Chapter Seven

Alex didn't sleep the night through and funnily enough neither did Wolf.

They met in the kitchen, where Wolf was nursing a hot cup of tea and looking worn out. "Any tea in the pot?" Alex asked.

Wolf grunted an affirmative and watched Alex sink into the chair opposite him with his own cup. "Snake's right. You do look familiar. You remind me of Cub." He took a slurp of tea.

"Who's Cub?" Alex asked, trying to ignore the fact that the subject was a little too close for comfort.

"He was some kid we met during training. I gave him a hard time, but damn the kid kept up with us the entire time!" He paused, lost in thought. "I saw him only once again, three years ago, he was attending this private school for troubled boys. Anyhow, he ended up snowboarding down a mountain on an ironing board, and helped us during the raid on the school. Then he had the balls to say "I sleighed him" when I asked what he had done to the 'good' doctor who had been running the school." He shook his head. "The kid seriously earn't my respect."

"Sounds like a lad." Alex paused and then asked; "what happened to him?"

Wolf shrugged. "Don't know, we get updates now and then, but he seems to spend a lot of time in hospital. Seems odd when you think about it. I mean, he trained with SAS soldiers and now he can't go a week without checking in at some hospital."

"Oh." Alex said. Like Ben had thought K-Unit didn't seem to be getting the truth when it came to Cub and his job. Alex was happier that way. He didn't need to be so careful. He took a slurp of his tea and almost spat it out again. Wolf had obviously been sitting there for a while.

He got up to make himself another, fresher, cup of tea, when Snake padded into the kitchen. "Tea?" Alex asked. Snake nodded and ran a weary hand through his hair.

"Alright, James?" Snake queried.

"Just about." Wolf or James said.

"You need to stop blaming yourself."

"I can't. It was my fault."

"You were following orders." Snake snapped back.

James replied in a thick voice. "Kyle, I should have ignored my orders. Should've done the right thing to start with, rather than sit on my arse and let those people die!"

"You did ignore those orders, James. You did the right thing."

"Not soon enough to help. I knew that those orders where bullshit and I still followed them."

"You argued against them."

"I should have just let them argue amongst themselves and done the right thing, not argued with them!"

Alex broke in; "what do you think would have happened if you'd gone in sooner?"

"We could have saved them."

"You wouldn't have been able to." Kyle and James both stared at Alex. "You'd have joined them." He stated.

"I know you're talking about the fiasco in the middle-east that happened last week. I was there. In that building. The only reason I got out of there was because of a trick someone taught me a long time ago. I didn't know those people were in the building."

He looked away from the stares of the two men. His gaze landing on Eagle in the doorway.

"I doubt you've ever faced a real group of Scorpia agents. They're ruthless, observant, adept at stopping and disposing of units of army and SAS men. You would have been killed or caught and taken back to that building where you would have been blown to pieces." Alex paused and drew in a breath. "I pressed that button. I blew that place sky-high. I murdered men, woman, children, soldiers, agents and a group of professional Scorpia agents. I broke a lot of hearts that night: ruined a lot of dreams. It was my way out and I took it. If I'd know the outcome of that path - I may have still picked it." He dropped his cup into the sink. "I'm going for a run."

Alex left, thinking of one of the people he'd murdered because of those agents and their bluff that he called.

Jack.

Turned out it hadn't been a bluff.

James, Kyle and Drew stared blankly at the door Alex had left by. In his pyjama bottoms. At three o'clock in the morning.

The agent obviously wished he'd known what was going too happened and if he could have prevented it. Although his last statement 'I may still have picked it' haunted the three men left in the kitchen.

On the other hand Alex was pondering the irony that he and Wolf had been woken by the same nightmare.

And that Wolf blamed himself for Alex's actions.