Find A Way Or Make One

by Kelley, E. C.

  I nodded my head in acceptance. “No I wouldn’t,” I agreed. “But I should have prepared for the possible fallout better. I guess we ‘gotta do, what we gotta do’”

  Cale reached out and squeezed my arm, “Will you be ok little girl?”

  I patted Cale’s hand. “All I can do is put one foot in front of the other; day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute.” Then I just walked out the door.

  13

  “It was just something that I had to get through, to get me to you.”

  Lila McCann, Get Me to You

  Wyatt

  Once again I get to be Cale’s punching bag as he shows the recruits how to take somebody down. Yeah, my ass is getting handed to me, and there is not a damn thing I can do about it. Not if I want the opportunity to talk to Kye.

  But it doesn’t look like I am going to get a chance to talk to her anytime soon. No, Cale had come up with the abso-fucking-lutely brilliant plan that we break the recruits into teams and work on different aspects of being a drug enforcement agent. Since the Seal team that I had been in and Cale, Sunny, Crow, and Chip were currently in, was assigned to Latin America, and a great deal of what they dealt with was related to the making and distributing of illegal drugs, we all have some sort of drug enforcement experience. I knew that Kye needed time to heal so I knew that she wouldn’t be involved with any physical training, but I was completely unprepared for Kye to head up teaching the recruits how to profile criminals. When I voiced my surprise Cale wasted no time in telling me that she had been trained by the FBI’s BAU in the art of profiling. When I asked him when he just stared at me a long minute, then slowly walked away.

  Fuck! It appears that I wasn’t the only one keeping secrets seven years ago. While I had thought that she was attending the community college near Quantico, evidently she was getting trained in behavioral analysis by the FBI. I mean she never out and out said that she was attending community college, but she never said she wasn’t either. She just let me assume.

  That just pisses me off. But as soon as I start feeling my anger reach about as high as I think it can go, I remind myself that I lied also, and mine wasn’t a lie by omission, but a full out and out lie. My lies were told to keep me from getting caught, even if I didn’t cheat. I never wanted Kye to learn about my assignment with Catherine.

  It’s funny how easy it is to start calling her Kye. I mean, while I still see the same kindness and goodness that I loved in Kylee, she is different too. Everything about her seems to be sharper, more direct and to the point. Kye just seems to fit.

  It has now been three days since she has been back, and because it is a Friday, I know if I don’t make a move to speak to her today, she will have the entire weekend to build stronger walls against her feelings for me, that I know she still has. I have caught her looking through the window in the conference room at me too many times to think that she is indifferent to me.

  As I am racking my brain, trying to figure out how I can devise a meeting between us, one of the recruits gives me the perfect opportunity.

  Danny, a young guy about nineteen or twenty years old asks Cale, “This is all well and good, but what do you when the other guys are bigger than you or outnumber your?” Cale tried to talk him through it, but I could see that he didn’t really understand. Seeing my chance to talk with Kye, I innocently suggested, “Hey, why don’t we get Kye out here and she can show how smaller people defend themselves and then you guys can gang up on me to show how to defend against more than one assailant.” I finished with a shrug, like it didn’t matter to me if she came out or not. Cale looked at me for a moment then rolled his eyes. Yeah, I wasn’t fooling him, but really; did I care?

  Cale looked at me and rolled his eyes and lifted his lips into a belligerent smirk. “Hey, Dipshit, you really think you are fooling me?”

  “Does it really matter if I am fooling you or not? Danny boy doesn’t understand your verbal explanation of how to combat assailants bigger than him or how to win a fight when he is outnumbered. All of the trainers here have about the same height and weight, accept Kye. So why not get her?”

  The look Cale gave me was a cross between incredulity and outright anger. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe because she pulled a damn knife out of her shoulder and Sunny had to fucking burn her skin closed again so she didn’t bleed to death?” Shit, I had forgotten about that, and while reopening her wound was something I had to think about, I knew Cale was being almost unreasonably protective of Kye. Cale was fighting this as hard as he could, but I had been given a chance. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to let him stand in my way. As I was preparing for our confrontation, when something else he said caught my attention.

  “What do you mean, again? I have to assume that you mean that Sunny has cauterized a wound of Kye’s before. When did this happen, and why not get her to a fucking doctor, Shit Stain?”

  Just as Cale was about to open his mouth, and give me hell, the voice that has haunted both my nights and my days comes from behind me. “Have you ever I thought it might have been because they didn’t have the time or the resources to get me to an actual doctor?”

  What in the hell did she mean by that? “Why wouldn’t they have had time to get you to one? Where were you?”

  Cale opens his mouth to tell me when Kye makes a swiping motion with her hands. “I am sorry, Mr. Masters, but that is classified. So unless you have had your intelligence clearance reinstated and elevated, you will just have to live with the uncertainty of not knowing.”

  Stunned, I can only stand there watching her as she makes her way to the ring and pulls her purple v-neck tee off, so that she is now standing in her sports bra and begins talking to the recruits. Good old Danny boy has asked for help, and Kye seems willing to help. Finally, something seems to be going my way.

  Cale is pouting, and even Kye is getting tired of it. She looks at Cale and shakes her head. “Shit Cale, let’s just get this over with ok?” I can’t help it, but the smirk on my face had to be as big as the Atlantic and the Pacific combined. I go to get in the ring with Kye; leaving Cale no choice but to follow.

  Kye motions for the recruits to gather round the ring. Kye hasn’t even started talking yet when I hear a long drown out whistle.

  “Damn lass, that is one kickass tattoo. But I don’t understand; words assigned to Hannibal are usually in Latin. Why did you put them in Irish Gaelic?”

  A slow sad smile crosses Kye’s face. “Yeah, Hannibal’s words may usually be in Latin; but these words honor a dear friend who was extremely proud of his Irish heritage.” She looks down at her feet for a moment; but not before I see the sadness and tears that fill her eyes.

  It is obvious to everyone in the room that this topic was tearing Kye up. Danny can see she is upset and quickly lets the subject drop. I so don’t want to let this drop. The emotion in Kye’s eye when she spoke of her dear friend has my heart dropping like a fifty pound weight. I have to brace myself so that the devastation of knowing that she has loved someone else. The only reason I am still breathing is that I know she loved me too, and I cling to the hope that she will be mine again. Taking a slow steadying breath, I ask Kye and Danny, “What does it say?”

  Danny looks to Kye, and sees that she is busy trying to get her emotions under control and can’t answer; so he replies, “Bíodh a fháil ar bhealach nó duine a dhéanamh? It means ‘either find a way or make one.’ It’s a quote from Hannibal.”

  Shaking her head, Kye walks to the ring. “Ok, as you all can see, I am not a tall person. Since I typically went up against men who were bigger than me, I have had to find ways to overcompensate for the difference in size.” She continues on, giving the recruits some really good advice on how to take on assailants that are bigger. After demonstrating a couple of moves, Cale and Kye move to attack me. As Kye moves to twist my arm behind my back, I quickly flip her over my shoulder before she can compromise the strong base that I have made of my legs.

  As she
hits the mat, I see her come down on her shoulders, only to jump up with a yelp. Shit, I forgot about her shoulder! I immediately rush over to help her up, “Shit Kye, I am sorry. I completely forgot about the wound on your shoulder. Let me see if the hit ruptured where the wound had been cauterized.” I put my hand on her arm and she jerked it away from me like I was holding a blow torch to her skin. “Damn Kye, I am just trying to help.”

  Kye looked at me, rolled her eyes and barked out a sharp laugh. “Look, Wyatt baby, I don’t want or need any of the help that you can give me. The last time you helped me led to six months of lies and betrayal that ended humiliation. So no, I don’t want your fucking help!” As she spoke, her voice got louder and louder until she was practically shouting in my face.

  How in the hell was I supposed to get her to listen to me when she was madder than I had ever seen her? Granted, I deserved it, but was it really wrong of me to hope to catch a break? “Kye please, just listen to me. It wasn’t what it seemed, I wa…”

  Kye cut me off before I could even finish my first sentence. “No shit, it wasn’t what it seemed. It seemed to me that we were in love with each other. But no; you were really just using me for a piece of ass, until you went back to your upper echelon family who topped the who’s who of Texas society. That brings up a question that I have never really been able to answer. Were you using the Navy and the Seals to get your rocks off, just like you were using me? Stupid question, of course you were. I guess the real question is when you left the service. Before or after your platoon was told they might have to go pull a tour in Afghanistan?” By the time she finished the last insulting question, her face was twisted in a snarl and her eyes were shooting fire.

  That was ok with me, because she had succeeded in pissing me off. The fact that I had to quit the teams before my platoon was deployed to Afghanistan still filled me with guilt. While I was stateside, going through three surgeries and months of therapy so I could walk again, one of the guys from my platoon was killed by an IED. The very thing that I had been trained to detect and diffuse. I knew that I had to leave before I said something that would sabotage any chance I had with Kye. I turned and headed for the door. I was, in fact pulling the door open when I heard Sunny step up to me. While I didn’t turn around, I did stop to see what, if anything, he was going to say.

  My old swim buddy didn’t disappoint. In that quiet voice that he always used when he was in deep thought he simply stated. “Kye knows why you had to quit the teams. Kye always pushes people away when they get to close. She always pushes people away before they can hurt her. You should have seen the hoops she made Toby jump through, I swear she…well that doesn’t matter. The point is she knew what button to push with you to make you mad enough to leave and didn’t hesitate to push it. It is her defense mechanism. She would have never let you be involved with this training if she hadn’t believed in your dedication to you platoon and country.”

  “Yeah, I know; didn’t make it any easier though having to listen to that shit.” I was struggling to control and contain the hurt rolling through me, but I don’t know what hurt me more. That she would maliciously try to hurt me, that she would be so scared that I would hurt her, or that this Toby had had the same power.

  I slowly turned to look Sunny in the eye. “Do I even have a shot man? Or is there no chance of a reprieve?”

  Sunny wrapped his arm around me, “Nah man, if Kye is willing to pull out the big guns emotionally to keep you at bay, I would say you are already half way there. Go home and take a shower, then go over to her house and talk to her.”

  I was a little confused. “Why can’t I talk to her now? Wouldn’t it be best to talk before her anger built up?”

  Sunny shook his head and laughed. “Well, yeah man, it probably would be better…if she hadn’t already left.”

  Well, damn! “Shit Sunny! Why didn’t you say anything? I have got to go!”

  Sunny just laughed. “Just because I think you got a shot, and I think you would be good for Kye, doesn’t mean I have to make it easy on you!”

  And really, what could I say to that?

  ***

  As I walk up the steps to Kye’s door, I briefly think about how lucky I have been to get her so quickly. After I saw that she had left I rushed to the door. Sunny tried to stop me to tell me something, but I wouldn’t listen. I held up my hand and rushed out the door. Once I reached the hotel suite I rushed to my bathroom and took a quick shower and got ready. The only glitch that occurred was when Sable walked into the bathroom as I was drying off. When she walked over and offered to help, I kind of lost it and told her to get her whorish ass out and leave me the fuck alone. What can I say? Sometimes you have to say enough is enough and call a spade a spade; or as in this case, a whore a whore.

  That really doesn’t matter now. I am here at Kye’s, ready to go all in. Shit, I have been all in since the day I saw her running to Starbucks in the rain.

  I knock for the second time and I am starting to get nervous. What if she isn’t home yet? What if she has already left? What if she just doesn’t want to talk to me and won’t open the door?

  As I get ready to knock for the third time, the door suddenly opens. Kye is standing there in a robe with a towel tied around her head. “What the fuck do you want?”

  Well, here goes nothing. “You, Kye. I want you.”

  14

  “Love is an attempt at penetrating another being, but it can only succeed if the surrender is mutual.”

  Octavio Paz

  Kye

  What the hell? I know he didn’t just say what I think he said. I would love to laugh in his face but I don’t trust myself not jump in his arms and forgive and forget everything. Instead, I just shake my head and try to close the door. Only he still won’t move his damn foot, and that just pisses me off. The level of pissed off that makes me want to start throwing things and usually gets my mouth to write checks my ass can’t cash.

  “What the fuck douche face? Do you really think that you can waltz back into my life after seven years, tell me you want me and that will make everything ok? I can’t believe you really think that you are that damn smooth!”

  I have to get away from him. I can’t be hurt again, and that is what will happen, so I turn around and walk to the kitchen. “Leave asshole, just leave.”

  I make it to the sink where I reach for a bottle of Vodka. Even though I know that Wyatt won’t just give up and walk, I had been wishing so hard that’s exactly what he will do that when his hand touches my arm. I look up at him and in his hooded, silver gaze and I see something that I have never seen in them before. In the six months we were together I had seen lust, affection, humor, anger, irritation, I can remember so many emotions and I had thought that I had seen them all, but now I realize that I was wrong. I had never seen the hopelessness that I saw in them. It made me want to do anything to make him feel better. In fact, I was just about to reach out and caress his face when a memory flashes through my mind.

  I had just gotten back from my last assignment. Toby had been waiting at headquarters when we came in to be debriefed. When he had heard about how I had gone in seemingly unarmed to get close enough to the general in one of the Mexican cartels Toby just looked at me and walked.

  When one of us finishes a mission and the other is in town we usually go out drinking. I usually don’t drink and I never touch anything more powerful than alcohol, but after missions I could never stop the bombardment of memories that I was usually able to keep at bay. Toby understood what was going on, but he was so damn pissed that he walked off and left me. I went to the local liquor store and bought two bottles of Tequila and went back to my apartment.

  After I walk into my apartment and start drinking straight from the bottle. The next thing I know Toby is yanking me up from the floor. He marches me to my bathroom where he turns on the water in the shower and pushes us both in. After sputtering and cussing for about ten minutes, he turns off the water and
takes me to stand in front of the mirror. “Kye look.” I turn to face him, and I can tell that is not what he was after.

  “No dammit! Look at the fucking mirror!” I look in the mirror and I flinch and look down at the sink. “No, I want you to take a good hard look at what you have let this fucktard do to you. You weren’t even this bad when I found you with Travis waiting for Zandoville to come to pick up his repayment. Look at you; really look at you. You can’t go on this way, you might be breathing in and out, but you sure as hell aren’t living!” I just stared at the mirror, and looked into the dead and lifeless eyes that were staring back at me.

  My eyes had reflected a desolation that reached into the very core of my soul. We had only been together for six months, but in those six months I felt that I had found my other half, the one who completed me and made me whole. Too bad I couldn’t have been farther from the truth. And no matter what, I can’t let Wyatt the-selfish-prick Masters do that to me again.

  “I can’t believe that you have the audacity to walk back into my life after seven years and try to feed me this line of utter and complete bull shit! Is your ego really so large that you believe that I would welcome you back into my life after all this time? After the last words that you ever said to me, how can you really think that I want a self-absorbed, egotistical asshole like you back in my life?” By this time Wyatt has moved a few steps closer to me and reaches out to take me in his arms.

  I give him a small shove and start pacing the length of the kitchen. I am on a roll and when I get that way there is no way that I can shut my mouth. “Or did you think that I was so pathetic and beneath you that I would actually be happy to be on the receiving end of a pity fuck from you? I will have you kn…” I never get to finish my sentence because Wyatt grabs me and makes me face him. His chest is heaving like he has been without air for five minutes and the sharp look in his eyes tells me that something I said seriously pissed him off. I never meant for anything to happen, but when I looked into his eyes I was frozen and any desire to stay away from him flew out of my head.