The Soldier Next Door

It is with absolute horror that I stand in front of Ray and utter these words. But beyond the horror, beyond the fear, there is a hopelessness that fills me. I do not know where Ana is, and even if I did know, would I then be able to rescue her. It feels that she is gone from me; she cannot be gone from me. She is safe; she has to be. I will find her, and I will rescue her.

Yes, we do not leave a soldier behind; we will get our own back no matter what. And we are here for each other; someone always has your back. I was supposed to be her someone. I was supposed to have her back; I promised her that I would make sure she is safe no matter what.

But that is truly not the only reason I love the woman, and even though I am ten kinds of pissed off with her, I still want her in my life. And right now, she is not in my life; she is somewhere in another camp, and god forbid it is not a friendly one. So I need to get my ten kinds of a stubborn woman back so I can tell her how much she still means to me, and then I will kick her ass for jumping out that plain by herself even though I strongly believed that she did it for me.Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.

So I am now looking at Ray, and he knows exactly what it is that I want to hear, even though there is a slight bit of hesitation. It is not that he does not want to do it, but that the sun set a while ago, and we will be doing this in the dark, which is by far more stupid and lets us not forget dangerous.

Now forget dangerous and forget stupid; we are sitting here and waiting for exactly what? My patience is growing thin, for this is ten minutes that we are closer to saving her, ten minutes closer to not letting her get hurt.

“Ray, we can’t sit around and wait like this; I need to get to her.”

“Ethan, it is dark; how are we going to track her?”

“Go blind in and look for the camp.”

“And get ambushed.”

“I will rather let them take me than her. For fuck sakes, Ray, she is a woman; she will never survive if they have to torture her. And I do not even want to think of it. Can I just take two more guys and go look for her?”

“Four guys and you radio in every half an hour. If you can’t find her, then come back, and we will go in tomorrow morning early.”

“We will find her; I will make sure of it.”

“Then get out of here.”

…Ana POV…

I was hoping that Ethan would have found that hairclip, and if he did not, he should have definitely found that bracelet that he bought for me. But something gives me the idea that it might has washed away in the mud. I have not given up faith that they will find me; I know that Ethan will do everything to make sure I am safe.

So with this in mind, we finally came to their camp about half an hour ago. We never left the forest, but have only moved in further to the north, and as I believe our camp should be far off south. There is a fair amount of green canvas tents scattered, making it seem that there are more people than there really are. But I do think that I will not find many of them that speak English around here, for these two have not talked to me at all the entire walk here.

But what I also believe is that I am now about to meet their leader; I guess this is where I will find out if I am getting tortured. Well, I have never received the training that the Marines get, so I do not think I will fare great at it. Let us just hope that it does not come to it.

Then walking up to me is a rather intimidating looking man, with fairly broad shoulders and a strong jawline; he seems to be built rather big for just one of your ordinary buff soldiers that you will find. As he comes to a stop where I am tied to a tree, he has the most piercing brown eyes that shoot like daggers through you. The moment he speaks, my body trembles, and it is not in a good way.

“What are you doing here?”

I have the urge to answer him but have been told that I should not even answer the simplest of questions.

“I asked you a question, or do you wish for me to force an answer out of you.”

I only but stare at him under cover of my eyelashes. I know that fear is written on my face; the last thing I want to show him is that it is consuming my eyes.

“Your training is not going to help you here, little girl. I think my boys can do with some relief. So what shall it be?”

I can feel my bones shaking underneath my skin; god, I don’t even what to know what he is talking about.

“Untie her.”

…Ethan POV…

We are going to go back to where we found her hairclip; we are hoping with night vision that we shall be able to pick up better clues and hopefully find her track from where we lost it. I want to believe that she dropped her hair clip on purpose, so I believe that we might find some more bread crumbs that she has left behind.

Now we must do this fast for it is now an hour after sunset and I would think that they are at their camp now. What I am not sure of is where their camp might be, or do I dare even say if their camp is around here.

So with the hope in mind that it is, we find the spot on the path where we discovered her hair clip. With Williams leading in the front, we move down the way that we went earlier on before we lost the sets of tracks. And when we come to where it ended, much to my relief, the impression of footprints are more visible.

It draws us deeper into the forest, moving further into the north end of it. As we make haste and cover each stretch with perfect precision, making sure that nothing is missed at all, we come to a fork. This poses an entirely new set of problems, for there are many feet that have gone through these ways. It does make it somewhat impossible for Williams to tell us which ones to follow.

But then that is when I see it, it is glittering in the shine of the moonlight. And as I pick it from the muddy ground, I am confident; I know that this belongs to Ana. I remember old Maggie giving me hell while picking it out in the shop that day.

“It is her bracelet. We need to go that way.”

With her bracelet firmly in my hand, we go further to the north. This is the closest as I am going to get to her now, but she must just hang on; we are getting even more closer by the minute. I want to put this back onto her arm and tell her how much I love her still.

…Ana POV…

So they have taken me to one of the bigger tents, this is where he claims he is going to get me to speak. Now I am preparing myself to have my fingernails or something pulled out to teach me a lesson. God knows the words that pop up with the ideas in my head are frightening. But what is even more alarming is being forced down onto a chair that is in the middle of the tent close to the center pole. It does not take more than a brain cell to know that I am being tied to it.

But if I thought I was so lucky, I would be sadly mistaken, for a while I am waiting to be tied up to the chair, in they bring a bed, like a very old hospital bed. This is where he takes me and presses me down onto it. With four of them pinning my arms and legs, the leader sits on in silence and watches as they tie my hands and feet to the poles of it.

I so much want to beg him to let me go, but the more weakness you show, the more advance they would take of you. Well, I might just think that it is a load of bullshit, I am not saying a single word, and I find myself tied to a bed. I do somehow think that if I spoke to him earlier, I would still be tied up to that tree.

Then he shows for all the men to leave; he pulls his chair closer to the bed. With the most horrific laughter, he looks down onto me. There is a look in his eyes that I do not wish to place. He has something planned, and I can only say that none of it shall be good. And as he smirks at me, my entire body goes stiff.

“Are you ready to play a little game?”