Issues

Maya

Emily's POV

I get out of the shower and put on some of Alison's pajamas. Exiting the bathroom, I instantly see Alison in bed, reading a book while wearing black, bold reading glasses. She looks so sexy with her hair in a messy bun on the top of her head. The whole sexy librarian thing is really doing it for me. I walk over to the bed and begin to climb on top of it, crawling to her as seductively as possible.

"Keep it in your pants Fields" she says suddenly...her eyes never leaving her book.

I continue to crawl towards her and stop myself just inches from her ear. "But baby you look so sexy like this. I can't help myself" I say in a sexy tone before I lightly tug on her ear with my teeth and begin to slowly kiss her cheek. I can tell she's dying inside but trying to stay focused on her book in order to tease me. But the flood of goosebumps all over her body and her quickening breathing are giving her away. In between kisses I tease, "You know you love what you do to me... you love it when you turn me on". I can feel her softening with every word and every kiss. I decide to go in for the kill, so I start to softly kiss and lightly suck on her neck. A small gasp escapes her lips, causing her to melt beneath my touch. She let's me kiss her like this for a few seconds before she gives up the fight, throws her book across the room, forcefully pushes me on my back, and positions herself to straddle my waist.

"You are such a tease" she says looking me right in the eyes before she leans down and kisses me on the lips. There's something different about this kiss though. Usually when we kiss, it's full of passion. This time, it's nothing but pure lust and I can feel myself wanting more of her. This moment between us is really starting to intensify. Will this be the night that we take that step? Is she ready for this? Am I ready for this? The fact that I'm even questioning if I'm ready to go to that place with another woman just shows you how different I am now that I'm with her. I wouldn't think twice about it before when the girls meant nothing to me. But Ali is a different story. I don't want our first time to be just about having sex. I want it to be perfect. As cheesy as it sounds, I want to make love to this woman. Deciding to end this moment before our desires became too much, I break the kiss and say, "Ali, while I am really enjoying this, I don't want my desires to take over and for us to do something we may not be ready to do. Does that make sense? I know I was the one that initiated this, but I don't know. I just want our first time to be nothing but complete perfection".

Lovingly tucking my hair behind my ear, Ali smiles at me and replies, "Makes perfect sense. I feel the same way. Let's at least cuddle". Ali then rolls off of me and signals for me to come closer.

I lay my head on her chest and can hear the aftermath our heated makeout session left on her heart. As the minutes pass, it slowly returns back to it's familiar rhythmic state.

"Ali, can I tell you something?" I ask curiously.

"Sure. What's weighing on your mind?" she asks.

"Well a lot of things if I am being completely honest. I feel like I am ready to fully open up about my time as a solider. It's this part of me that I don't ever talk about or address. It's like this giant wound that sometimes feels like it is only being held together by a flimsy band aid. I bet you have a lot of questions for me. I know you've kept them to yourself and have been waiting for me to open up to you on my own terms. So here it goes. I joined the military because I was at a point in my life where I was struggling to find a purpose. Nothing seemed to be going right for me romantically, financially, spiritually, you name it. I thought this would provide some structure and a reason to get up out of bed everyday. I've always been athletic and training was challenging, but nothing I couldn't handle. Right out of the gate, I was a lot better than the other women in training. I don't mean to sound cocky when I say that either. My superiors took notice and started pushing me harder and harder so I became even better than most of the men in training. I became faster, stronger, and smarter in hand-to-hand combat, with various weapons, search and rescue, tactical missions, and anything they threw at me. When it was time be deployed, they sent me to Afghanistan to train even more in a specialized unit for counter terrorism. When I first arrived, there was nothing but a bunch of men and another woman that was new just like me. I tried to keep my head down and mind my own business. I was afraid of establishing relationships with these people and then potentially losing them in combat. The first couple of times we went on missions, I was completely terrified. I of course didn't want to die and I was equally afraid of taking another person's life. Back at training, I thought I would be able to handle it, but when it came time to actually take another person's life, I froze. On that mission, I would have died if it weren't for the other new girl named Maya. Her first kill was to save my life. After that mission, we became inseparable. We started out as friends and partners in combat and it quickly turned into something more. When you're out there, with your life on the line all the time, and you find someone that understands you and literally saved your life, things get serious really fast. Our relationship turned physical and emotions developed quickly outside of a friendship. She was there for me when I finally had to kill someone. He was going to behead a child and I couldn't let that happen. Even though he was an awful person, it still weighed on my soul. Over the following months, we grew closer to the other people on the unit and I became even more specialized with assault rifles and higher level missions. My commanding officer even put me undercover in order to infiltrate a high level terrorist organization. For months, I fed them intelligence and slowly but surely broke down a powerful sector of the overall organization. After that mission, I came back and realized just how much I had missed her in my life. Our deployment was ending soon and I thought about asking Maya to live with me after we got back to the states. We had one more mission as a unit before we could head home and I planned on asking her that night after we got back. The mission was low level and focused more on relief work for the locals in a village about 3 hours from our base. The generals thought it was safe for an ABC News reporter and his crew to follow us for an upcoming piece on the unrest in the Middle East. I remember it was early in the morning and we headed out in our vehicles with the camera crew and the reporter. Everyone was happy and feeling blessed for an easy mission. Dave drove, Mike rode shotgun, Ryan rode on the roof, monitoring for any suspicious activity ahead, and Maya and I sat in the back with the reporter named Chris and his cameraman John. We were about an hour and a half into our into our 3 hour trip when my life changed forever. I was laughing with everyone when all of the sudden I saw a blinding light and heard a loud boom. I struggled to wake up and open my eyes. When I finally did, I realized that I was on the ground outside of the vehicle. My head was pounding and my ears were ringing and bleeding. I was so disoriented and I couldn't fully grasp what had happened and what was going on. That's when something inside me screamed to get up and check on everyone else. I sat up and did my best to stand up but my leg was broken and my body hurt like hell. When I stood up, I saw that the front, right portion of our vehicle was completely blown off and the hood of the driver's side was on fire. I drew my AK-47 and began to assess for danger all around us and further up on the mountainside. Everything was clear, so I ran to the front and saw that Dave was unconscious in the driver's seat. He had a huge piece of metal sticking out of his leg and a large cut on his forehead. He was losing a lot of blood but I thought he could make it. I quickly freed him from the mangled wreckage and pulled him to safety behind the vehicle and out of range from the fire. I bandaged him up to stop the bleeding as much as possible then I ran back to the front side of the vehicle and saw Mike's various body parts all over the ground and still in the passenger's seat. There was no way he had survived that. To my left, about 20 feet away, Ryan's body was on the ground, lifeless, and completely engulfed in flames. There was no way I could save him. That left Chris, John, and Maya. I ran to the back of the vehicle and hopped inside only to find that John had bled out from a large gash in his neck from a piece of metal. He had no pulse and he wasn't breathing. Chris was still alive, miraculously still intact but both of his legs and his arm seemed to be broken. I lifted him up and brought him next to Dave who had finally regained consciousness. He asked for an update on the situation and I told him what I'd discovered so far. I ordered him to radio for help, stay put and keep watch of the mountains for any terrorists, and to keep Chris safe. I had to go back for Maya. As soon as I jumped back in the vehicle, I saw that it was quickly becoming overpowered by flames and thick smoke. I picked up an unconscious Maya and ran towards safety where I proceeded to gently place her on the ground. That's when I saw it. Maya had regained consciousness but a huge hole was blown out of her abdomen. Her intestines were falling out of her abdominal cavity and she was struggling to breathe. Blood was just pouring out of her everywhere, soaking both of our uniforms. I begged for her to stay with me because help was on the way. I began to cry because deep down I knew she was going to die. I just didn't want her to have to die in pain like that. Blood started running out of her mouth and I knew it was only a matter of time. She looked me right in the eyes and squeezed my hand as she mouthed that she loved me. That's when the life faded from her eyes and she went limp in my arms. In that moment, I went numb. I didn't even have time to process or grieve what just happened because all of the sudden, I hear Dave yell to get down as a hail of bullets rained down upon us. Chris took a bullet to the leg and Dave took one to the shoulder. I luckily only had a graze to my arm. All three of us moved to safety behind some large rocks as we assessed the source of the bullets. About 200 yards out to the North, about 10 terrorists were coming towards us from the mountainside. 5 more were less than 100 yards out, headed right for us with huge guns pointed right at us. Dave and I quickly took out 4 of the 5. That's right before Dave took a bullet to his helmet from the 5th, knocking him unconscious behind the rock. It was all up to me to get us out of there alive. Chris had never held a gun before and was paralyzed with fear. I couldn't really blame him for that though. So basically it was 11 v. 1. As I crouched behind the rock, something happened inside of me. I had the moment where it finally clicked. The real soldier came out and I was no longer afraid to take a life. I didn't care if those bastards died. They killed my friends and they killed Maya. In that moment, I felt nothing but anger and determination. I was not going to let them kill Chris or Dave and quite frankly, I sure as hell wasn't planning on dying either. I looked down at my gun and saw that I probably had enough ammo to take them all out if I was careful with each shot. I also had two grenades to use if I needed to.  I took a deep breath and heard that the 5th one wasn't far from the rock. I quickly burst up from behind the rock and took him out. One shot to the heart and one shot to the head. 10 more to go. Now crouching behind the burning vehicle, I saw that the final 10 were about 50 yards out. Some taking strategic cover behind rocks and some just blatantly and defiantly standing out in the open. I took this opportunity to shoot off a couple of rounds, taking out 3 of them and simultaneously taking a bullet to the shoulder. Thankfully it was a through and through. It still hurt like hell though. Taking a moment, I looked down and realized I didn't have enough ammo left. That meant I had to use one of the grenades. Even with at broken leg and a bullet to the shoulder, I still pushed on. The adrenaline was what kept me going. Chris was still taking cover behind the rock and Dave was still unconscious. Looking back, I saw that the remaining terrorists had split up and we're forming a circle in order to surround me and corner me. I had to act before they could get to me, so I quickly hurled the grenade to my right towards a few of them. I coupled that with firing off a few rounds towards my left. Between the two, I only took out 2 of them. I had one grenade left and 4 bullets left. I couldn't leave my cover and grab Dave's gun so I had to make due with what I had. The pressure was mounting and I started praying for help to arrive because I began to doubt that I was going to make it out alive.