Triangles 13
Several hours had passed and Jaz's head drooped against the cold stone wall, her arms chilled even in her long sleeved shirt. Preach lifted his head to see a silver shaft of moonlight illuminate Adam's face. The younger man stared grimly across the room, not focusing on anything but not zoned out, his cool blue eyes narrow as the direness of the situation weighed heavy on his mind.
"Top," Preach kept his voice quiet, so as to not wake Jaz. "Words left unsaid can be a man's biggest regret."
Adam turned his head and gazed at his dear friend and teammate. "What are you talking about?"
Preach nodded toward Jaz. "Don't wait until you're out of chances to be honest with her, my friend. We may not make it out of here alive."
"Preach, don't talk like that. We're gonna figure something out. This isn't the end for us." Adam shook his head.
"Don't be a fool, Adam. I say this as your friend with the greatest respect for you. I care about you, and I care about that young lady over there. She deserves to know the truth. And running from your fears is never something I'd expect from you..." he said with a pointed stare.
"Running from my... I'm not running from anything, Ezekiel." Top's eyes glittered with carefully guarded control.
Preach didn't respond verbally but raised his eyebrows in gentle question and bravely held his friend's gaze.
"I'm her commanding officer. She has worked way too hard to get to where she is for me to do something stupid that would jeopardize her career."
"If they kill us all, like I overheard them saying they planned to do before they brought you two in here, your position of authority will mean little to her," Preach returned.
Adam huffed and strained against his cold metal restraints. "They aren't going to kill us. They can't." The last two words were whispered softly, desperately, under his breath.
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Amir and McG were silent as they filed into the DIA headquarters conference room behind Noah and Hannah. The ride back to the city had been quiet but full of thoughts and desperate ideas. Leaving their team behind went against everything in them. But they were soldiers and they couldn't disobey direct orders.
The four seated themselves at one end of the long table, faces grim and tension high. Amir broke the silence first.
"You knew."
Hannah focused her eyes on the pencil in her hands, tears threatening to push past her long lashes. She had tried to warn them. Noah's eyes snapped to attention, darting back and forth between Amir, Hannah, and McG.
"What gives you that idea?"
Amir stared at the man unwaveringly. "Tell. Me. Everything."
"This information is on a need-to-know basis," Noah said, shaking his head.
McG piped up, "We need to know! This information jeopardized our team and got three of them captured, and potentially killed! What's going on, man?"
Noah looked to Hannah who had trained pleading eyes on him. "They should know," her soft voice implored.
"All right, but this information doesn't leave this room, understood?"
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The door slamming open jarred all three prisoners from their sleep abruptly. Two big burly men approached Jaz with cuff keys and were surprised when she began kicking at both of them before they had freed her.
One of the men quickly retrieved a syringe from his pocket and stuck it in Jaz's thigh. The effect was almost immediate and Jaz was quickly subdued, then released from her place on the stone wall.
"No! Jaz!" Adam fought his restraints to no avail. It was hard to get enough leverage from where he was chained to do much damage to the guards, but he managed a few well placed kicks. Jaz's limp body tore at Adam's heart and blinded him with rage, but there was nothing he could do as the men dragged her out of the building.
Adam drooped in defeat, Preach's words about unspoken regret echoing in his heart and mind.
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Jaz gasped as freezing water enveloped her face and poured down her torso. The comfort of darkness and unconscious oblivion gone, her senses were now on high alert and Jaz knew immediately the drug cocktail they had given her was messing with her brain. She prayed she would be able to resist whatever torture was in store.
Jaz stared at the small man in front of her. He hadn't been one of the ones to retrieve her from the stone structure in the middle of the woods, nor the one to drench her in ice water, but he clearly was the one in charge.
"I had hoped I could spare at least the female member of Spec Ops Team 7 this ... rough treatment, but your resistance leaves me no option..." the man's voice trailed off before he unexpectedly spun around in a full circle and punched Jaz straight in the sternum.
He was surprisingly strong and the punch rattled Jaz's frame, knocking her breath from her lungs. Jaz stilled and focused her mind as best she could on one thing - making it back to Adam alive because she had things that needed to be said if this was how it was going to end.
"Say something!" The small man screeched, startling Jaz. She jumped but kept quiet which seemed to infuriate him.
He proceeded to punch Jaz repeatedly in the face, fists swinging wildly but somehow landing square on target each time. Left, right, left, right. Each punch knocked her head towards her opposite shoulder and the combination of that plus the drugs was quite effective at bringing the migraine back to pounding intensity.
Finally he stopped. Jerking her head towards his face by her hair, he pushed his face inches from her own, so close she could smell the acrid scent of his breath.
"I'm bored with you. For now," he sneered. He motioned to the two men who had brought her from her prison and ordered them to take her away and bring back the black man.
"I'm saving your good Captain for last..." he snickered at Jaz when her cheeks blanched and eyes widened at his remark.
The men shoved a black hood over Jaz's head and roughly dragged her from her chair. The walk back to the stone prison went on and on, 45 minutes or more. Jaz continued to stumble in the woods with her vision restricted. Finally they came to the clearing and one of the men jerked the hood from her face.
She gasped in the bright sunlight and fresh air, trying to gauge the time by the position of the sun. Before noon, maybe an hour or two. She had been unconscious when they had dragged her out, and she hadn't made it a point to remember how much light there was around her before they had stabbed her with the drugs. Top would be able to give her a pretty good reading on it though.
Dalton's eyes flashed in anger as they entered the small building and clamped the cuffs on each of Jaz's wrists. He could tell she had been beaten - the bruises on her face were anything but subtle, dark purple mottling around one very swollen cheek and jaw, a cut on the other side with blood trickling down her face and dried blood under her nose. One eye was dark blue and purple and starting to swell, too.
The men didn't even bother trying to get Preach up peacefully. They worked together to jab him with a syringe before attempting to uncuff him. He was much heavier than Jaz, and it took both of the men, straining under his weight and the awkwardness of his size to lug him outside.
Jaz quelled a snicker at the thought of them trying to carry him all the way back to wherever it was she had been taken.
"Jaz," Adams eyes filled with concern. "They hurt you."
"Just a few punches. Nothing I haven't endured before," she gave him a brave smile before wincing in pain. Apparently one of those punches had connected with her mouth.
"Did they say anything?" Dalton asked, desperate for a clue as to why they were targeted.
"Just that they knew we were Special Operations Team 7, and that you're the Captain. He said he was saving you for last. He got pissed when I wouldn't say anything, as if I had any idea about what he wanted to hear...he didn't ask any questions."
Dalton's brow furrowed. "Strange. It's like they knew who we were and they were definitely prepared for us. Any sign of McG or Amir?"
Jaz shook her head softly and said, "No. No mention of Patricia either..."
Jaz paused a moment and studied Adam's face. His eyes were dark and shuttered as he concentrated on an imaginary spot across the room.
"Top..." Jaz's voice was soft and there was a pit in her stomach as she considered how to say what she wanted to. She waited until he turned his eyes towards her.
"What's up?" His eyes lightened as he recognized hesitancy in her face.
"If we don't make it out of here...I just wanted to say—"
"Don't say that, Jaz. We're gonna get out of here," Adam cut in.
"Please, just let me finish," she whispered, her eyes pleading for him to listen.
He closed his mouth and nodded to her, acquiescing.
"Before I was placed on this team, I had no family, no place of belonging, no one that cared for me in the least. I joined the Army because I figured I might as well die for a cause bigger than myself and what cause better than our country?"
Adam nodded sadly, knowing her empty background and wishing it had been different for her. He understood personally the hurt and devastation an abusive family could inflict.
"And at first," Jaz continued, "it was enough — fighting for freedom and justice and kicking the asses of so many bad guys."
Jaz had turned from directly facing Adam to staring across the room and she smiled ironically at her last comment.
"But ..." Adam remarked softly in the quiet pause.
"I never worried about what would happen on tour, and to be honest I hated going on leave. I mean, I still hate going on leave, but ..." her voice trailed off again and Jaz blinked back unbidden, unexpected tears.
"I have a family now. Because of you."
Jaz chanced a timid glance at Adam's face. Honesty was hard but he needed to know how much he meant to her, regardless of his unwillingness to address the tensions between them. Her eyes implored his to understand the import of her words.
"You invited me to this team and you ensured the guys accepted me as an equal. This team means more to me than any kind of blood relation. You're my family and you, Adam ... you're my person. And I never thought I'd ever say that to anyone. So, thank you. Thank you for being who you are because you mean the world to me."
Adam swallowed around the growing lump in his throat and willed himself not to allow the tear in his eye to leak out onto his cheek.
"Jaz..." Adam's voice was hoarse and caught on that pesky lump his throat. Heat tinged his cheeks as he cleared his throat to speak clearly.
"There's this ... line ... that as your Captain, I have to maintain. For the safety of our entire team. I have to make difficult decisions, to put you in harm's way or to trust you in a hairy situation and know that you've got our backs, and the only way I can objectively do that is to have a certain level of detachment. I've never had an issue with that line ... not until Tehran. I took out my frustration of the situation we were in on you because I knew you could handle it but ultimately my short sightedness led to your capture. I'll never forgive myself for almost losing you. And when that van drove off and mine sputtered and died ... Jaz, that line was gone. It was like I couldn't even think straight because all I knew was the most important person in my world was being transported to who knew where to be tortured and killed."
"Top..." Jaz's voice was so soft he almost missed it. The tear had spilled down his rough cheek as he had spoken and left a shiny track into his beard. Jaz reached her fingers towards his and grazed her fingertips along his.
Adam looked intently at Jaz. "Please ... say my name again?"
"Adam," Jaz formed the unfamiliar syllables, relishing the way they rolled over her tongue.
"Jaz..." Adam's eyes sought Jaz's. "I love you — I'm in love with you — and you deserve to know that. I would be court martialed if anyone but Patricia was in command over me and heard me saying this to you, but..." Adam glanced at the stone walls around them, "there is no line here. Right now, it's you and me, and whatever happens to us, it doesn't matter."
Jaz was having a hard time keeping up with Adam's words, trying to process his admission of love. Sure, men had said those words to her before off handedly or right before trying to get into her pants, but never once had she believed it. But Adam was Adam and she trusted him implicitly.
Adam stretched his fingers toward Jaz, straining against the cuffs bolted to the rough wall, wishing with all his heart he could hold Jaz in his arms and reassure her of his love with a tender touch.
"So that whole let's kiss to avoid detection thing that I tried to forget but obviously couldn't get out of my mind ... it was all real, Jaz. I love you. I need you. And let's be honest, I sure as hell want you."
Adam's eyes were the clearest yet darkest shade of blue Jaz had ever seen, the storm of passion perhaps clouding his usually impeccable judgment, but Jaz couldn't bring herself to care. He loved her. She hadn't imagined all those feelings that she'd half convinced herself were fake and entirely one sided.
"Adam, I —" Jaz was cut off by the door banging open and Preach's limp body being dragged in and dumped on the other side of Adam.
Adam quickly schooled his features into a blank mask. He'd figured out a plan to gain the upper hand when they came back, and for it to work, the guards had to think he wasn't going to put up a fight. Jaz frantically looked back and forth from Preach and Adam, concerned for Preach's unconscious condition but also terrified that this could be the last time she saw Adam alive. He was just sitting there, his head dropped on his chest, no fight left in his strong arms.
"Adam," Jaz's voice was whisper soft, so soft Adam almost missed it. He surreptitiously regarded her face and saw tears tracking silently down her cheeks. His eyes held hers for what seemed like eternity yet also a blink of an eye.
"I love you too."
It wasn't audible, but Adam could read her lips and the heartbreak as he allowed the guards to unshackle him without a fight.
"Top, please don't leave me. Top!"Her voice grew in volume as the guards roughly pulled Adam to his feet. She thrashed her feet toward the guard closest to her, only to receive a back handed smack to her face followed by a swift kick to the midsection.
"Top!" She moaned as he was half dragged, half carried out of the little stone building. The pain in her face and stomach barely registered as her heart felt like it was literally breaking in two. With Adam in command, she had purpose, direction, and stability. The moment he left the cold prison, it was like her heart was ripped from her body, like falling down under water with no oxygen available, like her world was simultaneously imploding and spinning out of control. The air in the building was empty. Jaz gasped, trying to breathe but the darkness surrounding her pressed in and held her lungs captive.
Jaz frantically searched her mind for those calming sniper techniques that used to be second nature, honing in on one thing and using that focus to block out the unnecessary distractions. But no matter the deep breaths she attempted or the slow counting or conscious body muscle contractions, the image of Adam's bloody corpse that Arthur had shoved in her face in that hideous white torture chamber would not leave her mind's eye. The picture was faked but the reality that she may never see Dalton alive again was not and the thought drowned out any rational thought. Darkness eclipsed Jaz's vision except for flashes of bright, hot light in shades of white and yellow.
"...it was real. I love you. I need you. And let's be honest, I sure as hell want you."
Adam's confession echoed in her mind. Slowly the darkness scattered and the light flashes faded as the golden warmth of his love settled in her heart. Jaz felt her heart calm from its erratic pace to a slower, steady beat and she took a welcome deep breath. At least she would die having known and been known by the best man she had ever met. And he wanted her, needed her, loved her.