And then I say,
“How come you’ve never told me you love me?”
There it is. The words that I have been too afraid to say for months are out in the open. I can see them sinking into his skin, registering in his brain. His expression becomes taut, his eyes troubled.
“What makes you think I don’t?” he asks, and his voice is low, defensive.
“Because you’ve never said you do,” I reply.
“I think my actions speak for themselves.”
“Sometimes words need to be said,” I say. “Sometimes people die and you never get the chance to tell them what you should have.” I frown. “Chris. Do you love me? I think you do. I mean, we’ve been through everything together. We’ve given each other everything. If you don’t love me by now, you’re never going to.”
Saying those words out loud is terrifying to me.
If Chris denies loving me, our relationship will be over. I have known that for months, but I have never dared myself to even let my mind wander in that direction. Yet it is true. If Chris doesn’t love me now, I can’t force him to later.
Love is not made. Love just happens.
But I will always love him, no matter what.
“When they told me that you were dead,” Chris says, choosing his words with care, “I didn’t know what I would do if they were right. The Golden Shark was completely capsized. Everyone was dead. Captain Adams, the entire crew. We recovered their bodies, but you weren’t there.” I see darkness in his face, and I realize how difficult that must have been for him. “I had to know. I took a diving team into the bay and we searched for your…” Here he stops to clear his throat. “We searched for your body. Didn’t find it. But I couldn’t believe you were dead. I didn’t let myself.” He presses the tip of his finger to my cheek. “I’m glad I didn’t.”
“You’re a good man, Chris,” I say. “But do you love me or not? I have to know. Do you understand? I have to. No more games. No more avoiding the question.”
Chris takes a deep breath, closing his eyes.
“Of course I do, Cassie,” he whispers. “I love you more than anything else in this world. You’re the light of my life. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
When he says this, my eyes fill with tears.
How long have I waited for him to say those words?
An eternity. I’m sure of it.
“Why didn’t you just tell me sooner?” I say, trembling.
“Because…” Chris sighs. “Because of Jane.”
I check my left and right, slide my hands down my rifle, swinging it into place in my arms. “Jane was your wife,” I say.
Chris nods.
“What happened to her?” I ask.
Chris runs a hand over his face, so handsome, so weary.
“I met her in San Diego,” he tells me. “I was in SEAL training on Coronado Island at the time. She worked as a concierge at the Del Coronado Hotel, right on the beach. Famous place, big draw for celebrities and rich people.” He laughs beside himself. “She was… a lot like you. Spunky, strong-willed. Nobody was going tell her how to live her life. I fell in love with her. We got married after a couple of years, and she moved around the country with me every time I was deployed.”
He pauses, gathers emotional energy, and continues.
“My missions overseas at the time were… high risk,” he says. “Higher than usual. I was on a hit lit. Terrorists put a price on my head. A lot of SEALs on my team did a pretty good job of keeping their identities and their home addresses a secret, but every once a while… information would leak.” He looks at the sky. “I was on an assignment in Baghdad, Iraq. Assassination mission. I got a call.” He stops. His voice quivers, and for the first time I see a flash of a heartbroken man, a scared man. “Jane had been killed. My parents found her dead in our living room. It looked like the house had been torn apart. She’d been shot four times.” He makes a fist and lays it against the trunk of the tree, above my head. “Terrorists. They killed my wife to get to me. But, being the spineless cowards that they are, did it while I was overseas. Killed an unarmed, innocent woman, because they knew I wasn’t home to protect her.”
“My God, Chris,” I breathe. “I’m so sorry.”
“I just couldn’t do it anymore,” he says. “The missions, the fighting. Why? My wife was dead, killed by the very people I’d dedicated my life to taking out. My job was to remove threats to the American people, and I couldn’t even keep my own wife alive.” He leans closer. “That’s when I left the military. I’d given about a decade of my life to my country. It was time to move on. I moved to Santee, California. My parents wanted me to come back home to the farm… but I wasn’t ready for that.” He swallows. “I was an idiot. I was destroyed, heartbroken. Broken by war. I’d see too much, way too much.” He looks into my eyes. “And then came the invasion, the EMP… and you.”
“I had no idea,” I tell him. “I just… I never knew.”
“How could you? I’m good at keeping secrets. I was trained to be a weapon.” He has a profound look of regret on his face. “When you came along, I fell in love all over again. But this time, we were both in a warzone. My chances of protecting you from Omega… from everything the world had become, were so much slimmer. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing you, Cassie. I was afraid that if I said I loved you, I’d jinx it all. Ruin everything. It had happened before… and because you’re a soldier, well… it could happen again. Chances are, it would happen. Soldiers die. Every day.”
I place my hands on his cheeks.
“But I’m not dead yet,” I say.
“No, you’re not.” A single tear sparkles in the corner of his eye, slipping down the side of his face. “I’m sorry, Cassie. I should have told you long ago. I’m an imperfect man with an imperfect past. But as long as you’re alive, I’ll do my best to keep you safe.”
I shake my head.
“No,” I say. “We’ll keep each other safe.”
I slowly kiss him. It is a short kiss, but a meaningful one. Full of promise and love and new hope. “We will survive this,” I say. “Together.”
He smiles his beautiful smile, and for a brief moment, all is right with the world.
“Commander?”
Chris and I both turn at the same time. Uriah is standing there. He is dressed in black. Like me, camouflage paint is smudged on his face.
“Yes?” I say.
Chris raises his eyebrows.
“Omega is here,” Uriah says. “Get ready.”
There is always a calm before the storm. I lie prone in the brush, my rifle in my shoulder, my cheek on the stock. I am comfortable, I am prepared. I am strangely at peace. Chris is beside me, his position the same.
We are a team again. A single unit.
We’ve got six teams here in the woods with us. All of them are members of the Freedom Fighters. I miss having Alexander Ramos and Derek in the fight with us, but we have to work with what we’ve got.
I see Omega approaching. They are coming up the steep incline, cautiously moving along. They are well armed. None of them are talking. They are expecting us to attack them at some point, but they cannot see us. This is their scouting unit, the prologue to the initial attack. We will wait until their first wave is in the midst of our ranks — until we have drawn them in — and then we will attack.
We are hidden, invisible. We are guerrilla warfighters and the element of surprise is our best weapon. I study the enemy. As always, Omega is a varietal mix of ethnicities. German, Russian, Middle Eastern and Chinese. Some of them I can’t put my finger on. It brings on the same old question: Where does Omega really come from?