Page 11 of Covert Operation
“Got any ideas?” I’m taunting a mercenary. Fearlessly. Completely confident in my safety. And it’s liberating. It lightens the darkness that’s been weighing me down for over a year.
“A few.” Zeke’s mouth sets into a hard line. “None that will work.”
“Why not?” I’m a little full of myself, but I’m not an idiot. “You do things like this all the time.”
“I can’t do what I would normally do.” He seems perplexed. “So I’ve got to be creative.”
The word pokes at a spot inside me. One I thought might be dead after… everything. What happened made it nearly impossible for me to find joy in anything. It was hard to see beauty in things when so much was ugly and evil.
But now…
“I used to be really creative.” I wilt a little at the memory of the woman I was. “I loved to sew and decorate and make gifts for my friends.” Knowing I will never be that woman again has me sliding down Zeke’s back, loosening my hold on him so I can reach the floor. “I used to be so different.”
Zeke turns to me, his expression just as intense as it always is, only now it doesn’t make me want to shrink. Now it makes me think he’s looking so hard that surely he can see inside me. See the jumble of emotions I don’t know how to untangle. Can’t begin to try. See what I’ve lost. What was taken from me.
“Sit down.” He lowers to the stack of mats, waiting as I settle in beside him before saying, “You’ll get through this. I promise.”
I don’t know that I would believe those words from anyone else. I haven’t, actually. Zeke isn’t the first one to offer them, but he is the first one who makes me think it might be possible.
I lean against his arm, letting my head fall to his shoulder because I’m so fucking tired. And because maybe a little of his strength and surety will soak into me. “I hope so.”
“Can I tell you something?” he asks quietly.
I nod, temple rocking against the thick band of muscle beneath my face.
“You aren’t what I was expecting.”
I let his words sink in. Let them marinate before confessing the discovery they caused. “Me either.”
I believed I knew myself. That I understood who I was and who I would be. But I never thought I would let a man I despised touch me to save my skin. I never thought I’d be brave enough to run from him when I had the chance.
And I never thought I’d lose the way I loved my life.
“Sometimes things don’t happen how we want them to.” Zeke’s words are soft. So unlike the man saying them. “And it changes us. Makes us different.” His chin tucks so he can look down atwhere my head still rests on his shoulder. “But different isn’t always bad.”
“Sometimes it is.” I miss so much about who I was before, but mostly I miss the way I saw the world as beautiful and safe.
He tips his head in a small nod. “Sometimes it is.” Zeke’s eyes roam my face. “But nothing about you will ever be bad, Savannah.”
My throat goes tight, squeezing around a confession I’ve never made. Not to Sadie. Not to the therapist I’ve been seeing once a week. Not even to myself. “I feel dirty.” I try to swallow down the ache making it hard to breathe, but it only tightens more. “I let him touch me. I pretended to like it because I didn’t want to die.”
Zeke’s jaw tightens, a muscle there ticking a few times before it slowly relaxes. But his teeth still seem clenched when she asks, “Do you remember what I told you earlier?”
He’s said a lot of things, but the only one that seems to stick out is when he said I was pretty. I wonder if he still feels that way now that he knows…
“I said there’s no rules when it comes to what you can do to save your own life. You do whatever it takes to get out alive.” Zeke takes a deep breath like he’s bracing for something. “I’ve done things most people would consider terrible to save myself and my team.”
I lift my eyes to his face, looking for some sort of clue about how he feels. “Do you regret them?”
“Never.” The answer is firm and immediate. “I would do every one of them all over again.”
Would I? That’s a difficult question to answer. But maybe that’s why I’m here. Because I wish that hadn’t been my only option.
I lift my head from his shoulder, straightening as I square my shoulders. “Let’s go again.” I stand, running both hands down my pants to wipe away the clamminess already starting. “But this time I’m coming right at you, so don’t get distracted.”
MY SISTER IS waiting for me when I get home after hitching a ride with one of the girls in the office. I knew this was coming, but my stomach still bottoms out at the sight of her coming my way.
I haven’t done anything wrong, but I don’t really want to explain how I’ve been spending my days to her either. Not yet. Not while I’m still giving myself whiplash, swinging from feeling hopeful and great to struggling with the decisions I’ve made and the things I’ve done.