to the age I was when Wrenly’s mom died and she finally returned to Clint, but had very few memories of anything else. I couldn’t remember my first day of school or my kindergarten graduation. There were milestones that I had no memories of them ever happening. I could remember my mom crying and going home early from kindergarten, but I was too young to form many memories, but my memories of Wrenly were still vivid. Sleeping with her near wasn’t something unheard of for us. I had her in my arms again and the moments felt as precious as they did when we were the greatest comfort to each other.

In the nights following her mom’s death, I’d be woken up in the middle of the night by Tony. He would be pulling me out of bed to go next door because Wrenly was crying for me. Shewas scared and had nightmares. Clint tried to comfort her, but he felt defeated after a few hours of crying. She wouldn’t calm until I crawled in bed with her.

There I was again, waking up to her tiny little body next to mine. Nothing felt so right in my life. I hated leaving her, but I had a jet to meet and soon things were going to get busy for everyone.

I kissed her head and squeezed her a little tighter. “Hey, Wrenly.” She stirred. “You can stay and get some rest, but I have to head out to the airfield to meet the jet.”

She suddenly jumped. “The children.” She whispered. “I’m coming with you.” She quickly sat up and I smiled as I looked at her messy hair, some mascara ran down her face, and she had red lines from my t-shirt.

I watched as she slowly crawled out of bed and made her way to the bathroom, then smiled again when I heard her gasp. She must have looked in the mirror. Surely she thought she looked like hell, but to me she looked insanely sexy.

Unfortunately, I was already dressed. It wasn’t a night of two sweaty tangled bodies, but a few hours of deep exhausted sleep. When she walked out of the bathroom, I was sitting on the bed and waiting for her. It wasn’t the first or the last time I was too exhausted to make my way home after a mission. Most of us did pass out in our bunker apartments after a particularly stressful mission. It was already stressful, but having Magnus volunteer made it worse. It always was hard when one of the Originals went out. It was like watching a loved one drop into a war zone.

Twenty minutes after we woke up, we were helping unload the jet. I glanced at Wrenly several times as she helped bring the children outside to our medical team. We had everywoman available at Creed’s Lake helping. It was Stephanie, Melissa, Felicity, and a few of Felicity’s girls, and some of our female operatives. The children always responded better to the females of Creed’s Lake than us men.

Our medical team put the one woman and all the children in a van then took them to the medical center. They would all need medical care, unfortunately. They were treated for things from dehydration, malnutrition, infection, and diseases. Our best estimate of their ages ranged from ten to twenty three. It was a night that had been in the works for months and we prepared everyone for the night we brought them in from Peru. Some would need to stay at the medical center through the duration of their stay, but the others needed housing. We had interpreters, and unfortunately had to separate the children. All we had were the apartments, so we assigned three children to one adult female that would stay with them.

Wrenly and I went over to the medical center after the jet was unloaded. I needed an update of every single one of the rescued before we had to head over to the mission debriefing. I knew it was a particularly exhausting mission for our operatives. Not only were they deprived of sleep and physically exhausted, it was never easy finding children in the situation they were living.

The debriefing had all the Originals in a room while the mess hall was serving breakfast to our operatives. I had to give my report. Then Magnus and the other squad leader gave theirs.

The children were living in deplorable conditions. Thankfully, for all we knew, we got to the children before the sex crimes would have been committed. They were all awaiting transport to China on a ship, but that didn’t mean they had it easy. The kids were sleeping on dirt floors in their own shit and piss, some had been beaten to an inch of their lives, they were starved and not given access to water. Quite a few hadserious infections, and we were still waiting for blood work. Zoey said she wouldn’t have been surprised if a few were septic. The teen girls and woman rescued from our high value targets weren’t as lucky as far as the sexual abuse. The woman had been pregnant and given a botched abortion, and she had a terrible infection. We still weren’t sure she would survive. The teen girls and probably the woman as well were likely suffering from sexually transmitted diseases. We began to understand why the Columbian Cartel wanted those targets eliminated. Most likely the Venezuelan national and his piece of shit thugs were providing diseased women to the cartel through forced prostitution.

We had one operative take a bullet to the leg, but most only reported slight injuries. Magnus was fine, but just like the rest of us after taking lives, needed some time to process. Creed used to take off on his bike for a few days. Axton works his out through the fight club, Drakos fucks it out of his system, Magnus retreats into his house for a few days, and I tend to drink it out of my system and sleep. Bolton runs several miles, it seemed to help clear her mind, while Jennings and Granger go home to their wives and kids. As for the operatives, they’ll get some rest then keep Felicity’s girls entertained or hit the strip clubs.

After the debriefing with the Originals, Creed and I addressed the operatives in the mess hall. There would be their welcome back party later in the day.

After commanding a mission, we didn’t have the opportunity to do anything but write our reports, reach out to the contract holder to give them an update, then make arrangements to return the victims to their families or the contract holder. Anytime we worked with diplomats, we also had to update the Pentagon because of foreign relations. I tried tosend Wrenly home, but she refused and stayed at my side, which was helpful.

Then that fucker Victor showed up at the shop, which meant he had to be checked on, but Creed volunteered, thankfully.

Wrenly was a godsend, and damn if she didn’t prove that we all needed an assistant. While making calls, she had another person on hold, so I was able to flip through one call after another. I was able to get that done in half the time, then she helped with the reports. I never finished my post mission duties so quickly.

After we tied everything up, Wrenly and I went our separate ways to get showers and refresh for the busy day ahead. After my shower and a cup of coffee, which any coffee I made sucked in comparison to Creed’s, I headed out to pick Wrenly up. I had to chuckle when she opened her front door as soon as I pulled into her driveway. If one thing could be said about Wrenly, she was always prompt, even when she was a kid. I guess I just now realized how disciplined Wrenly always was, maybe it was all the athletics that taught her discipline.

There she was again, looking as fucking unbelievably gorgeous as always.

Wine and Brownies

Travis

We helped in the medical center for most of the day, and I’d never forget the look on Wrenly’s face when she learned all the tests that were run on the children. Everything from pregnancy tests to sexually transmitted diseases. We only presumed China wanted virgins, but the children and their tests confirmed they were in fact still virgins. The oldest girls made that very clear to us.

We were on a level one lockdown, which was the standard protocol when we had that kind of mission. It was just to keep the community safe and would only last a few days. We tried locking things down completely after a mission, but that didn’t work out well for us. The returning operatives refused to go on another mission until that protocol was ditched. A level one now means nobody other than the residents of Creed’s Lake was permitted to enter, and we had extra security put into place.

It was a long and exhausting day, but we still had the welcome home party to attend. Patrick hooked up the Karaoke machine and stocked the bar in the banquet room, the kitchen staff made Chicken Marsala, mashed potatoes, and salad. Since nobody could enter Creed’s Lake, the bakery from Clarity leftthe desserts at Creed’s Motorsports, and the kids of Creed’s Lake had a movie night in the theater.

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