SEALs

Chapter Eight

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

I let out another breath, keeping my head down and my fingers laced behind my neck. My back hurt like a bitch since I had been sitting in the same position for what must have been a few hours. But the feel of the blood pooling in my head and my hands pressed against my neck kept me sane. It kept my rage from bubbling to the surface and taking over my body. I was sure that if I didn't have as much control over myself I would have torn this mother fucking office apart.

It seemed that I was back at the beginning. Back in this uncomfortable plastic chair in this sweltering hot office. The SEALs base no longer seemed like a safe haven, it was like a cage instead. A cage with steel bars and no means of escape. And there was no angel here to save me. There was no light in the darkness that my life had become.

I could feel my eyes getting wet with unshed tears and I angrily rubbed them to keep them at bay. There was no way I was going to cry when I could be doing something better to help…Ali. God damn it was so difficult to even think her name. Every time I thought of her I could see her brown eyes staring up at me. And then she would whisper the words that damn near caused my heart to literally break in two. "You promised."

Taking in a shuddering breath I tried to swallow the lump that had appeared in my throat. But there was no getting rid of it. Every time I did swallow it just got bigger until I was almost choking on it. Choking on the pain and the guilt. The guilt for letting that dumb fuck look after…her…when I knew I shouldn't have trusted him. I just wanted to beat the shit out of that little speck of dust until you couldn't tell that he was a person at all. He would be a heap of skin and broken bones. My hands clenched together as I thought about driving my knuckles into his disgusting face.

My blood lust disappeared when the door opened. I turned to watch the Commander slowly close the door after himself. He didn't speak or even look at me as he walked around to sit in his desk chair. He kept me waiting while he moved his chair closer to the desk and shuffled his papers. It was like we weren't in a crisis. He was just so God damned calm and it pissed me off.

Just as I was about to open mouth he spoke up. "Very tiring week. Very tiring."

I glared at him but he wasn't looking at me. Figures, he thinks about himself again. "Is there any news," I asked before grudgingly remembering to add, "sir?"

The Commander sighed loudly and rubbed his forehead as if he was very stressed. "No, Andrew. There hasn't been anything."

"No ransom? No calls? No tapes? No information at all?" I asked, ringing my hands together.

"No," he said, his voice gruff. He finally looked up at me with his grey eyes. "There has been no word on Aileen as of yet."

"What about hints as to where she is?" I asked.

"No," he said forcefully. "Nothing, Andrew. Nothing." He groaned. "She could be in God damned Timbuktu for all we know."

I ran a hand through my already messy hair. It just made it worse but who gave a damn anyway? I leaned forward in my chair until he looked me right in the eyes.

"Sir," I said slowly. "I'd like to ask your permission to take one of the Jeeps out and scope out the place where she was taken. Maybe I can find some more -"

"No," he said for the hundredth time. "That's not possible, Davis."

"Well why the hell not?" I growled.

He frowned disapprovingly at me and I closed my mouth grudgingly.

"You can not go back because we've already had teams out there and they've found nothing," he said. "No tracks because the sand has covered them. No hidden information. It's clean."