Mitch pulled into the driveway of his home reluctantly. He fought hard not to check in on his new neighbor. Knowing she was grieving and dealing with some heavy stuff did not help matters much. As he slid out of his Jimmy, he had to stuff his concerns to the side as his eleven-year-old daughter, Hayleigh, greeted him.

The skinny, little brown-haired girl ran up to him with a bright smile and infectious giggle shouting “DADDY!!!” as she launched herself up to him.

“Hey there, Cutie. How was your day?” he said as he caught her and lifted her to hug her tightly.

“It was great. Gramma and me went to the market and then we came back to finish the chores before l finished my assignments for the online school,” she said with a smile. “Then we went out for lunch, and we saw you in town with a pretty lady in your truck. Did she do something wrong?” she rambled, as her brow furrowed her thin eyebrows together. Hayleigh’s warm brown eyes engaged with his and waited for an answer.

“Oh no, Hayle’s, she had a couple of flat tires, and I was helping her get to her new home in time,” he replied with a smile. “She lives right across the road from us,” he stated as he pointed over to Jesalyn’s house from their vantage point was bare to the top of the roof.

While her son explained his day to her granddaughter, Ruby Walker had come out to greet her son. She noticed a certain pleasantness in his voice she had not heard in years. She swiped a strand of her flame-colored hair away from her face as she looked across the road. “That’s Harlan’s old place. Who is the girl?”

“His daughter, Jesalyn,” he said as he looked at his mother.

Ruby had known Harlan Masters for years. They grew up together, had graduation together, got into tons of mischief together, and even found love for a fleeting moment with each other. Even back then, Harlan Masters was a man hard not to love, but he was harder to hold on to. Ruby Walker knew this better than anyone because she tried. His place was out in the world as he defended the country and fought the good fight. Her place was in Nowhere to tend to her ailing mother.

In the end, it was bittersweet to watch the boy go, but the man that came back was inspiring. She, of course, had married by then and so had he, but what grew from a lifetime of knowing him came a solid, enduring friendship. Ruby recalled watching his boy, Kristopher, frequently throughout the years. Ruby had met Madeline when he brought her here for their honeymoon, even though she thought it an odd thing to do. She even celebrated Jesalyn’s birth by crocheting a baby blanket for the child. “She’s all grown up,” she stated with a reverent tone, which was followed by a deep pit in her stomach. “Harlan has passed, hasn’t he?” she asked.

Mitch looked at his mother for a moment, then set Hayleigh down. “Hey, Kiddo, go get washed up for dinner for me, please.” he requested.

“Sure Daddy!” the little girl replied, then pranced off into the house.

He took his mother in his arms and hugged her. He had known for a long time that there was something between the two of them. It was more than friendship, but never to be more than that. Harlan had shown up after his father had died from cancer. Doing things for his mother without question or reward. It was just their way. “Yeah, Mom, he died with Kris on a mission,” he answered softly.

She was going to cry but when her son said Harlan died with his son, her thoughts immediately went to Jesalyn and how much pain she must be going through. Jesalyn was barely a year old when they all left, so Ruby did not know her at all. Harlan had come back several times over the years, the last being three years ago. Ruby had seen pictures of the children throughout that time and knew he was proud of them.” She can’t be okay after losing both of them,” she stated as she pulled back from Mitch.

Mitch looked at his mother and shook his head. “Three of them, her fiancé, died with them. She’s going through quite a lot. I don’t know all the details yet. What little I have gathered she is going to need a lot of powerful support to get through it,” he stated, knowing his mother would step up to the challenge for Harlan’s sake.

“And powerful support she will get; it’s the very least we can do for her.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gunshots rang out as Jesalyn fired a volley of three-round bursts from the sunroof of the black UAZ Patriot. The Soviet equivalent of a jeep that she fired at swayed from side to side to avoid the suppressive fire. Frustrated, Jes slammed her hand down on the roof, “Fucking keep it straight, Hendrix!!!”

“I would if they weren’t shooting back!!!!” he barked as he tried to lessen the sway, he had done to evade the incoming fire of their pursuers.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I got this!!!” Marsden exclaimed as he popped the pin on a frag grenade and cooked it just long enough that when he tossed it at the oncoming jeep. The explosion had made the jeep fly up, flip to its left as it spun twice, and landed on its roof.

As Jes slid down from the sunroof, she eyed the wild, dark-haired, faceless man with contempt. “Was that really necessary?” she said as an unsettled feeling in her stomach flared.

“Yes, they just fucking blew up the hostel we were at!!!” he shouted, “I think that calls for BOOM!”

Jesalyn growled at him, “At least tell me you finally got a hold of the Team.”

Marsden shook his head disappointedly. “Nothing but static. They couldn’t be jamming our signal, could they?”

Jesalyn’s face shifted from angry to worry in less than a heartbeat,” That would mean they knew about us before the op started.”

Heads up! The warehouse is just ahead, and it looks like they knew we were coming!!” Hendrix yelled as he yanked the wheel to the right and hit the brakes.

Jesalyn shoved the passenger side door open with some effort without hesitation, bringing the silenced Serbian short-barreled M-90 to bear. She aimed at three faceless men, stunned by the reckless maneuver. Three quick trigger pulls, and the men all dropped dead from headshots as their brains violently exited out the back of their skulls in a red mist.

One thunderous gunshot followed Jesalyn’s three-round volley from behind her. Before she could turn around to see who shot, she caught a fourth man falling from the top of the warehouse. She completed her turn to see Hendrix with his M1A smiling. “Can’t let you have all the fun, Jes.”

Jes put her left index finger to her lips. “Shush, I thought we agreed quietly.”

Hendrix looked at Marsden and pointed. “He went boom first.”

Jesalyn shook her head, “Let’s go dig the team out of trouble.” Then, a massive explosion...

She gasped as her blue eyes snapped open to a blur of the white-walled bedroom, she had collapsed in. Jesalyn got up slowly as she wiped the stickiness of tears and fatigued-induced sleep from them. ′How long have I been asleep′ she mentally asked herself as she got up and stretched the kinks along with the fatigue out of her body.

She scanned the bedroom for a clock. There wasn’t one, so she pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket and found out it was a little after nine pm. She shook her head and took stock of her priorities. Which for the first time in a long time were few. She had the rest of the house to explore, figure something out for her to eat from what was available, and take a shower. The shower was the top priority simply because she felt gross. Jesalyn had spent almost fourteen hours on the road before the unidentified black blur caused her to veer off the road.

After she shook out her legs, she proceeded to the living room to get her backpack, duffle bag, and on the way back to the master bedroom, she grabbed the folder that Mrs. Newburg had given her. Jesalyn sat everything on the bed, as she realized she had left the picture she was clutching before she cried herself to sleep on the floor. Jesalyn stared at it for an extremely long moment on the ground. The symbolism is not lost on her. The three men she loved and cared for the most in the world were now in the ground. She wanted to curl up in a ball next to the picture and just lay there until she, too, would finally be put into the ground. Jesalyn shook herself from the thought as immediately as it came to mind. She needed to continue with the mission. To avenge them and to make sure the one responsible paid for it dearly. Jason Albrecht.

Jason Albrecht was the incompetent fool that got her family killed. The son of New Hampshire U.S. Senator Gavin Albrecht, Jason failed at everything he did. Mainly because he was too focused on the big rewards that came after doing what needed to be done. Like his father, Jason played politics to his advantage. When things went wrong, it was someone else’s fault, or there were not enough assets to be tapped or any other excuse to divert blame from himself.

Jesalyn knew this well firsthand. Albrecht accused her of not delivering the critical intelligence that led to the explosion of the warehouse that was supposed to be housing a small stash of surface-to-air missiles that were going to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. The truth was, Jesalyn had advised against the small squad infiltration operation because the source of the tip had not been verified. The very fact her father sided with Albrecht had caused an argument between her father, Albrecht, and herself.

She shook herself from the maddening memory that threatened to make her spiral into despair again. Jesalyn opened her backpack and pulled a small shower kit from it, then from her duffle, she retrieved two towels, a luffa, a pair of white spandex shorts with a matching racer back top, and her black USMC hoodie. She also grabbed her small Bluetooth speaker from a side pouch on her backpack. Jesalyn went to the bathroom and stood in the doorway just for a moment to take in the stylistic ambiance of it. She moved to the nearest of the matching his and hers sinks and placed her Bluetooth speaker on the counter.

Jes shifted through her phone’s music app, she found her playlist of upbeat smooth jazz and connected with the speaker. As the music played, she stripped off her clothes, folding them as took each garment off. Jesalyn grabbed the shower kit, luffa, and towels to move to the enclosed shower.

Placing the towels on the black marble stand next to the shower, she enters it and pulls out her body wash, placing the rest of the kit on a stainless-steel corner storage rack and turning on the water. Once the water temperature reached her desired preference, she stepped under the steaming hot water. As the water cascaded down her athletically toned body, she let the music and the hot water melt away the tension from her body. Jesalyn did not know how long she would or could stay here in Nowhere, but for now, she just needed to deal with her grief and figure out how to make Albrecht pay.