Counter Terrorism

by Scarlett Winters

  Alpha Agency Protectors 2

  Counter Terrorism

  By:

  Scarlett Winters

  Copyright 2020 Scarlett Winters

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any way or by any means. Including but not limited to recording, photocopying, any electronic methods, without the prior written consent of the publisher. This book is strictly a work of fiction, any references to persons, places or things are all completely fictional.

  Warning: This book is for adult audiences.

  Contents

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  Chapter 1- Brittani

  Chapter 2- Brittani

  Chapter 3- Colt

  Chapter 4- Brittani

  Chapter 5- Colt

  Chapter 6- Brittani

  Chapter 7- Colt

  Chapter 8- Colt

  Chapter 9- Brittani

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  Chapter 1- Brittani

  I’ve always been a hard worker.

  Some would say that I work too hard, that I’m too intense.

  As much as I don’t want to admit it, they’re probably right. I’m sitting in a gorgeous Italian restaurant with my parents and some family friends. It’s my twenty-first birthday so I’ve got a lovely bottle of wine and expensive pasta in front of me. I’ve been wanting to visit this restaurant for awhile now but hadn’t due to how expensive it is.

  My parents never had a lot of money when I was growing up. I mean, we got by just fine but there wasn’t a whole lot of extra for luxuries. Unfortunately, college was a luxury. Even though I had skipped two grades early on and found high school to be a breeze, I didn’t quite make the cut for scholarships.

  So, I work.

  I work hard.

  This is my reward—an evening off in a nice restaurant with the people I love. There’s just one person missing.

  Colt.

  I met Colt Jennings when we were in middle school. I felt so out of place, I had just been bumped up a couple of grades and some of the older kids were teasing me about it. Colt came to my rescue. Later, he told me that he’d had the opposite problem: As early as grade school, he got hassled for seemingly not learning as fast as the other kids.

  That’s not to say Colt isn’t smart, he really is. He was just always daydreaming about going outside and playing instead of practicing spelling or counting.

  As we grew up, he never lost that love of sports or activity of any kind. That’s why it didn’t surprise when after high school, he jumped around for awhile. Colt has always been super active, almost restless at times. He came back to our hometown of Flagstaff, to my surprise. Now he works as a bouncer at a local dance club. At least, I think he does? The man jumps between jobs with a speed that makes me nervous.

  Even surrounded by family and friends in a warm, relaxed environment, I miss him. I had invited him to this dinner a couple weeks ago, but he’d declined, telling me that Saturday nights are always busy at the club. I was going to push, tell him that I’m pretty sure a family dinner party would end far before the local party people start getting rowdy, but I changed my mind. Lately, he always seems to have to work.

  Part of me is afraid that he’s just saying that… that when he turns me down, he isn’t busy after all, but just tired of spending so much time with me. I don’t want to be an annoyance to him: The mousey best friend who doesn’t know when it’s time to let go.

  The thing is, I don’t know how to let go of someone that I’m in love with.

  I don’t know when it happened, falling in love with Colt. It was kind of like I just woke up one day senior year and realized that he was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I was devastated when he told me that he’d be leaving after graduation, until he told me that he was planning to come back. He’s kept that promise: Colt may leave every few months on a security job or something of the like, but he always comes back.

  I’ll admit, I’m afraid that he’ll leave for good and find somebody wonderful, a girlfriend or a new best friend, and never talk to me again. He hasn’t yet, to my great relief. In fact, I don’t think he’s even had a girlfriend since high school. Not that those lasted very long. Now, he probably hooks up with gorgeous, leggy women in every town.

  I’m making conversation with my aunt and a cousin when I suddenly get a faint whiff of cinnamon mixed in with the heady smells of tomato and oregano. Without turning away from the table, I start to smile.

  Familiar, tattooed hands rest lightly on my shoulders, followed by a kiss to the top of my head. “Happy birthday, babe.” Colt’s hands on my shoulders send a shiver through me, but I manage to suppress them. I’ll admit it: Those fingers have had a starring role in more than one late-night fantasy.

  I’ll never tell anyone this, but I love it when Colt calls me “babe”. While I’m not sure where he picked up the habit, it makes me feel special. It also has some unintended consequences of giving people ideas about our relationship… ideas that I wish were true, but aren’t.

  “Oh who is this?” My aunt asks. “Brittani, do you finally have a boyfriend?”

  Blushing at the thought, I start to stutter my way through an explanation. I’ve never had a boyfriend—no one can measure up to Colt and the connection I feel to him. I just barely get out a “no” and am started on the “best friends” part of the spiel when my parents notice Colt’s arrival.

  They greet him with smiles, my dad patting him on the back. “Hey Colt, it’s good to see you! Britt told us that you wouldn’t be able to make it tonight.”

  “You kidding? I can’t ditch my girl on her twenty-first, now can I? Who else is going to chaperone her on that bar crawl we’ve got planned tonight?”

  I join my parents in laughing at Colt’s teasing, while my extended family looks on in some confusion. I get it, I really do. Colt and I don’t exactly look like we would be friends. He’s covered in tattoos—at least, from what I can see he is. His hands, his forearms, even his lower legs—it’s all inked up. I’m grateful that my parents met him, got to really know him, before he started. As it is now, Colt looks like the stereotypical bad boy, but anyone who knows him knows that’s he’s actually a playful guy with a heart of gold.

  Not that my parents would ever have to be worried about me being corrupted by the bad boy as it were. Colt and I are just friends. And I’m happy with that, really I am. We’re perfect as we are.

  At least, that’s what I have to keep telling myself.

  Chapter 2- Brittani

  As much as I like my life as it is, there are times that it can grate on me. Not so much my life, I shouldn’t say that. My need for a calm routine is what can bother me. Colt’s ability to just go somewhere whenever he wants, not worrying about a plan or the what-ifs—I can’t do that. The last anxiety attack I had gave me such a searing headache that I had to call in sick to work. So, I try to change things up in small, manageable ways.
Take today, for example. I’m so tired of taking the same way to work all the time, I could do it in my sleep! So, I leave early and take a longer, more winding way in.

  I pass Colt’s apartment building on my way. A few years ago, he gave me a key and told me that I could stop by whenever I needed to. He told me that I didn’t need to call or text in advance, to just treat it like my own house. I’ve never been brave enough to do that though—what if he’s got a girlfriend over?

  The sky is just starting to lighten as I follow the turn of the sidewalk.

  I sit down on a nearby bench to watch the sun rise. To my left, there’s an alleyway next to the post office and across the street, the local park is still empty. Its early summer, and the school kids are still taking advantage of being able to sleep in.

  I’ve just relaxed into a comfortable position and am preparing to close my eyes and center myself when I hear voices coming from behind me in the alley. Normally, I would’ve just done my best to tune them out but the accent of the first man speaking caught my ear.

  “… opened early?”

  “Not this early, moron!”

  “If we don’t get this sent to Allan soon, the acid is going to be rendered neutral and—”

  “Okay, okay! Calm down, Jesus! So it doesn’t travel well through air after too long: We’ll just tell him add it to the water source we need to kill as many as we can…”

  At this point, I’ve heard enough. I tell myself to get up and move, to get away from whatever these people are planning. Science was always one of my best subjects in high school and while I haven’t studied it in several years, I remember enough to know that what these two men are talking about isn’t good for anyone.

  The only problem is, I can’t seem to move. I’m frozen in place on the bench like a small animal, thinking that maybe if I stay still enough, the scary predator won’t see me.

  It was clear that they were planning to hurt somebody.

  Would they hurt me, if they saw that I was here, within earshot? But they wouldn’t have been talking about something so obviously illegal if they knew a random stranger was nearby, so maybe they didn’t see me. If I try to slip away before they come around the corner to leave, they could see or hear me and then…

  As I think, my breathing starts to speed up and despite the fact that it’s still early, I start to sweat.

  The men in the alleyway are still talking and the sound rushes over me like a wave. Appropriate, as it feels a little bit like I’m drowning. While I’m not paying close attention to exactly what they’re saying—after all, I’m trying to convince my fear-paralyzed body to move—I realize that their voices are coming closer.

  It’s the motivation I need to move.

  Lightly, I spring to my feet and walk back the way I came. This way, I won’t be passing the entrance to the alley. Hopefully if they step out before I turn the corner they’ll just assume that I came out of one of the other businesses.

  The sidewalk is seemingly endless in front of me and I keep my eyes down as I walk as quickly as my shaky legs will allow. The last thing I need is to trip and fall and bring attention to myself.

  By the time I’ve walked a couple blocks away, I’ve stopped shaking quite so much.

  I’m really not sure what I should do now.

  Do I go to work? Pretend that I never overheard any of that? I don’t think I can do that. Maybe I should call the police? No, I don’t think that’s a good idea either—I don’t think I have enough information on what I heard, if I even know what it was that I heard. The police will think that I’m crazy. I could be taking a completely normal conversation way out of context. I don’t think I am though.

  There is one person I can call though: Colt.

  Working as a club bouncer, he probably knows some of the local cops, right? I’m assuming that he would have to call them on occasion if someone gets too drunk and disorderly. I wouldn’t know, since clubs really aren’t my scene. Besides, Colt and I don’t talk about his job all that much. When we’re together, we’re laughing and having fun. He says that his job bores him, all that standing around and waiting for people to make fools of themselves.

  With shaking fingers, I slip my phone from my purse. It takes a few more swipes than normal to get to Colt’s smiling face in my contact list, since my fingers feel a little numb.

  I lean back against the brick wall of a Spanish supermarket and listen to the phone ring. When Colt picks up, his familiar voice makes me burst into tears of relief.

  Chapter 3- Colt

  When I answer the phone and Brittani starts crying, my first thought goes to who do I have to kill for making her cry.

  Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an extreme reaction, but it’s Brittani. She’s my best friend and I love her in a way I didn’t think was possible… in a way that she doesn’t know.

  I was so tempted, so many times, to just tell her how I felt. There were moments, back in high school where I thought she felt the same, but those moments would pass and we would continue on as the best of friends. She brings out a side of me that I’ve had to repress as a SEAL. Around Brittani, I can laugh and joke like we used to do when we were younger, back when I was far more carefree than I have the luxury of being now.

  When I first started SEAL training, even after my first few assignments, I still felt like that guy. Then my best friend through all of training was killed during a special operations mission. The mission had been classified as top secret, so I couldn’t even talk to Brittani about it. I just made some dumb excuse about being fired from a job or something.

  I hate lying to her about what I do. I guess in a way it’s a blessing in disguise. If she knew what I did, she’d be so worried. It’s one of the reasons I love her so much. She’s so kind and caring, I just want to wrap her up and protect her from the world.

  That’s why the sound of her crying on the phone gets such a reaction out of me.

  “Brittani? Britt? Take a deep breath for me, okay?”

  Another shuddering sob.

  “Britt I need you to do this for me,” I say more firmly. As I speak to her I quickly grab my stuff and make my way out of the gym where I’d been wrapping up some training for my next mission. “Take a slow, deep breath for me, okay?”

  Once I hear her do that, I continue. “Okay that’s good. Now, tell me exactly where you are.”

  “I’m outside of that, that Spanish supermarket? The one o-on Maple.”

  “Okay, I’m just across town, I can make it there in ten minutes. Are you hurt?” I demand. Shit, I didn’t mean to be that harsh with her, especially right after she had calmed down.

  “No,” she says softly. “Can you…” Brittani trails off, but I know what she’s asking.

  “I’ll stay on the phone with you until I get there, okay?” I reassure her.

  “Thank you.”

  We don’t talk much, I just occasionally tell her which set of lights I’m at or which businesses or landmarks I’m passing so she knows where I am. She doesn’t say much, but the sound of her now steady breathing is reassurance enough that she’s alright.

  At first I don’t see Brittani when I pull up to the curb outside the supermarket. Throwing my sports car into park, I jump out and leap onto the sidewalk. That’s when I see her.

  She’s crouched down against the brick wall, arms folded across her bent knees, face pressed into her forearms.

  I move quickly, darting forward to kneel in front of her. “Brittani!”

  She picks her head up. Her hazel eyes are bloodshot, face stained. Her cheeks are flushed, but it’s not the healthy flush that she gets after we spend ten straight minutes laughing. It’s not the flush I’ve imagined coming to her cheeks in more intimate situations.

  “Hi,” is all she whispers.

  “Hi there.” I smooth her shoulder length brown hair back from her face. I excuse the slow touch to myself as a necessity: Her normally sleek hair is mussed and she’s upset besides. Really, it’s more an effort to calm my
self down, reassure myself that she’s here, with me. She’s safe.

  “Thanks for coming. I need to tell you something.” Brittani says.

  “Okay babe, that’s fine, can I get you in the car first?” Without waiting for her to respond I slide one arm under her bare legs and the other around her back. Based on her tight yellow t shirt and canvas high tops, she was on her way to work. She’s wearing those denim cut off shorts that hug her ass in a way that drives me to distraction. The soft gasp she makes when I scoop her up makes my stomach clench.

  It’s easy enough to maneuver her into the passenger seat of my car. She’s light enough that I can easily hold her in one arm while I get the door open. I buckle her in, letting my palm skim her bare thigh as I pull away. She twitches slightly at the touch and I’m quick to close the door.

  I need to stop doing that, finding excuses to touch her. It’s hard when I’ve been in love with her forever.

  At first, it was just puppy love. When puberty hit that love morphed into an attraction that left my bedsheets wet most nights from dreams of her. After high school, after I finished my training and started going on missions for the SEALs the attraction remained but turned into something much deeper.

  The attraction is certainly still there, it always will be. How could it not be? She’s gorgeous in a delicate, almost fragile way. I appreciate her more now than I did in high school. It makes me glad that I never went out with her then.

  It sounds so weird, right? But I know that I wouldn’t have treated her right. Once puberty hit, I became a player. I went out with most of the girls in our grade, and a fair amount of the rest in the school. The sweet friendship I had with her remained untouched by my teenage explorations and troublemaking.