The Guardian (A Wounded Warrior Novel)

by Anna del Mar

  There, I’d said it. I’d admitted to being weak and cowardly. For the first time, I was honest with myself, with Matthias. I wasn’t brave, or fierce, or angry. I was scared. I was terrified of the blackness that dwelled inside of me, of the shadows that shrouded my existence, of the angst that had smothered joy, faith, and hope out of my life.

  “We’ve all been there,” Matthias said quietly.

  “Not you.” I sniffed. “Never you.”

  “Wrong.” I could hear him doing stuff out there, clicks and rattles, clanks and muted knocks. “You wanted to know how I lost my leg. So, I’m gonna tell you. But you’ve got to ditch that razor and pay attention, babe, ’cause I’ve never talked to anyone about this shit and I may never be able to do again. Are you with me?”

  “I’m here.” Where the hell else could I be?

  “A few years ago, we were in Syria, where, according to all accounts, we weren’t supposed to be, but we were. You know how that goes, right?”

  Oh, yeah. I knew. No American troops on the ground was the biggest lie. Special Forces carried the brunt of those lies in the most complicated theaters. Their bodies came home, often in total silence.

  “We were conducting a covert operation, embedded smack in the middle of the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa. Our mission was to take out ISIS’s finance mastermind, code name Quasim, the guy who acted as the organization’s finance minister. He was a bloody son of a bitch who dealt oil, antiquities, drugs, weapons and slaves in the global black market to finance terrorist operations. Do I have your attention, marine?”

  “Aye, aye.” He sure did. I’d been on missions like that. Not in a place as dangerous as Raqqa and never in Syria, but I knew the incredible courage that it took to go into a completely hostile territory and execute a mission that was one tiny error away from suicide.

  “My team and I hunted Quasim all over that hellhole,” Matthias said. “It was a dangerous mission. The city bristled with terrorists upped on Captagon. You know what that is, don’t you?”

  “I do.” Captagon was a powerful amphetamine, a highly addictive pill that turned users into euphoric, violent, savage, superhuman fighters. I’d been in tight spots before, but Matthias’s mission sounded like a walk through hell, possibly the hardest, riskiest infiltration I’d ever heard about.

  “We discovered Quasim’s hideout, which served as vault, weapons depot, and headquarters,” Matthias continued. “It was a schoolhouse, of course.”

  Of course.

  “We surveyed the place for three days,” he said. “We noted who came and went. Only Quasim and his men were allowed in and out. Our informants swore no civilians frequented the place and the only non-combatant we spotted was the old guy on a bike who delivered food, lots of food, every day. It was Ramadan, and he came before dawn and right after sunset. Are you listening, Jade?”

  “I’m listening.” I wiped the sweat off my brow and ran the razor flat against my lips. I was still fighting for breath, clinging to Matthias’s voice, fighting for sanity. But I was also engrossed in his tale and hanging on his every word. His voice soothed me. His story distracted me from my own misery.

  “The brass was in a hurry to take this guy out,” Matthias said. “The Pentagon was breathing down their necks. As long as ISIS had money, they would continue to expand their territory. I tried to slow the brass down. I wanted to do more surveillance. But the order came down the pipeline, directly from the top: Quasim had to be neutralized.”

  I couldn’t imagine the pressure of working a mission like that.

  “So on a cool evening, I waited for the old guy to leave after delivering the food and called in the strike.” Matthias pounded on something right outside the door. “We guided the missiles to their exact target, watched as the fireworks went up and the schoolhouse was leveled. Not a single one of the buildings around it was touched.”

  Modern warfare at its best and worst.

  “After the strike, we went in to confirm the kill and collect DNA,” Matthias said. “We did that quickly. Then I noticed there was a trapdoor in a corner and I wondered if it was an escape hatch. So I made my way down on the edges of a carbonized staircase. Everything down there had been burned to hell. Everything. Including…the hostages.”

  Oh, my God. “Hostages?”

  “Yeah, they had hostages down there all along.” Matthias paused and although I could hear the rustle of movement and the clinks and clanks of his ongoing work, I could also sense the heart-wrenching grief in his silence.

  “Matthias?” I said softly.

  The sound of his throat clearing echoed through the door. “They were women and children mostly.” His voice sounded hollow. “Innocents they’d kept locked in the basement as human shields to dissuade us from bombing the place. I walked into carnage. Tiny blackened bodies contorted in their mother’s charred arms, fused together by the fire. The fire I had unleashed on them.”

  I could only begin to imagine the horror, the grief, the shock.

  “You didn’t know.” I sniffed. “You couldn’t have known.”

  “I should’ve known. It was my goddamn job to know. I should’ve realized that the old guy brought a lot more food that was needed to feed the terrorists. If I’d taken my time and done better surveillance, I would’ve known.”

  So much anger tainting his voice. So much fury, regret, and self-loathing. I caressed the metal door, wishing it wasn’t standing between us. I wanted to hold Matthias in my arms and kiss away his pain.

  “Later,” he said, his voice strained, “I found out our intelligence allies and informants had known about the hostages. They didn’t tell us because taking Quasim out was more important to them than saving a bunch of lowly slaves bound for the black market. Who the hell wants to fight a war with allies like that?”

  Who the hell indeed? I was incensed. Anger boiled in my veins just thinking about the loss of innocent lives and the agony that someone else’s cruel decision had caused Matthias.

  “I killed those people.” His voice was a somber rumble of grief. “It was my command that brought about the end of their lives. I knew that as I roamed the cemetery that the basement had become.”

  “You didn’t know.” I wiped the hot tears sliding down my cheek. In the darkness, I squeezed the razor blade between my fingers one last time before I tucked it away. Pain like his trumped desperation like mine. If he’d made it through that, then I could make it through this.

  “Are you listening, Jade?”

  “I’m listening, Matthias.” With all my being.

  “I knew I’d have to pay,” he said. “For the rest of my life. And then, another clusterfuck. A booby trap had survived the bombing down in the basement. And me? I was careless. I stepped on it like a goddamn idiot.”

  He hadn’t been careless. He hadn’t been an idiot either. He’d been in shock, shattered, devastated. He’d let down his defenses and in that instant, the terror of a cruel, treacherous war had reached out and claimed him for good.

  That’s why he took care of the orphanage and all those children. That’s why he’d built a schoolhouse, to pay for the one he’d destroyed, many times over. That’s why he cared about each human life under his watch so much and why he stood for innocents everywhere, whether at the village or at the station, beast or humans. His work as game warden and intelligence operative was not a professional adventure. It was his way to atone for his mistake, his only possible chance at redemption.

  “You have to forgive yourself,” I said between parched lips. “You have to give your own life a go. You deserve happiness too, you know.”

  “Never really thought about that much,” he mumbled. “Until you stepped out of that goddamn airplane and challenged me just by existing.”

  Me? “Come again?”

  “From the first moment I saw you, you defied me, opposed me, challenged me. It’s like you woke me up, shook me out of the rut, and grabbed me by the throat all at the same time. You cut right through my corpse, grabbed my putrid
heart, squeezed it and made it pump again, hard, every time I saw you.”

  Jesus. That’s how he felt to me, like resurrection.

  “I told myself that it couldn’t be,” Matthias said. “Just looking at you makes me happy. And I don’t deserve to be happy. I don’t deserve you. That’s why I told you that we couldn’t be. I had a job to do and reaching for you risked my mission. But next thing I knew, I couldn’t imagine living without you.”

  At last, I understood the forces that carved Matthias Hawking. His reactions. His reluctance. His devotions. He’d stayed away from me, not only to protect his cover, but because he didn’t feel worthy of happiness. And that last bit I got completely. Because I felt the same exact way.

  29

  Matthias

  I blinked off the watery film blurring my eyesight and taped the det cord to the small wooden lath I’d put together in the last few minutes. Pay attention, Matthias. I blocked the memories and repressed the grief interfering with my mission. No breacher worth his ass would treat the materials laid before me with anything less than absolute and total respect. No trained operator I knew would want to linger when the breaching components included C-4, a blasting cap, and a hot det cord.

  I’d gotten specialized training on explosive breaches on active duty. I always carried a pre-packaged military-grade M37 C-4 satchel in my go bag. It was a matter of readiness. But I had to take some time to calculate and re-calculate explosive power, especially in such tight quarters. Then I had to cut back on the C-4 and repackage it for a concentrated blast. I’d spent the last twenty minutes improvising a smaller satchel, one capable of destroying the metal door’s locking mechanism without blowing Jade to pieces.

  I finished taping the lath to the little door and looked at my watch. I’d fallen behind on the mission schedule. I had to move fast, because Kumbuyo would be back any time now.

  I wrapped my knuckles against the metal. “Heads up, babe. No more waiting. Listen carefully. I want you to get as far back away from the door as you can. I want you to curl up, with your back to the door and protect the back of your head with your arms. Are we clear?”

  “Yes.”

  The tremor in Jade’s faint voice got my gut churning all over again. The desperation in her tone about killed me. It was gut-wrenching to hear my fierce, strong woman forcefully reduced to a state of misery.

  “Go do that,” I ordered. “Move it, marine.”

  I waited a few seconds then knocked on the door again. “Are we green?”

  “Green,” she called out, her voice muffled and distant.

  “Cover your ears.”

  I backed away to the opposite side of the hut, turned the table on its side, and took shelter behind it. “Fire in the hole!” Pulse fast, breathing barely controlled, I pressed my thumb on the detonator.

  The blast of the explosion hit me a second before my ears popped and the bang shook the little hut. The table rattled. My body absorbed the detonation. The explosion’s small size combined with the underground setting provided some protection against immediate detection, but there were no guarantees. I glanced over the table and found the metal door hanging limply from its torn hinges.

  “Jade?” I grappled for the flashlight at my belt and dashed to the wall, suddenly terrified I’d blown off not only the door, but Jade herself to oblivion. “Jade!”

  The single beam of light barely penetrated the dark, dank space. It looked like a burial chamber in there. For a few moments, I couldn’t see anything through the swirling dust obscuring my view. Then I spotted her, huddled against the far wall. She wasn’t moving.

  “Jade, can you hear me?” Ears ringing, heart battering my sternum, I reached in, grappled for her leg, and managed to get a hold of her foot. “Come on, babe, talk to me.”

  “Matthias?”

  The breath I’d been holding rushed out of my lungs. She was alive. I would’ve whooped if I’d had a voice. I dragged her out of that hellhole, feet first. She lay listless on the red dirt, looking frail, dazzled, and disoriented. I went to my knees, cased her face with my hands and studied her. Dirt smeared her face and tears streaked her cheeks. Her lips were dried and peeling. Her eyes were slatted and wincing against the light. But she was alive and conscious. Thank you, God.

  “Are you hurt?” I said, checking her vitals. Her pupils were reactive, her pulse was fast and her breathing came shallow but steady. I ran my hands over her body, probing and assessing even as I rejoiced from the contact with a living, breathing Jade. A number of dark bruises marred her torso. Ligature marks encircled her wrists, leaving deep scratches on her skin. Her knuckles were swollen and her fingers were cut and bleeding. The sight of her battered like that made me bristle with rage. I wanted to pummel something or someone, preferably Kumbuyo.

  “Are you hurting anywhere in particular?” I asked.

  “I’m okay,” she croaked, followed by a dry swallow. “He knocked me around a little, but he didn’t have time to follow through with his threats.”

  I’d warned him not to touch her. He hadn’t listened. His fate was sealed.

  “Can you sit up?”

  She nodded and I helped her up and braced her against my chest.

  “Drink.” I put my Camelbak hose to her lips.

  She sucked the water greedily and at last, her eyes began to gain some luster.

  “Babe, you scared the shit out of me.” I kissed the top of her head, inhaling the scent of her, sweat, tears and loam. “Don’t ever do that again. Okay? Don’t ever think that a quick out is the solution.”

  She shifted in my arms, threw her arms around my neck and hugged me hard. She pressed her face against my chest. Her body wracked with a sob and the scalding heat of her tears filtered through my shirt. Jade was crying. Damnit. It was enough to make me wanna cry too.

  “You’re gonna be fine,” I murmured, running my fingers through her hair, a soft caress that soothed me as much as it was intended to soothe her. “Here. Drink some more.”

  “I’m sorry,” she sniffed, between sips. “I’m so sorry you had to live through that.”

  “Me?” I stared at her, surprised. She had been abducted, beaten, imprisoned and forced to relieve her worst nightmares and yet her tears were for me, not for herself.

  “What you went through, it hurts me, here.” She settled a grunge-smeared hand on her chest, gaze probing my face as if she could feel my grief in her heart, as if she shared with me the heavy load I carried on my soul. “I know you. I know how much what happened hurt you and I don’t mean just physically.”

  I swallowed a painful gulp and wrestled for control before I took her hand and kissed her bruised fingers. “We all have scars. We have to learn to live with them.”

  “And you did, Matthias.” Her eyes sparkled. “You did.”

  A massive surge of emotion clogged my throat, some good, some bad, all overwhelming. But it had to be suppressed. I needed to get Jade out of here. Now.

  I grabbed a pack of fast-acting electrolyte tablets, ripped it open and fed Jade the tablets. I found some Ibuprofen in my first aid kit and gave her those as well in a bid to get her back on her feet. I grabbed a pitcher of water I found by an old tattered basin, and tipped it over. “Let’s clean you up a little.”

  She put her hands under the flow and washed the blood off her skin. She rinsed her face and dunked her head under the flow. Her face relaxed under the stream. The lines etched on her forehead disappeared, as if the water could erase at least some of her suffering. She allowed the water to run down her neck and over her chest, seemingly relishing the chance to cool down. When the pitcher ran out, she pushed her wet hair way from her face and met my eyes, looking refreshed and restored, more like the Jade I’d come to know.

  “I’m sorry I let them take you away,” she said. “I couldn’t think of any other way to keep you safe.”

  “You’re alive, the rest is peripheral.” There would be time for talking later. “You and I? We’ve got to learn, Jade. We’ve got t
o work together. When we go against each other, we lose. Together, we are powerful.”

  Eyes liquid, she smiled up at me. We were in a hurry, but there was no force in the world that could prevent me from going for her glistening lips. I swooped down on her and seized her mouth, carefully at first, probing softly with my tongue, needing a thorough taste of Jade to convince myself that she was well, alive and mine.

  She surged up and deepened our kiss, stoking my passion with hers, intensifying the contact, bringing joy to every part of me. I sank my fingers in her hair, savoring her mouth’s crisp, moist pleasure. My body celebrated our reunion, rejoiced at the feel of her tongue and hardened as she softened in my arms. She’d been taken from me, but I’d found her. And with that single kiss, I reclaimed her.

  Gorging on her familiar flavors, I realized how desperately I’d been craving her, in my arms, in my life. I’d known her for only a few weeks and yet she’d become essential to me, the oxygen that powered my breaths.

  The kiss wiped away the fears that had tormented me as I tracked Jade down and found my way into the camp, the anguish that had tortured me since I’d learned she’d been taken. But she wasn’t safe yet. At the thought of her being hurt again, I forced myself to break off the kiss and reverted to my mission mindset.

  “I know it’s too soon,” I rasped, inhaling her breath, locking her scent in my lungs. “But we’ve got to move. Okay?” I forced myself into rational mode. “I doubt anybody heard the explosion so far underground and I neutralized Kumbuyo’s personal guards on my way in, but there are a lot of tangos around here and sooner or later, someone’s bound to take a look.”

  She trailed her fingers over my bristled jaw, eyes saying all the things I wanted to hear from her in express form. Then she gave her head a little nod and pushed herself off the ground. “Let’s go.”

  Her knees buckled as I helped her to her feet. She turned her head and stared at the gaping hole on the wall. Her body shivered in a way that reminded me how she’d been brutalized. We’d have to deal with the trauma later. And my revenge.