“Say it.”
She thought for a moment then sighed. “Follow me. I want you to follow me Xander. I want you to follow me and I shouldn’t.” It was the most emotional she’d ever been with me. Despite her wigging out about me touching her hair she reached up and cupped my face. “I want you to follow me, but I want you to follow your heart. I think you’ll make captain, Lieutenant Cage, and you’ll be great.”
She pulled in a breath, dropped her hands to her sides and left me. She went back inside the house and I stared after her until the door closed.
I thought I’d make captain too and that I would be great.
Things however weren’t that simple.
Whenever I had big decisions to make I always thought back to the past.
It was habit that made me do it.
Compare all that had happened to me and then make a decision. I liked taking my time. I liked to stop and consider all options and avenues before I did anything. That was what I did for everything.
This was just the first time that it felt like it mattered.
I’d never had to think of my heart before. Mainly because I never thought I had to. It was stupid and maybe I’d had it easier when I was trying to deny my feelings for Claire. Easier, but definitely not better.
She would have it that I followed her everywhere. It wasn’t intentional. It just happened that way.
She’d decided she wanted to go to Stanford and I kicked my ass in gear to get the grades to get in because they had a great computer science degree. She decided she wanted to join the Marines and I’d known from the day I signed up for Stanford that I was definitely going to join.
Why?
I blamed her father. He was the coolest person I’d ever met.
Her father, Jack McLaren was already a captain in the Marine Recons when he met me. He’d bounced from being that to something else we didn’t talk about and called it his classified work. It suited when we went off to college.
I admired him and wanted to follow in his footsteps the same way she had.
I had to admit though… my heart followed her. It was no bad thing that we were so similar. No bad thing at all.
It was just times like this when decisions had to be made that it might be a bad thing.
The decision to be made was this:
We’d both served as marines for the last four years and moved up the ranks fast. We’d both gotten promoted to first lieutenant. I was heading for captain and I felt that a year or two would get me there. Being first lieutenant was different from just being second. There was more responsibility and more freedom of how you chose to do various things and follow through plans.
I could see myself as captain. A commander in charge of teams of other officers. I felt it suited me, but what also suited me was the invite I received last week to join the Special Missions Force. SMF.
I would be some type of Mission Impossible agent and damn did that ever appeal to me. I knew though that I’d gotten in because of the way that I was able to get my men out of enemy territory when we were captured in Uzbekistan.
When I gave my report it didn’t take a genius to figure that what I spoke of by way of what I did wasn’t stuff they taught you in the marines. It came natural and only a hacker of my abilities could have devised a program on the spot to scramble the security system the enemy had used. And only a thief could execute the plan the way I had.
When I say thief I meant someone who could handle themselves different to the guy who stole a loaf of bread, or a shop lifter.
Thief and hacker, whichever, it represented the old me and I wasn’t sure I should be following through on people who wanted me because of that.
The only thing that encouraged me to sign up was her. She got the invite too.
She was good, one of the best, and that was where she was heading since the classified work Jack did was exactly that.
He’d been a SMF agent and the offer had been extended to both of us to join a new team that was being set up.
I should be happy. It was a chance to follow her again, but I knew I saw myself as a captain. When I joined the marines I hoped for the chance to just be good. That from a guy who at one point in his life had no hope or future.
This might be a chance to be better.
I’d learned that people sometimes were posed with different pathways. All could seem could and it didn’t always come down to what you wanted the most. It came down to what you thought was best.
I had to be honest with myself and admit that if Claire wasn’t in the equation I would turn down the offer. I would turn the job down and go down the path I’d wanted for years and work my ass off to be captain.
So, why was I contemplating this decision when it felt like I already knew what I wanted?
The answer was she’d said yes and just confirmed she was saying yes even though I knew from the get go that she would. And, the new unit that we’d been invited to join was being formed to go after a terrorist group called The Ra. The name was enough to put the fucking fear of God in me. Out on the field I’d heard whispers. I knew they were a group no one wanted to mess with and so far I hadn’t come in contact with them. That didn’t mean I didn’t know the dangers. I knew them all too well and knew what they were capable of. Mass murders, genocide, biological warfare. That was just the beginning of it.
They were anarchists who didn’t care who they killed as long as they got the job done. They worked like ants, each had a job and that was the focus. Even if the job was as simple as picking up a piece a paper. If that guy who had been tasked with doing the mundane saw the opportunity to do more he wouldn’t do it because that was someone else’s task. It was what made them effective and efficient. Everyone focused on what they had to do, and there were thousands of them. People who associated with them in secret and did their bidding. All manner of people linked to them. It wouldn’t be like what we were used to in the marines. It would be a whole other battlefield.
Hunting for the worst type of criminals known to man.
I couldn’t let her go knowing I could be with her. I couldn’t do it.
After all, I owed her a lot.
To say I had a tough upbringing put it far too mild. I’d lived on the streets and barely went to school. I grew up bouncing from one foster home to another. Unwanted for various reasons. That was back in Chicago.
The day Claire and I met, I’d just been kicked out of my foster home for smoking and nearly burning down the house. I’d always been part of the wrong crowd, and that time I fell in with the worse. Mobsters. They liked my skills. Loved that I could get in and out of every and anywhere without being seen. Loved that I could hack into any bank account I wanted and steal millions if I chose to.
What they didn’t love was when things went wrong. That was what happened the day I met Claire and Jack.
Things went completely south and I fucked up. I was running for my life. The mobsters I’d worked for had already beat me to a pulp because a drop off went wrong and the feds were all over them. They held me captive and I escaped.
I ended up in the garage of her home where she found me battered and bruised. She hid me even when they came knocking looking for me. She hid me and asked her father if I could stay. He agreed.
I told him my story and I didn’t know what he did but no one chased me after that and I was still with them ten years later.
I owed her because that day changed my life and gave me direction.