Guardian Angels

Prologue

Hetz's leg shook uncontrollably, but he had long ago given up attempting to check it. Forcing himself to take another breath, he stroked Jack's hand with his thumb. Gratefully she squeezed it back, though even that slight motion sent her joints aching again. And there they sat for the next two hours as people paraded in front of them looking into the open coffin.

That's the thing you will soon realize about this book- it is not by any means an advertisement for Guardian Angels. After reading this, you may be disgusted with the program as a whole. Sometimes I am. I've seen too much. Too many funerals. But it's Jack and Hetz's story that really gets me because these kids don't deserve this. They deserve to be living the carefree life of a teenager who has just gotten their licence. They deserve to be happy. They deserve to feel safe. But if there is one thing that life will teach you, it is this - safety is in the eye of the beholder.

~~~

Jack Marris and Hetz MacArthur were awkwardly close. They both knew it but neither one of them dared break it off. In fact when Jack told him to breathe opposite her so that they could both get a full breath she whispered it directly into his ear.

To literally anybody else, getting stuck with either Jack or Hetz in this position might have made you remarkably uncomfortable. Both of them somehow managed to be shockingly good looking. And I say somehow because Jack rarely, if ever, tried to look nice on purpose. And Hetz- well he was too handsome for his own good, and was rather fond of the effect he had on the ladies he encountered.

But,* (I highlight this because I am well aware of what you are assuming and I have been told to make it abundantly clear. Thus the bold letters), as best friends, they spent very little time dwelling on the appearance of the other unless it was Jack telling Hetz that he was "the ugliest looking critter on God's good earth," whenever his flirting got out of hand; or when they had completed a particularly challenging workout and Hetz commented on Jack's fairly sweaty, frizzy hair.

That being said, even though they had no romantic feelings for each other, the fact was that they were pressed together in the cabinet. Legs and arms were completely entangled and Jack had had the misfortune to get in first. Meaning Hetz was now crammed against her.

"You stink." She wrinkled her nose dramatically. She knew that if he could have moved he would have given her an extremely distended look, matching her antics.

"Well that's weird. It's not like I wa-," he broke off as footsteps thundered by them. After a second of respectful silence he continued. "It's not like I was running through a massive warehouse a minute ago in like four hundred degree weather or anything like that." In all honesty it was 100-ish degrees. A far cry from four hundred sure, but once you get that hot and you're sitting in a cabinet with another equally sweaty person, it's all the same. They continued to wait a few more sweltering minutes until finally Jack kicked Hetz out of the cupboard, evidently deeming it safe to do so. When she joined him she was shocked to find they weren't as alone as she thought.

People. She thought. More blooming people than I ever want to see in an active shooter situation. A quick conformational glance at Hetz sent them both into action. "I'm gonna need you guys to come with me." Hetz said, flashing a winning smile at the group of people and setting off to herd them to safety.

Jack started to sprint in the opposite direction directly toward the now running sound of gunfire.

Oh yes, right. I forgot that you have just met Jack. No, she's not deaf; no, she's not stupid - most of the time that is.

She was running toward the shooter on purpose.

But not on a whim of heroism. Sure, she was the type of person to just jump into a situation like that, but this time she actually knew what she was doing. And it wasn't the first time she had done it.

"Get down!" a twenty-something young man said, catching her eye as she ran by. But when he realized she wasn't planning on stopping, he dove out and together they skidded across the aisle and landed in a mass.

She shoved him off. "What the heck are you doing?"

"Saving your life most likely!" he yelled back, but then seemed to process just exactly who he had saved.

"Actually it's more likely that I'm gonna save yours," she said, kicking his leg over about half an inch, just as a bullet made a hole in the floor where it had rested a moment before.

"How did you kno-"

"I'm a sniper myself." She said it casually, like when you realize that someone has the same hobby as you; so at ease in fact, that the boy was fairly blown away,

"You're a . . . Why the heck are you . . . ?" He gave up, smart enough to realize he probably wasn't going to get any information out of her. Instead he went for a different approach. "Then again- I've changed my mind. I don't think I mind a pretty thing like you saving my life."

"Good grief. I'm gunna need you to take it way the heck down," she said, dramatically putting her hand way down by the floor. Gosh I might throw up, she thought. Finally, she spotted her two older bracket mates working their way toward her, till they stopped just across the aisle. There was only a slight obstacle between them. The fact was, the aisle was in clear view of the shooter. But for Jack it didn't really matter. She choked down a rush of adrenaline and forced her body to go from shaking into a controlled state, then without warning she sprinted across the aisle.

Some say pain is relative. Usually Jack would disagree, but as she sprinted for the cover of the pile of crates, subsequently slamming her foot into the edge of it as she dove for cover, right at that moment the pain she was feeling was the worst pain in the entire world.

And granted, minus sliding into a wooden crate, you could most likely sympathize with Jack. The moment you stub your toe, you experience true pain.

But unlike Jack, you are probably not getting shot at. (I assume not, that is. If not - well hats off to you my good friend.)

If she had taken a second to think about it, which she rarely did, she would have pulled her body fully into the meager cover that the box offered, to avoid the hail of bullets that were aimed at her. Instead it was up to her two older team mates to bring her into the relative safety of the wooden barricade and their embrace. "Good. Grief!" she spit out trying to stifle a scream.

"Are you hit, Jack?" Matt asked, scanning her for telltale blood.

"If getting hit by a wooden box counts," she said, cradling her foot in her hand.

Matt flicked her on the forehead. "You have got to be kidding me!"

"It hurts!" she spat back.

"You don't mention it. Pull yourself together Marris!" Hawk, her senior bracket member, who never called her by anything but her last name, yelled at her over the cayos of the firefight they were engaged in.

Jack gave one last glance of her throbbing foot before rolling over into a shooting position to provide cover for Hetz to join them.

There was no time to nurse wounds when you worked Jack's job.

Ultimately, the world needed saving. Jack, Hetz and the Foxtrot team were some of the few people who were willing to do it, but it hadn't always been that way.