The Mission

Chapter 18

"Be brave. Be strong. Be brave. Be strong. Be brave. Be strong," you kept up the mantra, whispering to yourself as you rocked back and forth in the sand of your hiding place, eyes closed.

You took deep breaths with each mantra until you thought it safe enough. Opening your eyes, you saw no military trucks, no military. Standing up on shaky legs, you walked around the boulder and headed where the resort trucks were.

"Y/N?" Jake called as he saw you walking by yourself. He ran up to you, wrapping you into his arms just as Rachel came out from another hiding spot, running and hugging the two of you.

You nodded, still shaken up over the ordeal but you remained strong, just like Amina asked of you.

The three of you were tackled down to the ground and you quickly began to flail your limbs at the assailant. "Hey hey it's me. It's Sam." Your body went limp in the sand, thankful that you still had friends that were safe.

"We need to head back to the resort and figure out what to do," Rachel said, the rest of you nodding.

It took over an hour to walk back to the resort as you all took your time; your minds running through ideas of how to get out of this situation and how to rescue Ari and Sammy from Sudanese jail.

Your body was utterly exhausted by the time you reached the resort, yet your mind was on overdrive as to what to do.

Heading into Rachel's room, the four of you listened until you heard the signal that the refugees were safe and on board the ship. All of you let out sighs of relief, but there was still the fact that Sammy and Ari had been arrested.

It was quiet in the room until Rachel perked up. "Ari and I talked to the head of Sudanese Tourism. I'll go and meet with him and I'm sure he will let them out. He has to be happy about tourists coming to the country."

When dawn fully reached the sky, Rachel dressed professionally and took one of the trucks into the city. You knew it would be hours before they came back and you headed back to your room and took a shower.

Washing the sweat from your body felt great, but your heart still hurt. Not only had Ari been married this whole time, he had lied to you about it, cheating on his wife with you. It made you feel dirty as you scrubbed hard at your skin. Yet no matter how dirty you felt from being a so called mistress, you were still completely in love with him; nothing would change that.

It had been nearly a year and half with him and you wanted nothing more than to continue this mission for as long as possible just to be with him.

Drying yourself with a towel, you pulled on an overly long t-shirt, not bothering to put on panties or a bra as you began to pace your room, biting your nails. Looking at the clock, it would still be a handful of hours at least before they made their way back to the resort.

Sitting down on your bed, you couldn't stop the tears from flowing as you bent over. You knew Ari lived in Jerusalem and when you found out, you were ecstatic as the two of you would still be close once the mission was over. But now, that wasn't the case as you found out he had a wife.

Lying back in bed, head on your pillow, you cried yourself to sleep.

~~~

The door to the small building you shared with Ari slammed, jolting you awake. The covers were strewn over you; your bare legs showing as you saw first a shadow, then Ari appearing in your doorway.

"Ari," you whispered his name as you scrambled to your feet. His expression was dour, an angry look on his face as you halted your steps before him.