Prologue

The Addiction in Afghanistan

He woke up to what he hoped was a soft breeze rustling the leaves of the fig tree he was currently laying under. But he was wrong; there was no breeze here. The sounds of the fighter jets made it's way to his ears and even though instinctively he squinted up to the sky to try and catch a glimpse, he knew that he if heard them, they were already long gone, the only trace of them now the breeze they left behind.

Well, that, and the results of anything they may have dropped as they flew by.

Too bad they couldn't have stuck around longer, he thought. An extended breeze would have been nice. His skin felt sticky from the combination of sweat and dust that was always present on his skin these days. It didn't matter how many showers he took a day it wouldn't go away. Not that he could test that theory anyway since he was only allowed one short shower a day. With the limited water they had and a ton of guys on base, showers were a luxury.

And when he was 'training' people, he was lucky if he got a shower once a week. Turns out, when you are in the middle of the Afghani desert on your belly with your finger on the trigger for 3 days straight with the only breaks being to pop another caffeine pill, the last thing you are worried about was your BO. The only smell that ever reached your nostrils was fear and death

The self-recrimination and the guilt over the real reason he volunteered to come here plagued him on a daily basis; no, make that a minutely basis. Sure, he told Bones that he would only be training Afghani soldiers and while he had done some of that, lets just say his cosmic balance sheet was currently completely out of whack and in all the wrong ways. He was going to have to work for the rest of his life to get into the positive column again and he'd only been here four months. Because unlike the FBI, he did not have to fill out a report every time he fired his weapon. Here, the people he worked for wanted no such record of these bullets. The fewer the records the easier it was to deny that those bullets ever existed in the first place.

And ever since he had been here, the guilt was doing more than just wearing on his mind, conscious, and nerves. The base doctor prescribed him Protonix pills after discovering that he already had duodenal and stomach ulcers to prevent more damage to his abused stomach from the continual churning of gastric acid that was an unfortunate side effect of his guilt. He had also been prescribed some Xanax for sleep but he hated taking pills, hated feeling drugged out. The last thing he needed was to replace his gambling addiction with pharmaceuticals.

No, he switched his addiction from gambling to the blonde woman currently dozing in his arms after their recent recreational activities had tired her out. She was the exact balm his soul needed to keep surviving in this environment. The temporary amnesia that he experienced during and after mind-blowing sex with her was so much better than hitting the casino floors when he got home from his previous tours of duty. He was already hooked after only a month of knowing her and he was positive that he couldn't get enough.

Hannah didn't see the ugliness that surrounded him that he saw every morning when he looked in the mirror, that Bones confirmed was there with her rejection of him several months ago. He loved the pure lust he saw in her eyes when she looked at him. It made him feel like he was ten feet tall and invincible, which was a feeling he needed just to get through each day out here. To be honest, it was almost as good as the sex.

But his feelings for this woman were also scaring the crap out of him, too. He was already thinking about how to convince her to come back to Washington D.C. with him when he was done out here and he still had 8 months left in his contract. Whenever he was away from her, he could feel his need for her, the need to forget again crawling under his skin, itching to get out. He was in this crazy cycle right now, alternating between focusing on the kill and then quenching the insatiable need he had for her afterward. He found himself being thankful that she never refused him when he came for her because he wasn't sure what he would do otherwise.

He knew the atrocities he was capable of, he saw it everyday. He just prayed that she could keep them from carrying over into his personal life, into his real life. He found himself praying to her.

His personal angel.

A/N: Intrigued? Look for the first chapter tomorrow! In the meantime, leave a review. : )