by Gemma Hart
I gave him an odd look. Where had he suddenly come from? There seemed to be an urgency in his body but his voice and facial expression were calm and collected.
“Alright,” I said slowly. I was about to usher the little girl along when suddenly I felt a small hand grab my own.
I looked down and saw the little girl pulling me along towards the official who was waving at us, his expression worried and urgent.
“What’s going—” I started again, turning around to Cooper but he put an arm around my shoulder and pulled me close to him, preventing me from turning my head around to look behind him.
“The little girl might also need some attention,” he continued, as if picking up a normal conversation. “You might want to give her a check up in the office as well.”
And before I could say anything more, the little girl dragged me into the office where the official said something as he quickly pulled us in, shutting the door behind us and barring it.
I turned around just in time to see a gang of five men, armed and heading straight towards Cooper. But it wasn’t the men or the guns they were ostentatiously carrying on their hips that caught my eye. It was that look of cold, steel confidence in skill and strength that permeated Cooper’s face as he turned around.
Gone was his normal, teasing smile. And in its place was an icy restraint that said, I dare you to make a fucking move. I fucking dare you.
Then the door shut.
Chapter Eight
Cooper
I stood by the door, asking the official if any of the town’s militia were still around. We could use as many extra hands as possible if we were going to help the medical team set up another station in the city.
“I’m sorry,” the official said regretfully, his gray brows knitting together in sorrow. “Any man young enough to fight left months ago. They felt the city was sinking and didn’t want to stay to drown.”
I put a hand on the old man’s thin shoulder. “It’s not sinking,” I said gently but firmly. “You and I will help it float.”
The man smiled softly and continued to throw options on how the logistics might work in gathering people to receive medical attention.
I was listening when suddenly a gust of wind rushed past me. I looked up through the door and saw Emilia running full sprint out into the street.
“No!” she shouted. “No, no! Don’t put that in your mouth!”
I took a step towards the door. “Hey! What are you doing!”
But before I could run out and grab her and read her the literal dictionary definition on ‘protocol,’ I saw her stop in front of a little girl who looked like she had some piece of trash in her hand.
I watched as Emilia plucked it out of the girl’s hand and shake her head. I couldn’t hear what she was saying but I felt a reluctant grin cross my face as I watched her try her best to lecture the girl through their language barrier.
This woman was something else. She was smart and capable. But that was obvious. She was a doctor. There was no way she could’ve made it this far as a doctor if she wasn’t smart and capable.
She was more than that. She was compassionate. She was sharp. She was brave.
I still remembered how she had bluntly told me she had called me in L.A. Her eyes had looked directly into mine, with no girlish coyness. The moonlight had thrown shadows across her long lashes.
And it made my throat clench to toss her words back to her but I knew what had to be done.
When I had met her in L.A., I had literally come back from Honduras where I had just finished a job dismantling a small but critical cog of a large drug cartel that the US military was keeping an eye on.
By the time Easy Team had walked away from the mission, ten cartel men were dead and two of my men were injured. The first shower I had after the mission, I had painted the shower floor red with the blood I had spilled.
How could I bring a woman whose job was to save lives into a relationship with a man whose job was to end them?
No, if I had any decent bones left in my body, I would protect Emilia from me the best I could.
“What a good woman,” the official said, standing next to me and watching as Emilia was pressing what looked to be a granola bar into the little girl’s hand. “She clearly loves children.”
“Yes, she—” I stopped.
I could feel the official jerk next to me. He had seen them too.
From around the corner of a distant building were five men approaching with a confidence and aggression that said they were not from the city. They were one of the gangs that had begun infesting the city once the refugee crisis hit.
They walked with an aggressive swagger and made a show to display their weapons on their belts. They were normally poorly trained and poorly educated shits who just enjoyed having some semblance of power. But those were exactly the reasons why they were such a menace. They caused terror and destruction without any thought or restraint.
“I’ll bring them in,” I said lowly, not tearing my eyes off of Emilia for a second. She was still oblivious as she tried to teach the girl about nutrition. “You keep the door bolted and wait for my signal.”
The official nodded. “Yes,” he rasped nervously. His office walls were riddled in bullet holes from the many gangs that had used terror as their tactic to push all the government officials out of town. And many had succumbed.
The men crossed the corner. I saw the leader of the group suddenly perk up as he caught sight of Emilia. Even from here, I could see the look of crude lust on his face.
I stepped out and quickly reached Emilia and the little girl and stood in front of them, blocking their view of the street. I didn’t want to alarm the little girl and I didn’t want to frighten Emilia.
But as I looked down, I saw the little girl already giving me a serious look. Who was I fooling? This little girl had probably lived through more trauma in her short years than most grown adults would ever see.
“I want you to take the doctor inside,” I saw calmly to the little girl in Qunari. “You’ll be safe there. I’ll let you know when to come out.”
She didn’t need to ask questions. She knew danger when it was present. She nodded solemnly and took Emilia’s hand.
“What did you—?” Emilia started, looking confused by the little girl’s gesture and my sudden foreign words.
“Why don't you take her inside? The official says that he has some tea and biscuits for her,” I said, gently but firmly pressing her towards the official’s office. I could see the confusion in her eyes. There were a million questions she wanted to ask me. But I pushed her on ahead, wanting to make sure she was safely out of the way in case bullets flew.
I kept myself placed directly in her line of view so she wouldn’t see the gang fast approaching.
Once I saw the girls cross the doorway, my entire body tightened in readiness. This was something my body was familiar with. Ready for.
Combat.
I turned around just as the gang approached our little corner of the street.
They eyed me suspiciously, seeing my military outfit. I had no rifle but I had my gun holstered on my hip. The men narrowed their eyes at me when they saw my hands were down by my sides, not tensed around my gun, one foot toeing a sizeable rock on the ground.
“Good afternoon,” I said calmly in Qunari.
This caught them by surprise. “Since when did American soldiers speak Qunari?” the man in the middle said.
“Who said I was an American soldier?” I countered.
The man scoffed and quirked a brow at me. “Did you find your clothes by accident in a dumpster then?”
The other men laughed.
“What can I help you with today?” I said, ignoring the jibe. I noticed only two of the five actually had guns. The others carried various sized knives. Guns were a commodity here and hard to get a hold of. It was surprising that a small gang could even afford more than one gun.
The man in the middle crossed his arms. “I s
aw that you took away some pretty birds I had my eyes on. That’s quite selfish of you when you know the town is short on women.”
I snorted then gave the man a disgusted look. He was very serious when he meant he had interest in both the little girl and Emilia. All of Easy Team had heard the countless stories of child rape and abuse since the gangs had come in to town. “I don’t think the ladies were interested in talking with you,” I said.
The men grumbled in offense at my words.
The man in the middle narrowed his eyes at me. “A mind reader, huh?” he snarled. “Well can you predict what I’m about to do next?”
Why yes, I can. I had seen what he would do before he had come around the corner.
I saw him reach for his gun.
Immediately, I kicked the rock by foot, sending it spinning towards his head. It made direct contact with his forehead, knocking him backwards into the arms of the man behind him.
“Garg!” he cried out, clutching his bleeding head.
The others stood by stunned for a moment before regaining their senses, descending on me like locust.
But they were amateur, unorganized locust. They attacked with anger rather than calculation.
My fist made perfect impact with one man’s ribs as my foot swiped across another man’s knees, neatly felling him.
The man with the second gun pulled it out just as I wrapped my arm around his, swinging his arm behind his back. He cried out as I pulled the arm out higher, his shoulder aching as it was about to dislocate.
He dropped the gun which I kicked far out of the way.
A man to my left cried out loudly as he revved himself up to charge me. But before he even took one step, I neatly kneed him in the gut, making his roar immediately shrink to a whimper.
In less than five minutes, I was standing on the sidewalk, surrounded by groaning men, clutching various parts of their bodies in pain.
“I’m…not finished,” the leader wheezed as he pulled himself up to his feet.
“Good,” I said, my fists ready. “I’m not either.”
But before anyone could make a move, there was a static-y screech as a radio on the leader’s belt came into signal.
“Come to base now,” a voice said in Qunari.
The leader brought the radio to his mouth. “Sir, there’s a man here whose been causing some troub—”
“What did I just say?” the voice demanded angrily. “There’s an order I need you to take care of. Get over here now!”
The leader’s lips tightened in frustration but he obeyed his commander’s orders. “Yes, sir.”
Before the signal went dead, I heard the voice mumble, “Fucking dipshits.”
The men all limped to their feet. “This isn’t over,” the leader said as they headed back down the street. “I see you again and you’re dead!”
I said nothing as they disappeared, too shocked.
I had thought the voice on the radio had been a Qunari man. He spoke Qunari with a perfect accent.
But the last two words….
Before the medical team had arrived, Easy Team were the only Americans in probably a 100 hundred mile radius. We were the only ones that spoke English which made it necessary for us to pick up some Qunari.
Then the medical team arrived.
But that still meant that all the English speakers in this region were located on our base camp. I could count the number of people. I knew all of the people who spoke English.
But those last two words….
The last two words had been spoken by an unknown voice in perfect, absolutely idiomatic English.
American English.
Chapter Nine
Emilia
“Oh man, do you think this is what heaven is like?” Tammy sighed, leaning her head on her elbows as she sat forward in her fold out chair.
Margie was slowly fanning herself with a paper fan as she leaned back in her chair with a dreamy expression on her face. “If it isn’t, I’m going to be very, very disappointed,” she said.
Tammy and I made noises of agreement as we three all sighed and looked out at the vision of glory that was before us.
It turned out that sitting in front of the medical tent on base was the perfect location to look directly towards Easy Team’s makeshift PT area. And as we more quickly discovered, it was the best spot in the house to see a dozen men, half naked, gleaming with sweat as they worked out.
We sighed again in appreciation as we watched the men fall down to the ground to do a series of push ups. Each of them were built like statues. They all had hard, sculpted muscles and broad bodies that spoke of incredible strength. But they were also striped with scars, speaking of their experience in needing to use that incredible strength.
The first day we had discovered this miraculous gift from god was when Tammy had run into our barracks one morning, mouth still foamy with toothpaste, as she squealed, “You have to come out and see this!”
And there we three all stood, our morning washing towels clutched in our hands as we admired the bodies of these gleaming soldiers.
Doc Jones had passed by and sniffed in distaste and what I imagined was a little bit of jealousy. “You’d think you girls had never seen a man before,” he said.
“Not a man like that,” Margie had replied, her eyes glued on the men as they ran past us, all keeping pace together like a well oiled machine.
Doc Jones had given the passing men a flitting glance before sniffing again and walking off, muttering to himself about missing the sanity of the civilized world.
“They’re all gorgeous but…different,” Tammy observed, scooting so close to the edge of her chair she was in danger of falling off. “Like, I can see why they call him Bear.” She giggled, her cheeks flushing from more than just the morning heat.
I grinned but nodded in agreement.
They were all extremely fit but their bodies were differently shaped. Bear was big. Big in every way. He was extremely tall, possibly over six and a half feet. He was incredibly broadly built. The other men had more defined muscles but Bear’s was all in his structure. Perhaps his abs weren’t as cut as the other men but his torso was twice their size so you had no doubt of his strength.
Next to Bear was Tweety. I couldn’t help but snort a little at the call signs these men had. I’d love to spend an evening hearing about how they had gotten the monikers. Tweety was tall but wiry. He had a slim build that was all muscle. Not an ounce of fat on him. He looked like he could easily slip between the cracks in the wall but we had seen him one morning shadowboxing and his jabs were lightening fast. The man moved like a bolt of thunder.
The men got up from their push ups and dusted themselves off. We all gave a collective sigh as we got a good view of their sweat slicked bodies glinting in the sunlight.
I was about to comment on how amazing it was that they were able to exercise like this in this heat when my view was suddenly blocked. Instead of a dozen gorgeously chiseled men, I saw only one set of chiseled abs directly in front of me.
There was a trail of brown hairs going straight from the belly button down past his belt buckle. I swallowed thinking just where that trail led. I slowly raised my eyes over the ridged abs and the hard, defined pecs till finally I saw a pair of dark eyes looking down at me with slightly amused annoyance.
“Enjoying the show, are we?” Cooper asked, a brow cocked.
“So much, Captain,” Margie answered enthusiastically for me.
I nodded. “So much,” I said, smiling unrepentantly.
This only seemed to annoy Cooper more. He sniffed. “Didn’t you notice that someone was missing in the morning PT today?”
I had noticed. That had been the first thing I had noticed. Cooper was by far the best built man out there. Tall, proportional, sculpted like a Greek god—there was no way I could watch him work out without my face turning a brick red.
And this morning he had been absent. In fact, Bear had come in only half way through the work out as we
ll.
I tried to push Cooper’s legs aside so I could regain my view of the men. “Well, there’s a dozen more there anyway,” I said teasingly. “Still a good show.”
Cooper’s legs stayed grounded like they were made of iron girders, blocking my view.
“How can a show be a show without its star player?” he asked, deliberately crossing his arms across his chest, making the muscles of his arms bulge further.
I swallowed but adamantly refused to be flustered.
His face looked confident as he looked down at me.
“Well,” I started innocently, “we missed him but Bear did finally come halfway through so….”
“Oh, you little wise ass,” he huffed in mock annoyance as he knuckled my head.
Tammy and Margie laughed and I giggled as I tried to fight him off but Cooper grabbed me around the shoulders and was giving the top of my head a good rapping.
“Fine! Fine!” I gasped, breathless with the struggle and the closeness of being near his half dressed body. “You’re pretty okay too.”
Cooper released me.
“‘Pretty okay?’” he repeated dryly. “My, what a way with words you have, Dr. Lyon.”
Before I could make a retort, Tammy piped up, “Captain, what’s your call sign? We’ve learned the other men’s. What’s yours?”
“Hawk,” he replied.
Tammy furrowed her brows. “Is that just a shortening of your name, Hawking?” she asked, clearly a little disappointed the name wasn’t something more unique or funny sounding.
Cooper gave a little shrug. “More or less,” he said with a small smile.
I looked up at him.
Hawk.
That suited him. Whether it had come from his last name or not, the call sign perfectly captured the man before me. Careful but powerful, sleek but strong, and when it was necessary, ruthless as hell.
Hawk.
No, the men knew. The members of Easy Team knew that their Captain was no ordinary man. He was one who flew above them, watching them, leading them, protecting them.
