you alive. But I hadn’t felt this pure, helpless fear in years, not since I was seventeen years old, beat to shit, and laying on my back in the shade of an old white house while gunfire erupted all around me.
“You good?” Lu asked, reaching forward from the back seat to pat my shoulders.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Hate not knowing what we’re walking into.”
“We’re in the US of A,” she said, slapping me once more on my shoulder. “This is gonna be a piece of cake compared to anywhere we’ve been overseas.”
“Gonna be nice drivin’ away without havin’ to watch for shit in the road,” Forrest said, thumping his hand against the steering wheel.
“Exactly,” Lu said, leaning back in her seat with a sigh. “No IED’s, no ambushes, just a quick snatch and grab and then we’re gone. Poof.”
I didn’t vocalize the crap swirling around in my head. I knew they were trying to downplay it all, even if they were telling the truth, but that didn’t mean shit, not really. Because if we didn’t reach her in time, I wouldn’t give a fuck how easy it was to get out of there. My only concern was getting to her, making sure she was safe, and extracting her from the house. Getting away clean was the least of my worries.
It took less time than I’d planned for to get to the end of the long, gated driveway, which was a plus, but the gate was locked up tight, which meant we were going to have to get to the house on foot. We drove a quarter of a mile past the gate and spun around before parking further down the hill on the side of the road. Thankfully, both the rigs were dark, because parked cars were definitely out of the ordinary on that stretch of road. They’d be noticed, but hopefully, the color would make it harder for any other drivers to remember them later.
“We’ll hop the fence down here,” Forrest said. “Looks like the owners like trees, thank fuck, so we should have some cover until we get closer to the house. Assume that there’s an alarm system and move forward accordingly.”
“Got it,” Wilson said. “Should take me about forty seconds to disable it once I’m within ten feet of the house.”
“Me, Eli and Lu will stick to the front with Wilson,” Forrest said. “Eph, Siah and Chief around the back. Don’t breach until you get my say-so.” He locked eyes with me. “Everyone’s comms working?”
“Yep.”
“Yep.”
“Mine’s good.”
“Ay-oh.”
“Yep.”
“All good,” I replied with a nod.
“Let’s—” Forrest paused. “Christ. What’s her name, man? We show up in there, we’re going to scare the hell out of her.”
“Cecilia,” I replied. I shook my head. Fuck, I needed to get my shit together. “And she’s armed.”
Eli jerked his head forward in surprise and widened his eyes at me. “Probably a good thing to know,” he spat.
“And this is why I took point,” Forrest muttered. “Try not to get yourselves shot.”
I didn’t bother to apologize, because I already looked like a fucking moron. Jesus Christ, I was always on top of my shit. We had to grab a couple of preschoolers out of a house somewhere on the other side of the world? I was the one who had candy in my pocket for the inevitable freak out. Stuck inside a busted-up school with no conceivable way out? Hey, I’d packed fucking water for this eventuality, it looked like we wouldn’t die of dehydration before we could get extracted. You’re welcome.
“Cecilia,” Wilson mused over the comm. “Now, where have I seen that name before?”
Lu chuckled.
“Was it a tattoo, maybe?” Ephraim joked. “I swear I’ve seen a bad tattoo of that name.”
“Enough,” Forrest snapped quietly.
“Don’t make me take you down,” Siah said to me as we cleared the fence and moved swiftly through the trees. “You start bein’ stupid and I’ll drop your ass.”
“I won’t,” I said through my teeth. Fuck, we were so close. I was hyper focused as the house came into view, the driveway and front porch lit up like a fucking Christmas tree.
There was a car out front, and everyone dropped to the ground as a man came out the front door, closing it behind him. He didn’t rush as he walked to the car and put a box of shit on the front seat. My head jerked in surprise when I realized he was whistling as he rounded the hood and climbed inside.
“It can’t be that fuckin’ easy,” Forrest breathed into