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eh Devroe A cold-eyed bastard, but he seeh that it kept e to think of now, because they were so painful, because he asked me to I saw hi to put ly “‘Just like an ani,’ he told his supervisor ‘We’ll put him down next week’”
Elizabeth closed her eyes in horror
“I saw his kids look up to, but that day, I saw the monster he really was Two days later I found my chance, hid in one of the supply trucks and shipped out with it I knew I’d have to hide I’d have to be suard up unless I wanted to return to my own death Friends make you weak You want to trust them You want to depend on them, let them depend on you I saw all the hazards of that after I found foster care and began growing “
He had been a child, she thought Ten years old and alone His voice washed over her as he told her about the life he found Foster care hadn’t been easy for hi And he made sure no one else had the chance to betray him He didn’t make friends Stayed to himself When he joined the Army and then the Special Forces, he had kept that determination
But as he talked, Elizabeth realized that the honor and determination to save lives that filled Dash had run the course of his Arth owed him their lives, just as he owed several of them His voice became softer, a bit amused as he spoke of those years and thoseto the bonds that had formed
Finally, he cahanistan to weed out a new contingent of terrorists that were hiding in thecooler, though she heard the pain beneath it
“There were twelve of us,” he finally said softly “We’d been fighting together for over a year My longest unit assignularly as I was needed I’et close when you fight that long together” He sighed “You learn each other’s dreams You knoho carries secrets and who doesn’t You…” The silence surrounding the minutes “You become brothers,” he finally finished “We were the Deadly Dozen And for the first ti, you know,friends I had hidden for so da alone I tried to make myself”
She moved closer to him He wasn’t alone He never had been, but she couldn’t tell hi until he was ready to hear it He had thought himself alone, and as she told Cassie, what you convinced your mind was all that mattered
“We had just cleared up a killer mission Son of a bitch, we pulled it off without a casualty Those men were bruisers, and we covered each other’s asses like underwear We’d just been airlifted and were heading ho in to take command of the unit I was unofficial coht maybe it was time, that maybe I could find a place for myself Kind of a fah
“Jack and Craig, they were da hoirls for the weekend There were a few nurses on base they had been seeing Mac and Ti about getting drunk and calling the ex’s The others were ribbing each other, flying high on adrenaline and success And I was sitting there watching the in the back of ht The world went to hell two minutes later”
She lay against him, desperate to hold hiainst his body, feeling his arms close convulsively around her
“I was close to the door and was thrown clear as the helicopter went down I don’t even kno that happened The others were dead before they hit the ground The impact of the explosive was da that time, Elizabeth They kneould be there and they kneho they were hitting And they killed every dauard Because I let their caot them all killed, Elizabeth, because I let them be friends”
She heard the ragged edge of guilt, the torment he felt because he had been unable to control the events that happened But she saw so those he cared for, the scars it left on his soul because he couldn’t save everyone
She rose up in the bed, turning so she could stare into his eyes The dih of a glow to allow her to see the aze
“You can’t run froently “You can deny the friendships until hell freezes over and it won’t change anything Just like all the guilt in the world won’t change the fact that you couldn’t save those ht You have no way of controlling Simon, his women or me But you can still accept us, and you can still love us And you can know, that if any of us die at any ti the way, you enriched our lives There’s no more you can do”