Dogs of War

Chapter 14

"Ghost, you need to be in bed," Prices voice was exasperated as he kept pace with Ghost. 

"We need to have a chat."

"We can do that in the infirmary." 

"No. We are not having this conversation in front of Wolf, Price."

"Well we can have this conversation when you've been cleared to leave the infirmary. You're still on painkillers, for fuck sake."

I ignore him and continue moving towards his office. My movements were stiff as I pulled at stitches and strained muscles that had been abused over the last week. Upon making it to Prices office I open the door without confirming with Price and move to take a chair on the outside of the desk. Price sighs wearily and sits behind his desk, fingers steepled with his chin resting on the tips. He looks over me with a knowing expression and lets me take the lead knowing I'm beyond pissed.

"Why'd you take her, Price? She literally only just recovered."

"She had the best chance of finding you quickly so we could get you out."

"You had Shane and the medic on hand who could have found me just as easily."

"No, they couldn't have. You were the one who told me, her sense of smell is better than theirs, but you know the dogs find their handlers easiest. Archiel or Shane still would have taken time. She picked up your scent the minute we entered the building. They didn't."

"I wasn't going to die if you took an extra couple of hours searching for me." I watch as he leans back in his chair. "Don't. Just don't."

"You didn't see her, Ghost. The moment she saw Soap without you, she knew."

"I don't give a god damn flying fuck if she knew. She's still meant to be hospitalised until Ben can figure out what long term damage has been done to her brain."

"Ghost-"

"Don't fucking 'Ghost' me. She should never have left the base!"

He stares at me for a long moment, watching as my chest heaves with the anger radiating through my body. One of the only times I've genuinely been pissed off at my Captain. I watch as he opens his laptop and presses a few buttons, and whatever he's doing I suspect he had it ready to go just for this reason as he's quickly turning the laptop to face me. On the screen is the cctv footage of one of the briefing rooms, the picture frozen to show Soap and Wolf in the middle of the screen, expressions hidden as they look at each other. Archiel, Gaz and Shane standing off to the side almost off the screen. He presses play and the image still seems to remain frozen for a moment except I can hear Soaps voice as he talks gently to Wolf. Then I see the split second her demeanour changes and I notice Shane and Archiel looking at each other in horror as they also sense the shift. Soap and Gaz on the other hand only react after Wolf has already moved. The door opens and I see Wolf lunge, leaping up jaws snapping and snarling only for Archiel to blur into motion a split second later. Archiel wrestles Wolf into submission, Price standing in the doorway gobsmacked that he had narrowly missed having his throat torn out.

I sit back in my chair stunned at the footage I'd just seen. I could believe it, even as it surprised me that she'd gone for Prices throat off the bat. She blamed them for leaving me behind, even when I never would have assigned the blame to any of the team except myself for getting captured.

"How did you get her to agree to you as her temp handler after that?" I am genuinely curious, the anger simmering down as I realise he really didn't have a choice in the matter unless he wanted to piss  her off even more.

"Archiel, Shane and Soap, primarily. They kept her relatively calm, but after her initial outburst she seemed to settle down without much help from the others."