Legend (Rafe Adler fanfic)

Hesitation leads to failure

2000

"Mya!" Nathan whispered loud enough for me to hear. I quickly looked over to see him crouched down barely hiding from the view of the men below. "You and I'll go around the left and Sam'll take the right. Stay low, they got a birds eye view from the watchtowers. Those snipers will take you out-"

Before he could finish his sentence Sam quickly cut him off. " No no no this isn't happening." I held my breath thinking Sam found a flaw in the plan. "I'm not taking orders from my kid brother right now." Nathan's expression simply looked as though he'd never been more annoyed in his life. I'm surprised he isn't used to Sam's sarcasm by now.

"Well then what do you want us to do, leader." I could barely stifle a laugh while I watched Sam's face twist into a stupid grin. "Nathan, Mya, you take the left I'll take the right...and uh don't die." Before I could even chuckle Sam was off running.

I turned to Nate to see what to do next and he simply cocked his gun. "Some nerve..." he remarked as we made our way around the corner.

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I will always remember the first time I met Sam and Nathan. It was the late 80s and honestly my home life wasn't the ideal 80s dream life. I had the opposite of that typical cliche childhood. My mom was a drunk and my dad left without a word on my 8th birthday. I still remember him though more than my mother... He was reckless living by the typical line "I'm here for a good time. Not a long time." My mother never really helped me with much so I would always follow the advice my dad would give to me. Obviously he influenced my young personality and that got me into a ton of trouble early on. Though I had a dangerous personality I still was a somewhat responsible child. Since I could remember I was the one who would cook and clean and my mother simply brought in the income by serving people at the restaurant down the street because we couldn't afford a car.

To make a long and quite sad story short I would do anything to get out of my house. I had just turned 17....another birthday unnoticed by my mother. As I sat in my room I decided it was time to leave and start my life. (Looking back I realized how dumb my decision was and even how dangerous it could've turned out to be. But I'll just blame my decisions on teenage angst for now.)

Just before noon I watched out my window as my mom left down the road for work. I grabbed a few shirts and made two sandwiches and I ran for the front door. My heart was racing as I walked down the sidewalk and my hands were gripping my backpack so tightly my knuckles were almost white. I couldn't help and turn back to look at my little apartment building. "Don't hesitate..." I whispered to myself continuing ahead on the sidewalk.

My dad always said hesitation leads to failure.

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1988

I had been walking for hours down the streets of Boston. The cat callers seemed to love me and every cat call made me double my pace. By the time I got to the outskirts of the city I could hardly breathe. After walking for hours I had already almost absentmindedly finished both my sandwiches. At this point I couldn't help but think of how nice it would be to just lay in my warm bed right now...but I was so far away it would be suicide to walk back through the city this late.

My exhaustion caught up to me so I decided to go into a small patch of trees. After checking around I slowly lowered myself, the pain in my legs causing me to let out a small groan. But then some lights farther out in the distance caught my eye and I figured it would only take a few minutes to get there. Maybe it's a house, they might have a shed or even a patio I could hunker down in.