Ch.21 - No Kindness for the Coward
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Price confronts Shepherd; Ghost reveals his face to the team; Kiera plans her revenge.
Simon sighed as he felt as he continued to look up at the ceiling, the premature sunlight ready to brighten the sky within a couple of hours. He was laying on his back as Kiera had managed to turn onto her side to lay on his chest, her bare leg draped over his right as she hadn't gotten into clothing since her shower. Simon didn't mind, though. As much as he wanted to make love to her, he wasn't about to think those thoughts whenever she was in no physical shape to be intimate in her state. He looked down to see her hand that was resting on his chest, her index finger had been toying with the braille texture of the chain from his dog tags under his shirt. Her knuckles were cracked and bruised, afraid to reach out and touch them making her uncomfortable.
He knew he had to get up sooner or later to avoid suspicion as well as confrontation about his relationship with her, but she was sleeping so well and was so warm, as well as the bed being comfortable in cradling his aching body, he concluded that a few more minutes wouldn't hurt anything.
He sighed through his nostrils, looking over to see her staring back at him, admiring.
"What're you thinking about?" She whispered.
He turned his head to look at her, hesitant to put his thumb against her cheek in a caring gesture, sighing that her eye had been swollen shut and the yellowing under her left eye was more prominent. He took a few moments before replying, "About how I'd kill them a hundred times over for coming a hair close to you."
"I would've beaten you to it." She replied, her voice laced with hatred.
His arm tightened around her shoulders, pulling her closer to him, "Not a chance, sweetheart."
He gently pressed a kiss to her forehead, right in her hairline before jolting at the sound of rustling down the hall. Somebody was awake and he wasn't about to wait around to find out who it was. Shit.
"I have to get up, love," He sighed, feeling her move off of him before he rushed to finish getting dressed, rummaging around to find his balaclava, sliding it over his head before pressing another kiss to her forehead. He couldn't get enough of kissing her - or touching her for that matter. "I'll see you in a while."
She hummed and nodded, grasping his fingers as he kissed her, keeping her slight grip on them before he had to pull away. He hated it, desperately hated it, but he knew he couldn't get in trouble for courting around with her while on duty. It was foolish to dismiss himself to tend to her the night prior, knowing someone would possibly pry or grow suspicious, but he felt like he played his cards right.
He quietly shut the door behind him, thinking of a way to make him look like he hadn't just been there, but once he entered the area where the rest of the men were sleeping to find it empty, he sighed knowing that nobody would suspect where Ghost was. He followed the distinct chatter between comrades in the area where the table was, seeing Soap and Gaz having a small breakfast while Price sat in front of a laptop, his face red with irritation and a dire need of a cigar.
"You hid this," He scoffed to Shepherd. "Why?"
"We all keep secrets, Captain." Shepherd replied.
"Why the hell wasn't I informed? And why the hell did it have to come to this?"
"Consider yourself well informed now, John."
"That's really fuckin' helpful, General. Thank you, but you're a day late, a missile short, and a comrade was beaten within an inch of her life. We've only found two."
"Then point yourself in the right direction and fix it."
"And who fixes you, eh?"
"I don't need fixing. I'm a patriot protecting my country-"
"You're protecting your own ass." Price scoffed, standing to his feet.
"I do what needs to be done and no one holds me down with a red roll of tape. I know what's best for the cause!"
Price chuckled, "You've lost your mind, General."
"And you've forgotten what you're fighting for, John. To do good, you've got to do some bad. When we shit, we bury it. That's how it works!"
"Yeah?" Price scoffed, looking beside him to see Kiera hobbling towards the meeting, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders to keep the chill off of her shoulders. "But we don't bury each other with it, do we?"
Shepherd grimaced, seeing Kiera on the other side of the screen next to Price, "You need to turn off that side o' your head and focus on the real enemy." He said, his glance flicking towards her as if he were hinting something.
Kiera scoffed, "Yeah, we're talkin' to him right now."
"You need to call off your Shadow," Price warned, an immense sense of protection flooding over Kiera. She wasn't just a valuable asset to the team, but for him to see how much damage one man had done to her was too much to process. No matter if she could fight back or not, he believed no man had the right to put his hands on a woman. "Going after her isn't going to take down our target."
Shepherd laughed in disbelief, "Graves? He's a dog with a bone and I highly recommend you don't try and take it."
"This is your last chance to change your mind."
"Then what?"
"Then after I go for him, I'm coming for you."
Fuckin' badass, Price, Kiera smirked to herself, watching him close the lid of the laptop to end the conversation between him and Shepherd. He sighed, nodding at his team before looking at Kiera, "We're going to take him down."
"I look forward to it."
*
Alejandro pushed open the double doors that opened into a parking garage for his artillery vehicles, calling his men over to gather around the table. Kiera stood next to Alejandro at the head of the table, attempting to eat a small bag of chips that could accommodate the soreness in her jaw. "Alright, listen," Price announced to the small army. "We are taking back your HQ. We are getting our prisoner and we are killing commander Graves."
"When?" Rodolfo asked.
"Now." Ghost answered, his fingers clenching around the bag of balaclavas he had brought.
"This is a fight against our own. We're not 141 and Los Vaqueros on this. We're a team. Ghost Team."
Ghost emptied the bag of balaclavas on the table, each one of them holding a print of a skull on it. Setting it aside, he removed his balaclava, revealing his face to the entire team, his eyes fixing on Kiera.
She smirked, knowing he felt incredibly vulnerable, but he wanted to show everyone how dedicated he was to reveal his true self - to see how potentially nervous he was for the job ahead, everyone close to him seeing that he had a spark of attraction behind those grey eyes. They were soft when they looked at her, but something told Soap that she had seen his face prior to this moment. He wanted to prove that he wasn't an entity - he was just another man like the rest of them. Of flesh and bone, blood and fiber, a heart of stone, desire for affection, and pain.
Faint whispers could be heard amongst the men, amazed at how he was just the same as the rest. Soap saw the slight scar on his jaw, but the rest of his features were normal. His hair was a light brown, short around the sides and longer on the top, his eyelashes whisped with blonde as his eyebrows were the same color as his hair. Light stubble appeared on his jaw as the light above accented his grey eyes.
Soap could see he was worried, but not about the battle ahead.
He saw clearly that he was worried about Kiera.
It was obvious, so clearly obvious that the two felt attraction towards each other. That, and the strand of blonde hair that clung to Simon's shirt from when she was laying on his chest that he failed to spot before the meeting.
"Good to see you again, Simon," Price nodded, flashing him an assuring smile. "If you're in, take a mask. If you're not, don't."
Simon was the first to get a new balaclava, slipping it over his head rather quickly to return to the comfort and confines of the fabric concealing his face. Following, Price, Alejandro, Rudoflo, Gaz, and Soap grabbed a mask. Ghost looked at Kiera, his eyes softening at the sight of her as he watched her breathe heavily before grabbing a balaclava, pausing before putting it on her head, "Graves," She said before pointing her finger against her chest. "He's mine."
Alejandro nodded, "We'll be right there with you, senora."
