State of Alliance (17 page)

“Let’s take
not
,” I answer.

“You’re digging your own graves.”

“We’ll be the judge of that, thanks.”

“Harry will stop negotiating with the Alliance. This
will
mean war on Monterey.”

“We’re already at war,” Chris says, stopping him. “There’s nothing you can do to stop that now.”

The messenger nods weakly, turning his back on us.

As he gets back into the car, I lock gazes with him. I can see the fear in his eyes, ill-concealed under a
façade of bluster and dramatics. He knows that we mean business, and so does Harry.

As the escort leaves, I turn to Chris and Devin.

“Tell the Alliance we’ve engaged,” I say. “Omega’s already made the first move by bombing the coastline. We need to hit back, fast.”

“But we don’t have the numbers or the manpower to stand up to-” Sophia begins, but I cut her off.

“Fight or die,” I say, looking toward the horizon. “Choose your side.”

Chapter Fourteen

This is where I belong
, I think.

I am dressed in black. The wind is whipping loose pieces of my red hair into circles as I stand on the crest of a hill just outside of the city. A rifle is slung across my back. Two handguns are strapped to my belt, one to my thigh. I’ve got a couple of knives, a few grenades, and an armor-plated vest.

I am back in my element.

I am in charge again.

We are waiting in a wooded area on the north side of Monterey. The terrain is strangely stepped, veering up and down at jagged angles. Roots of trees twist in different directions. The smell of saltwater and fog and coastal pines is heavy in the air. And all is silent.

We are waiting.

Watching.

I settle into a comfortable position behind a tree, checking my ammunition and weapons. My thin black gloves keep my hands warm but allow movement – potentially quick movement, when the situation calls for it.

Uriah, Andrew, Sophia and Vera are each Lieutenants, each in charge of an individual team of militiamen and women. They are spread out among the woods with their soldiers. I am in the center, the Commander that oversees each Lieutenant and their team. Chris is here with me. He is the top dog when it comes down to it, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

“Manny will be here soon,” Chris whispers.

“So will Omega,” I say.

He nods.

Our militias have spread out around Monterey, surrounding the city limits like a protective barrier, planning to stop the advance of Omega troops. The Alliance should take care of the warships, and this battle should be over quickly.

I hope.

I am comfortable being out in the woods again, back on the field. I’ve had so many worries and thoughts running through my head this past week, it’s been difficult to focus my efforts on one thing: winning.

“Your father would be proud of you, Cassidy,” Chris says, touching my shoulder.

“You say that like you think he’s dead,” I reply.

“I didn’t say that,” Chris answers. “I’m saying that if he knew what you’ve done with the Alliance, and surviving the Coast Guard cutter…” he breaks off. “He’d be proud. As proud as I am. You’re a strong woman, Cassidy. You’ve grown up. You don’t need anyone’s help anymore. You can stand on your own two feet.”

I look at him, smiling softly.

“Nobody can stand on their own two feet forever,” I say. “We all need friends.”

“True.” Chris kisses my forehead. “Like I said. You’ve grown up.”

I look at him. The eerie silence of the woods is unsettling.

And then I say,

“How come you’ve never told me you love me?”

There it is. The words that I have been too afraid to say for
months
are out in the open. I can see them sinking into his skin, registering in his brain. His expression becomes taut, his eyes troubled.

“What makes you think I don’t?” he asks, and his voice is low, defensive.

“Because you’ve never said you do,” I reply.

“I think my actions speak for themselves.”

“Sometimes words need to be said,” I say. “Sometimes people die and you never get the chance to tell them what you should have.” I frown. “Chris. Do you love me? I think you do. I mean, we’ve been through everything together. We’ve given each other everything. If you don’t love me by now, you’re never going to.”

Saying those words out loud is terrifying to me.

If Chris denies loving me, our relationship will be over. I have known that for months, but I have never dared myself to even let my mind wander in that direction. Yet it is true. If Chris doesn’t love me now, I can’t force him to later.

Love is not made. Love just happens.

But I will always love him, no matter what.

“When they told me that you were dead,” Chris says, choosing his words with care, “I didn’t know what I would do if they were right. The
Golden Shark
was completely capsized. Everyone was dead. Captain Adams, the entire crew. We recovered their bodies, but you weren’t there.” I see darkness in his face, and I realize how difficult that must have been for him. “I had to know. I took a diving team into the bay and we
searched for your…” Here he stops to clear his throat. “We searched for your body. Didn’t find it. But I couldn’t believe you were dead. I didn’t let myself.” He presses the tip of his finger to my cheek. “I’m glad I didn’t.”

“You’re a good man, Chris,” I say. “But do you
love
me or not? I
have
to know. Do you understand? I
have
to. No more games. No more avoiding the question.”

Chris takes a deep breath, closing his eyes.

“Of course I do, Cassie,” he whispers. “I love you more than anything else in this world. You’re the light of my life. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

When he says this, my eyes fill with tears.

How long have I waited for him to say those words?

An eternity. I’m sure of it.

“Why didn’t you just tell me sooner?” I say, trembling.

“Because…” Chris sighs. “Because of Jane.”

I check my left and right, slide my hands down my rifle, swinging it into place in my arms. “Jane was your wife,” I say.

Chris nods.

“What happened to her?” I ask.

Chris runs a hand over his face, so handsome, so weary.

“I met her in San Diego,” he tells me. “I was in SEAL training on Coronado Island at the time. She worked as a concierge at the Del Coronado Hotel, right on the beach. Famous place, big draw for celebrities and rich people.” He laughs beside himself. “She was…a lot like you. Spunky, strong-willed. Nobody was going tell her how to live her life. I fell in love with her. We got married after a couple of years, and she moved around the country with me every time I was deployed.”

He pauses, gathers emotional energy, and continues.

“My missions overseas at the time were…high risk,” he says. “Higher than usual. I was on a hit lit. Terrorists put a price on my head. A lot of SEALs on my team did a pretty good job of keeping their identities and their home addresses a secret, but every once a while…information would leak.” He looks at the sky. “I was on an assignment in Baghdad, Iraq. Assassination mission. I got a call.” He stops. His voice quivers, and for the first time I see a flash of a heartbroken man, a scared man. “Jane had been killed.
My parents found her dead in our living room. It looked like the house had been torn apart. She’d been shot four times.” He makes a fist and lays it against the trunk of the tree, above my head. “Terrorists. They killed my wife to get to me. But, being the spineless cowards that they are, did it while I was overseas. Killed an unarmed, innocent woman, because they knew I wasn’t home to protect her.”

“My God, Chris,” I breathe. “I’m so sorry.”

“I just couldn’t do it anymore,” he says. “The missions, the fighting. Why? My wife was dead, killed by the very people I’d dedicated my life to taking out. My job was to remove threats to the American people, and I couldn’t even keep my own wife alive.” He leans closer. “That’s when I left the military. I’d given about a decade of my life to my country. It was time to move on. I moved to Santee, California. My parents wanted me to come back home to the farm….but I wasn’t ready for that.” He swallows. “I was an idiot. I was destroyed, heartbroken. Broken by war. I’d see too much, way too much.” He looks into my eyes. “And then came the invasion, the EMP…and
you
.”

“I had no idea,” I tell him. “I just…I never knew.”

“How could you? I’m good at keeping secrets. I was trained to be a weapon.” He has a profound look of regret on his face. “When you came along, I fell in love all over again. But this time, we were both in a warzone. My chances of protecting you from Omega…from everything the world had become, were so much slimmer. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing you, Cassie. I was afraid that if I said I loved you, I’d jinx it all. Ruin everything. It had happened before…and because you’re a soldier, well…it could happen again. Chances are, it
would
happen. Soldiers die. Every day.”

I place my hands on his cheeks.

“But I’m not dead yet,” I say.

“No, you’re not.” A single tear sparkles in the corner of his eye, slipping down the side of his face. “I’m sorry, Cassie. I should have told you long ago. I’m an imperfect man with an imperfect past. But as long as you’re alive, I’ll do my best to keep you safe.”

I shake my head.

“No,” I say. “We’ll keep
each other
safe.”

I slowly kiss him. It is a short kiss, but a meaningful one. Full of promise and love and new hope. “We will survive this,” I say. “Together.”

He smiles his beautiful smile, and for a brief moment, all is right with the world.

“Commander?”

Chris and I both turn at the same time. Uriah is standing there. He is dressed in black. Like me, camouflage paint is smudged on his face.

“Yes?” I say.

Chris raises his eyebrows.

“Omega is here,” Uriah says. “Get ready.”

There is always a calm before the storm. I lie prone in the brush, my rifle in my shoulder, my cheek on the stock. I am comfortable, I am prepared. I am strangely at peace. Chris is beside me, his position the same.

We are a team again. A single unit.

We’ve got six teams here in the woods with us. All of them are members of the
Freedom Fighters
. I miss having Alexander Ramos and Derek in the fight with us, but we have to work with what we’ve got.

I see Omega approaching. They are coming up the steep incline, cautiously moving along. They are well armed. None of them are talking. They are expecting us to attack them at some point, but they cannot see us. This is their scouting unit, the prologue to the
initial attack. We will wait until their first wave is in the midst of our ranks – until we have drawn them in – and then we will attack.

We are hidden, invisible. We are guerrilla warfighters and the element of surprise is our best weapon. I study the enemy. As always, Omega is a varietal mix of ethnicities. German, Russian, Middle Eastern and Chinese. Some of them I can’t put my finger on. It brings on the same old question:
Where does Omega really come from?

Focus, steady
, I tell myself.
Get ready, girl
.

They come closer. I can feel my blood rushing through every inch of my body. I swear that I can
hear
Chris’s heartbeat next to mine. I barely move my head, enough to see Uriah on the ground with his team about two hundred feet to my right. Vera has her team two hundred feet to my left. Sophia and Andrew’s teams are further ahead. We form a curved lineup, a crescent moon. We are pulling the enemy in, trapping them inside a corral made of soldiers and bullets.

Ten, twenty, fifty, eighty…

I count under my breath. There are at least two hundred Omega troops here. I wrinkle my brow, a twinge of worry in the back of my mind. Harry had at
least five hundred troops in the dunes. Where are the other three hundred? Probably spread out around the city.

I shake myself.

Five hundred troops is not really enough to inflict damage when you’ve got militia warfighters and United States military forces guarding a heavily fortified city. The warships on the coastline…they’re not firing any more cruise missiles because they fear retaliation from the Alliance.

But Omega has always fought dirty. Why would they follow the rules?

A thought strikes me.

“Oh, my God…” I whisper. “Chris…”

He looks at me. He makes a sign to remain silent.

I have gone completely pale. Blanched like a sheet.

Where’s Manny?
I think.
If he’s been flying, he must know, too
.

I am bursting, dying to tell Chris what is going on inside my head. This is important, this is life or death. If I’m right, this could be the difference between Monterey falling into enemy hands or us achieving a major victory against Omega.

The front line of the Omega troops are close enough to hear their breathing.

Chris gives the signal by firing the first shot, hitting a soldier in the head. He jerks backward. There is a momentary, split-second where the enemy is frozen. And then everything is chaos.

We are at war once more.

I bring my rifle back into my shoulder, taking a shot. My first bullet hits my target, but I am off by a couple of inches, nevertheless.

“Hang in there,” I tell myself aloud.

The smattering of gunfire in the quiet of the forest turns into a barrage of white noise, of shattering limbs and desperate, guttural pleas for mercy. Sprays of blood fill the air. I move in formation with the rest of my units. Dropping to one knee to shoot, fire and return fire. Then I sprint to the next area of cover, repeat the action, and do it all over again. There is no break in the fight. It is one massive blur of instinctive movement. Of action and reaction. I make sure that I am in the former category.

I want Omega to react to
me
.

Chris and I stay together. I am always right behind his shoulder as we move from position to position.
Our lines move in a circle around the Omega forces. We surround them from all sides, boxing them into our circle of fire.