Desiree
By the end of the night, Elizabeth and Jax were ready go adopt Aiden as their own. Traitors. Honestly, it wasn’t that bad. It turned into quite an enjoyable time. He stayed for most of the day and came back later with food for everyone. Elizabeth’s phone, Jax’s as well, had been going off most of the evening. Up to no good and talking to Aiden, of course, though I didn’t find out until much later. At one point, she’d apparently mentioned that she was craving pizza, so he brought three of them. I thought it was pretty sweet of him to do.
After that, he was welcomed into the little family we had going on. Given that he’d gone out of his way for Elizabeth, I couldn’t say no to him hanging out with us. We watched a couple of movies, ate a ton of pizza, popped some popcorn, and Elizabeth found room for ice cream later on, though I don’t understand where she put it – baby or not, and the boys had a couple of beers. Nothing extensive, but enough that Elizabeth and I didn’t feel comfortable with Aiden driving anywhere.
We were fresh out of beds, so I put him on the couch. It wasn’t perfect, but it was certainly the most comfortable couch I’d ever laid on. He was pretty tall, so it was probably a bit less comfortable for him, but he certainly didn’t complain. He seemed genuinely grateful for everything that I did for him, which I found strange. Sure, I didn’t expect him to be a rude jerk or anything, but this kind of gratitude was much different. It wasn’t just a simple thank you. As sad as it is to say, it was more like a child that was removed from a terrible home only to be placed with a family that gave them things that they’d never had, including love. He seemed almost lost.
Just as Elizabeth had spoken to me about the night before, it seemed that Aiden was absolutely smitten with watching the happy couple. I saw him smile every time she rubbed her belly. I caught him staring a bit when she said that she’d eaten too much and Jax put her in his lap and rubbed her stomach. It was like he was seeing a family for the first time, or at the very least, for the first time in long time.
The next day when we got up, Aiden had a surprise for all of us. He’d purchased baseball tickets before going to sleep. He said that he loved baseball and wanted all of us to go together. It was the start of the season, so it wasn’t overly hot, yet. That was definitely a good thing for the momma-to-be. I’d never heard pleasant things from women about being pregnant in the summer.
It had been a couple of years since I’d been to a game. The field wasn’t even that far away from my house, but Caleb and I didn’t get a chance to go after his final deployment. After he died, I never had the interest. I’d given life a brand-new chance, though, and I loved the idea. I didn’t much care for sports but going to the games was my favorite. Elizabeth was kind of the same way.
As we walked through the parking lot and up to the front entrance, I saw several police cars and an ambulance. It was standard practice for there to be police security and medical attention nearby in case something happened to one of the players or even someone else. The crowd heading in was thick, but it wasn’t shoulder to shoulder, which was great. There was plenty of room to walk around.
The bathrooms were off to the right and there was a concession stand off to the left. Ahead of us was the stairwell that would lead us up to the stands. I could already tell that Elizabeth was not excited to climb all of those steps. I couldn’t really blame her.
As we made our way through, a drunk guy stumbled into several people as he headed in the opposite direction the rest of us were moving. He nearly knocked a little girl over a few yards ahead of us before stumbling into both Elizabeth and me. His shoulders hit ours hard enough to toss us back a bit.
“Hey!” Jax and Aiden both said at the same time.
“Watch where you’re going,” Aiden said. “You could hurt someone.”
“You just ran into my pregnant girlfriend,” Jax continued. “You nearly kicked a little girl over up there. Go sit your drunk ass down before you hurt someone or yourself.”
The drunkard scrunched his face up before looking directly at Jax.
“It’sss prob’ly sssomeone elses, anyway,” he slurred.
I turned in time to see Jax’s face show something I’d never seen on him: rage. He took a step forward, but Aiden was faster. He grabbed hold of Jax’s arm.
“Don’t do it,” Aiden said. “He’s a worthless piece of shit. You have a beautiful girl and are going to have a beautiful baby boy. There are a lot of cops around. No reason to go to jail because of some drunken douchebag. He’s probably pissed off about something pathetic and looking for someone to start a fight with. Don’t be that guy.”
Jax’s fists clenched as his shoulders relaxed. I could tell that Aiden had gotten through to him, though it didn’t make him any less angry. The way that the drunk guy stared Jax down bothered me. He didn’t seem like just any intoxicated jerk. Something was wrong with that guy. He seemed like he was upset at more than just getting confronted about being a sloppy mess.
“He’s right, babe. The cops will probably pick him up soon enough for PI,” Elizabeth said.
Jax sighed heavily, pushing it through pursed lips. He nodded before turning away.
The drunk guy scoffed loudly as we turned back toward the stairwell.
“You guys think you’re hot shhhit, but they’re whores. You’ll sssee. Look at ‘em. No girl that looks like they do isn’t,” he said again, slurring his words.
If he didn’t shut up, there wasn’t going to be any amount of holding Jax back. I remembered Elizabeth telling me what he’d done to Kevin when he’d disrespected her. It wouldn’t be pretty. Aiden didn’t seem to care much for disrespecting women, either, so if he got involved… Dear Lord. We’d all end up in jail.
“Move,” Aiden said through clenched teeth. “Quickly. Let’s get away from this bitch before I teach him a lesson in respect. I don’t have a family to worry about.”
“No, but you have your oath to me and I’m not going to let you go to jail defending my honor,” I said. “Let’s just ignore him and go.”
Aiden looked down at me, his eyes meeting mine. His angered expression softened, his brows furrowing just before he gave a single nod. There was no more attention paid to the drunken man, though he certainly tried to turn our heads. The boys fumed as we quickly walked ahead and began making our way up the stairs.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a real game,” Elizabeth said as we climbed the stairs. “I’m very grateful for the tickets, Aiden, but I must say that I didn’t entirely think this through. I’m a whale. Whales and stairs don’t get along.”
We all laughed. “You are beautiful, my love,” Jax said. “You are not a whale, nor do you look like one.”
“You look great, Elizabeth,” Aiden said. “Though, I can’t imagine how difficult it is to climb this many steps when you’re probably exhausted already. Is it muscle fatigue? Or just general fatigue?”
Aiden amused me. He was constantly asking her questions about how she felt. Elizabeth always smiled and answered. When I asked her about it, she said that she thought that his curiosity about her health, the way she was feeling, and the baby was all very cute.
It was pretty obvious that he’d never been around a pregnant woman before. At the very least, he hadn’t been around one for very long. He acted like a little kid about it. I hated to admit it, but I thought it was pretty adorable, myself.
“These are good seats,” Jax said as we all sat down.
It seemed that drunk guy was long forgotten once we were able to see the field.
“Yeah! I was kind of surprised there were any good ones left. They aren’t perfect, but we’re hardly in the nosebleed section,” Aiden replied.
“Thanks again for getting the seats,” I said. I hadn’t spoken to him much. Not out of rudeness or not wanting to, but out of anxiety. There were still some nerves surrounding his presence, though I was getting used to him being around. The fact that he just saved Jax from getting arrested and also wanted to defend us girls certainly made it easier.
“It’s not a problem at all,” he said. “I think that we should spend the entire week having fun.”
I smiled. “I think so, too.”
Jax and Elizabeth sat next to one another, which left me to sit next to Aiden. I didn’t mind, but it did feel a bit double-datish.
“Are you okay?” Aiden asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. Why do you ask?”
“That guy was being quite a dick. I just wanted to make sure that you’re okay.”
I laughed. “He didn’t offend my delicate female disposition, if that’s what you mean. I’m not so easily offended. He was annoying, but I’ve seen way worse in my line of work. Though something definitely felt off about him.”
“You thought so, too?” he asked.
I nodded. “The way he was plowing through people… That wasn’t him being hammered and swaying about. I didn’t have time to really look into it because it all happened so fast, but for a split second, right after he nearly kicked that little girl over and just before he ran into us, I saw his face. He was angry about something. Jax was just an outlet, as were we. So, I’m not putting any thought into what he said as far as rudeness goes, but I do worry that he is on a downward spiral.”
Aiden nodded. “You’re very intuitive with people.”
“I was in crisis counseling for a long time, so I learned to read people,” I said. “It’s only ever failed me once.” I spoke before I thought about what I was saying. It just spilled out, the last bit referring to Caleb.
“I also saw anger on his face,” he said, blowing off my last comment.
I wondered if he didn’t catch the hidden meaning, or if he knew. Surely, he knew.
“That guy’s not right. Thank you for getting us out of there. I was about to lose my patience,” he said.
“Thank you, too, for stopping Jax. He’s defended her before. Without a single doubt, I knew he would again. He’s the farthest thing from a violent man, but…”
“A man never disrespects a woman, especially if she is with another man. Rule number one. I don’t know why he did it the first time, but I’m pretty sure I’d have done the same. Jax is a good man. I know good men. I have known bad men. Neither one of us is violent, but we wouldn’t hesitate to protect what we love and what is ours,” he said.
I swallowed. Something about his passion about what a man should be echoed within me. I gave a nervous smile before turning forward.
The rest of the game, Aiden and I stuck to casual conversation. I tried to chat with Elizabeth, too, who was more than curious about what Aiden and I were talking about. She had a girly smile, the type that said that she was trying to get me in trouble. I gave her an incredulous look, which she simply shrugged at before returning to the game.
When it was over, we hurried out of our seats in an attempt to beat the biggest part of the crowd. The boys both acted as a wall between Elizabeth and me and the rest of the people in that area. It was slow, but we made our way down the stairs. Leaving was far easier than coming in.
“Did you hear that?” Aiden asked as we reached the bottom of the stairs.
He stalled, reaching behind him and stopping me where I stood. Jax and Elizabeth came to stand next to him, other people going around us. The crowd was able to disperse a bit once we were out in the open and it allowed me to see something going on ahead of us.
“What did you hear?” I asked.
“I thought I heard yelling,” he said.
“…GROUND!”
At that moment, I heard it as well. I missed the first half of the sentence, but I certainly made out the last word.
“Stay here,” Aiden said. “Don’t move.”
“What’s going on?” Jax asked.
Aiden looked over to him, his expression deadly serious. “Keep the girls here. Don’t move from this spot.”
Jax didn’t respond. He only stared at Aiden, giving him a quick nod. Screams erupted, and the crowd began to go crazy. People were screaming and running in all different directions. Aiden ducked down a bit and took off, weaving through the people.
“GET DOWN ON THE GROUND!” I heard a man yell. “NOW!”
My entire body began to shake as I began to worry. Not only for myself, but mostly for Elizabeth. If something happened to her or the baby, Jax would be destroyed.
***
Aiden
The girls were confused about what was happening and I’m sure that probably scared them worse, but there wasn’t time for them to explain. I was a bit taller, so I had a better vantage point than they did. There were several police ahead of us at the entrance to the field. They were trying to surround someone that was just inside where all of the people were, but they couldn’t without getting someone hurt.
As I got closer, I saw that it was the drunken bastard from earlier. I put my right hand down at my side and unsnapped my holster. If I needed to draw, I wanted to be ready. The police couldn’t shoot in our direction without hurting civilians, but I had several good places that I could get to that I could take him if he did anything too crazy.
People were screaming and running all over, but most were beginning to stall, huddled into groups pinned against the interior walls. They were trapped. There was nowhere for them to run. The exits were blocked off and there was a crazy drunk guy that had just pulled his own gun. Only one cop had his weapon drawn and I assumed that it was because six officers pointing their gun at one man in a sea of people could go very bad very fast.
He stood with a single woman in front of him. He didn’t have hold of her. He didn’t need to. In that situation, the hostage either knows that if they run, they are dead, or they will let fear get hold of them and make a bad decision resulting in his or her death. In this case, she was very smart and stood very still, though I could tell by the way her body shook that she was crying.
I left the girls with Jax, knowing that he was perfectly capable of keeping them safe. They were good, kind people. The type of people you just don’t meet often. My heart raced and adrenaline moved like lightning through my veins as I thought about anything bad happening to them. I’d rather die than see that happen.
The area was a massive circular hallway. Behind us was the curved interior wall, above us was the stands, and roughly thirty feet in front of us were the exterior doors. Right in the middle of the interior and exterior walls were loadbearing pillars. They were just wide enough to shield someone. They were also just far enough behind the potential shooter to be out of his peripheral.
The woman in front of him screamed as he pulled her hair and yanked her back toward him a bit.
“Step away from her and slide your weapon forward!” one of the cops yelled.
“No! Do you think I’m a fucking idiot?” the drunkard yelled back. “Not until you get my cheating bitch wife down here. I want her to admit what she did in front of everyone.”
“It doesn’t matter what she did. Put the gun down!” another cop shouted.
The idea was to not piss him off enough to make him shoot her or anyone else, I thought to myself. I shook my head.
The man began screaming then, rage and hatred filling his voice as he told them again to get his wife. There was not going to be a good resolution. Something needed to be done. I lowered myself down, trying to stay out of the line of site of the cops and of him. If the cops saw me, they would undoubtedly draw attention to me, not knowing that I was trained for situations just like that, only far worse. Terrorists were far more volatile to deal with, though this guy was doing a pretty good job.
Slowly, I’d made my way behind the pillar, praying that the douchebag wouldn’t see me. I studied my surroundings, trying to make sure that all civilians were out of the way. The only person that I had to worry about was the woman that he had hold of. I was a damn good shot, but I didn’t want to risk it.
He began screaming again just before raising his hand in the air and firing off a shot.
That was no good.
He focused the gun back on the woman as all the police then drew their weapons. A shot had been fired, so it greatly upgraded the severity of the situation.
“Emily!”
A woman behind the shooter yelled, drawing my attention, as well as the shooter’s. A little girl had tripped and was out in the open. The shooter raised his gun, his back completely exposed to me, but he still had hold of the woman. If the police tried to take a shot, they would shoot the hostage as she was right in front of him. The angle that I was in, I could shoot perfectly fine, but if it went through, I could kill her.
“Jax!”
***
Desiree
POP!
A gun went off and Jax was on alert. He jumped in front of us, his face just as serious as Aiden’s had been not long before.
“Stay here. I mean it! I’m going to check on Aiden,” he said.
“No!” Elizabeth said, tears in her eyes. “Stay!”
I couldn’t stop my own eyes from filling. I was worried for everyone, but mainly I was worried for Aiden. With Jax wanting to go find him, I worried for him, too.
“Don’t go,” I pleaded. “If something has happened, we can’t lose you, too!”
“I’ll be fine, just stay here in the cover of the crowd,” he said.
Without another word, Jax began moving through the crowd. Not surprisingly, Elizabeth began following him. I reached out for her, but she was already disappearing into the people. There was no way I was going to let her go alone, so I followed. There we were. The two idiots doing exactly what we were told not to. I had to find her and pull her back.
“Jax!” I heard Elizabeth scream over everyone.
I’d just made it to the front to see what was going on. Ahead of us stood a man pointing a gun at a small girl, but Jax moved to stand in front of her. Down a bit further was Aiden, crouched behind a pillar, his weapon drawn, but not aimed. The shooter didn’t even seem to notice him.
The police were screaming at the man to drop the gun. They were screaming they would shoot, but there was a woman in his other arm. There was no way they could shoot him without shooting through her. The angle was all wrong. It was one hell of a standoff.
“You,” the man said as he looked at Jax. “You were the asshole from earlier.”
Jax put one of his hands on the chest of the little girl, gently pushing her further behind him. The mother reached out and snatched her up, disappearing back into the crowd. I could see Elizabeth right up front, though she was separated from him by more than ten feet. It was obvious that she hadn’t taken the same path that he had.
“Just put it down,” Jax said. “No one has to get hurt here today.”
The man laughed. “Well, I’d planned to force my wife to tell the world what a whore she was before I gave her what she deserved, right here in front of everyone, but I’ll start with you.”
Aiden jumped forward, gun half-raised.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Over here, you whiny bitch.”
“DROP IT!” one of the police shouted.
“I’m Staff Sergeant Aiden Walsh in the US Army. All due respect, I have a better shot than any of you.”
The shooter looked over at Aiden, seeing him for the first time. The police didn’t seem to care too much about Aiden at that moment. I wasn’t sure if it was because Aiden announced himself and they believed him, or that he had his gun on the shooter and did have a better shot, or that they all had a very clear shot of Aiden, given that he didn’t have a hostage. More than likely, it was some combination of all three.
In that moment, when there was so much around me that I could lose, I truly realized how much I had. There was no longer a question. Caleb was my world, but he wasn’t my entire world. We’d built so much together, but there was so much love in me. I couldn’t lose those people. Elizabeth. That baby boy she carried. Jax. Even Aiden.
Aiden.
His strength was overwhelming. I couldn’t believe the lengths that he would go to in order to save the people he cared about. I remembered the conversation we had during the game. It hadn’t been a lie. He truly would fight to the death for those he cared about.
He and I may not be very close, but he made an oath to my husband to protect me and that was what he was doing. Only it wasn’t just me. It was Elizabeth and Jax. It was all the people that surrounded us. All my worries about him disappeared and it was replaced by trust and admiration.
Aiden… Please make it through this, I thought.
Aiden
“That’s right. I’m the one you want,” I said, taunting him.
My only goal was to keep his focus as far away from Jax as possible. When I first saw him, I was angry that he hadn’t stayed put where I told him to. Then he jumped in front of that little girl. I have no doubt that the shooter would have killed her if Jax hadn’t caught his attention. He saved a life; it was my turn to make sure he was safe. That little boy couldn’t grow up without a daddy and that douchebag drunkard had it out for both of us because of earlier.
“You can’t do anything to me,” the shooter said.
His body language was rigid. He was confident. A confident man with a gun and nothing to lose was dangerous. He was going to do it. There was no doubt in my mind. The police certainly thought so as well, as their screaming ensued again.
The guy smiled as he turned his head to face Jax again, the gun never having left his direction. My eyes darted around as I quickly scanned the area. The civilians were tight against the wall, no less than fifteen feet away from the shooter. The police were behind him. He was standing in an awkward position, but I knew I could hit him. He kicked his leg out just enough to stabilize himself before he shot. I had to get it right, or Jax would wind up dead and he could potentially shoot someone else.
Without further hesitation, I took the shot. The bullet hit him in the right thigh, the part of his body that was furthest away from his hostage. He cried out in pain, dropping her, but not his gun. As he turned, the woman dove out of the way. He raised his gun at the same moment that I saw the woman running for the police. She was still in the way and they couldn’t shoot. It was still up to me.
POP!
I shot again, this time the bullet hitting him in the right shoulder, the same arm holding the gun. He hit the ground, the second bullet too much for him to handle. I jumped up and ran over, kicking his gun out of the way before dropping the magazine out of mine and clearing the one in the chamber.
“I’m Officer Daniels. Drop your weapon, please. Thank you for clearing it once he was disarmed. You just saved a lot of lives.”
“This is my duty, sir,” I replied. “Whether it is here or in the desert.”
“You identified yourself as US military. I need to see your ID,” he said.
I turned so he could see me reach in my back pocket for my wallet before turning again to face him. I handed him the ID inside.
“Staff Sergeant Walsh, thank you for your service. Not only in our military, but today. I’m going to need you to come with me,” Officer Daniels said.
I took a step forward and felt light headed. I took a deep breath to try to clear my vision, but I felt only pain.
“Staff Sergeant?” I heard him say.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I wanted to speak, but the pain was growing and becoming quite unbearable.
“This weapon has been fired twice,” another cop said.
“Yes,” I said. “I fired on him twice. Once in the thigh, once in the shoulder.”
“No,” he replied. “The shooter.”
I was trying to think, but I couldn’t. My mind was swimming and breathing was nearly impossible. Officer Daniels’ eyes widened as he looked me over.
“Staff Sergeant,” he said. “I’m going to need you to sit down.”
I felt him wrap his arm around me as he wrapped mine around his neck. The next thing that I knew, I was lying on the ground.
“We need another medic!” he shouted, just before I completely lost consciousness.