by Jade Alters
“You okay?” Titan was there, alone, parked in the same spot he'd been when I left the room earlier. He had his flashlight still burning so I could see his face...and his beard. It was longer now, touching the front of his shirt. I was sure that it hadn't been that long before.
“Wolves,” I said. “Can you hear them?”
He nodded. “Yeah, but you don't need to be afraid.”
“There are holes in the walls and that last one sounded awfully close. What if they're hungry?”
“Wolves don't often attack humans, as long as the humans leave them alone, they do the same.”
I wasn't sure that I believed him. I went over and sat down across from him and looked at that beard again. I had to ask. “Why does your beard grow so fast? All of you. All of your beards have grown just since this afternoon.” So far, Titan's face hadn't shown much emotion, but the question about his beard made him frown. The line between his eyes deepened and his amber colored eyes looked off to the side before looking back at my face and saying,
“Just a lot of testosterone, I guess.”
I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Bullshit. Why doesn't anyone want to tell me the truth about anything? Earlier today, I saw Clay's eyes change colors, and his teeth grew...right in front of me. I've been looking at the four of you all day, and I can visibly see that your beards are longer, and thicker. I'm not crazy.”
Titan looked at me softly and said, “I don't think you're crazy.”
“Then please tell me the truth. Testosterone doesn't make a man's beard grow down to his chest in a matter of hours, and what was the deal with Clay's eyes?”
“I'm sorry Courtney. There are some things I just can't talk about.”
“Who are we running from?”
“Not sure, maybe Taliban.”
“Bull shit. The war is over. American's are here to rebuild and help keep the peace. I'm a reporter, I'm not stupid.”
“I don't think you're stupid.”
“Obviously you think I'm both crazy and stupid. You give me answers to my questions that you'd give a five-year-old.” I could feel my blood pressure rising and my body heating up with anger. Titan continued to sit calmly, listening to me rant. I was about to go on when another howl ripped through me. It sounded even closer, like if I closed my eyes and held out my hand, I could touch it, or get it bitten off. I looked at Titan. He still looked calm...but his eyes were different somehow. I couldn't put my finger on it, but they suddenly looked brighter in the darkened room. “I know you heard that one.”
“I heard it.” I waited for him to say something else, or get up and go outside with one of those guns of his and look for it. When he still didn't move, I was afraid I might get angry enough to bring my own teeth and claws out, so I spun on my heel and stormed back into the pitch-black room. I climbed into my sleeping bag once more and pulled it up over my head. Maybe if I went to sleep, when I woke up in the morning...if I woke up, I'd find out this was all a ridiculously bad dream. It was probably brought on by the horrible packaged thing I'd eaten for breakfast that had been marked “eggs and potatoes.” If nothing else, my dreams couldn't possibly be any worse than my current reality. I closed my eyes and prayed for sleep to come.
Part II
The light touch on my arm startled me awake. I saw the glow of Clay's green eyes first before my own eyes adjusted and the rest of his face came into focus. “I'm sorry to wake you, but we need to get moving before the sun comes up.” Something about him was different. I couldn't put my finger on what it was at first. Finally, I decided it was the helmet that he normally wore. It was gone and for the first time I could see the hair on his head. He had dark blonde hair and it was cut short, military style.
Slightly disoriented and oddly...aroused? I nodded my head and wiggled out of the sleeping bag as Clay watched, with as much lust in his eyes as I was feeling in my body. I wondered how it was possible for either of us to think of sex at a time like this. My hair was crusty from all I'd been through the day before. My mouth felt like I'd been grazing out in the field and chewing my cud. I could only imagine what I must look like. It made me lose a little bit of respect for him that he'd find me even the least bit attractive in my current state. As I rose slowly to my feet, Clay once again made me feel like his thoughts were much too attuned to mine. I only hoped he couldn't actually read my mind.
“There's a stream a couple miles up the mountain from here. The water is cold as hell, but if you want to, we'll stop long enough for you to clean up?” That was when I realized the other thing about him that was different. His beard had been long enough to touch his chest the last time I'd seen him the night before. But since then it had been trimmed. It wasn't even hanging below his chin now. He saw me staring at it and said, “Titan had a pair of scissors in all that stuff he grabbed. We took turns cleaning up in the stream and used the scissors to trim up our faces so we didn't look and smell like cave men.” He smiled at me when he said that and his sexy grin made me forget, or at least forego all the questions I had about them.
I picked up the sleeping bag and rolled it up against my chest and then said, “I'm ready...and I'd kill for a bath, I don't care how cold the water is.”
He smiled at me again.
I almost wished he'd stop doing that, it set my insides on fire, and confused me. Thankfully he finally turned away and I followed him into the other room. The other three men were there, looking as clean, and freshly groomed as Clay.
“MRE?” Titan said. I chuckled and held the sleeping bag out to him.
“Thanks, but not really a breakfast person.”
“We ready?” Manny asked. I looked at him, wondering if he was still annoyed with me. His hazel eyes moved to my face as soon as I did, as if he sensed me looking at him. He didn't smile, but he wasn't scowling either. When he wasn't being an asshole, Manny was almost as hot as Clay. His skin was a dark olive color and his hazel eyes were pale brown with flecks of green in them that seemed to float inside the irises. His hair, or at least his beard which was all I could see, was jet black. I thought he might look like a movie star if he ever smiled. An exotic bad boy type. It was only when I realized that his pupils seemed to be enlarging that I realized I'd been staring at him too long...and I thanked God that none of them could read my mind. What was wrong with me? Maybe Titan had been right the night before, and the men were blessed...or cursed...with too much testosterone, and my own body was reacting to that. I cleared my throat and Manny finally turned away. He began moving out the door of the hut and the rest of us followed him. Once we were outside, we fell into the same formation hat we'd been in the night before. Manny led the way, Clay and Will flanked me as I followed him and Titan brought up the rear. I pulled the smelly camouflage coat I still wore, tighter up around me as we walked. The air was crisp and easier to breathe than I knew it would be later in the day as soon as it became soupy with heat and dust...but it was cold. My face stung and my fingers ached by the time I heard the sounds of the stream. The sun was inching its way up over the top of the mountain and there was just enough light to bounce off the top of the glass surface of the water.
“It's beautiful.”
Will laughed. “Yeah, in the moonlight. During the day, not so much. It feeds into the Kabul River which is really nice. There's this restaurant there...”
“I don't think we need to conjure up images of real food right about now,” Clay said. Will wrinkled his nose and nodded. My stomach growled just at the mention of it. “We'll stand guard,” Clay told me. “Titan has gear for you.”
“Gear?”
Titan was digging in the huge backpack. Eventually he produced a pair of camouflage pants and t-shirt. He handed them to me along with a pair of scissors, a piece of rope and what looked like a tiny bar of soap. I had never been so happy to see anything in my life. “Sorry, you'll have to cut about a foot off those pants and that t-shirt is going to fit you like a tent,” he said.
“Don't be sorry,” I said. “I'd wear a tent
just to be out of these filthy clothes.”
He smiled. “I don't have a towel either.”
“I'll make do,” I said, “Thank you.”
“You should get to it,” Manny said. “We need to keep moving.”
I didn't look at him. Instead, I smiled at Titan as I took the things from his hands and thanked him again. I headed toward the creek and the men, dutiful soldiers that they were, turned their backs, but stood within hearing range in case I needed them. I bent down and dipped my fingers in the creek, almost startling at just how cold the water was. I was surprised that it was still running and not frozen solid and for the first time I had second thoughts about getting into it. But I had to. The thought of walking all day once it warmed up in my dirt and blood-stained clothes was even less appealing. Taking a deep breath and drawing on all the resolve in my body, I began to strip off my clothes. The air was still cool and I had goosebumps before I even touched the water...and when I did lower myself into it, I had to bite down on my bottom lip to keep from screaming. My limbs went numb almost instantly and as I closed my eyes and forced my head down under the water, it went just as numb.
I used the tiny bar of soap on my hair and reluctantly dunked my head once more to rinse it out. I soaped my body just as quickly and rinsed it off, and then I took the clothes I'd been wearing and soaked and scrubbed them as well as I could. Then at last I climbed out of the water into the frigid air. I was shaking all over and my teeth rattled together as I used the t-shirt I'd been wearing, turned inside out, to dry myself off as best as I could. Even dry, I was shaking so hard that getting the huge pants and shirt on my body was an arduous process. Once in the clothes I saw what Titan was referring to...I practically felt like I was draped in a tent. I had to try three times to cut a piece of the rope because my hands weren't cooperating. When I finally got it cut, I threaded it through the belt loops of the pants and cinched them up tightly. I didn't bother with cutting the length of the pants. I rolled them up instead and then slid my soiled and now damp socks back on my feet and into my boots.
“I'm decent,” I told my bodyguards as I slipped my arms back into the army jacket and then used my fingers to try and untangle my hair.
I knew I probably didn't look much better...and, I was still freezing, but there was no rival for the feeling of being clean. I bent down and ran my fingers through the underside of my hair and when I stood back up, Manny was taking off his coat. I was almost as shocked as my body had been in the cold water when he held it out to me.
“Oh no! I can't take your jacket. I'll be okay.”
“It's starting to warm up already. Once we start walking uphill, I'll be too hot in it anyways. Put it on until you warm up at least. You'll catch your death in cold and that will only slow us down.”
I almost laughed. Manny was doing something nice, but being an ass about it at the same time. I wondered if that was simply his personality. I took the jacket from his hands and as our fingers brushed against each other his eyes flashed. I gasped and my hold on the jacket slipped and it fell to the ground. “Jesus, do you want it or not?” he grumbled. I nervously picked it up and turned my back on all of them while I put it on. What was that with the eyes? I shrugged the coat on quickly and then with another shaky breath in I turned toward them and said,
“I'm ready.” Manny wasn't looking at me any longer but Clay seemed to be searching my face. I ignored him, falling into step in my spot while I racked my brain trying to figure out what caused their eyes to glow and change colors the way they did. I had never heard of humans with glowing eyes. I had read a lot of stories about vampires and werewolves and other paranormal creatures however. I read those stories for fun when I was in high school and college, when I wanted to escape reality and just lose myself in fantasy. In all of the stories it described the creature’s eyes as “glowing.” But these guys were men, not “creatures.” and vampires and werewolves didn't exist. So why then did their eyes glow, and their hair grow so quickly? I glanced to the left at the stubble on Will's face and to the right at the thick layer of dark blonde hair I could see on Clay's as the sun continued to rise. If they were vampires, they couldn't be out in the sun...or at least that's what legend said. But wolves would explain so much. I thought about the howling I heard nightly on base, and then right outside the hut the night before almost as soon as Clay, Manny and Will had left. And then I told myself that I'd been out in the desert too long. Werewolves didn't exist and I would have to be crazy to believe that they did.
Clay
“Why do I get the feeling we're not just walking?” Courtney asked. We'd been hiking for hours. The sun was up and it was hot once again, especially as we climbed closer to the sun. Courtney was looking at me, but I could see Will's face over her shoulder and I was trying not to react to the look my friend bore.
“We're just going as high as possible.”
She wasn't buying it. “And then what? I look at the four of you and I see fighters, not hiders. So, we climb to the top of this mountain and then what?” Manny stopped suddenly and Courtney nearly walked into him.
“There's a tower up there. We'll be able to use our phones to communicate. It's shelter, and there will be food and facilities.” I was glaring at him, Will and Titan were looking at him like he was crazy. Manny didn't look like he cared.
Courtney frowned. “So why all the secrecy? You've known all along where you were taking me. You've all been there before. Why didn't you just tell me that?”
The four of us looked at each other and I said, “Because we can't really explain it all to you and the more information, we give you, the more you'll want.”
“And why can't you explain it all?”
“There are just some things...we just can't, that's all.”
“Why not?” Manny asked. “Seriously. Once we get her up there she's going to see everything anyways. I'm tired of worrying that one of us is going to slip up. She sees it. She knows something is up.”
“He's right,” she said. “I have a list of things I'd like explained and it only keeps getting longer.”
I sighed and said, “Honestly, we're so used to keeping everything a secret that it's hard for us to just be straight with anyone other than each other. It's hard to know who to trust.”
“Who exactly did you think I was going to tell way out here?”
“No one,” Titan said, “Out here. But our goal is to save your life and get you home. You could ruin our lives...such as they are. Or worse yet, you could ruin your own.”
“I don't want to ruin anyone's life,” she told us, sounding sincere. “But I'm doing as much work as you are to get where we're going, and this is my life at stake here too. So, I think I deserve the truth. If I get out of here safely, whatever you don't want me to tell, I won't. I understand the classified thing. It's not new to me. My old man used to come home for months at a time sometimes and never say a word about what he did when he was away or even where he had been all this time...”
“Wait a second, your old man is military?” Manny said, a suspicious look crossing his face.
“Was military,” she said, “He's retired now.”
Manny and I looked at each other and I asked, “Retired from?”
“The Army. He retired as a Lieutenant General about a year ago.”
“Where was he stationed?”
“I don't really know.”
“How could you not know where your father was stationed?”
“I just told you, he didn't talk about it. He didn't want to drag my mother and me around with him so we lived in the San Fernando Valley in California, in the same house my entire life. He came home a couple times a year sometimes and other times he was gone for entire years at a time. When he was home he didn't talk about his job, at all. He did run the house like it was a military base and treated my mother and I like we were under his command...but I don't recall him ever mentioning where he was when he wasn't there.”
“What about correspondence, letter
s, postmarks?”
“He emailed my mother or they communicated by phone when he was able. I don't remember ever getting anything from him in the mail either. I'm sorry, but why all these questions about my father? Surely you don't think he has anything to do with this.”
“Maybe not directly,” I said. “But we have reason to believe, Courtney, that whoever killed those civilians and our teammate, left you alive for a reason. We have to consider that maybe that reason is who your father is.”
“So like...ransom?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “But maybe your father is...aware of things that go on up here, classified things.”
“Things like...?”
“Like us,” I said, crossing a bridge that would be immediately burnt behind me. But Manny was right, there was no way to take her to the tower without at least trying to explain it. I only wished I knew exactly why we were taking her there. “We are a classified operation, Courtney.”
She looked confused. “I don't understand.”
I sighed and waved my arm toward a pile of rocks not far away. “Can we sit down?” we all went over and sat down on the rocks. Will passed around the canteen and I was the first one to speak again, “It was three years ago, and the six of us were in Kabul, helping with the evacuation of refugees from the war. Our commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Grover Dayton was there with us. It was an under cover of night operation. It was supposed to be easy...in and out. We went into the house where the refugees were supposed to be...and we found them, all dead.” Courtney covered her mouth with her hand. “They'd been...slaughtered, savagely. For the next two weeks we tracked their killers in these mountains and we finally trapped them in a cave not too far from here. At least, we thought that we had them trapped. It turned out that we'd been led there on purpose. They were on a suicide mission and we didn't realize it until people started passing out from whatever was being piped into the cave. The exit was sealed and there was no way out.”
