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I know she has no damn clue just how many people disappear between one stop and the next, but I’m well aware of just how often it happens. Still, I didn’t text her and tell her she couldn’t. She’d hate me even more if I tried to control her that way. All it took for her to break things off was me telling her not to go to the shelter alone.
Maybe she was right. Maybe there seems to be a higher incidence of bad shit happening to us because we put ourselves in the path of people who have been hurt. We intervene even when we aren’t asked to do so. We stick our nose where it doesn’t belong.
Rocker was right in the SUV earlier. She’s safer without me.
As much as I’d love to go back home and beg her to stay, so long as she has a connection to me or the club, she’s not safe. I’d rather love her from afar than have to watch her get hurt.
As I walk toward the command center where Kid and Shadow are, I feel that declaration in my bones, only it doesn’t settle in there like a good decision.
Doing the right thing and doing what’s best for me has never been at such a high level of battle before. At this point, it doesn’t even feel like a struggle between what’s right and what’s wrong.
I love her. I don’t think it’s wrong to love her, just that the energy might be wasted because she didn’t hesitate to leave.
I know it’s too soon, but I also know I’ve never felt for a woman the way I feel for her.
I can talk a big game in my head. I can say I’ll leave her alone, but it’s all lies. The second I get back to Farmington, I’m going to go to Texas.
I have to. I can’t waste a second with her not knowing how I feel. She has every right to reject me, and I know there’s a high probability that she might just do that, but moving on, going forward without having said my piece, just can’t happen.
If she rejects me, then I’ll have to live with that, but at least I’ll know I tried.
Within fifteen minutes of walking into the tent, the other teams are ready to head out.
It’s the first time I’ve witnessed what happens sort of behind the scenes for one of these missions. The two I observed when I first joined were part of my training, but that was done from the safety of the clubhouse with Max and Shadow there instructing the guys on what to do and changes that needed to be made when by-the-minute changes were necessary.
It’s very technical, and as happy-go-lucky as a lot of us can be, it’s very serious work that we do. Max and Shadow are three hundred percent focused as they help the guys through three different compounds at the same time.
The simultaneous strikes are required in order not to tip any one group off. We didn’t exactly make that mistake when we were here before, we just had limited intel.
Cerberus always does its best to get as much information as we can before we make entry on a compound, but sometimes waiting isn’t an option. Some cartels cycle through their victims at a higher rate of speed than others. The pieces of shit we’re dealing with right now happen to be one of the faster groups. They take victims from one place and carry them to the next, but then those victims are either killed or sold to someone else.
Despite the local children they killed in Tumbaco, they took six more. It’s up to Cerberus to return those children home, even though that won’t even be a bandage on the wound created by the other children who died. In the minds of the citizens around here, the only people who would be lost would be the ones the cartel brought into town. They can’t wrap their heads around the fact that the very kids who have become victims could always have been victims because the cartel fills its roster before they leave.
I listen with my headpiece on as the guys make entry to the separate locations. What sometimes takes weeks and months to plan, the actual execution of a mission usually only takes a few minutes. We aren’t exactly known for hostage situations. So long as the bad guys are dead and the victims are saved, we consider it a job well done.
It’s going to look a little different for the folks that join the new domestic chapter. We’re not renegades, but the rules we have to follow aren’t monitored as stringently as I imagine they’ll have to be supervised while working domestic cases.
A pile of dead children is a horrible thing, but there are so many horrible things that happen in countries like this, that they don’t trend very long. Honestly, that’s one of the problems. People are so used to crime and violence that a lot of people have grown numb to it. People want to stick their heads in the sand, but then they get upset when something bad happens to them. It’s the same response they get when they need help and support.
