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She was safe with the Valkyries and their friends. It was time to rebuild her life. Again.
She’d been numb in the months after Salim died until she’d signed on with Morgan and Freya, and now she’d returned from Jordan numb once again.
She had her second second chance at life, and she should embrace it. Be a butterfly.
She’d survived the unthinkable. She shouldn’t squander this gift. She just needed to figure out how to get over her fear and live with the guilt.
The guilt was worse than the fear. Fear was tangible. Understandable. External.
Guilt was internal, with no possible outlet. It kept her up at night. Every time she closed her eyes, she was back in the desert, stealing history. Worse was when she did manage to sleep. Then she dreamed of Fahd’s murder or slicing open Bassam’s throat right before his brother’s bullet shattered his face and she was pelted with bone and brain matter.
All the horror, death, and destruction had been for nothing. Nothing.
Rafiq hadn’t been there when the SEALs stormed the compound. He’d slipped through the net.
In the ensuing weeks, she’d learned there were people in the military and Intelligence Community who believed Makram Rafiq was dead and she’d invented or hallucinated her interactions with him. She suspected their desire to discredit her was because they were the ones who’d declared him dead in the first place.
Her ankle throbbed as she put on lipstick, partially covering the scar that was a constant reminder of the accident that had killed Salim. The scar never gave her phantom pain like her ankle had. Now, she again had real pain in her ankle, which flared every time she thought about the smarmy fake-named liaison or analyst or whatever he was who’d visited her in the hospital in Germany.
She understood why they had to question her story, but the hostility and suspicion had gotten under her skin as intended. She’d been wrung out and devastated after he left and found herself questioning her own sanity.
But she knew who she’d spoken with in the slot canyon. The Four of Diamonds. A man who abducted children and made them terrorists and who funded his attacks by selling artifacts. He’d used that money to buy a weapon that was responsible for the loss of an entire SEAL platoon when it shot down a transport plane.
That knowledge had been her battle cry for the decisions she’d made, and now the words were a mantra for defending herself.
Makeup finished, she took a deep breath and studied her reflection. She looked nothing like the woman who’d looted the site in Jordan. The chapped lips and sunburned nose were long gone after weeks indoors.
Did she resemble the woman she’d been before Jordan? She couldn’t tell. That woman had been lost in grief and searching for purpose.
She was no longer searching for purpose. The thing she needed most now was unattainable: redemption.
She pulled out her phone. Rideshare apps were out. She had no doubt all the intelligence agencies were monitoring her phone, and she wouldn’t make it easy by giving them every destination ahead of time.
She considered taking a taxi to the pub in southwest DC, because at least with a taxi, she didn’t have to give her destination up front. But really, the pub was on the Green Line, and a Green Line Metro station was just a few blocks from her home. She’d take the train to the party.
It would be good for her. Back in the saddle, so to speak.
She could take a taxi home from the bar. She’d never been a fan of riding the Metro late at night alone, particularly when she was on crutches. She tucked away the phone, making a deal with herself: if she challenged herself with a train ride to the pub, she could treat herself to a taxi ride home.
Even better, she could pick up a hot guy and forget about everything for a few hours in an anonymous hotel room and avoid the trip home alone late at night altogether.
The thought surprised her. She hadn’t been with anyone since Salim, and before him, she hadn’t been one for random hookups. But maybe it was time?
Once again, the SEAL who’d rescued her in Aqaba came to mind. Thoughts of him had filled long hours of recuperation in the hospital in Germany.
Kind of pathetic, actually, that she’d fixated on a fantasy man who’d swooped in and saved her. He was as remote as a celebrity. Just as unreal and impossible as a superhero.
She needed to be attracted to someone attainable. A bar pickup. It didn’t have to mean anything.
And it would fit with her goal to start living again.
She stared at her ankle and the crutches she needed to get around. They might be a hindrance.
She shrugged away the thought. It wasn’t like she’d go through with the wild idea. But it was fun to imagine, and right now, she desperately needed fun.
Chris closed the hotel room door and leaned against it, letting out a heavy sigh. The last four days of debriefings at the Pentagon had been long and boring, and more than once, he’d been on the defensive about the decisions he’d made. Now he wanted nothing more than to order room service and sit outside on his private balcony with a view of the Potomac River and Jefferson Memorial. Steak, a baked potato, and a beer, and he’d be a happy man. But the guys on the team wanted to go out now that their Pentagon ordeal was behind them, and he figured he should participate in the bonding ritual.
They’d only been Stateside again for ten days, the last four of which they’d spent at the Pentagon for meetings with SPEC OPS and DIA and CIA analysts and the FBI as the Intelligence Community tried to make head or tail of what had happened in Jordan. As far as he could tell, the verdict was still out on whether or not Makram Rafiq was to be removed from the Captured or Killed list and placed back on Most Wanted.
