Page 60 of I Promise You
But how?
I’m sitting on a chair in the dark basement, twirling my knife in my hand. I don’t feel like Ari is safe, and with what happened with Shane, I can’t risk losing her. My world only makes sense because she’s a part of it.
The need to take my phone out and text her overwhelms me. I feel like I need to check on her. I don’t know when I’ll be home, but I know I need her to tell me she’s okay. I wonder if her nightmares are still haunting her, and I feel hopeless not being there to comfort her until she falls back asleep.
Ari has me wrapped around her wings, and I’m the one who’s in fucking trouble.
Our journey isn’t your typical one, but it was a wild road up to this point. Our relationship has been complicated since the start,but the longer she stays in my life, the more I can feel myself becoming the man I didn’t know existed and the man she needs me to be.
A man capable of change.
A man…utterly obsessed with the sweetest soul.
“What’s going on?” Rooker asks, walking down the steps.
I shake my head, frustrated, as I pocket my phone.
“Not here. We can talk more when we get back to base,” I whisper, unsure if the house is bugged. I don’t want to mention Ari or Noel giving these bastards more fuel to use against us.
“Grim, there’s more. I came down here to get you. You need to see this.”
My eyebrows raise as something sinks deep into the pit of my stomach. It isn’t good—this feeling of bad omens burns through my mind.
“Where?” I follow Rooker up the stairs from the basement. Instead of telling me, Rooker has me follow him.
He leads me into the hallway. We’re moving over dead bodies, one after one, my boots thud against the floor.
All the lights are still on and special operators and police raid the house, taking pictures of the scene and collecting evidence.
The room he leads me into has my heart breaking.
A group of young children, crying, hugging each other for comfort. They’re huddling together like penguins trying to disappear into the walls. Their eyes are full of confusion, loss, and fear. Lopez and other guys from Delta console them, getting them water to drink and asking them questions like what their favorite color is or their favorite cartoon to distract them from their reality.
“You guys are going home, all of you. You’re safe now. We’re not going to hurt you. We’re in the military,” Lopez ensures that they shouldn’t be afraid of us. He looks at them, one by one, observing their responses.
“It looks like this house wasn’t only to house terrorists. These kids were going to be trafficked.” Rooker crosses his arms against his puffed-out chest.
Wrath blinds my vision. Fire implodes underneath my skin and my chest aches, watching these innocent souls captured and forced to see what we fight against daily.
The evil in this world just won’t ever fucking stop.
“We just saved about twenty kids tonight,” Kane adds next to me, and I think about my son that I lost. My son that should be in Ari’s belly growing.
A huge lump in my throat forms and I have to clear my throat hard as I stare at these poor kids.
Shit.
“Get them back to base…safe. Admiral Ravenmore needs to know about this,” I order my team. I glance at the small children with distress.
Knowing I lost my son…this hits harder than usual. I can’t imagine how the parents of these abducted kids are feeling right now. I would go fucking crazy. Burning the whole world down until I found my son.
As I’m about to walk out, a little boy, who looks about five, takes off running. Lopez doesn’t try to stop him. As soon as he reaches me, he crashes against my thigh and holds onto my legs like he’s trying to hang on a raft in the ocean for dear life.
He tugs on my pants, and I give him my undivided attention.
“Excuse me, mister,” he says through sobs, tugging on my pants again, and my heart anchors down into a pool of sadness, hearing his plea. Even through such a traumatic, dark experience, he’s polite.
He has the same features as Ari. Tan skin, black hair. I can’t help but imagine our son may have come out with these same features.
