V.
She dreams about the beach sometimes.
When she closes her eyes, she can still feel the sand on her skin, the wind in her hair, the heat of the sun beating down on her back. She can still hear McG talking smack and Preach coaching the kids and the cheering after her team wins.
It was a good day.
Until it wasn't.
...
As far as life or death situations go, she's had worse. They all have.
They've been in war zones and terrorist cells and deep in enemy territory. They've had near misses with landmines and grenades and have been outmanned and outgunned more times than she can count. But none of that compares to the horror she feels watching the truck come barreling towards them that day.
Because there are civilians there on the beach – innocent men, women, and children. They're laughing and playing and just living their lives, lives that hold so much potential, so much promise.
They're happy.
They think they're safe.
They deserve to be.
...
Jaz is holding a boy in her arms when the world stops shaking.
He whimpers against her chest the whole time they wait for the dust to settle, but he never cries, not once.
After the flames die down, they wander through the wreckage, trying to locate his family, and she's not sure what would be worse – never finding them at all, or finding their bodies. She thinks it might be the first one.
They have combed through most of the area when he stops and crouches down. A woman lies there, her blood staining the sand, and she doesn't move, not when he touches her, not when he shakes her, not even when he begs her to please open her eyes.
Jaz was wrong before.
This is worse.
Many months later, when she slips poison into a murderer's tea in Tehran, she thinks about that boy and the sound he made cradling the body of his dead mother.
When she snaps the man's neck, she sees that boy's face.
It feels like justice.
...
In the parking garage, when they take her away, she glimpses Dalton through the window for one split second. He gives her a look she's never seen before – full of fear and desperation and something else she can't quite name.
She's sure this is the last time she'll ever see him, and she's sorry it had to end this way, but more than anything, she's glad she got to meet him and know him and fight alongside him.
She doesn't regret any of it.
She hopes he knows that.
...
In the white room, the man talks and talks and pokes and prods, trying to get her to spill her secrets. He reminds her of her father – disapproving and condescending, with a cruelty that could be mistaken for kindness.
He calls her love while ordering her torture. He whispers in her ear after firing a gun at her. He touches her so gently, her skin and her scars, as if moments before, he didn't want her broken.
Jaz has known many men like him. She knows the games they like to play, and she knows how to win.
She may die in that room, but she will not break.
She will give him nothing.
...
The pictures shoved in her face hurt more than the fists or knives ever could. They are a stark reminder that she still has so much more to lose, so much more to suffer.
She knows he's lying when he says the team was captured, and she knows the photo of Dalton isn't real. It's a fabrication, a fake, just another way to break her.
That doesn't make it any easier to look at.
...
Her government has forsaken her, which means she will be dead by dawn. If she's lucky.
After spending so many hours with the man in front of her, she knows she's not. He'll have his men cut every last inch of her for information she'll never give, and then, when he loses his patience, he'll put a bullet through her brain. She only hopes that he'll pull a bag over her head again. She's getting really sick of looking at his face.
(Elijah had always loved her gallows humor. She'll be seeing him soon enough.)
Honestly, she's surprised to be outed. It was a mystery she would have liked to keep. But she knows the Deputy Director weighs every decision carefully, so this must have been the only choice left to make. Besides, there are plenty of other secrets she can still take with her to the grave.
They drag her outside where a white van is waiting.
(What, no limo?, Elijah would ask.)
For a moment, she basks in the feeling of the sun on her skin and the breath in her lungs, and it smells like shit out here but she's not complaining.
She is not afraid to die this day. If anything, she is proud. She did not bend. She did not break. She gave him nothing, just as she promised.
(You did good, Elijah would say.)
During the ride, she thinks of her team.
She remembers the way Preach would always watch out for her, the way McGuire would patch her up and make her laugh. She remembers Amir's endless patience and even temper. And Dalton. She remembers everything about him.
The van screeches to a halt.
(Speak of the devil, Elijah would grin.)
Her head is pounding and her limbs are weak, but she knows her fight isn't over, not while the man in the van still lives. As the sound of gunfire rains down outside, she swings her legs, wrapping the chain around her captor's neck. While he chokes in front of her, she thinks of the photo of her captain, slumped over in a chair, bullet-ridden and bloody.
When she strangles that man, she sees Dalton's face.
And she feels safe.
...
She closes her eyes after that.
She has done her duty, kept her secrets, and now she wants to rest.
(Sorry, Princess, Elijah would say. It's not your time just yet.)
...
There's a hole in her memory where the rescue should be.
There are flashes of sensations – the sound of her name, the prick of something sharp in her thigh, the feel of steady hands on her face – but mostly it's all a mess of confusion and overlapping voices and loud noises and too many bodies.
It's not until later, when they board the truck, that she feels lucid again.
The floor is stiff and the ride is bumpy, and even in the dark, she sees clearly what her mistakes almost cost them. Five lives on the line to save hers. That math doesn't add up.
It feels terrifying and breathtaking and dangerous knowing how easily they would risk their lives for hers, knowing how much she means to them, knowing that she would be missed.
And then, when the truck stops, and bullets rain down for the second time that day, it just feels terrible.
When they drive off into the night, it feels worse than anything else she's had to endure.
Five lives on the line to save hers.
One life lost and left behind.
...
When she opens her eyes, it's still dark. McGuire and Dalton are sleeping on either side of her, and she pulls herself upright as quietly as she can.
The stars are shining above her, and she tries to remember which ones make up Cassiopeia, but she can't tell. They all look the same to her, a sprinkling of twinkling lights.
She sits that way for hours, watching the moon and the stars, watching the sky change color from night to day. She was so sure she would never see another sunrise, but here she is and here it comes, in all its bright, burning glory. The light hits her face and the wind touches her hair and she reminds herself that this is what being alive is.
Behind her, Dalton shifts among the crates. She can feel his eyes on her, but she doesn't turn back, not yet. She wants to remember this moment and the sacrifice that brought her here.
They sit in silence for a long time, watching the sun make its way up the horizon.
Finally, he speaks, his voice barely above a whisper. Jaz.
It's the first time she's heard her name in days.
She turns to face him, and the relief in his eyes matches her own.
Jaz, he says.
It sounds like home.