His Love and Protector (COMPLETE)

CHAPTER ONE : "Homecoming"

CHAPTER ONE : “Homecoming”

 [ALENA'S POV]

Alena Harris should never have come back here to Peak’s Hollow. She has been trying not to remember how much she misses the town since she left eleven years ago. Pouring all her time and energy into dangerous missions to forget the place and the memories she left behind. Doing her job was what kept her sane; it kept her from reliving the horror the night her parents died. Her job gave her a purpose. It provided her with a chance to exact retribution from the people who killed them. It’s because of her job that she was able to find a little peace after her parents were killed.

But the decision to come back to her hometown was not one she made. It was made for her by Damon Lynch, her boss. Being an agent of a secret organization, Elite Operative Force, of the Department of Defense she had no choice but to follow orders.

His orders for her were simple. She was to protect Matthew Masen from the people who were trying to kill him. She was to keep him alive and safe at all costs. Damon was sure she could easily handle the mission, but Alena wasn’t as confident as he was. She didn’t doubt her abilities to accomplish what she was tasked to do, but she wasn’t sure whether she can prevent her emotions from ruining her focus on the case. It was hard enough to protect someone you know, but to protect someone who was once her friend would surely pose some difficulties. The mission would have been a piece of cake - if she were to play bodyguard to someone else, someone other than Matthew. This is the first time she had doubts whether she can do her job and that scared the heck out of her.

It would also be hard to ignore that she once had feelings for Matthew. He and his family lived across the street from their house and since their parents easily became friends, both families spent plenty of time together. She’d been friends not only with his sister, Megan, who was the same age she was, but also with Matthew who was two years older.

Despite the friendship they had since they were kids, she never, not even once, contacted any of them since she left. Well, except for the Christmas gifts she sent anonymously every year and a gift for Matt for his birthday. Only Matt received a gift every year for his birthday, but she never left a card or a letter with any of them. She didn’t want them to find out who sent those gifts. It was better if they didn’t know they were from her, so they wouldn’t be reminded of her existence. She doesn’t want them to worry about her, or think about what happened to her. It was best for everyone to forget they ever knew her, so she did her best not to remind them.

Driving past the sign that told her exactly how near she was to Peak’s Hollow, she remembered why she had to leave the town. The pain of the memory was still there. No longer as powerful as it had been, but it still lingers. Reminding her that no matter how much she would have liked to stay, she no longer has any reason to. She doesn’t have anything or anyone left here anymore.

She remembered the night she left, thinking of the events that brought on the decision to finally leave the only town she has lived in since she was born. The same events that made her who she was now: a highly trained operative of the government, someone who knows how to use a knife or a gun and use it well, someone who knows how to kill, someone who has killed. She was no longer the seventeen year old girl who could not protect herself.

She fought the twinge of sadness that always accompany the memory she tried so hard to forget. She missed her mom and dad badly, but she had already accepted the fact that nothing can bring them back, not even revenge. Her parents were killed in their home eleven years ago because of a case her dad had been working on as a detective. He was good at his job and the leader of the gang involved in the case he was working on decided to kill him and his family to keep him from solving the case.

She would have died that night too if Louis Hawkins hadn’t saved her from her parents’ killers. Louis was an EOF agent who was assigned to keep an eye on her dad’s investigation. He was ordered to keep an eye on its progress, but he was not supposed to meddle because it would expose the existence of the EOF. He had kept his distance at first, but that night he just couldn’t let an innocent girl die. He was too late to save her parents, but it wasn’t too late to save her.

Hawkins was also the one who trained her. He taught her how to fight and how to fight well. After saving her that terrible night, he trained her to make sure she wouldn’t need anyone to save her again. And she hadn’t needed any saving ever since. After two years of physical and mental training, she decided to join Hawkins in EOF - making her the youngest agent at nineteen. Despite her age, she was damn good at her job. And her first mission was to hunt down the eight members of the gang who killed her parents. She didn’t fail at that mission or any mission ever since.

She already had her revenge. And that’s why Damon assigned her to Matthew’s case. Knowing she had already killed her parents’ murderers, there would be nothing to make her lose her focus on her mission’s objective. Besides, her past relationship with Matthew and his family would make it easier for him to trust her with his life.

In the nine years she had been with the EOF, she hadn’t refused a single mission and she would be damned if she would start now. Hawkins would have been disappointed in her and that’s the last thing she wanted. The EOF operatives are made up of a group of Damon and Hawkins’ friends from the marines and a few who were former police officers and detectives. They were like family and you don’t let your family down. They trusted her to do this job and she would do it. She had to.