by Haven, Leila
I’d felt it somewhere deep inside. It was a feeling of content and completion. It wasn’t just an easy fuck. It may have started off as one, but I know it didn’t end that way.
If Derrick was now denying it, then he didn’t deserve me. He could continue on with his one-night stands and stay the clichéd bachelor forever. He would die an old and lonely man with huge regrets.
One of them would be me.
I just wished my brain wouldn’t keep playing back the highlights for me. Every time I closed my eyes I felt his capable hands on me, his thickness between my legs, those eyes burning with intensity as he gazed at me in the throes of passion.
My body yearned for him. With every beat of my heart I wanted to feel his hands on me again. It wasn’t just the situation now. I needed his intimacy more than I’d ever thought possible.
Corporal Derrick Watson had a hold on me and I couldn’t shake it off, no matter how hard I tried.
I’d never been that kind of a woman, one that needed a man and went crazy if she couldn’t have him. Now I was starting to question it. But it wasn’t just any man that I was insane for; it was Derrick, and he was being completely impossible. It was like he didn’t even want me around.
Our room only had one bed, so we had to share. I was tempted to sleep naked just to tempt him but decided against it at the last minute – I wasn’t that brazen. More likely, he would just be able to tell how horny he made me and then gloat about it.
It felt almost normal sharing a bed with Derrick. The weight of his body next to mine as we tried to find some rest felt right. All I wanted to do was turn over and snuggle into his side.
I was asleep before I could enact any of my ideas, slumber taking me away with sheer exhaustion.
* * *
“Ariana, wake up.”
Someone was shaking me, trying to get me to wake up, but it was so nice being lost in my dreams. The current nightmare of our situation didn’t exist in my wonderland.
“Ariana, we don’t have time for this. Get up!” Derrick’s face came into view through my blinking vision. One look and I was instantly awake.
I sat up. “What’s wrong?”
“We need to get moving before the sun comes up. We’ll cover more ground that way.”
So it wasn’t like there was an insurgent in our room waving a gun around, then. “You made it sound like an emergency.”
“It will be if we don’t get to a military base. Get dressed, you’ve got five minutes.”
He was already fully clothed and ready to go. I bet it had taken him more than five minutes. I didn’t waste any time arguing, though, just found my clothes and changed back into my stolen outfit. I would have killed for a laundry and fresh clothes.
Derrick waited by the door, growing more impatient by the minute. I was ready to leave in four minutes, but that still didn’t seem to make him happy.
“Keep your eyes down and don’t look at anyone or anything,” he instructed. “Do exactly what I say, when I say it. Understand?”
I saluted him, mainly because I knew it bugged him. He wasn’t the only one who could be a jerk when they wanted to be.
He led us out of the small hotel and into the street. It was hot already, with the sun only just starting to peek over the horizon. It was going to be a scorcher of a day.
The only people out and about were traders or people going to work. Only the occasional one gave us a second glance, but it was enough to make me nervous. Derrick noticed too, holding me closer to him every time he saw something he didn’t approve of.
“Do you know where we’re going?” I asked quietly. My gaze was still largely focused on the ground like he’d instructed, but I couldn’t help risk a glance now and then. It was a city I would have loved to explore once.
“I think there’s a US base across the city on the outskirts. We’re going there.”
“And we’ll be safe then?”
Derrick hesitated, which pretty much answered my answer. “Safer, anyway.”
I trusted he knew what he was doing. Derrick might be a dick, but Corporal Watson was an elite soldier. He knew what he was doing in these conditions far better than I did. I kept my mouth shut and followed along.
As the morning broke, the residents of Jorm woke, and the streets started to bustle with people, mainly men. It wasn’t so easy to hide with so many locals around the place.
Derrick grew more agitated, hurrying along as fast as possible without raising more suspicions. If he had his way, we’d probably be running.
“There are rebels here,” he muttered to me. “We need to change course.”
He pulled me into a café and led me to the back of the building. We sat at a table, in amongst others smoking and drinking coffee.
The only air came from the front door and there was no air conditioning. The atmosphere in the café was thick and stifling, the pipe smoke clinging to my throat and making it cry out with dryness.
Derrick had positioned himself so he could see the door over my shoulder. He leaned in close, as if we were having a deep conversation. “I don’t like the way there are so many members of the Taliban here. It’s not a good sign.”
“How can you tell?”
“They’re the ones with the biggest guns,” he replied with a sardonic twist to his lips before he shrugged. “It’s a gut feeling. You spend time somewhere and you start to notice small things. But, really, they could be anywhere and everywhere. We have to be vigilant.”
“You don’t know if the military is here?”
“They still could be, but they don’t have a grip on the city. It’s dangerous for us to be walking around. We look like foreigners. There’s no way to properly disguise it.”
“So what do we do?”
“Give me a moment while I work it out.” His forehead may have been creased with worry lines, but he still managed to offer me a cheeky smile.
He was, by far, the most unpredictable and unreadable man I’d ever known. Here we were, in a country we were at war with, and he was still trying to play it cool. I guessed it must have been all that military training. Perhaps they’d prepared him for scenarios like this one.
I hoped so, anyway.
He thought about it for a while, his eyes constantly flicking between me and the door. The stuffiness of the café and the noise from those enjoying their morning stop made every minute pass at a crawling pace. I silently willed Derrick to hurry up and make a plan so we could keep moving again. Anything was better than just sitting still.
“We stick to the backstreets and keep going,” Derrick finally said. “Every moment we spend here is dangerous. The sooner we leave, the better. It’s not going to be any safer if we dawdle.”
“I’m ready to roll when you are.”
He gave one nod, as if that made everything final, and then we left the café. I gulped in the fresh air once outside, filling my lungs to get rid of the smoke and heat.
Derrick took our course off the main street, just like he said. We zigzagged through alleyways and crisscrossed streets. Our feet never stopped moving, hopefully taking us closer and closer to safety.
When we came across some food markets, Derrick stole us something to eat. They were sweet buns with some kind of sticky cream in the middle. It was delicious in my otherwise empty stomach.
He stole a few more food items for later, being quite adept at it. I wondered if that was also part of his military training, but somehow I didn’t think it was.
Maybe there was nothing Derrick couldn’t do. Besides being a nice human being, anyway.
We walked all day through the heat and danger until we reached the outskirts of the city where Derrick thought the US military base would be. It wouldn’t be an elaborate setup like where we had first stayed, but just a few tanks were enough to offer us safety.
“There they are,” Derrick said, pointing to a beige mound in the distance. If I squinted I could just make out two trucks in the military camouflage colors.
My
heart leaped into my throat at the thought of being rescued. I hadn’t realized just how scared I was until it was almost all over. The relief was palpable, just sitting on the brink and waiting to reach the trucks so I could truly feel it.
“We need to be careful when we approach,” Derrick warned. “They won’t automatically know who we are or that we’re US citizens. Don’t say or do anything without my permission.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I mean it, Ariana. This is just as dangerous as approaching the enemy.”
“I know, I got it.” He really didn’t have any sense of humor anymore. He obviously couldn’t tell when my nerves were getting the best of me.
We started the slow approach toward the trucks, careful to hold our hands out in the open so they could see we were unarmed. All I could hear was the rush of my pulse as it raced through my body.
With just thirty feet to go, I wanted to run to safety, but I remained behind Derrick as he ordered me to. We would be safe soon enough, I had to keep reminding myself.
The US military would take us back to a safe base. They would arrange for our transport, make sure I was sent home in one piece. I may have set out on an adventure to tell the stories of the people of Afghanistan, but all I wanted to do now was go home. I’d had enough adventures for a while. I yearned for the safety and security of home.
Not that I would ever tell Derrick that.
As far as he was concerned, I was still the disgruntled reporter trying to do my job without the interference of the military. He didn’t need to know how my eyes had been opened over the past few days.
Without warning, a huge explosion kicked up dust, and everything else in proximity to it, right in front of us. Derrick quickly turned and grabbed me, falling to the ground as the shock waves burst out from the explosion.
He covered me with his body as the heat and debris started to rain down on us. My ears rang. I couldn’t hear a thing anymore. It was like someone had put cotton balls in my ears, and everything was happening around me – not to me.
I focused on my breathing so I didn’t freak out. I could do that later; right now there was a bomb that had gone off so close I could feel its power.
When the debris started to subside, Derrick raised his head and took a look. His expression told me everything I needed to know. Still, I hated hearing the truth. “They’ve blown up the base. We need to get out of here.”
Without another moment of hesitation, Derrick rose and pulled me up with him. My legs were shaking as he forced me to move. If it hadn’t been for his firm grip on my arm, I would have been frozen in place.
The trucks were completely gone, lying around the streets in a billion pieces. There was nothing left of them, which meant there wasn’t anything left of those unfortunate to be inside them at the time either. People had died in just seconds.
Our people. Ordinary US citizens who had made the decision to risk their lives for our freedom and safety. A lump formed in my throat at the horror of it all. War was just wrong, no matter how you looked at it.
Derrick’s strides turned into running as people started to gather around the area. Members of the Taliban, holding their guns high in triumph, filled the streets. They were celebrating, dancing on the graves of countless soldiers.
They were little more than monsters.
Tears started to sting my eyes as I ran. Our lives were just as much at stake now as those poor soldiers’ had been. If just one of them identified us as American, they would swiftly deliver death – if we were lucky.
I stumbled over a loose rock and Derrick caught me before I hit the ground. My ankle was twisted in the process, pain shooting through it.
“Can you walk?” Derrick asked, his eyes wide open in panic.
I tried a few steps and covered my mouth to stifle the yelps of pain. I shook my head side to side – no.
Derrick didn’t hesitate. He lifted me into his arms and started running. My arms looped around his neck to hold on, but I felt safe in his grip.
He could run much faster than I could even while holding my weight. I lost track of our position as we barreled through alleys and wove in and out of streets.
In my head I could picture the explosion in slow motion. Everything had happened so quickly at the time, but now I could see everything. The bomb going off, the trucks exploding, everything being obliterated in a few seconds’ time.
Now wasn’t the time for crying, but I couldn’t hold it back any longer. Derrick was focused on getting away. He wouldn’t notice a few stray tears as they trickled down my cheeks.
Derrick finally stopped outside a building that had seen better days. He placed me on my feet. “Can you stand?”
“Yes.”
“Wait here while I look around.” He wasn’t even breathless from all the exertion. Even covered in sweat and fleeing from the enemy, he was incredibly hot. I wished I could forget about everything else and just focus on him for a while.
Derrick returned a few minutes later and picked me up again. “This building looks abandoned. We’re going to hide out here for a while.”
He took me inside. The building was little more than a shell of what had perhaps once been a warehouse. It was largely empty, with only a few crates and trash scattered around the concrete floor.
He settled me on the floor, making sure I could stand before letting go. Instantly, he inspected the building more closely, making sure it was safe for us to hide in. I waited, my legs still shaking from the whole ordeal.
Derrick finally returned, standing directly in front of me. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” His eyes slid over my body as if searching for a bloody wound.
“I’m fine,” I muttered. I tried to control the tears but a floodgate was opening. Derrick stepped closer, wrapping me in his arms and pulling me against his chest. He stroked my hair while letting me weep.
Everything from relief to grief and horror flowed out through my tears and stained his shirt. He didn’t say anything, just held on to me like he knew that was exactly what I needed.
I wanted to forget what I had seen but I couldn’t. Those images would never leave me, even if I lived to see my hundredth birthday.
When my body had stopped shaking and I couldn’t cry anymore, Derrick let me go. His hands moved to my shoulders, holding me in place while he spoke. “I’m not going to let them hurt you, Ariana. I promised you that before, and I don’t go back on my word. We’re going to get out of this shit and get back home.”
“But they’re everywhere,” I protested, remembering all those men with guns. The city was crawling with them, and those were only the ones I could see. No doubt there would be many more hiding, just waiting to take the enemy out and make an example out of them.
“We’re stronger than they are. We can do this. It doesn’t matter how many of them there are. I am going to get you to a base, and you’re going home.”
“What about you? What happens to you?” I asked. The thought of leaving him in the war zone was frightening. Surely this couldn’t be his life. Running and fighting was not a life for anyone.
Derrick hesitated before he answered, his grip firm on my shoulders so I had to listen to everything he had to tell me. “I’m a soldier, Ariana. This is what I do. I’ve been doing this for the past five years, and I’ll be doing it for as long as the Army will let me.”
“How do you do it?” Tears were brimming again, as much as I hated them. I wanted to be as strong as he needed me to be, but I was too shaken in that moment.
“I’m trained for it. This is what I signed up for. I took an oath to protect my country and people. I’m not leaving here until I know they are safe.”
He relaxed his grip on my shoulders until his hands fell away. We just stood there staring at one another, as if the city had fallen away for a while and given us some breathing space.
It was a false sense of safety, I knew that. But it was hard remembering all the evil outside the walls when looking into Derrick’s peaceful blue eyes.
“I need you to stay here for a while,” he said, shattering the silence and my moment of calm. “I’m going to find us some transport so we can get the hell out of this place.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“I don’t care, I want to stay with you.”
Derrick clenched his jaw before he replied. “You’ll slow me down, Ariana. Stay here where you can keep out of my way.”
He’d flicked the switch again and gone from the man I thought he was to the perpetual jerk he liked to believe he was. It left me feeling cold and alone, even in the heat of the desert country.