Page 132 of Single Teddy
“Copy Bravo Team. We’ll attempt to intercept.” Wyatt’s voice crackled in my ear comms.
“Now what?” Slade glanced around us, at the quiet sand dunes. A quiet that was intermittently interrupted by a bullet from the window.
“Cover me. I’m going in,” I told him and readied myself.
If a hundred people were waiting inside that boathouse, they’d have come out already. At the very least, they’d have provided cover for the stranger’s gateway, but they hadn’t.
And the two enemy targets at the window were running low on ammo if the rate of their fire was any indication.
Slade crouched in position behind the car, and the moment I heard his fire, I jumped into action and advanced on the boathouse’s front door uninterrupted.
He was here.
I could feel it. I didn’t know how, but I could. It might not feel right to Slade, or it might be suspicious that there wasn’t more backup or enemy fire, but I no longer gave two shits. Wesley and the boys had suffered enough. They needed out of this mess, and I couldn’t wait around any longer, twiddling my thumbs and hoping for some divine—or Ghostly—intervention.
Wesley needed me. The boys needed me. And I would not be able to live with myself if something happened to them because of indecision and uncertainty.
If this situation had taught me anything, it was that there was always uncertainty. Especially in the real world, and that was a tough pill to swallow. Out in the field, out on a mission, we relied on intel, and rarely did we go in blind.
The same couldn’t be said for the real world. We couldn’t prepare for attacks in real life. And that felt far more vicious. But I guess any situation involving loved ones was more dangerous than shooting at strangers in enemy territory.
My body was on fire as I leaped over the steps that led to the front door, and I paused, pressing my back to the side of the door to catch my breath and clear my thoughts. But not before I made a little prayer.
No.
Not a prayer.
A promise.
Once I saved Wesley and the boys, I’d make sure no harm came to them, or Bear, ever again. I could hate Wyatt and everyone else all I wanted for dragging me here in the middle of a war when I had a child to look after. And yeah. I didn’t know if Icould forgive that. But I’d also been a fool to think I could stay out of it. I couldn’t. And I wasn’t going to rest until I took this enemy down, once and for all.
I took a deep breath and counted down from ten. With each number, I let go of fears, worries, stress, remorse, and guilt until there was nothing left but the mission goal.
Rescue Wesley and the boys. Eliminate the target.
“Bravo One, this is Bravo Two,” I said, pressing my ear comms and taking a deep breath. “I’m going in.”
I pushed myself off the wall, turned around, and crashed my foot through the door. It burst open with no effort. It took only a millisecond to scan the territory and locate Wesley and the boys. And no effort at all to find the two targets.
My first bullet found its home on the chest of a bald guy crouched in front of the window. The second dug deep in his throat, spraying his surroundings with blood.
Then I turned to the other one. The man of the hour. The scum of the earth. The father of the century.
Barnes.
His arm was soaked in blood, but he didn’t hesitate to fire at me. The recoil made him scream but his bullet only scraped past my chest. It barely even stung.
What did sting was the bullet I put through his forehead. He was dead before his head hit the ground, but I wasn’t done. I took another sweep at the building, just to make sure there were no nasty surprises. But there was nothing to hide behind. There was no one else there. It was over.
With a single breath, my bravado dissipated, and I turned tohim.
“Wesley!” I practically jumped across the room and cupped his face, the green of his eyes making me both feel at home and breathless at the same time. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
I moved my hands from his face to his neck to his shoulders, checking every inch of him for any wounds, feeling my throat tighten with every shallow breath I took.
This didn’t feel real. It didn’t feel like he was in my arms, yet the warmth that emanated from him, from his eyes, his lips, was undeniable.
“I’m okay, Teddy. I’m okay. We’re okay,” he repeated over and over again until I finally believed it. “The boys. Can you untie them?”
