Tough Love

Chapter Four

* I think this chapter is longer. I'm trying to fast forward a little bit, to make sure it's not boring. Please vote or comment to let me know what you think. I'd love the feedback :)*

Chapter Four

It had been a couple months since my major freak out in front of Elijah. I was still very embarrassed, but he never mentioned it again. Every time he passed my desk, he would flash me a wink and a smile and every morning he’d walk me to my desk. I wasn’t comfortable in his company by any stretch of the imagination, but he was just part of my routine now.

Captain Michaels seemed to be pleased with my work, and he was starting to ask me to take on a secretarial role for him as well. As you can imagine, this left me being very busy, and I often didn’t get home until 7 or 8 in the evening.

Since Elijah had kind of taken a guardian role over me, I had found out that he was the team leader of the Alpha Team, which was made up of him, Ash, Ben, Justin, Cameron and a couple other guys I hadn’t met yet. Elijah had told me that Ash and himself had been best friends for years and they’d gone through training together. I think he’d told me about himself and Ash in the hopes that I would divulge some information about myself. He must have been disappointed, as I hardly spoke, let alone talked about myself.

Elijah had told me a little of what his job entailed. When he spoke about previous missions, I couldn’t help but think he was somewhat of a hero. I’m sure him and his team had saved many lives. A tiny part of me thought, ‘Maybe he’s not as bad as you think, Dani. Maybe he isn’t like everyone else.” That may have been the romantic side of me, but the logical side of my brain told me to stop being so naive and stupid. That part of my brain was screaming at me to be sensible and to protect myself. Sadly, that side usually won, just like now. Except, this time I was shocked that I actually recognized that there was a slight romantic side to me. I thought that had been destroyed a long time ago. 

Unfortunately I chose the wrong moment to have an internal battle with myself, because Elijah was walking down the stairs with me. He had started walking me back out in the evenings if he wasn’t on duty. He was a little bit like my personal bodyguard.

I didn’t know he’d been calling me, but I noticed when he stopped walking, and he turned around to face me. I squeaked, and my breathing started to turn ragged. He took a giant step backwards, held his hands up in surrender and said, “Dani, I’m not going to touch you. It’s ok. Just take deep breaths. I’ll just wait over here until you’ve calmed down.”

He waited while I got my breathing back to normal, but my heart was still racing and I was as scared as a baby deer. “Dani? You ok now?”

“Yes sir. Sorry sir.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“You can ask.” I mentally added, “Doesn’t mean I’m going to answer.”

“Why do you always say sir?”

“It’s polite.”

“Yeah, but you’re like way over the top with it. Almost like you’re worried we’re going to tell you off.”

I was shocked that he’d hit the nail on the head, but I tried to cover up my shock by saying, “I was taught to be polite and well mannered.”

“Ok. Can I ask another question?”

He took my lack of response as an affirmative, so he continued, “Why do you have panic attacks?”

The breath actually caught in the back of my throat. Was he seriously going to just blurt out a question like that? It was obviously personal and I hadn’t known him that long. What gave him the right to ask such a question? Of course, I didn’t verbalize any of those thoughts. I just mumbled, “I don’t want to talk about it.”