Chapter Twenty-Five
ANA
It was too loud to talk on the military plane and sleeping seemed like the absolute best option. I was exhausted. It was more than physical exhaustion though. My body and mind were so tired that I felt like I could sleep for a week.
Nate sat with Baller and Sandbag during the flight. They conversed with the soldiers and seemed to have a lot in common with them. They were all bringing home some fallen friends and I felt like sleeping was better than imposing on anyone during their time of remembrance.
Even as I rested my head though, I felt like a new person. I was energized and not interested in just letting life pass me by. Instead of being afraid, I felt a new power, as if I could take on anyone and anything.
Of course, Stephano still loomed over my head, but I didn’t have that fear of him like I had before. My memories of my time there were now making me feel stronger and more like I could take on the world. This outlook was something so new to me that it scared me a bit.
Even when I was a child, I hadn’t had so much confidence in myself that I could take on the world. I had always had a feeling as if I would lead a mediocre life and probably never be truly happy. So, it surprised me greatly that my stunt of going to a war zone had been the thing that gave me happiness and confidence in my life.
Even the eight hours of sleep I got on the plane ride home didn’t feel like it had filled up my lost sleep meter. All I wanted to do was crawl into bed and get another day or so of sleeping done before I decided what I would do next with my life. There were a lot of choices ahead of me, and I couldn’t wait to sit and talk with Nate to see what he thought I should do. I wasn’t exactly sure how long he was planning on waiting before he started his own agency up, but I knew there would be plenty of training and things I should get started on while I waited.
But before we could do anything else, before we could even think about anything else, we had to talk with Rake’s family. I had expected that we would be able to drive to their house and talk with them, so I was surprised when his wife and child were waiting at the airport. Blankenship had brought them there to meet the plane.
Because we were traveling with soldiers for the United States Army who had also been killed in action, there was a full reception for them as they were unloaded from the plane first. It was an emotional scene as we stood to the side of the plane and watched the families as the caskets were brought off.
I had never witnessed such an emotional and sad scene before in my life. I was sobbing by the time Rake’s casket was taken off the plane and brought to the funeral home vehicle. I stood at a distance as his wife and child placed their hands on his casket and then kissed it. Their loss was tremendous and I didn’t think I could have understood that feeling before I met Nate.
I suddenly realized that I loved him. Not puppy love or lust like I had felt in my past. But actually loved him. I didn’t care if we always saw eye to eye; I didn’t care if we sometimes argued because my heart realized that we would figure it out. Together, we would figure out what would be best.
My tears weren’t just for the families and their losses. I also felt happy that I had a man in my life who was a good man and I knew I could have a future with. But with that future would always come some sort of uncertainty as his job brought him to places where he could get killed.
“You all right?” Nate asked as he stood next to me and let his hand slide into mine.
“It’s so sad. She finally found the love of her life and now he’s gone.”
I expected Nate to say something or counteract my sadness with some sort of statement about Rake living the life he wanted to, but he didn’t. Instead, Nate squeezed my hand harder and moved even closer to me as we watched in sadness. It was a reality for anyone that did the job Nate did, and I wasn’t sure I really wanted to be part of it anymore. If I was ever going to have a family or get married, it wouldn’t be a life for a mother, I was certain of that. I wasn’t even sure it should be a life for a father. But I would never tell Nate he couldn’t do a job that he loved.
“Thank you for bringing him home,” Rake’s wife said to Nate as she hugged him.
“If you need anything, you call me or one of the guys. We will always be there for you.”
Those words were all it took to send the young woman into total tears as she wrapped her arms tight around Nate and released the sadness of the moment. There wasn’t anything for me to do but watch the moment, and I felt helpless and needed something to do with myself so I grabbed her young son’s hand and brought him away so Nate and she could talk.
“Today’s a sad day, isn’t it?” I said as we walked into the hanger area so I could find him a snack.
He just nodded his head yes. I found some change in my pocket and got some animal crackers out of the vending machine as we sat down in some chairs near the window. We didn’t talk, but I felt him calming as he sat next to me. We watched the other planes from the airport as they took off and landed for at least thirty minutes. It was mesmerizing to watch them.
“Rudy, are you ready to go?” his mother said as she stood behind us.
Rudy stood up and reached his hand out to shake mine.
“Thanks for being my friend,” he said in his quiet sad voice.
“Thank you. I needed a friend today too,” I said as I shook his hand.
He ran off with his mother, and Nate came to sit next to me. I couldn’t help but want to hug him and just start crying again. I really couldn’t imagine that he did that as his job all the time. It was emotionally and physically much harder than anything I had imagined.
“Well, I guess it’s just the two of us,” Nate said as we sat there together.
“I guess it is.”
“Do you want to go home?”
It was funny, I had only lived with Nate for a few weeks, but his house did feel like home to me. I couldn’t imagine going home to any other place.
“What about Stephano?” I asked.
“I think we can handle him together.” Nate laughed. “I’ve actually had the word out at home about Stephano. I think he’s going to back off, but we could always remind his goons how tough you really are if they decide to show up.”
“So, he’s not going to come after me?”
Nate knew I would want to know for sure what was going on and if Stephano was going to stop hunting me. But certainty didn’t seem like something we got very much in our lives. I would settle for some sort of understanding that if we left him alone, he would leave us alone. Really, I didn’t care at all what happened to Stephano or his people. I just wanted them to leave me alone.
My ordeal with Stephano had been a lifetime ago. I would always have the mental scars from that ordeal, but I hoped to be in a much better place to deal with them. Since going to Syria, I hadn’t deal with any of the fear or nightmares like I had before I left.
I couldn’t explain it exactly, but I felt like I had overcome the feeling of helplessness that I had once felt. Perhaps the fear that had come after I left Stephano’s house was partly from not having confidence in myself and my own abilities. Or perhaps I needed more life experiences before I could feel like I was able to move on.
But I did feel ready to move on and I was going to keep getting better and better at taking on my life. I didn’t need Stephano found for my own mental health, but it would put my mind at ease. I needed him found so I could move on and stop thinking about him. I didn’t want to waste any more of my life thinking of him or having him use up my energy.
I liked Nate’s plan, but I was afraid of feeling afraid again. I didn’t want to go back to a place where I was always feeling like someone was out to get me. No matter how confident I was in my skills, there was always the possibility of getting surprised and not being prepared when one of Stephano’s goons showed up.
“Do you think he still wants me?”
“I think I made sure he knew you were in Damascus with me and that you had Special Forces training now. If he decides he wants to mess with you, it will be a whole different event than the first time.”
I certainly didn’t have Special Forces training, but I liked how Nate thought. I also would love to have some training at that level before I went out on another job—if I ever did something like that. I couldn’t wait to have Nate help me with all the things I needed to learn.
I imagined us staying up to all hours of the day again as he showed me more hand-to-hand combat moves and taught me how to shoot different weapons. Being over in Syria had shown me just how much I didn’t know, and what I would love to learn more of.
Backwoods training was something that really interested me now. I wanted to know how to start my own fires and find food. I basically wanted to learn anything and everything that would help ensure I would survive all situations that came my way. I even wanted to know what I should do if I was ever captured and how I could escape such a situation.
The future wasn’t very clear for me, but I felt like I had unlimited choices to make and could do almost anything that I wanted. If I wanted to train more and take on another assignment, I was sure I could convince Nate to agree. Although, it would take some long talks, because I saw how he didn’t like my idea of working with him in war zones. If I decided I wanted to go to college, I was sure Nate would be agreeable to that without issue.
There were endless possibilities and I felt so excited for my future. Only a few months before I hadn’t felt like I would ever have a future, and there I was planning multiple versions of it with an amazing man by my side. Life sure did have the ability to change in an instant.
“Let’s go home then,” I said to Nate as we intertwined are hands together and left the airport.
The drive from Washington D.C. to Atlanta seemed much more peaceful than it had been when we drove up to the city. We stopped and got snacks at gas stations, pulled over at rest stops, and talked for hours; we even took a little nap at one of the stops. Finally, we arrived back at Nate’s cabin.
I was nervous as we pulled up. I expected the door to be flung wide open and the whole house pillaged through by Stephano’s goons. But when we got there, it was still locked up and nothing looked out of place at all. I didn’t want to be nervous. I hated that Stephano was occupying any of my mental space, but I couldn’t keep him out of my thoughts.
“See, nothing to worry about,” Nate said as we walked into the house.
At first I felt like it was a trap of some sort and we were going to get shot at. I felt an overwhelming feeling of dread, but I couldn’t decide if that feeling was remembered from when I was there last or if it was a new feeling. All I knew was there was no way I was sleeping alone at all. I would be wrapped up in Nate’s arms and feeling his protection every night we were there.
“Do you think I was wrong?” I asked as the thought crossed my mind.
“No,” he answered quickly.
“How can you be sure? Maybe I just imagined all those pictures and what had been in that cabin.”
The thought had haunted me a lot over the recent days. My mind played so many tricks on me when I was scared. I couldn’t be sure what I had seen was even real. And I certainly didn’t know if it was Stephano who had sent whoever was in that cabin.
“It was real, Ana. You described the scene in color. You knew what the curtains looked like in color. If it had been a hallucination, you wouldn’t have known the colors.”
Nate’s certainty made me feel better. If he believed me, then I had to believe myself. I had never really had a man around who trusted me and supported me. It was an amazing feeling to have him there by my side and saying that he believed me.
Everything about having Nate with me was like a dream and I didn’t want to wake up from it. I wanted to keep Nate there with me forever and wished I could come up with the words to talk to him about our future together.
“What are we going to do about it?” I asked.
“How about you trust me now? I’m getting it taken care of.”
I did trust Nate; that was one hundred percent real. I knew that he would never do anything to harm me and would always be on the lookout for anything that was dangerous. I knew that if Nate said he was taking care of the situation, then he was taking care of it. I thought he might be having Stephano killed or something like that, but even that didn’t bother me. Because Stephano was a horrible person and he didn’t deserve to live. I could care less if he was murdered, but I did want to know the truth. I didn’t want to be sheltered from the truth because Nate thought I couldn’t handle it.
“Okay, but promise me you’ll tell me what is going on as soon you know. I don’t care what it is. I want to know the truth.”
“I will always tell you the truth,” Nate said as he pulled me close to him.
His body next to mine felt like home and I didn’t want to let go of him. I never wanted to let go of him. My whole life I had wondered when or how I would know that I had found my perfect match. But as I sat wrapped up in his arms, I just felt it. I just knew it deep in my soul that he was my match and I was his. There wasn’t a big way of telling for sure and I actually had a hard time explaining the feeling even to myself. But I knew it.
“I’d like you to stay living here with me,” Nate said softly as he looked down at me.
I smiled at the thought. We hadn’t specifically talked about staying there with him, but it did make me happy that he had been thinking about it and brought up the topic. My heart was full as I stood there with Nate. Nothing else in the world mattered if I had him by my side. I knew we would take on the world together and no one would dare get in our way. With Nate and I working as a team, Stephano wouldn’t bother us. I couldn’t want to move into the next phase of us, whatever it was.
It didn’t matter what the next phase was. The only thing that mattered was that we would be stepping into that great unknown together. We were a couple now and together we were going to live the life that made us happy. Not the life that others wanted us to live, but the life that we wanted for ourselves; that was all that mattered. Nate and I were all that mattered besides our families and loved ones.
“I’ll stay as long as you’ll have me.”
“Then stay forever.”