KEN
“Jesus Christ!”
It takes three of us to pull Mary off the guy. He’s hiding his face in the sand, covering his head with his hands and she is going in on him like a feral animal. There is shouting and chaos and weapons are being drawn and guns cocked and for fuck’s sake this situation was like a powder keg when we rolled up here and now it’s turned into a dangerous farce.
We grab Mary and throw her into the LAV none too gently. There’s no time for gentle. I bark at the others to hold her in there and I do my best to settle the situation, which has devolved into chaos. It soon becomes apparent that there is no hope of salvaging this mess. If we don’t want to get into an armed conflict, we need to get out of here.
“Back to base. Now!”
It’s a retreat, and a shameful one on multiple levels. I am pissed.
Mary sits in the back of the LAV, a rebellious expression on her face.
As much as what she did seems admirable, it wasn’t. It was stupid as hell. The guy she went for is the cousin of the man I’m looking for. He’s an asshole, but he was on the verge of giving me some information. Now there’s not a man in that village who will work with us. She just humiliated someone they respect, and she humiliated us too. It’s sexist, but a woman who can’t be controlled is one of the most offensive things to these people. We lost face, we lost ground, we lost intel. And now, I’m going to lose her.
I take Mary off the LAV and to my CHU as soon as it stops inside the base. She stays quiet, brimming with fury for the fight we both know we’re about to have.
“He was hitting her!”
Sure enough, she practically explodes the moment we get inside.
“I don’t care if he shot her, you don’t attack people out here,” I growl. She doesn’t get it. She’s a huge danger to herself and to everybody else, and I can’t allow that.
“I’m sending you home. Your credentials are in the process of being revoked.” Saying those words hurts me. It’s fucking awful, but there’s no other option.
“What?” Her eyes go wide.
“I can’t let you run amok out here, Mary. You almost got every single one of us killed, and I guarantee you that woman’s life wasn’t improved by what you did either. You’re impulsive and you’re reckless and you’re a danger to yourself and everyone around you. Pack your stuff. You’re going home.”
“I don’t have a fucking home!”
“You’ll find one, Mary.”
I don’t want to send her away. I want to keep her with me, but this is no place for a woman like her. I have to send her home to save her. It’s the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever had to do, and every part of me wants to go back with her, but I can’t. She has to go. And she has to go alone.
“So you fucked me and now you’re done with me. I get it.”
She makes everything worse with that accusation which devalues everything we’ve ever had.
“Don’t you dare,” I growl right back at her. “I want you, Mary. I goddamn well fucking love you, but you are not in the right frame of mind to be out here, and I’m not going to risk it anymore. You’re going back.”
“Fuck you, Ken.”
I see the rejection and anger in her eyes. I’m sure she hates me in this moment. If I have to be hated to keep her safe, then that’s what I’ll be. The next chopper out of here leaves in two hours, and her ass is going to be on it.
* * *
The next hours are some of the worst I’ve had in a long time. I wanted so much for her to be able to stay with me until I get leave. I wanted to take her somewhere nice, Singapore maybe, or a beach in Thailand. But that’s not going to be possible now.
She needs help. The kind of help I can’t give her here. Her emotions get the best of her, and no matter what she says, I know a death wish when I see one.
For a second time, I find myself putting the woman I want above all others onto a helicopter.
“Be good, Mary.”
She refuses to even look at me as she gets aboard. Her face is a cold mask. She’s hurt. So am I.
We’ll survive.